A sentence we never expected to say. Tonight, PM Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham will make their debut on the show, sitting at 10 Downing Street.
The programme airs in aid of Stand Up To Cancer, and Andy is no stranger to charitable causes. Throughout his tenure as Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy often threw himself into work, helping those around him.
London, United Kingdom – There was a moment towards the end of Andy Burnham’s conference speech in Liverpool that, through silence, spoke volumes.
The new prime minister and Labour leader fell quiet.
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For 20 seconds he stood, saying nothing. He hadn’t forgotten his words. He was gathering his emotions for a passage of the speech he hadn’t been able to make it through in rehearsals without crying.
Burnham’s father had died just a couple of weeks before, and this was the section where he’d talk about it.
As the audience realised what was coming they stood, applauding, and urging him on with shouts of “Come on, lad!’ and “Come on, Andy!”
Thanking them, he composed himself and continued.
Conference speeches are theatre, and contemporary British political standards require that a leader be relatable. But there’s little doubt that Andy Burnham handled this moment with an emotional register that struck many as genuine.
His predecessor Keir Starmer sometimes came across as wooden, almost robotic and uncomfortable in front of cameras. Burnham, the seventh prime minister in 10 years, is more emotional.
He talks big ideas and grand solutions and relishes the opportunity to communicate.
In the vibes-denominated currency of modern political discourse, this matters.
The polls speak for themselves. Politico’s Poll of Polls had the Labour Party retake top spot shortly after Burnham became PM – a position it has not relinquished since. At the end of September, Ipsos found Andy Burnham to be the only politician with a positive net favourability rating.
YouGov’s polling also judges him the most popular politician in the UK at the moment.
But to keep up, Burnham must deliver tangible change before the next general election. Unless he calls one early, that will be 2029.
According to political analyst Sam Freedman, “So many in Westminster keep coming back to an early election, despite Burnham ruling it out … No one can quite figure out how Burnham keeps the hope vibe going for three more years with relatively little visible progress.”
In the Welsh town of Port Talbot, terraces of workers’ cottages cluster beside the UK’s largest steelworks.
Like much of Wales, Port Talbot did vote Labour for a century – until elections for the Senedd Cymru or Welsh Parliament in May.
Labour was beaten to an unprecedented third place behind Plaid Cymru’s nationalists, and the anti-immigration Reform UK.
But that was before Burnham took over.
Myles Lewis, who organises social walks for the town’s elderly, told Al Jazeera that Labour had not convinced people on immigration, and Starmer’s communication wasn’t good enough.
“[But now], it’s kind of going back to what Labour was in the 50s and 60s, where they actually looked after the working-class people. I do believe Andy Burnham can get there because I think he has the interests of the working-class people.”
In his first weeks in power, Burnham delivered a quick flurry of eye-catching, domestic, cost-of-living-focused policies.
He capped bus fares, cut the value-added tax (VAT) on electricity bills, and cut business rates for pubs.
He said that he would end street homelessness, reindustrialise the country, take services back into public control, and start the biggest build-out of social housing since World War II.
The mayor of Greater Manchester for nine years, Burnham supports the devolution of powers from Westminster to the UK’s nations and regions.
In July, he announced mayors could keep a share of business rates from April 2027 and of income tax from 2028.
And his conference speech in September set out the contours of some big political battles to come, including a national social care service, free at the point of use, paid for by changing the UK pensions’ triple lock from 2030. It would arrive next parliament. Burnham also pitched a national commission on electoral reform, with a manifesto commitment to overhaul the voting system. And he delivered a blunt verdict on Brexit: that it “has done more harm than good”. He wouldn’t rule out an in-out referendum, or a pledge for the UK to rejoin the European Union, in Labour’s next manifesto, he said.
On foreign affairs, there is less blue water between Burnham and his predecessors.
When he travelled to Ukraine in August, the UK’s new prime minister came with a headline-grabbing gift – British know-how to build the long-range SCALP missile. He was the fourth British prime minister to visit Kyiv since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and pledge steadfast support.
