Freya Scott-Turner
Live reporter

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Makerfield by-election won, nominations from MPs secured; and now, Andy Burnham has been officially confirmed as leader of the Labour Party.

At an event in central London, it was Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood - widely speculated as a contender for a top Burnham cabinet role - who made the declaration, and welcomed him to the stage.

As well as make a few football-related gags, Burnham used his speech to make five pledges as leader. He said he would stifle Labour Party infighting, build a "new type of politics", work with other parties, be a leader for "everywhere" in the UK, and shift power from Westminster.

Speaking to media from Gravesend later in the day, Burnham wouldn't be drawn on his cabinet selections, stating simply that he was "finalising" his decisions and would tell-all on Monday.

And Monday will bring much more besides. It is when Prime Minister Keir Starmer will tender his official resignation to King Charles, and the monarch will then invite Burnham to form a new government.

Reaction from across the political spectrum has been split, with the Conservatives calling on Burnham to come to Parliament and face scrutiny, Although the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party have both suggested openness to working with him. We have a full roundup of political reaction in our earlier post.

Already, removal vans have been spotted outside No 10 Downing Street, ahead of next week's handover.

• We're ending our live coverage now, but you can keep up-to-date with this story in our full piece, as well as the latest analysis from chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman.

"Folk within the Labour Party, they're smiling again," says political editor Chris Mason.

Watch below for his rundown of what happened on Friday

Imogen James
Live reporter

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For Keir Starmer:

The current prime minister - though not for long - is expected to speak outside on Downing Street one last time.

He will then to head to meet King Charles.

In private, he will tender his resignation. Recently it has become customary for an outgoing PM's partner and children to be invited to meet the monarch.

For Burnham:

Once Starmer departs, Andy Burnham will have his turn in the palace.

There, he will be asked to form a government by the King, officially becoming prime minister.

Then, it's a short drive to his new address - No 10 Downing St.

He is then expected to make his first speech as PM.

After that, he will disappear behind the famous black door and work on forming his cabinet and undertaking a number of immediate jobs.

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Nigel Farage has just given a speech at the UK Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) - an annual conference organised by American Conservative Union, which this year is being chaired by former Prime Minister Liz Truss.

The Reform UK leader is reacting to Burnham's Labour speech earlier today, calling it "utterly vacuous" and describing the incoming PM as "the great chameleon of British politicians".

He says Burnham has no mandate and claims the British public "has had enough of this game of musical chairs".

"There must be an immediate general election so the country can decide its future," Farage adds.

Andy Burnham has cemented his new position in the Labour Party by updating his bio on X.

It now reads "Leader of the Labour Party and Labour MP for Makerfield".

He's also marked the moment by posting a photograph of him filling out some paperwork, with the caption "the moment it became official".

Image source, Reuters

When does he become prime minister?

Burnham became Labour leader on Friday - but he will not become prime minister until Monday.

The process will begin with Keir Starmer meeting King Charles to formally offer his resignation as prime minister on Monday.

The King will meet Burnham soon afterwards, when he will ask him to form a government. Once Burnham has accepted, he will officially be the UK's prime minister. Both meetings usually happen at Buckingham Palace.

Burnham will then head to Downing Street, where he is likely to give a speech outside No 10.

How did he get here?

Andy Burham had long had ambitions to be Labour leader - but could only challenge for the top job as a sitting MP. He was given that opportunity when he returned to Parliament a month ago in a by-election.

Other senior Labour figures abandoned their own leadership ambitions and got behind Burnham, along with the overwhelming majority of the party's MPs. It has meant he has become the Labour leader without a contest.

Who could be in his cabinet?

The short answer is – we don't know. Burnham will certainly want to bring in a new team of ministers, but he has kept the identity of them very close to his chest and is likely to spend the weekend making the final decisions.

Read more in our full story here

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The Conservatives have criticised Andy Burnham for not being scrutinised over his plans for government before becoming prime minister on Monday.

Kevin Hollinrake, Chairman of the Conservative Party, says the former Greater Manchester mayor "should come to Parliament and explain" his vision.

Hollinrake says its "not too late" for Burnham "to do the right thing" and make a statement to the Commons on Monday.

"But the truth is that, whether it is Keir Starmer or Andy Burnham, the real problem is the high-tax, high-spend Labour MPs behind them," Hollinrake adds.

Eleanor Lawrie
Social affairs reporter

Andy Burnham has been vocal about the challenges of navigating the care system while supporting his father, who has Alzheimer’s disease.

