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Keir Starmer to stand down as MP to focus on world affairs

Former PM says it is right time to go, which will trigger byelection that Greens’ Zack Polanski could target

Keir Starmer is to quit as the MP for Holborn and St Pancras, saying it is the right time for him to leave the Commons.

Starmer, who resigned as prime minister in July, told the Camden New Journal he wanted to focus on international affairs and “pass the baton to a successor”.

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© Photograph: Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

© Photograph: Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

© Photograph: Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

Keir Starmer to stand down as MP to focus on world affairs

Former PM says it is right time to go, which will trigger byelection that Greens’ Zack Polanski could target

Keir Starmer is to quit as the MP for Holborn and St Pancras, saying it is the right time for him to leave the Commons.

Starmer, who resigned as prime minister in July, told the Camden New Journal he wanted to focus on international affairs and “pass the baton to a successor”.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

© Photograph: Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

© Photograph: Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

Burnham promises to bring ‘substantial change’ as he gives first Commons address as prime minister – UK politics live

1 September 2026 at 18:43

PM says he has a ‘clear diagnosis of what has gone wrong’ with UK, and pays tribute to Keir Starmer after his predecessor quit parliament

My colleague Richard Partington, the Guardian’s senior economics correspondent, grew up, like Andy Burnham, in the Warrington suburb of Culcheth. He has been home to find out what people there are saying about the new PM.

Yesterday, Kemi Badenoch announced a reshuffle, replacing Mel Stride with Andrew Griffith as shadow chancellor and Priti Patel with Tom Tugendhat as shadow foreign secretary.

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© Photograph: parliamentlive.tv

© Photograph: parliamentlive.tv

© Photograph: parliamentlive.tv

Burnham chairs cabinet meeting before first statement to MPs as prime minister – UK politics live

1 September 2026 at 13:18

PM will tell Commons he wants to unlock ‘positivity’ after a summer of policy announcements and improved poll ratings

Andy Burnham has vowed to “stamp out antisemitism for good” in a tribute to the victims of the Manchester synagogue terror attack.

In a post on social media, he said:

We send our love and support to the Jewish community in Manchester and beyond who last night gathered to remember Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby, who were killed defending their synagogue last year. My thoughts are with their families and all those who have been affected by the attack.

I know for many Jewish people, the sorrow and fear from that day has not lifted and I know we must do more to protect communities across the country.

Britain is poorer than we often think. We won’t get richer based on higher public spending alone, and we can’t tax billionaires who don’t live here.

We shouldn’t rely on public spending as a route to some romantic version of making Britain great again as we look in the rearview mirror for a great history that is no longer available to us. We must face the future, and I know my colleagues are up to the challenge.

Crucially, we must create the right conditions for a dynamic, thriving market. This includes getting ahead of what artificial intelligence will mean for our services-dominated economy.

Politically, we shouldn’t see conflict between growth and fairness, or business and workers, or the market and the state. These are false choices.

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© Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

© Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

© Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

Beveridge revisited: Simon Callow film celebrates the radical co-founder of Britain’s welfare state

1 September 2026 at 10:00

Christine Edzard’s The Man With the Plan tours the country with a timely message about tackling want, disease, squalor, idleness and ignorance

A new film that addresses issues fundamental to the new prime minister’s declared mission will star Simon Callow as a historical British political figure.

The hero of The Man With the Plan is William Beveridge, who helped to lay the foundations of the postwar welfare state. It shows that the Liberal peer was much more radical than is usually assumed – and certainly far more so than Churchill anticipated when he asked Beveridge to draw up a report into the future of Britain’s fragmented social insurance and national health system after the second world war.

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© Photograph: Sands Films Production

© Photograph: Sands Films Production

© Photograph: Sands Films Production

John Healey invites October budget ideas from Treasury staff of all levels

Chancellor says he wants everyone from apprentices to senior economists to take part in brainstorming exercise

John Healey has asked junior Treasury staff – including IT workers and apprentices – to send him ideas for his October budget, saying he will listen to all suggestions regardless of grade or profession.

The chancellor’s unorthodox approach comes as he faces a tricky autumn with expected inflation rises, sluggish growth and potential cuts from other departments to fund extra defence spending.

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© Photograph: Matthew Horwood/PA

© Photograph: Matthew Horwood/PA

© Photograph: Matthew Horwood/PA

More public control is the way to grow UK economy, Burnham to tell MPs

Exclusive: Prime minister wants to ‘bring back hope’ by tackling cost of living as MPs call for electoral reform

Andy Burnham will drive home his pledge to bring more essential services back into public control, telling MPs in the Commons on Tuesday that it will be the only way to improve growth across the country.

