Great Britain gets yet another new prime minister

0:00The last time Antonio Mays Sr. heard from his son, it was in a note the 16-year-old left in the family's garage. He told me he was going to make me proud. Antonio Jr. left home to join a protest in Seattle. A week later, he was shot and killed there. I need some arrest made, justice for my son. Listen to We Keep Us Safe on the Embedded podcast from NPR. Today on State of the World, Great Britain gets yet another new prime minister.

0:33You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. The UK has a new prime minister. In a ceremony we've seen a lot in recent years, Keir Starmer, who was ousted by his own Labour Party, tendered his resignation to King Charles at Buckingham Palace. Then the party's new leader, Andy Burnham, was granted an audience with the king, who invited Burnham to form a new government. That makes Burnham the seventh prime minister in the last 10 years, ever since Britain voted to leave the European Union, triggering political turmoil.

1:12NPR's Lauren Freyer brings us this profile of Burnham, the so-called King of the North, who has been shaped by England's North-South divide. Andy Burnham was born and raised in Northern England, but went to the generally more posh South for college, studied literature at Cambridge, where Professor John Mullen recalls him wearing a soccer jersey to class. And I think that might be quite common on the streets of northwest England, but it's not necessarily a common thing in a Cambridge college. It was an early example, Mullen told the Times of London, of the working class identity that would come to define Burnham the politician.

1:49Elected to Parliament at age 31, he served as sports minister and gave this speech on the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. But 96 fellow football supporters who died will never be forgotten. When soccer fans were crushed in an overcrowded northern stadium and then blamed for their own deaths, accused of being hooligans. You know, they were treated so badly, and he was one of the first politicians to really listen. Historian Charlotte Wildman says Burnham launched a government inquiry that found police failures were to blame at Hillsborough and helped change a stereotype. Particularly northern working-class men were demonised.

2:30They were accused of being violent, aggressive, criminal. And that was a very entrenched stereotype. Burnham then ran for the leadership of his centre-left Labour Party, nominated by his friend Keir Starmer. But he lost twice and retreated north to Manchester, the birthplace of the working class in the Industrial Revolution. As mayor there, he sought to change the city's stereotype with a programme of regeneration, of almost like marketing and branding. You know, Manchester used to have such a negative image and, you know, it was so associated with urban decay. Nowadays, it's kind of become a cliché.

3:10Manchester's this skyline of construction cranes. But it's really true. I'm standing near this canal area, formerly warehouses, industrial space, and there's now an art centre and there are glass skyscrapers. It looks more like Dubai than England. Manchester is the fastest growing city in the country. Burnham gets credit, though. You know, those cranes and that economic development, we were already on that trajectory, you know, as he started out as the mayor. Rose Marley worked as one of Burnham's advisors, though they first met on Manchester's famous indie music scene. Marley recalls Burnham's transformation from a buttoned-up MP to a DJ.

3:51He started wearing his trainers and his T-shirts and started DJing, so he pretty much became, you know, a full-on Mancunian within weeks, really. By day, Burnham reversed the privatization of buses and got the central government to hand cities more power over things like education and housing. In local politics, he became a national figure, especially during COVID. A particular press conference that he gave during the pandemic in 2020. Yoshi Herman founded the local Manchester news site The Mill. He recalls how Burnham learned of a new lockdown while on live TV and lashed out, saying it would hurt blue-collar workers.

4:31People too often forgotten by those in power. This was under then Prime Minister Boris Johnson's often confusing health guidance. And Burnham... He expressed the sense of helplessness, a feeling that perhaps the government didn't really understand what it was like to be in a place like Manchester. He really identified himself as a different type of politician in this country. And I think without that moment, he wouldn't be going into Downing Street. Burnham is one of Britain's most popular politicians. He may win back some working class voters who've deserted Labour for the far right. But he'll also face the same challenges as Starmer.

5:12Low national growth, high energy prices, pressure to ramp up defence, and a certain rather volatile ally across the Atlantic. Andy Burnham's someone who really likes to have affirmation. I don't know what lengths he will go to to make sure Donald Trump is not truth-socialing about him in the middle of the night, because he won't like that. He will be more hurt by that, I think, than someone like Keir Starmer. Governing a country rather than a city is something Britain's new prime minister may have to get used to. Lauren Fryer, NPR News, Manchester, England.

5:51That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.

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