Meet Labour’s ‘King of the North,’ the 56-year-old representing Greater Manchester and challenging Keir Starmer

Andy Burnham is a political insider turned outsider who aims to be Britain’s next prime minister. The 56-year-old politician presents himself as an amiable northern everyman who prefers T-shirts to a suit and tie and spends spare time playing soccer or spinning 1990s tunes during DJ battles. He’s also an experienced politician whose career has taken him from high-level government jobs to the mayoralty of Greater Manchester, and now to the cusp of the prime minister’s office. Burnham is expected to challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer after winning a seat in Parliament in a special election he hailed as a “turning point” for U.K. politics. His nickname is inspired by ‘Game of Thrones’ Burnham was born and raised in a pocket of northwest England between Liverpool and Manchester, the son of a British Telecom engineer and a receptionist. He joined the Labour Party as a teenager, attended Cambridge University and was first elected to Parliament in 2001. He was a lawmaker for a decade and a half, rising through the ranks under Prime Minister Tony Blair and serving in Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Cabinet between 2007 and 2010. He ran twice for the leadership of the Labour Party, in 2010 and 2015, and lost badly each time, before quitting Westminster to run for Manchester mayor. His tenure has seen him nicknamed the King of the North, a “Game of Thrones”-inspired nod both to his championing of his home region and his barely disguised political ambition. He gained the moniker during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he harangued Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson over what he called a “London-centric” approach to the crisis. Burnham has led the Greater Manchester region since 2017, overseeing rapid regeneration for the city where the Industrial Revolution was forged. The city center has boomed, with skyscrapers blooming on vacant post-industrial sites. Many residents praise him for championing the city. He took a piecemeal public transport system under public control, bra