Starmer

The prime minister has given a heavy hint that there will be an extra bank holiday if England win the World Cup.

Thomas Tuchel’s team will play Norway in the quarter-finals on Saturday night.

The final will take place a week on Sunday, on 19 July.

It is widely expected Sir Keir Starmer will step down as prime minister the day after, to be replaced by Andy Burnham.

Should England make the final, it would be likely the prime minister would go to the game, which could briefly delay the handover of power.

As for the idea of an extra day off for people in England were the team to win the World Cup, Sir Keir said: “On the question of a bank holiday, I think I don’t want to jinx it, but ask me again if we get to the final.”

It is understood the extra bank holiday would be on the Friday following England’s triumph – 24 July.

There is, though, the not insignificant matter of England winning a quarter-final, semi-final and final first.

Plan includes more than 5 billion pounds for drones and autonomous systems over four years, Ministry of Defence says.

Outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced that Britain will spend almost 300 billion pounds ($397bn) over the next four years to modernise its armed forces amid rising threats.

Starmer, expected to leave office next month after losing the support of Labour MPs, announced on Tuesday that the overall defence budget would increase by 15 billion pounds ($20bn) over the next four years to almost 300 billion pounds as he launched his long-awaited defence investment plan.

“Last year I made the decision in the national interest to reprioritise aid spending towards defence and achieved the biggest uplift in defence spending since the end of the Cold War,” Starmer said.

“That was the right choice because the world has changed. National security is economic security.

“Today we uplift defence spending further – an additional 15 billion pounds worth of funding – by … reprioritising spending across government.”

The plan includes more than 5 billion pounds ($6.6bn) for drones and autonomous systems over the next four years, the Ministry of Defence said in a news release.

The announcement followed months of wrangling within Starmer’s Labour government over the resources required to modernise the United Kingdom’s armed forces in the face of rising threats, including from Russia.

Two defence ministers quit this month in a row over the spending proposals, including Defence Secretary John Healey, who said the plans risked making Britain “less safe”.

Starmer’s pledge came as United States President Donald Trump has repeatedly urged NATO allies to spend more on defence and become less reliant on Washington for security.

Starmer will take the plan, which foresees spending nearly 80 billion pounds ($105.7bn) a year by 2029, to Ankara for a NATO summit on July 7-8. He wants to signal Britain is on track to spend 3.5 percent of its gross domestic product on defence by 2035.

With likely successor Andy Burnham due to take power as early as July 20, Starmer acknowledged new governments could “build” on his blueprint.

Critics said the plan, delayed for more than nine months, was too little, too late.

MANCHESTER, England — Andy Burnham, likely the next U.K. prime minister, pledged Monday to give away a chunk of his power by handing greater autonomy to local leaders in a “circuit-breaker” for the sclerotic British state.

The former mayor of Greater Manchester also said he would move part of the prime minister’s office from London’s 10 Downing St. to northwest England as part of “the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen.”

“Growth cannot be ordered from the top down. Instead, it can only be nurtured from the bottom up,” Burnham said in a speech aimed at bringing voters, Labour Party colleagues and financial markets up to speed with his economic vision.

Burnham is the strong favorite to replace Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who announced his resignation last week.

“If councils can’t fix potholes, what chance do they have of bringing forward major regeneration schemes to get growth going?” Burnham said. He set out a 10-year plan to get “good growth in every postcode,” in a country where wealth and power are concentrated in London and the south of England.

He said he would reverse almost two decades of low growth since the 2008 financial crisis through an approach dubbed “Manchesterism” — harnessing private and public money to invest in areas like transport, housing and infrastructure. He also pledged to create new industrial jobs and better educational opportunities, and to reform the U.K.’s inefficient and expensive privatized water and energy utilities.

Moving the new ‘No. 10 North’ to Manchester

During the speech at the People’s History Museum in the city where he spent nine years as mayor, Burnham said a new government office in Manchester – dubbed “No. 10 North” — would oversee regional development and become “the nerve center of a rewired Britain,” tasked with equalizing living standards across the country. Regional mayors would get more power over housing, welfare and education as part of his planned reforms.

