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CNN International: New British Prime Minister. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired July 20, 2026 - 07:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[07:30:00]

SAM FRANCIS, LONDON PLAYBOOK AUTHOR, POLITICO: I'm looking out to see if there's anyone I recognize. The next part of the process is after Burnham does his speech. He's clapped in by the kind of the permanent staff of Downing Street. So, as you were saying before --

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: A permanent staff. The team he's had with him for a few months getting ready for this.

FRANCIS: He'll be speaking to some of these people in the transition talks. But in fact, I can see Josh Simons there, who's the previous MP for Makerfield, who stood down to allow Andy Burnham to run.

On there's Steve Rotheram, who's the mayor of Liverpool. So these are all close members of Team Burnham friends and families --

FOSTER: Who've been advising him --

FRANCIS: Exactly. These are the people -- in fact, Steve Rotheram claims credit for advising him to run for mayor of Manchester.

FOSTER: Yes.

FRANCIS: Which is where he kind of regained his authority a bit after running twice for leader, and not really making a dent in it, to be fair. So he's -- the people coming in the street now are all the people who we can expect to see a bit more of in the coming weeks and months.

FOSTER: Crucially, we don't see the Cabinet out because there isn't -- we don't know who his Cabinet's going to be. He'll start talking about that. But that's going to give us the true sense of this new government and the Burnham era.

FRANCIS: Exactly. I think there's been a huge guessing game going on. In fact, as I was walking through (inaudible) just now. I had several different conversations as to who's going to get into culture, and there's some suggestions that he might move some of the departments around and cut some jobs, and put some into some different places. So that's all going to give an indication of how he's going to run the country.

The big questions obviously are who's going to be his chance chancellor, who's going to be his home secretary, who's going to be his foreign secretary. Because as a domestic focused politician for so long, is the foreign secretary will be his chief diplomat and possibly taking quite a lot of the responsibility for setting the tone for how he deals with the world stage.

FOSTER: And if he gets that wrong and he doesn't bring together all the different disparate parts of the Labour Party, he could fail before he's even started, couldn't.

ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He's made really clear that he wants this to be beyond politics. He's all about the place, not politics. He doesn't want divisions within the party. He wants to everyone together, but that's what he wants.

What do these members of Parliament, the members of the Labour Party, want from him, will he deliver what they want? I think it's going to be critical who he has supporting him within the cabinet, as you say, uniting both the left and the right of the party, but also bringing experience to the roles. I guess that could be a criticism of some of the appointees.

Do they have experiences in the roles that we think they're going to get appointed to?

FRANCIS: I've just seen former Everton footballer Peter Reid. I don't know if he's going to get a role in the new government or if he's here is a fan of Andy Burnham, who is himself a lifelong Everton fan. So that's a minor celebs for you there.

FOSTER: A lot to come and you want to be a government, you're probably wise to turn up on you.

FRANCIS: Yes. I think it's -- they've kept it very tight as to who's going to be. This will be invite only, I think, at this point.

FOSTER: It's interesting because this does -- this is the beginning, and then you've got a hundred days really to -- that's the tradition, isn't it, where you -- you've got the goodwill of the nation, you've got public support, you've got parliamentary support. You even got some slack from the opposition parties because they're waiting to see what they can buy onto.

But he's very aware of that, isn't he, that -- his team's very aware of that. They've got to hit the ground running.

FRANCIS: Yes. There's been discussions of hundred day plan. He calls it his black box, which is -- the black box is where he keeps his hundred day plan, who's going to be in his cabinet.

And one of his advisors, Lou Haigh, that's like -- they've been working this for more than a year and those of you who remember the -- Keir Starmer was still very much prime minister more than a year ago. So they're not coming into this as complete novices, but there's been no detail leaked out so far and so all of Westminster is very keen to find out what details we can get from this next speech. FOSTER: On the right, we have the first still image of Britain's new prime minister, Andy Burnham. On the left, we hope to get the first moving image of Andy Burnham because that's the exterior of Buckingham Palace will go out, and it'll take on the Prime Ministerial convoy and all the security that comes with that. And he's living -- he's entering a very different world, isn't he?

And we were speaking to a guest earlier about how you don't actually know how good a prime minister is going to be until they're prime Minister. They can be all talk. Some of them, you didn't think were great -- were great, you know. This is the test, the results --

STEWART: And we know Andy Burnham's got the personality for politics, we know that he's easygoing, we know that he's currently, and I'll say currently with some stress got the support of his party. But he is untested.

