𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

If Andy Burnham triumphs in his ambitions to become Prime Minister, an immediate challenge will be assembling a top team who can convince voters the nation is now pointing in the right direction. Here are some of figures who could play a leading role in a Burnham premiership.

Mr Streeting was marked out as a rising star almost from the moment he arrived in Parliament in 2015 and the recently-resigned Health Secretary is unlikely to abandon his ambitions to become PM. But Mr Burnham may well want to harness his talents, and appointing the highest profile figure on the Right of the party as Chancellor would assure markets that the Government is not in the grip of socialist radicals.

The Energy Secretary has every reason to expect a big job. The former party leader is considered a champion of Mr Burnham within the cabinet and wants to see Labour deliver era-defining change.

He is seen by many as a top choice as Chancellor but his opposition to new North Sea oil and gas exploration licences is widely blamed for Labour’s pitiful result in Thursday’s Aberdeen South election

Despite reports that Mr Burnham had considered appointing her Chancellor, he is now tipped to keep her at the Home Office. Although her tough stance on restoring order to Britain’s immigration system has won her foes on the Left, Mr Burnham knows he cannot afford to look weak on border security when he needs to defeat Reform UK at the next election.

Though she quit as Transport Secretary in November 2024 after it was revealed she had pled guilty to a fraud offence a decade earlier, this stalwart of the so-called Soft Left has been at the absolute heart of Mr Burnham’s Westminster comeback campaign. As the New Statesman reported, Labour MPs now joke that “Andy doesn’t even go to the bathroom without Lou waiting outside”.

The Culture Secretary’s Wigan constituency is next door to Makerfield and she has enthusiastically backed Burnham returning. She is an effective television performer and is thought to be an aspiring Foreign Secretary, although those close to incumbent Yvette Cooper stress the need for continuity when there is the real risk of international peril.

Labour cannot win the next election if it looks feeble on defence and a top challenge for Mr Burnham will be finding cash to upgrade the military to deter Russia. It would be a major vote of confidence in the new PM if Mr Healey agreed to return to the post he has just resigned from in protest at underfunding.

Though desperately unpopular as a Chancellor, she was a key ally of Mr Burnham in his 2015 leadership run. He will want to avoid banishing her to the backbenches.

Back in the day when the UK was part of the EU, such big beasts could be given a lucrative new act as European Commissioners, but Mr Burnham will have to find a new area where he can make use of Ms Reeves’s knowledge and close relations with key figures in finance.