Burnham’s rousing speech was short on specifics about where the government would find more money, and he didn’t take questions from journalists.

Burnham won praise for his role in revitalizing and regenerating Manchester, but he has not served in a U.K. government for almost two decades, and may struggle to replicate “Manchesterism” on a U.K.-wide scale.

The Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank, said Burnham is right to focus on “rebalancing Britain.”

“The U.K.’s concentration of power and opportunity in Westminster has held back growth, productivity and living standards for too long,” said IPPR Executive Director Harry Quilter-Pinner. “The real test now is delivery.”

Matthew Flinders, a politics professor at the University of Sheffield, said replicating Burnham’s Manchester approach on a national level would require “a fundamental shift” in the way politics is done in Britain.

“And at the heart of that would be moving from a very traditional, elitist, centralized model of politics toward something that is in many ways far more European, far more based on power-sharing in order to develop long-term policymaking capacity,” he said.

Burnham is likely to inherit Starmer’s challenges

Burnham will be aware that Starmer also announced a 10-year mission — the equivalent of two full terms in government —- to transform Britain soon after he was elected in a landslide in July 2024. Starmer is leaving after two years in office marred by missteps and judgment errors that eroded his standing with his party and the public.

Burnham won a special election for a seat in Parliament on June 18 and was sworn in as a lawmaker on June 22, the same day Starmer announced that he will resign as soon as a successor is chosen.

Burnham is so far the only contender in the Labour Party leadership contest. If no one challenges him, he will become prime minister by July 20.

While Burnham is considered more charismatic than the stolid Starmer, he will face many of the same political and economic challenges, including a sluggish economy, tattered public services and a cost-of-living squeeze. He will also be constrained by the platform the center-left Labour Party was elected on in 2024, with its pledges not to increase taxes on working people.

And like other NATO countries, the U.K. is under pressure to dramatically increase defense spending to counter a more aggressive Russia and less reliable United States.

The government’s long-awaited defense investment plan — which sparked the resignation of Defense Secretary John Healey on June 11 — is expected to be published before a NATO summit in Turkey on July 7 and 8. Starmer’s successor will be expected to stick to the commitments in the plan.

“Andy Burnham’s big idea is to shuffle power between politicians,” said opposition Conservative Party Chairman Kevin Hollinrake. “Not fix the welfare system. Not cut the taxes strangling working families and British business. Not fund the defense our country desperately needs.”

Grant and Lawless write for the Associated Press. Lawless reported from London. AP writer Brian Melley contributed to this report.

Keir Starmer is out after a short tenure as prime minister during which he failed to connect with voters and much of Britain’s media. As Andy Burnham prepares to become the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade, can he navigate a media landscape transformed by Brexit and the rise of Reform UK?

Contributors: 
Chris Painter – Professor, Birmingham City University
Peter Oborne – Journalist and broadcaster
Shehab Khan – Political editor, Zeteo UK
Polly Toynbee – Columnist, The Guardian

On our radar

A controversial luxury resort backed by Donald Trump’s family has sparked weeks of protests in Albania. With much of the country’s media looking the other way, Ryan Kohls examines how demonstrators are using independent journalism and social media to shape their own narrative.

Argentina’s Far-Right Rewrite of the Past

As right-wing populists take power across Latin America, they have waged a ‘cultural battle’ to reclaim the past. In Argentina, President Javier Milei – and a legion of supportive influencers and YouTubers – are revising how the country’s history of military dictatorship is remembered and debated.

Featuring:
Agustín Laje – President, Fundación Faro; YouTuber
Sol Montero – Professor, National University of San Martín

Reporter: Tariq Nafi
Producer: Ella Willis

June 22 (UPI) — Keir Starmer announced Monday that he was standing down as British Prime Minister, saying he had heard the message from his own party that he wasn’t the right person to lead them into the next general election.

“I will resign as leader of the Labour Party. I have spoken to His Majesty the King this morning to inform him of my decision,” he said in a televised address outside No. 10 Downing Street in London shortly after 9 a.m. local time.

