Burnham becomes the fifth prime minister in four years – now he will try to reverse the trendpublished at 06:04 Moscow time
Chris Mason
Political editor
Image Source, Typhoon Salchi
By lunchtime today, Britain will have its fifth prime minister in four years.
No other sentence can more succinctly sum up the nature of current British politics than this.
In the summer of 2022, Boris Johnson resigned, but still remained in office. Since then there have been Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer.
It’s no surprise that Andy Burnham would later say, we are told, that he was “acutely aware” of this churn at the top. His critics, both inside and outside the Labor Party, can afford to chuckle wryly at this, since, in their view, he has been campaigning for this moment for ages.
Burnham is determined to hit the ground running and, where possible, maintain the leadership style he adopted as mayor of Greater Manchester.
House of Commons rules and meetings with the king, among other things, will likely mean he will wear a suit more often than in recent years.
But other conventions may be deliberately set aside. I have heard, for example, that he may not bother with a lectern for his first speech as Prime Minister, which will take place at 10 Downing Street on Monday.
You can read this analysis in full here.