He has repeatedly said he “will not flinch” from making tough decisions to try to fix the system, and now he’s pledged to “expend quite a lot of political capital” on social care.

What does that mean in practice? The details are still vague at this point, but in a 2023 speech, he suggested replacing inheritance tax with a new "national care levy".

Everyone would contribute to this, he said, while "obviously the wealthiest would pay the most".

Currently, those with greatest need and fewest means are prioritised for subsidised care. This means some people with moderate needs find their life savings depleted by residential care, or struggle to access the services they need.

Baroness Casey is currently looking at how to create a social care system that is “fair and affordable’” in England and is expected to set out her final recommendations by 2028, but the new PM may ask her to accelerate that.

Andy Burnham has vowed that social care is one of the big things he wants to fix as Labour leader.

Speaking in Gravesend, the PM-in-waiting is asked how quickly he can deliver that change.

It's about being prepared to "grasp the nettle", Burnham says, adding that he has personal experience of the system with his father, who has Alzheimer's.

He says Westminster has "flinched over the years" from these big decisions, adding that the NHS won't get back to where it needs to be if the social care system remains broken.

At the moment, people are paying for care in the "most unfair way possible", Burnham says, adding that the most vulnerable face the highest costs and lose "everything they worked for".

He says he'll start there and look at how a universal social care system could be funded.

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Andy Burnham has just spoken to the media in Gravesend, where he's been attending a rally.

Asked why he hasn't announced who will be in his cabinet yet, Burnham says it would be "somewhat premature" and that "you do that when you take over".

Announcing a reshuffle before assuming office would "cause chaos", he says.

"The decision will be made very shortly and it will be done in the usual way," he says.

There's been "so much speculation", he says, adding that the country doesn't "want to hear all the obsession" and "who's up, who's down".

Pressed on if he's made the decision in his head, Burnham says: "I am finalising those decisions, and I will come to conclusions very shortly and then I will announce those on Monday."

Keir Starmer has said he will remain MP for Holborn and St Pancras until at least the next election, despite his time as prime minister coming to an end.

However, he's been clear that he will be "keeping [his] mouth shut" under his successor rather than offering unsolicited advice.

He says he plans to spend "more time on the most important job" of being "the best husband" and "best dad" after leaving No 10.

Beyond this, we don't know much about his plans.

It is not unheard of for a former PM to return in a prominent role following a resignation - for example, after several years out of parliament, David Cameron returned to Parliament in the Lords and was foreign secretary under Rishi Sunak.

Image source, Reuters

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

This was a speech where Andy Burnham set his ambitions far higher than the conventional measure of political success: elections.

He argued that Britain took a wrong turn in the 1980s.

"Four decades of neoliberalism" had followed, he said, damaging traditional working-class communities in cities and towns as well as rural and coastal areas.

This is what he promised to reverse.

Doing so, he said, would amount to no less than "the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years".

It will not have been lost on any Labour MPs listening that in making this argument Burnham is not only criticising Thatcherism, but also the accommodation with elements of it which he clearly believes the New Labour governments he served represented.

In any case, it bears repeating that a pledge to represent the biggest change of direction in British politics for four decades is quite some test to set your own premiership three days before it has begun.

• Read the full analysis from our chief political correspondent

Image source, Reuters

Andy Burnham's journey to become the UK's next prime minister is "a powerful reminder that leadership, talent and ambition don't begin and end in Westminster", according to the metro mayor of Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotheram.

"There was a time when metro mayors were looked down at as a bit of an experiment", Rotheram says in a statement X.

But he says "one of them is about to become prime minister" which shows "how far devolution has come - and how much further it still has to go".

Rotheram says Burnham is "one of the strongest champions of devolution this country has seen" as he congratulates him on his "remarkable" journey from his hometown in Aintree, Merseyside, to get to No 10.

More than a decade after he first ran for the leadership, Andy Burnham has been confirmed as Labour leader and is set to walk into No 10 as prime minister on Monday.

Here's how Friday unfolded, in pictures:

Image source, Getty Images

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Any reform to social care is likely to cost billions per yearpublished at 14:56 BST

14:56 BST

By Ben Chu, policy and analysis correspondent

England’s social care system, which is delivered mainly by independent providers, is widely perceived as underfunded and unfair.

Public funding is means tested - and estimates indicate two million older people are living with some unmet need, plus about 10% of people aged 65 and over face lifetime social care costs in excess of £100,000.

Labour's 2024 manifesto pledged a new “national care service”, but the government kicked the reform can down road and commissioned a review on options for reform by 2028.