Starmer said he had instructed the Labour Party National Executive to draw up a timetable to select his replacement with a 7-day nomination period starting on July 9 — which, provided there is more than one challenger — fires the starting gun on a race that would see a new leader and prime minister in place by Sept. 1 at the latest.

It could be much sooner if the party throws its support behind a single candidate.

Starmer said he would stay on as prime minister until the process was complete and vowed to do everything he could to “ensure an orderly hand-over of power.”

The move came hours before Andy Burnham, the politician tipped to replace him, was due to be sworn as a Member of Parliament on Monday afternoon after a decisive win in a by-election last week.

Burnham confirmed he would run to replace Starmer, pledging in a post on X there would be no interruption to the business of governing and vowing to deliver on “economic growth, cost of living, public services, housing and opportunities for the next generation,” if he became prime minister.

If the nomination period comes to a close with him as the lone candidate he could be handed the keys to Downing Street as early as July 17 — in a revolving door of leaders that would see him become the country’s seventh prime minister in a decade.

Two of them — Conservatives Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak — never had a mandate from the electorate having been appointed by the Conservative Party in the middle of parliamentary terms, which normally run five years maximum.

The opposition Conservative Party did not immediately comment on Starmer’s resignation but Nigel Farage’s Reform UK said a general election should be called.

“If Labour thinks it can shove another professional politician into No. 10, it has another thing coming. Reform demands an election, and we are ready to deliver radical change,” he wrote in a post on X.

The end came swiftly for Starmer following Manchester Mayor Burnham’s very strong showing in Thursday’s by-election for the parliamentary seat for the Greater Manchester constituency of Makerfield.

Until this morning Starmer, publicly, had vowed to fight any challenge — and as the incumbent gets an automatic bye to stand in any contest — but over the weekend senior figures in his administration persuaded him it was in the interest of the country, and in particular the party, to avoid a messy and potentially damaging fight.

However, Starmer’s problems can be traced back to within months of the landslide election victory he won in July 2024.

Rumblings within the party began after a poor showing in local elections in May 2025, losing a by-election in the “safe” Labour seat of Runcorn and Helsby and declining approval ratings in the polls.

Rebellions by his own MPs forcing policy U-turns, the Peter Mandelson debacle, and more losses at the ballot box, culminating in a disastrous defeat to Reform UK in “mid-term” local elections in May, saw growing numbers of MPs call for him to quit and defections from his cabinet.

The Prime Minister announced he would be leaving his role

Martin Lewis has moved swiftly to rule himself out of any political role following Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation. Sir Keir confirmed earlier today that he will ‘resign as leader of the Labour Party‘.

The announcement follows a slump in poll ratings and Andy Burnham’s resounding win in the Makerfield by-election. In an emotional address outside Downing Street, Sir Keir announced his departure less than two years after sweeping to power in a landslide victory.

As has happened before, the news prompted widespread calls for money-saving expert Mr Lewis to be put forward as a potential Prime Minister. Fresh data from Focaldata indicates the 54 year old would prove an enormously popular pick amongst the British public, alongside the much-loved Sir David Attenborough.

However, in a post on social media, Mr Lewis firmly ruled himself out of the running by saying, ‘I don’t want to join any political party’. He said: “After a few “throw your hat in the ring!” messages…

1. I don’t want to join any political party

2. I’d rather wire my nipples to electrodes (& not in a good way)

“Tho the geekdom of this pop-culture politics piece is a mix of flattering, funny & scary.”

The Focaldata research revealed that Sir Keir, Reform leader Nigel Farage, and Green Party leader Zack Polanski were amongst the least favoured candidates for PM. Kemi Badenoch was the sole major party leader to achieve a positive approval rating (+2), pointing to wider cross-party appeal.

It read: “Martin Lewis and David Attenborough, who would immediately surpass William Gladstone’s record for oldest serving Prime Minister, are the breakout leaders. They sit head and shoulders above everyone else with best-worst scores of +37 apiece, practically putting them in their own “national treasure status” sub-quadrant.

“Both command cross-party consensus, recording positive scores across every voting intention group. Stephen Fry, Big John, and Louis Theroux also have positive best-worst scores across every major party.