We have a recess in Parliament so he doesn't have to go to the dispatch box for some months, so that's possibly in his favor. He's got time to tour the UK to almost do a bit of a post prime ministerial campaign in a way for people to get to know him. This is all working in his favor.

But, big but, people want change in this country. They want to see a reduction in the cost of living. And, unfortunately, that takes a lot of time, a lot of policy and it isn't really all in the control of domestic politics.

[07:35:10]

So that is going to be the big challenge for this prime minister. Also, of course, his mandate, how does he both stick to the 2024 Labour manifesto, that's really the mandate on which the Labour Party has been elected and able to lead Parliament and have a government. How does he do that, but also implement the huge change everyone is demanding.

FOSTER: I think we're see members of the family, aren't we? There might be Mrs. Burgundy just to the left. Actually, very private man, isn't he? He doesn't share much detail at all.

FRANCIS: Though we did get the revelation, sadly on Sunday that his father has an advanced dementia so won't be here. He doesn't know that his son's becoming prime minister today. But yes, he's -- as with Keir Starmer and lots of the previous premises, they keep a lot of their family life private because there's huge amounts of press intrusion happen.

And if you're l here, it's sort of to be expected, I guess. But there is some discussion as to whether his family, as his children are growing up, do come and live in Downing Street while he is prime minister, especially if he's going to set up this satellite No. 10 North in Manchester where his family are much more embedded. So, yes, these are all questions that hopefully will get answered in the coming days.

(OFF-MIC)

FRANCIS: Yes.

STEWART: Well, Max, good question.

FOSTER: Will he get on the Larry?

STEWART: Will he get on the Larry?

FOSTER: On the left, we are watching the door of Buckingham Palace. That door, Andy Burnham has been appointed prime minister. The longer we don't see an image, we can presume the better they get on, the King and --

STEWART: I think they're having a great discussion, a discussion we'll never ever find out about. Is King Charles into football, Max? You've known --

FOSTER: No. In fact, Williams very recently said he has no interest whatsoever.

STEWART: Right. Well, they are not talking about that. They must be talking about the climate.

FOSTER: Yes, climate, you know, I think cost of living. I mean, youth unemployment, I think unemployment generally. I mean, the King does travel a lot. He, you know, as we do, you know, you do -- once you get out of London, you do go to a lot of these post industrial towns which Burnham speaks about a lot.

And there is a lack of jobs, there's a lack of income, you know, closed high streets.

STEWART: Infrastructure.

FOSTER: And that's one of the things he really wants to address, isn't it?

STEWART: I think during the Brexit campaign, I spent a lot of time going to Brexit heartlands, and that is what really shocked me is that conversations almost always went back to Margaret Thatcher, went back to what they've lost in the decades gone past.

FOSTER: Yes.

STEWART: It was about unemployment, it was about how there weren't enough bus routes. And that is very much Andy Burnham's territory. And what he brings to this role is, I mean, his focus has been so much on devolution and giving power outside of Westminster.

Of course, while that's what we know about him and that's been his big focus of the last decade or so, he has to go beyond that now and lead a whole country.

FOSTER: I mean, he's pitching himself as the anti-Thatcher, isn't he? FRANCIS: Yes. Well, he was saying in his speech on Friday that this is going to be the biggest change of politics in 40 years, which is timed around the beginning of Thatcherism. It's a huge challenge he's given himself, given he's also said he will stick to the manifesto. So how do you --

STEWART: Square that circle.

FRANCIS: Yes. How do you make the biggest change, bigger than Thatcher, bigger than Brexit, bigger than Blair. So yes, he's one of the few things we know about what he's going to apply to his politics is, is this make a field test, does it?

Do the policies work for places like Makerfield which are, you know, it's a very specific place but there's lots of places like that. There's the portal but, you know, Sunderland, Hull, all these post- industrial towns that he's promised to point a lot of the states towards. Is that burn coming out? No.

He's, you know, he said he's going to through his domestic and foreign policy, point a lot of the states towards re-industrializing, bringing jobs back to these places.

FOSTER: On the right you are seeing what we know of Andy Team, Andy Burnham on the left gathering outside Downing Street to welcome in a very different vibe, as you can imagine, for the crowd that we had here an hour or so ago for Starmer's leaving. His upbeat is positive. We're seeing family members, we're seeing lots of colleagues from his local government position, as it were, as mayor of Greater Manchester, a lot of the people he used to work with.

And on the left you see some movement, because we're waiting for Andy Burnham to leave Buckingham Palace. He's currently still inside with the prime minister, with the King. He's accepted the King's invitation to form a government. He is the British prime minister as we speak.