On Gaza, he has said the Labour government “didn’t get it right” and should have called for a ceasefire earlier. And in September, the Burnham government announced a sanctions package against illegal West Bank settlements.
But there has been no genocide declaration, and no full arms embargo against Israel. And Burnham hasn’t overturned the Starmer government’s proscription of the Palestine Action protest group as a “terrorist” organisation.
Defence spending is also a looming problem.
The government’s formal defence pledge is 3.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035, and Burnham has declined to say whether he’d pay for it with tax rises or welfare cuts.
John Healey, who resigned as the UK’s defence secretary in June over underfunding, is now chancellor of the exchequer, and will not commit to the 3-percent-by-2030 target he set himself.
Burnham’s first budget comes at the end of this month. A full spending review follows next year. Much will be clearer after these.
His biggest pledges – reindustrialisation, control of public services, a new social care system – are expensive.
Burnham certainly has the vibes. The public likes them, for now. The budget will show whether he can afford them.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham says renegotiating relationship with the EU could reverse some post-Brexit ‘damage’.
Published On 12 Oct 202612 Oct 2026
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has pledged to push for closer relations with the European Union, confirming he will attend a bilateral summit in Brussels next month.
Addressing parliament on Monday, Burnham said parts of the trade deal agreed with the EU after the UK voted to leave in 2016 would be renegotiated.
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Burnham said that the British public would be “the boss” at every stage of renegotiating Britain’s relationship with the EU and that he wanted “serious dialogue” about long-term ties.
He told members of parliament that his focus at the summit would be boosting growth in the economy and controlling illegal immigration.
Among the topics of discussion at November’s summit are cutting bureaucracy for British food exports and emissions trading, as well as a “new youth experience scheme” and deeper cooperation on immigration.
The prime minister, who came into office in July, said the agreements could reverse some of the “damage” done to the post-Brexit British economy.
He told MPs that Britain needed to “take a calm, clear-eyed look at the world as it is today”.
“Sticking to the status quo is not good enough,” he said, adding that “public opinion currently supports a pragmatic approach like the one I am suggesting”.
After his address, the leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, said Burnham would be unable to secure a better deal as the EU was ” tough negotiators” and warned that he had already “shown his hand”.
The claim marks the first time a UK prime minister has publicly acknowledged Russia’s interference in the vote to leave the EU.
Published On 12 Oct 202612 Oct 2026
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said it is “clear” that Russia interfered in the country’s 2016 Brexit vote, warning French and German voters of the same threat.
“I asked the question coming to Downing Street: Was there interference in the 2016 referendum from Russia? And I’ve had the clear answer that yes, there was,” Burnham said in an interview with The Rest Is Politics podcast released on Sunday.
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Burnham’s comments mark the first time a UK prime minister has publicly acknowledged that Russia interfered in the UK’s vote to leave the European Union. Burnham did not provide evidence for or details on the claim.
He said that “these things are important now to put clearly on the record, and, I believe, help voters in Germany and France understand that some of this politics is instigated via our enemies, namely Russia.”
Burnham said he spoke with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz about possible links between Russia and the far-right Alternative for Germany party when the two leaders met last week in Berlin.
In his address to the United Nations General Assembly in September, Burnham also condemned Russia’s attempt to interfere in the UK’s 2019 general election.
According to a 2020 report by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, the UK government had failed to ask for a deep assessment of Russia’s interference in the 2016 referendum. The report did confirm that Russia had meddled in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, however.
Russia has repeatedly denied meddling in Western democracies or interfering in another country’s elections or referendums, casting the UK as being gripped by “anti-Russian hysteria”.
Last month, Burnham argued that the UK should reconsider options for a future relationship with the EU, including rejoining the bloc, reigniting the decisive debate more than a decade after the historic vote.
He said that the UK’s departure from the bloc had failed to fulfil Brexit supporters’ pledge of “taking back control”, and instead has made the UK weaker economically and on immigration.
Burnham was mayor of Manchester from 2017 until earlier this year and his tenure took place during a sustained period of success for City.