“Piers Morgan, Jeremy Clarkson, and Gary Lineker, somewhat unsurprisingly, varied a lot from party to party. While Piers Morgan and Jeremy Clarkson are viewed positively by Conservative voters, Reform voters, and those intending not to vote, they are viewed negatively by parties on the left.

“Gary Lineker is almost the exact opposite, doing better among Green, and Labour voters although he is still viewed as a good candidate for PM by those saying they won’t vote.”

The survey presented 1,060 Brits with the names of 25 celebrities, TV personalities, politicians, and sports stars. These were then matched up against each other in groups of five, with participants asked in each round who they would most and least like to see as PM.

Keir Starmer is under intense pressure from his own Labour party to announce plans to step down as Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer could shortly announce a plan to step down, according to UK media reports, as his likely successor Andy Burnham is expected to be sworn in as a member of parliament.

Government ministers said the Labour leader was reflecting on his political future over the weekend.

Starmer could set out an exit timetable on Monday, conceding to pressure from his Labour Party to hand over the reins of power.

The threat to the British leader, which has been building for months, increased sharply on Friday when Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, decisively won a parliamentary election to return to Westminster, beating a candidate from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, which has led national opinion polls for more than a year.

That victory gave hope to Labour lawmakers that Burnham, a career politician known for his communication skills, could transform the fortunes of a party that has lost support under Starmer, whose popularity ratings have sunk.

If Starmer does announce his exit, he will be the sixth prime minister in a decade to stand outside 10 Downing Street and announce a premature departure.

The beleaguered leader “is expected to announce on Monday that he will step down as prime minister after overwhelming pressure from Labour MPs to make way for Andy Burnham”, The Guardian said.

The BBC said “signs are growing” that Starmer could set out a plan to resign on Monday, while newspapers splashed with headlines like “Game Over”.

But the widely expected change of leader is not without risk.

Beyond saying that the country needs fundamental change and to bring down the cost of living, Burnham has yet to make clear his approach to foreign affairs, the economy and defence.

Like Starmer, he could find he has little room to manoeuvre, hemmed in by bond market investors opposed to any additional government borrowing, and confronted by an angry electorate who believe the country is not working properly.

Starmer had pledged to fight

Starmer had said on Friday he would stand in any formal Labour leadership contest that sought to replace him.

While Starmer’s team believes his landslide national election win in 2024 gives him the mandate to stay in post until 2029, business minister Peter Kyle said on Sunday the prime minister was reflecting on “the political challenges that he faces in this moment”.

If Starmer does step aside, it is unclear whether Burnham would face a coronation or a challenge. Wes Streeting, who resigned as health secretary last month to protest against Starmer’s leadership, has said that he will run in a contest if there is one.

Burnham, if he succeeds, would become Britain’s seventh prime minister since the Brexit vote to leave the European Union, which took place 10 years ago this week.

That level of turnover – the highest in Britain in nearly two centuries – underlines the struggle of maintaining the support of voters angry at successive failures to improve living standards, public services and tackle undocumented immigration.

UK minister says Starmer considering ‘political realities’ after Labour rival Andy Burnham secured decisive by-election win.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is weighing whether to resign within days, according to media reports, amid mounting pressure from his own Labour Party following a decisive by-election win by his rival, Andy Burnham.

Expectation is growing that Starmer could announce a resignation timetable as soon as Monday, the same day Burnham is sworn in as a lawmaker after winning Thursday’s vote by a wide margin – a result that has reportedly emboldened Labour figures, including Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, to call for Starmer to step aside.

A resignation would lead to the United Kingdom’s seventh prime minister in a decade, a rapid rate of churn in the country’s modern history.

Starmer has been under growing pressure to step down after months of declining popularity, policy missteps and scandals.

In February, the premier came under fire when revelations from the Epstein files about Peter Mandelson, whom Starmer appointed as the UK’s ambassador to the US in December 2024, came to light.

Burnham, Greater Manchester mayor since 2017, has made clear he intends to challenge to lead the slumping centre-left party, warning in his by-election victory speech that it had a “final chance to change”.