Burnham will address the house for the first time in 16 years from the frontbench, and six weeks since he became prime minister, after spending the summer recess announcing a slew of policies that will now be put before MPs.

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© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

UK social mobility watchdog could be axed as ministers plan shake-up

Exclusive: Labour MPs believe Gordon Brown-era SMC has become ineffective and its work ‘should be a core function of government’

Ministers are considering a shake-up of the government’s social mobility watchdog that could range from giving it more teeth to abolishing it outright.

The move comes amid concerns that the Social Mobility Commission (SMC) – originally conceived under Gordon Brown’s government in 2010 – has become ineffective.

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© Photograph: WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

Prisons ‘one major event from disaster’ after U-turn on early release scheme

Critics say the move, which will keep PC Harper’s killers in jail, leaves number of prison spaces ‘too close to the bone’

PC Andrew Harper’s killers will remain behind bars after a critical intervention by Andy Burnham, but the move has led to warnings that overcrowded prisons will be left “one major event away from disaster”.

Announcing a U-turn on the early release scheme after weeks of intense pressure, Burnham said he understood “how strongly people feel about this issue”.

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© Photograph: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images

© Photograph: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images

© Photograph: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images

Andy Burnham pledge to end indefinite prison terms ‘a step towards healing’

30 August 2026 at 15:36

Campaigners welcome plan to bring IPP sentences to a close but say the move is long overdue

Campaigners have hailed Andy Burnham’s pledge to bring an end to indefinite jail terms as “a day that thousands of families have spent years fighting for”.

The prime minister has said he will “end the injustice” of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences during this parliament, meaning people will no longer be trapped indefinitely under a sentence abolished more than a decade ago.

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© Photograph: Alecsandra Raluca Drăgoi/The Guardian

© Photograph: Alecsandra Raluca Drăgoi/The Guardian

© Photograph: Alecsandra Raluca Drăgoi/The Guardian

Cities are the big winners in Burnham’s devolution drive. But what happens to the rest of England? | John Harris

30 August 2026 at 14:00

Labour has promised a ‘fundamental rewiring’ of power. But some areas are years into their devolution journey while others scramble to get started

Apart from the joyous hyperactivity that comes with suddenly making it to No 10, there are good reasons why Andy Burnham seems to be a prime minister in a hurry. If he decides that his first term is going to run to its maximum length, he has three years, which is a maddening time-frame: too long for him to just tinker here and there, set out his long-term vision and then ask the electorate for permission to do more, but probably too short to start and finish many of his key projects. His chosen solution, it seems, is a mixture of the strategies he would use for each approach, which includes running at some issues at breakneck pace.

So it is with his specialist subject: devolution for England. The huge changes now afoot actually began under Keir Starmer, with the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act passed earlier this year. Areas that previously had two tiers of local government will see them replaced with new unitary councils. But the most historic move centres on regional mayors – what the government calls “strategic authorities” – and a shift that the Whitehall PR machine is hyping up as a “fundamental rewiring of the way our country works, surrendering power that for too long has been held in Westminster and Whitehall”. In principle, this is unquestionably worth celebrating. But it also gives rise to a whole range of increasingly urgent and awkward questions.

John Harris is a Guardian columnist

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© Illustration: Matt Kenyon/The Guardian

© Illustration: Matt Kenyon/The Guardian

© Illustration: Matt Kenyon/The Guardian

Tax promises, defence targets and Iran: Andy Burnham’s budget headaches

As economic circumstances worsen, the PM’s commitments have left him and the chancellor in a tight spot

When Andy Burnham made his first speech after returning as an MP, he promised that as prime minister he would oversee “the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years”. His style, direction and communication has been a big shift from Keir Starmer’s approach, but as he heads into the autumn, the new prime minister faces some very similar problems.

With an early budget in late October, and worsening economic circumstances, Burnham has made promises and commitments that put him in a tight spot. Here are some of the constraints over the coming months that Burnham and the chancellor, John Healey, must contend with in their autumn budget.

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© Photograph: Annabel Lee-Ellis/PA

© Photograph: Annabel Lee-Ellis/PA

© Photograph: Annabel Lee-Ellis/PA

Andy Burnham says he will not vote on assisted dying bill to avoid swaying debate

Exclusive: PM also warns his ministers against trying to influence vote when bill returns to Commons next month

Andy Burnham has told Labour MPs that he will not cast a vote when the assisted dying bill returns to the Commons next month, to avoid influencing the debate.

While supporters of the measure welcomed his move, No 10 officials said the prime minister had no wish to affect the process in either direction, and was just doing what he thought was best to allow MPs to reach their own collective view.

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© Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

© Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

© Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

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