As mayor, he championed investment from the Gulf as a way of growing Manchester’s economy, a strategy which was initially pursued by the city’s leaders before Burnham became the inaugural elected mayor of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
“I don’t think I misspoke,” said Burnham of his past comments on Man City’s owners.
“What I would say is my mind hadn’t been on all of the issues. My mind had been on Labour Party conference and I was doing interviews in relation to it.
“And also, I didn’t link those two things. You know, the questions linked those two things. What I would say is they’re very separate.
“The football issues are different from the investment issues. People will try and conflate those two things, but they shouldn’t, in my view.
“The football issues, the findings of the independent commission are serious, as I said in the interview.”
The entire process involving the charges against Manchester City is independent of the Premier League.
An independent commission held a 42-day hearing in 2024 which led to the verdict announced last month, with City also guilty of all charges except one relating to non-cooperation with the Premier League investigation.
The commission’s report said that “a number of important club witnesses gave false evidence in key respects and that some knowingly gave untrue and dishonest evidence”.
A separate independent appeal board will hear City’s appeal. The club continues to deny any wrongdoing.
ATLANTA — Without Andy Pages, the Dodgers wouldn’t have popped champagne in the Truist Park visiting clubhouse Wednesday night.
His October track record suggested he was an unlikely hero. He entered Wednesday with a .123 playoff batting average. He was benched in Game 5 of the World Series last year. He’d even started this postseason hitless in the first two games of the National League Division Series against the Atlanta Braves, and was given the red light on ABS challenges.
He didn’t carry any of that up to the plate with him in the seventh inning, with the score tied, the bases loaded and hard-throwing Braves reliever Robert Suarez entering the game to face him.
“I like being in those at-bats,” Pages said in Spanish after the Dodgers’ 4-1 win in Game 4 of the NLDS. “There are times the result comes, sometimes not, but I prepare to be in those spots. And today I was able to get the result.”
He was patient, working a full count as he fouled off and then foul-tipped a pair of fastballs in the zone.
The next one, he sent through the middle of the infield for a two-run single to finally give the Dodgers the lead in the deciding moment of the series.
The Dodgers are headed to the NL Championship Series for the ninth time in 14 seasons. They will play the Milwaukee Brewers, who finished off the San Diego Padres in four games, starting Sunday. And they came one step closer to their goal of winning a third straight World Series.
Pages has contributed to the last two titles with his regular-season play and his glove. The game-saving catch he made in Game 7 of the World Series last year, trampling Kiké Hernández in the process, has been immortalized in bobblehead form. But now, he has a big moment with his bat.
“There’s never been a doubt about him, his talent,” Hernández said. “You can’t carry previous postseasons into this postseason. Everything is a new chapter. Every time you take the field in October, you get an opportunity to rewrite your story. So the fact that he struggled in the previous couple postseasons doesn’t mean that was going to happen again this year.
“I mean, during the regular season, you have two bad games and nobody freaks out about it, but because people are adding up previous postseasons, they’re going to freak out. But nobody doubted him. That’s why he stayed in the lineup. And I’m really happy that he was the one that won us a series.”
The signs of a potential breakout were there. When Pages came back from a fractured left hand for the final week of the season, he didn’t miss a beat.
Then he went 0 for 7 in the first two games of the NLDS, and manager Dave Roberts said he wanted to see him “slow down a little bit.”
“I’m going to continue to give Andy leash,” Roberts said. “I believe in him. I feel that for us to win the World Series this year, we’re gonna need him to be an active part of our team.”
Pages recorded two hits in Game 3 and logged another single in his first at-bat Wednesday.
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“Everybody really forgets how young Andy Pages is, you know?” veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said of the 25-year-old. “He’s just starting his career. He’s still like a rookie in this clubhouse for us, because he’s one of the youngest. But at the same time, we see his potential, we see what he can do on the field and we feel so proud of him because … whenever he has the opportunity to contribute to this team, he does it in different ways. Defensively, offensively and on the bases.”
On Wednesday, Pages already had showed off his range in center field when he tracked down a fly ball off Matt Olson’s bat in the left-field gap. But the Dodgers desperately needed someone to contribute with runners in scoring position.