If successful, he would become prime minister by default, given that the governing Labour has a huge parliamentary majority.

Starmer is deeply unpopular with voters, according to polling.

YouGov, a global public opinion and data analytics firm, reports that only 19 percent of British people have a positive opinion of the prime minister, and he ranks as the ninth most popular Labour politician.

Starmer has insisted he will fight any attempt to oust him.

But the emphatic nature of Burnham’s win in the Makerfield constituency in northwest England, where he nearly doubled Labour’s majority, has increased the internal pressure on Starmer to quit.

Business Secretary Peter Kyle said on Sunday that Starmer was “making time to reflect on the political realities, challenges and opportunities that he finds himself in”.

“He has been engaging in conversations with a wide, wide range of people,” Kyle told the Sky News broadcaster after having what he said was a “frank” conversation with Starmer on Friday.

The Observer newspaper headlined on its cover on Sunday that Starmer was “expected to resign” the following day, while the Sunday Telegraph also reported he was “ready” to go, citing allies of the embattled British leader.

The Observer said Starmer would “set out a timetable for his departure”, noting he had been holding weekend talks at Chequers, the countryside retreat for prime ministers.

Labour’s drubbing in local and regional polls in England, Scotland and Wales last month intensified the pressure on him.

The fallout from the polls saw Makerfield’s previous Labour MP resign to allow Burnham to stand there.

Burnham, a former MP and government minister under ex-prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, is due to be sworn back into parliament on Monday.

From the so-called soft-left wing of Labour, he reinforced his reputation as the party’s most popular figure by easily beating the hard-right populist Reform UK party’s candidate in this week’s by-election.

Reform, led by Brexit architect Nigel Farage, had won all of Makerfield’s wards in last month’s local elections.

June 19 (UPI) — Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham scored a convincing victory for the ruling Labour Party in a by-election for the parliamentary seat of Makerfield on Friday, winning more seats than all the other parties combined.

The two-time former nominee for the leadership of the party saw off Reform UK in Thursday’s poll with 24,927 votes — 55% of the vote — against Reform’s 15,696, with the official opposition Conservative’s candidate pushed into a distant fourth place with only 997 votes.

Burnham’s return to parliament to mount an anticipated bid to oust Prime Minister Keir Starmer with Burnham’s supporters saying the scale of his win confirmed he was the best person to lead the party — and by extension — the country.

In his victory speech in the early hours in the constituency, 20 miles west of Manchester and on the outskirts of Wigan, Burnham said the win could be a “turning point” for Britain.

“Everyone knows that politics isn’t working. Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could, just could, be the turning point. From here on, I will give everything I have got to make it so. To ensure that the name Makerfield is forever synonymous with bringing about the change this country needs,” said Burnham.

Starmer congratulated Burnham, saying voters had chosen the party’s vision of “hope and optimism over division and hate” but vowed he would not “walk away” from the leadership.

He stressed that there was no contest for the leadership of the party currently and that he didn’t think it was a good idea because it would “plunge the country into chaos — but said that if Burnham initiated a challenge after he returns to Parliament next week, he would fight.

“If there is a contest, then yes. I will run. I will stand. I’m not going to walk away from that.”

Any challenger needs the backing of a quarter of MPs — around 81 — but the incumbent gets a bye and is automatically entered into the contest, should they wish to participate.

Former Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who quit the cabinet on May 14 — the same day the sitting Makerfield MP stood down to make way for Burnham — is also tipped to enter the race.

Other candidates such as former Defense Secretary Jon Healey could also emerge in the interim.

It is understood Burnham will not move against Starmer immediately and his preference, along with others in the party who no longer back Starmer, is that given some breathing space he will stand aside without a fight.

Starmer’s problems began in summer 2025, less than a year into his government’s five-year term following a landslide election victory, after a poor showing in local elections and losing a by-election in the “safe” Labour seat of Runcorn and Helsby.

Rebellions by his own MPs forcing policy U-turns, the Peter Mandelson debacle, and more losses at the ballot box, culminating in a cataclysmic defeat to Reform UK in “mid-term” local elections in May, saw growing numbers of MPs call for him to quit and defections from his cabinet.