Andy Burnham has previously described social care as a “broken” system and suggested he will ask for this report by the end of 2026.

But any reform is likely to cost billions of pounds a year.

Five big challenges facing Andy Burnham - and how he might tackle them

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Andy Burnham's decision to return to Westminster meant he had to leave his post as the mayor of Greater Manchester, a position he had held since 2017.

He had been the first person to hold that job, which he won after standing down as the Labour MP for Leigh nearly 10 years ago. That constituency neighbours his new patch Makerfield in the Greater Manchester region.

Burnham has touted bringing bus services in Manchester back under public control as part of the "Bee Network" as a major success, and says it can inform his approach as nationalising other industries.

He later earned the nickname "King of the North" after making a defiant, open-air speech in 2020 telling the Conservative government that Manchester would not accept tougher Covid restrictions.

Burnham also pledged to end rough sleeping in the region by 2020, a target he failed to meet. However, figures provided by the mayor towards the end of 2024 showed a 25% reduction in the number of rough sleepers on the streets of Manchester.

He also faced criticism after £100m in taxpayer funding was spent on a clean air zone that was never implemented in Manchester.

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

May 7 - Labour suffers heavy election losses, including a historic defeat in the Welsh Senedd. Reform UK gains over 1,450 councillors in England.

May 14 - Wes Streeting resigns as health secretary and tells Keir Starmer it is "clear you will not lead the Labour Party into the next general election".

May 14 - The same day, Makerfield MP Josh Simons announces he is resigning, clearing a path for Andy Burnham to return to Parliament as an MP.

June 11 - John Healey resigns as defence secretary in a dispute over military spending. Armed Forces Minister Al Carns follows suit.

June 18 - Andy Burnham wins the Makerfield by-election with a majority of over 9,000 votes.

June 22 - Despite previously saying he would stand in a leadership contest, Starmer resigns in a speech outside Downing Street. Burnham is sworn in as an MP later that day, and confirms he is running to be Labour leader.

Image source, Reuters

"As I accept the honour of leading this party forward, I will tell you about five things I will do to make us so, to make us better," Andy Burnham told the special Labour conference in London earlier.

These are the five promises he made.

1. Stopping Labour infighting: Burnham promised to build a "one Labour culture", and eradicate what he called "insidious briefing"
2. Building a "new politics": He vowed to fix "the big things" that politics has "neglected", citing social care as an example
3. Working with other parties, but with a "distinctively Labour" direction: The party wouldn't try to "out Green the Greens" or "out Reform Reform", he said
4. Being a leader for all of the UK: Burnham said, as Manchester mayor, he sought to give the north of England "the strongest voice I could," and now he wants to do "the same for everywhere"
5. Take power back from Westminster. He spoke of giving powers "over life's essentials" to "the place where you live" - powers to build "council and social homes" or "improve your high street"

Faisal Islam
Economics editor

It was just five months ago when Andy Burnham retreated to his mayor's office in Manchester, having been blocked by Labour's ruling executive from standing for parliament.

When I met him there a few weeks later, he told me he planned to deal with his disappointment with some ambitious plans for his city region.

Burnham told me he wanted to appeal directly to Fifa to host the final of women's football World Cup in 2035 Manchester instead of Wembley. "Imagine how electrifying that is for any girl growing up in the north of England," he said.

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He said he was also joining forces with other mayors for a "Great Northern" Olympic bid across the north of England, and a plan was also afoot to host the Ryder Cup in Bolton. Sports bodies needed "re-educating" about the rest of the country, he said.

Manchester has already poached the Brit Awards from London after half a century in the capital.

Big, bold gestures like these tell part of the story of what has happened in the city. Burnham's civic ambition is a byproduct of Manchester's status as the fastest-growing city economy in the country. As Burnham prepares to become prime minister, will he be able to apply the same model to the whole of the nation?

Read Faisal Islam's full, in-depth analysis over here.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has also been speaking with the BBC following Burnham's speech this lunchtime.

Khan, who has been given a peerage by outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer, says he is "hugely optimistic" about Burnham becoming PM and his plans "for the entire country - north, east, south, west".

Asked by Vicki Young whether he has any concerns about what Burnham's plans might mean for London, Khan says he is "reassured" by his pledge to be a pro-business leader.

"He wants good growth in every postcode in the country," the mayor says, adding "the streets in London aren't paved with gold" and there are still inequalities there.

"Andy gets the fact that people in Lewisham and Newham in London feel as disconnected with Whitehall as those in Liverpool and Newcastle," he adds.