The game had been tied at one run apiece since the second inning.
The lone run Dodgers starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow gave up was made possible by Braves leadoff hitter Michael Harris II’s speed. He got on top of Glasnow’s first pitch, a fastball up and out of the strike zone, to shoot a single through the right side.
Harris then stole second and advanced on a groundout. Then, in an 0-and-2 count to Ozzie Albies, Glasnow spiked a curveball in front of the plate. Catcher Will Smith managed to block the ball, despite the high bounce, but it rolled back toward the mound, giving Harris time to dash home.
Glasnow limited the Braves to one hit in 4-2/3 innings. But five walks prevented him from pitching deeper into the game.
The Dodgers couldn’t get anything going against Braves starter Tyler Mahle, either.
They hadn’t faced Mahle since April, when he was with the San Francisco Giants and racking up a 5.13 ERA. But he’d been lights out since the Braves acquired him, authoring a 1.99 ERA. In his postseason debut, he limited the Philadelphia Phillies to one run in seven innings.
The Dodgers saw that new and improved version of him on Wednesday.
The one run the Dodgers scored against him was something of a fluke.
In the second inning, Shohei Ohtani, who moved up to the cleanup spot after hitting fifth the day before, drew a five-pitch walk without taking a swing. He then stole second base, drawing an errant throw that allowed him to advance to third. So, he was in position to score the tying run when Braves shortstop Mauricio Dubón, who robbed Freddie Freeman of a home run as the left fielder the day before, dropped a popup in shallow left.
The Dodgers recorded only three hits against Mahle in 6⅓ innings. So, the game would come down to the bullpens.
In the seventh, the Dodgers loaded the bases with a single from Teoscar Hernández, a walk from pinch-hitting rookie Josue De Paula, and a five-pitch walk from Kyle Tucker.
The Dodgers had gone 0 for 15 with runners in scoring position for the series when Pages stepped to the plate.
“It’s been incredible, especially the way he’s working, just to be ready for these big moments,” Teoscar Hernández said. “I think he was a little bit off his timing at the beginning of the series. Now that he understands he doesn’t have to do too much to help this team win games, I think everything is coming back to the way it was before he got hurt.
“He’s one of the best on the team. We get to this point because of him, the regular season he had. This is not a surprise for me that he’s having this kind of moment in the playoffs.”
Pages didn’t seem surprised, either.
“What happened last year, happened,” he said. “It’s in the past now. All I can do now is be in the moment. And being in the moment today, I was able to get the result.”
He pounded his chest twice as he left the batter’s box, and all of Dodgers nation rocked to the beat.
Andy Pages did it. He finally did it. He finally broke out of his baffling two-year October slump with a hit so powerful, he didn’t even have to climb over Kiké Hernández to get it.
How powerful? With one smooth swing he broke a tie by scoring two runs while sending two teams packing, the Atlanta Braves trudging home for the winter and the Dodgers charging into the National League Championship Series.
Yeah, it was a blast, both figuratively and literally, Pages’ two-out, two-strike bases-loaded single in the seventh inning Wednesday night silencing the lame tomahawk-chopping fans at Truist Park and giving the Dodgers an eventual clinching 4-1 victory against the Braves in the National League Division Series.
Dodger Andy Pages hits a two-RBI single against the Braves during Game 4 of the NLDS Wednesday in Atlanta.
(Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
Certainly, it only gets tougher from here. In winning this best-of-five series three games to one, the Dodgers can now prepare for a best-of-seven showdown task against either the mighty Milwaukee Brewers or blazing San Diego Padres.
Yes, they will need to hit better, they will need Blake Snell to find his focus, they will need Shohei Ohtani to show up.
But… Andy Pages! Seriously! If a guy who was seven for 66 in the last two postseasons and was so helpless last year he was benched for the last three games of the World Series… if that guy can drive in the winning run from the bottom of the order? The once-fallible Dodgers may just be unbeatable.
“There’s no more talented team than the Los Angeles Dodgers,” manager Dave Roberts shouted in the postgame clubhouse. “We’re the best organization in sports, top to bottom. We’re smarter, we’re better, and we’re tougher.”
