Burnham has said that his first policy will be to end rough sleeping:
“I will soon go through that door behind me and issue my first instruction: to end rough sleeping in our country.”
He pledged in his 2017 mayoral campaign to “end rough sleeping by 2020” via a “radical” plan. In January 2018 he invited BBC Radio Manchester listeners to hold him to account.
MHCLG figures show there are around 360 rough sleepers across the 10 Greater Manchester boroughs in March 2026, up from 335 a year earlier. The 12-month average to March 2026 was 396, almost double the 2022 figure of 204…
That is double the 2022 rate. It has risen every year for the past four years. It is the worst in the city centre. See how this ends…
UPDATE: No10 has now announced £340 million for rough sleeping “funded from within uncommitted MHCLG budgets.“
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”