First elected as an MP representing the Greater Manchester seat of Leigh in 2001, Burnham unsuccessfully fought two contests for the Labour leadership when the party was in opposition, losing to Ed Miliband in 2010 and Jeremy Corbyn in 2015, before quitting the House of Commons in 2017.

He currently has two years still to run of his four-year term as mayor of Greater Manchester. His resignation to take up his seat in Parliament triggers a mayoral election in Britain’s second largest metro area after London scheduled for July 30.

Granted the Makerfield parliamentary seat has elected Labour MPs for yonks, but just a matter of weeks ago, at the local elections, Reform UK were dominant in this collection of towns broadly to the south of Wigan – places like Abram, Hindley, Orrell and Winstanley.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has cruised to victory in a high-stakes by-election in northern England, paving the way for him to challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour Party and the United Kingdom.

Burnham handily defeated his closest challenger, Robert Kenyon, the candidate for the anti-immigration Reform UK, in the seat of Makerfield, vote results showed early on Friday, securing the House of Commons seat he needs to mount a bid for the prime ministership.

Burnham won 24,927 votes, beating Kenyon by more than 9,000 votes.

Rebecca Shepherd of Restore Britain was a distant third, trailed by Michael Winstanley of the Conservative Party, Sarah Wakefield of the Green Party, and the Liberal Democrats’ Jake Austin.

“Everyone knows that politics is not working,” Burnham said in his victory speech.

“Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could – just could – be the turning point. From here on, I will give everything that I have got to make it so, to ensure the name Makerfield is forever synonymous with bringing about the change this country needs.”

Burnham’s victory is likely to either precipitate Starmer’s resignation or set off a leadership contest pitting the prime minister against the outgoing mayor and Wes Streeting, the former health secretary.

Under the UK’s political system, MPs can choose a new prime minister without holding a general election.

Burnham is widely considered a strong favourite to become the next prime minister if he challenges Starmer.

In an Ipsos poll published earlier this week, Burnham was chosen by 25 percent of British adults as the preferred prime minister, compared with 12 percent for Starmer.

If he does succeed Starmer, Burnham, who was the early favourite in the 2015 Labour leadership race before coming second to Jeremy Corbyn, would be the UK’s seventh prime minister since the country voted for Brexit in 2016.

After leading Labour to a thumping election victory in 2024, Starmer has been under mounting pressure to step down amid widespread public dissatisfaction with his leadership.

Calls for his resignation within Labour have mounted since the party suffered crushing losses in local and regional elections in May.

Twenty ministers have resigned from Starmer’s government in less than two years, nearly half of whom expressed a loss of confidence in his leadership or clashed with him on policy, including Streeting.

Starmer has rebuffed calls to resign, pledging to fight any challenge to his leadership and insisting that such a contest would be a “bad thing for the country”.

Burnham – dubbed the “king of the north” for his grassroots appeal across northern England and his willingness to challenge Westminster – ran on the promise to “change Labour” to “change politics and change the country”.

As mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham built an avid following across the UK’s less developed northern regions by channelling populist themes about elite apathy and industrial decline.

First elected mayor in 2017, and re-elected in 2021 and 2024, he has criticised the UK’s political system as “too London-centric” and taken aim at neoliberal economic policies and trickle-down economics that did not “trickle down very much at all”.

In his victory speech, Burnham said that Makerfield would be the “touchstone” for his politics.

“A Makerfield test at the heart of British politics will ensure that the places Westminster has neglected will now get fairness,” he said.

Burnham, who served in several ministerial portfolios under former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, had been the narrow favourite in the race, holding a five-point lead over Kenyon in an opinion poll released on Saturday by pollster Opinium.

Labour’s Josh Simons, who previously held the seat of Makerfield, triggered the by-election last month by resigning his seat to allow Burnham to challenge Starmer.

About 75,000 people were entitled to vote in the constituency, which is located about 320km (200 miles) northwest of London.

Turnout was 58.75 percent, up from 52.4 percent at the 2024 general election.