But we haven't actually seen him yet because it's all kept very hush- hush what happens inside the palace. But there's the door. We're expecting Andy Burnham to leave.

[07:50:01]

We do expect a very different tone, Anna, because Starmer -- here we are. There's the King's private secretary, followed by Keir Starmer, followed by Andy Burnham and his wife. Big smile in his face. He doesn't always wear a suit and a tie, but of course you have to at Buckingham palace. There are rules that will last, even in the Burnham era.

STEWART: Even you wear a jacket inside to see King Charles.

FOSTER: Sir Clive Alderton is very close to the King and would have escorted Andy Burnham down from the King's meeting. And they're about to -- he's about to head into the ministerial car as prime minister for the first time. And of course he's got a very different level of security now. STEWART: His life has changed forever, as has, of course, his wife and his children's lives have changed forever. And that's something that will never really quite go back to normal. This is one of those things that changes your life forever.

FOSTER: But they're adults.

STEWART: They are adults, but there will be some security, I imagine, around them going forward.

FOSTER: It's not a long drive, so we're going to see them coming out of Buckingham Palace. No longer a Royal residence, but still the functioning base for British monarchy. He'll be heading back in there pretty much every week for the weekly audiences. We'll assume he'll commit to doing them.

Some prime ministers haven't enjoyed them, but he's very much shown so far that he's committed to this idea of allegiance to the monarch as an MP, and actually just wearing a tie to Buckingham Palace and showing up shows that he's committed to serving the King as well as monarch, right?

STEWART: Certainly does, a short drive thing. And as we do spend a lot of time on these days staring at doors, and Buckingham palace, and No. 10, and then staring at cars, doing, you know, really quite a boring route. It's very short, takes in some of the sights.

FOSTER: It's a lovely route, a lovely color road. His first priorities as he comes in will be obviously the speech in Downing Street. Then he goes in and meets the staff. Then, as I understand it, he gets taken to a windowless room to write his letters of last resort.

He'll be joined by an admiral from the navy, if I'm right. And he will write four letters for the captains of the nuclear armed submarines to tell them what to do if there's catastrophe in the UK, and the leadership gets wiped out.

STEWART: And they close it down.

FOSTER: Yes. So what would you do if Britain is destroyed and you're bobbing around in a submarine in the ocean. And, you know, we never actually -- so Keir Starmer would have been destroyed, and then his letters will be given to the submarine command to support the ship.

FRANCIS: I believe that's the process. I think the other ones are kept until the new ones are released, just in case. Like we are in this weird moment now, there's a small transition. But, yes, it sounds like it's almost straight away.

You walk through, you're being clapped in by the permanent staff of Downing Street in Whitehall. And then very quickly, you're taken into a room with military figures and it's this clarifying moment where you're asked, you know, it's a moral decision. It's a kind of a military one as well.

And you're given the intel that's only sort of the top level of. Yes, it sort of hits you how real this job is. And I think it's as well as being practical. It probably does help you get your mind into right now. We're in -- it's the -- it's -- it's a real job this time. It's not something I've just been aiming at for all this time.

FOSTER: The new prime minister in his convoy heading towards Admiralty Arch, which I thought was closed because they're having a hotel renovation, but clearly they're going to find a way through, a very determined new prime minister. If there is a road blockage, but there you are, you can get underneath.

So that will lead into Trafalgar Square. You can see Nelson's Column to our right. Prime minister taking his first ride as prime minister down Whitehall, which he now, of course, controls. And it's a very short drive down to where we are in Downing Street.

You'll hear some cheers, certainly from the crowd on the other side of the street from us, because they are all Team Burnham. There are usually some protesters at the end of Downing Street as well. But this is that sort of era of -- it's the honeymoon moment. It's an era of goodwill.

Even people that are suspicious of Andy Burnham will be giving him a go and being open-minded, you'd hope, to see actually what he'll deliver. And the advantage of really talking about what you're going to deliver in the minimum amount of time is that no one really knows what you're going to deliver. So we're all ears.

He's coming into Downing Street now and he's going to walk to what would have been a lectern in the past. But this is a new prime minister, a lectern-less prime minister.

STEWART: This prime minister will be anti-lectern.

FOSTER: Anti-barrier of the public, I think. He's the everyday guy. And this is a big test, this speech, because this is where he has to deliver on what he's promised because he's now in power. And he hasn't been tested in that position before. So we can see the car door opening and a big cheer going up.