At that point, someone referenced a recent comment from Padres owner José E. Feliciano insinuating that the Dodgers, baseball’s oldest team, was composed of dinosaurs.
“And we’re dinosaurs!” shouted a voice above the clubhouse din.
If they’re dinosaurs, their first initial is “T” and their last name is ‘Rex.”
It’s OK to start seriously thinking about a three-peat now. They’re now just eight wins away but, given how mediocre the American League playoff teams appear, they could realistically be just four wins away.
Here’s guessing that the NLCS will be the real World Series. And here’s guessing the Dodgers will be ready.
Pages, who won the hearts of Dodger fans last October when he made a leaping game-saving catch over the back of Kiké Hernández, was granted his first big October swing thanks to the Braves largess.
In the seventh inning of a 1-all tie, Teoscar Hernández redeemed himself for another fielding blunder with a single that finally drove dizzying Tyler Mahle from the game.
In came Game 2 rookie sensation Didier Fuentes, only this time, he was all rookie and zero sensation, walking Josue De Paula and Kyle Tucker to load the bases. Considering De Paula is just a kid and Tucker has been struggling, the fact that both showed such patience in such a pressure situation was pretty cool. And moments later, it got even cooler.
In came veteran reliever Robert Suarez, and Pages was ready for him, working the count full before lining the two-run single up the middle.
The Dodgers added a run two innings later on a Max Muncy home run — has there ever been a playoff game when he hasn’t homered? — to finalize the score.
Dodger Max Muncy celebrates after hitting a home run in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the NLDS against the Braves in Atlanta Wednesday.
(Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
When the game ended on an Austin Riley fly out to right field, Pages celebrated in center field by taking off his cap, turning his face to the sky and pounding the cap three times into his glove.
It was a series that was worth the emotion, the Dodgers famous starting rotation giving up just four runs in 21 ⅓ innings, the bullpen solid behind a revived Edwin Díaz, and the offense doing just enough to beat Braves aces Chris Sale and Mahle.
In the fifth inning of a tie game, starter Tyler Glasnow issued walks to Riley and Michael Harris II. With two out, in came Alex Vesia. Up stepped slugger Matt Olson. The fans climbed to their feet. This was the Braves’ big chance.
Dodgers closer Edwin Díaz throws the ball against the Braves in the ninth inning Game 4 of the NLDS Wednesday in Atlanta.
(Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
But Olson swung at the first pitch and lined it directly to second baseman Kiké Hernández to end the threat and quiet the joint. Díaz threw a hitless ninth for his second save of the series and…who’s going to beat them?
Afterward, Roberts referenced nearly half of his team when talking about his pride. He talked about Pages’ hit, about De Paula’s walk, about reliever Edgardo Henriquez’s 1 ⅔ shutout innings, about Muncy’s bat and Freddie Freeman’s glove.
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“I guess, amazement,” he said. “Our guys just continue to fight, persevere. You never know who the guy’s going to be.”
The only glaring weakness was, once again, the superstar who used to be their strength. Ohtani scored the Dodgers’ first run after drawing a walk but went hitless in three ensuing at-bats. He only got two hits in the four-game series and you have to wonder if his injury-wracked body would be better out of the lineup.
How well are they playing without the full services of their most historic player? On the verge of making history, the Dodgers don’t even miss him.
“I thought coming into this camp, Pocognoli would probably need a period of grace,” Halliday said on Sportsound. “I think that period of grace is now over.
“That was as poor a Scotland performance as I can remember for a while against an opposition you are expecting us to go and beat.”
Slovenia got in behind Scotland’s high defensive line repeatedly and former national team captain Willie Miller is unsure if Pocognoli will stick with his back three.
“This is Pocognoli’s preferred system and he’s had time to work with the system, it was just all over the place,” Miller said on Sportsound.
“Time and time again there were huge gaps appearing and Slovenia were taking advantage.
“Our situation is we’ve got a new manager in, he’s got a preferred system, what does he do? Does he just bin it? Are we back to a back four?
“His preferred system is a back three, but it was unbelievably poor.”