[07:45:11]

This is Burnham ahead of him. Actually, Andy Burnham, as we don't see him very often, in a suit and tie. He likes to wear a t- shirt, he likes to dress casual. But he's been to the palace, he's shown respect to the King by wearing that. And that's part of the messaging today.

And the other part of it is that he will not have a barrier in front of him when he speaks to the nation for the very first time. There is with his wife. He has grown up children, I can see them here as well.

But he's very -- he does keep his private life very close to his chest. And he's going to, I think he's going to be very much a prime minister who takes all the attention himself and tries to take it away from his family. But there are many members of different parts of his life here, so not just family, former colleagues from the Northwest, which is where he built his reputation as a British politician in recent years, a very successful and popular mayor of Manchester.

And that's what he rode on to get into this position without an election. But really the great untested part of his role is that we don't know anything about his national policy, or anything about his international policy. So that's what he's going to have to start outlining and also showing to us other parts of the nation that he represents them too.

STEWART: And he's got this difficult task, hasn't he, Max, of promising huge change, significant change. I think he said the most significant change in politics for 40 years, while broadly at least sticking to the Labour Party manifesto that was spearheaded by his predecessor back in 2024.

That is the mandate that he has been appointed on, not straying too far from all those promises. So what he says today in terms of policy will interesting. I don't think we'll get a huge policy list, but possibly three or four big points.

FOSTER: This is Andy Burnham, you know, in a suit, granted, but a man of the people. This is how he protects himself. He's got a big smile on his face. He's very comfortable in front of the public, very comfortable in front of the cameras. And you're about to see that when he gives his speech.

You know, we don't know what's in the speech, but we know he'll deliver it in a personable, Andy Burnham, everyman type way. And he's deliberately trying to make it casual. Who knows, he may even take his tie off, you know.

Something he tries to actually do, you know. He tries to wear t- shirts. He gets frustrated by wearing suits in Parliament. But he does --

STEWART: You know how he feel --

FOSTER: He talked about it. And he -- but he also likes to feel comfortable. He likes other people to feel comfortable. But I think that's going to be a challenge in this new role, reflecting the fact that people do want some informality, but some formality, too. Here we go.

Andy Burnham, the new prime minister, accepting the cheers. And going along to meet the crowd on the other side. Larry the Cat keeping scarce for the moment, but here we are, the new prime minister of the United Kingdom.

ANDY BURNHAM, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Thank you. I have just come from Buckingham Palace, where I have accepted His Majesty the King's invitation to form a government. In doing so, I am acutely conscious that I am the sixth person in the last 10 years to walk up this street, the seventh prime minister since 2016, making this a moment for reflection and new resolution. It requires my generation of politicians to raise our game and rise to the new challenge.

Britain needs to show the world that we can regain our stability once again. And that is our challenge, to make politics work, to make it work better.

[07:50:08]

I know people at home are fed up with politics. I hear you and I want to be honest with you, we have not been good enough and we need to be better. We will be. We will make this moment a circuit breaker for Britain, bringing forward the biggest changes in the last 40 years, a new political model and a new economic model.

In the 1980s, Britain took some wrong turns. Political power was centralized, economic power privatized, large parts of the country de- industrialized, and they still haven't recovered. Many feel as though they're still in decline and they don't have the ability to turn things around.

And that's why we will change politics, to make it more collaborative, more about problem solving than point scoring. And we will take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land so that they can do more. And in doing more, build a new economy where we put life's essentials back under stronger public control to make them affordable to you again, re-industrializing Britain using public procurement to back British industry.

Later this year, I will bring forward a new plan for Britain, a ten year plan, laying out a path from where we are now to where I believe we all want Britain to be. Wherever we're coming from, whatever party we support. But I can do something to give people some breathing space now, some help with the cost of living. And I will set out some of those measures starting tomorrow, including how we pay for them.

We will help more young people into work by changing the education system and giving them more support, more mental health support. And we will build more council homes. That is the fair and sustainable way to bring the welfare bill down, to meet our fiscal rules and to honor our commitments on defense to our international partners.

We will help people to live well, building a more preventative state, investing in people's success rather than paying for failure. And that work starts now. I will soon go through that door behind me and issue my first instruction to end rough sleeping in our country.

It's about putting the right values and the right standards at the heart of government. I will put the care of people at the heart of everything I do. I will give this my all, and I ask you all to pull with me.

Let's build a new national sense of unity, of common purpose and positivity. Let us make this the moment when Britain starts to believe again, the moment we bring back hope. Thank you very much, everybody.

FOSTER: Can you speak to me? Have I lost you? Andy Burnham giving his first speech, his maiden speech as prime minister, notably without a script and without a lectern. So this is the tone he's wanting to set.

I mean, the confidence of giving your first speech as prime minister without any sort of script in front of you at all is pretty extraordinary. And now he's spending time meeting family and friends who are mixed up in this large group of people gathered outside Downing Street to welcome him, many former colleagues.

The only people really missing here are the new top team. I mean, maybe they're hidden in there somewhere. We just don't know anything about what sort of government he's going to form yet. And that's going to be the first job when he goes back into Downing Street.

But he's got lots of very close people here with him, obviously, because we're standing right by him and these are big hugs. This is an informal person, but with pretty incredible confidence. He's going to go inside Downing Street now and, traditionally, he'll be lined up with Downing Street staff. He'll meet them all for the first time.

And then he said his first instruction is in a clear, rough street, rough sleeping from Britain's streets. So a clear policy announcement and our first sense perhaps what sort of prime minister is going to be, Anna.

STEWART: And that was totally -- no one was expecting him to say exactly what he was going to do the second he goes through the doors.

FOSTER: Not that.

STEWART: And that wasn't what we were expecting. He broadly spoke about some policy. He spoke about re-industrialization. He told us about his kind of rough plans for nationalizing utilities, saying he wants to put life essentials under public control.

And he repeated a few things he said in the past. He's all about problem solving rather than point scoring. He's about place, not politics. Nothing necessarily new and not many, I think, sort of more detailed in terms of policy.

But we will, he says, hear more tomorrow about the cost of living crisis and what he plans to actually do to create some breathing space now and then going forward, he will be putting forward a ten year plan. But we can expect some more in terms of policy, immediate policy tomorrow.

FOSTER: Yes, and the government crucially this afternoon. But I mean, what must it be like crossing that threshold?

FRANCIS: It's, I mean, he seemed pretty giddy, didn't he? I can't imagine how it feels to have a street full of people applauding you and then you go in. As we were discussing before, he now goes through that archway of applause.

FOSTER: We've got the live images from the scene --

FRANCIS: There we go. But he's soon going to be commandeered and taken into a side room by some military types and asked to set out what he wants the nuclear submarines to do in case of government catastrophe or nuclear war. So I think, I mean, he says his first, the first thing he's going to do is set out how to end rough sleeping, which is a huge part of his time as mayor of Manchester. He put that at the heart of his is old job as well. But by his own admission he, he missed his targets. He had lots of early success and then during the COVID era, things were, you know, spaces were opened up so that they could get homeless people off the streets and end up sleeping.

But then it's -- since then it's kind of gone backwards, so it's interesting to see what he's going to do.

FOSTER: Yes, going to make progress, that was the idea, wasn't it? And actually, I guess you learn from what you did wrong as well, but a huge undertaking. You know, I mean, this is just the thing, isn't it? One project and it's unimaginably difficult ending --

STEWART: How's he going to fund it? This is all the detail people will want to know, but I can imagine that's something he will have spoken about to King Charles earlier today. That is the sort of initiative King Charles would be very interested in. And we know the Royal Family -- we have the real star of the show, the youngest viewer here on Downing Street.

FRANCIS: He was with big help by Steve Rotheram, the mayor of Liverpool, who's been a key advisor to Andy Burnham this whole time. So you can expect to see more of Steve Rotheram, I think, in the --

FOSTER: Yes.

FRANCIS: -- not too distant future. Not in the Cabinet, he has a job at the minute, but the pattern normally goes that we have -- the sackings are sort of taking place as we speak or now.

FOSTER: Yes, government gets sacked.

FRANCIS: Yes.

FOSTER: He's not going to keep many.

FRANCIS: We hear about a third might be going.

FOSTER: Yes.

FRANCIS: I think is the rough estimation. Most people we moved around.

FOSTER: Top jobs.

FRANCIS: In the top jobs, like you do have to keep the different factions and different sides of the party happy when you do these things. But yes, this is the most popular he's going to be in the next hour or so. He's going to start to have to make some hard decisions.

STEWART: Do you think everyone really already knows whether they've been sacked and whether they're going to get top jobs?

FRANCIS: I think people know if they've been sacked by now. We already had one -- James Timpson, member of the House of Lords, who's the Prisons Minister, who's announced that he's resigning. And then, we've got the big jobs are going to be coming in the not too distant future.

FOSTER: OK. Well, that is the meaning events of today, visual events not (inaudible), the rest is going on behind closed doors. You're watching CNN on a historic day here in Downing Street, a new era beginning then in British politics.