On becoming the UK’s new PM in mid-July this year, Andy Burnham set about appointing his new cabinet. His selections for the senior ministerial positions in his government have been pored over by political commentators and journalists because they reveal much about the type of executive he intends to lead into the next general election. Here are 5 early takeaways on the topic, but remember, assuming Burnham lasts as PM until the next general election, his cabinet is likely to evolve through reshuffles, departures and new arrivals in the three years this parliament has left to run.

1. A cabinet in his own image

Any aspiring politician who successfully climbs to the top of the greasy pole will need to appoint key allies to the cabinet to protect his or her position as PM and to reward them for their support. Burnham is no exception. A number of his cabinet picks are longstanding ‘soft left’ allies who have worked to secure his path back into the Commons and ultimately the Labour leadership and the premiership. For example, Louise Haigh, who managed Burnham’s Makerfield by-election campaign, has been appointed First Secretary of State (as well as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office) and Lucy Powell, who publicly supported Burnham’s efforts to return to the Commons, has become Education Secretary. Anneliese Midgley, another of the so-called ‘northern power women’ (the female Labour politicians who helped Burnham’s by-election or leadership campaign), has been rewarded with the post of Chief Whip. Other political friends and close allies appointed to senior ministerial positions include Miatta Fahnbulleh, the new Secretary of State for Energy Security for Net Zero, who had been advising Burnham on policy, Angela Rayner who has returned to the cabinet as Housing Secretary, Lisa Nandy, who has been made Culture Secretary and Ed Miliband, the new Foreign Secretary.

2. Purge of the Starmerites

Every incoming PM who takes over between general elections naturally wants to put their own stamp on the cabinet and this inevitably means removing at least some of senior ministers who served under their predecessor. In Burnham’s case, this impulse was probably sharpened by (1) Starmer and his allies’ successful attempt to block Burnham from seeking to stand as the Labour candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election in February 2026, and (2) the need to refresh and reset the cabinet to signal a new start, given the obvious unpopularity of the Starmer government in the months before his resignation. As a result, Burnham has removed a clutch of Starmer loyalists from their cabinet posts, including Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Darren Jones, Steve Reed, Peter Kyle, Richard Hermer and Liz Kendall. This feature of Burnham’s cabinet formation reveals a degree of ruthlessness often seen as vitally necessary in order to do the top job in UK politics. Indeed, one of Burnham’s most prominent supporters has noted that, underneath the friendly, blokey image, the new PM can be ‘a cold-hearted lizard of a politician’.

3. Balance not bloodletting

Having said this, Burnham has stated that he wants to end factionalism within the Labour Party and his cabinet suggests that he has taken that aim seriously by appointing a number of individuals who are not identified with the party’s soft left. Two of the major cabinet posts, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary, have gone to John Healey and Shabana Mahmood respectively, both of whom are generally considered to be to the right of Burnham ideologically. Similarly, Wes Streeting, appointed Defence Secretary, is viewed as a prominent figure on the Labour right. Several others who were in Starmer’s cabinet and allies of the former PM survived Burnham’s cull, including Bridget Phillipson (Minister for Women and Equalities), Emma Reynolds (Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Pat McFadden (Work and Pensions Secretary). Burnham, like most Labour PMs before him, has made cabinet appointments from different factions to promote party unity and keep at least some of Labour’s ‘big beasts’, who belong to a different grouping within the party, onside.

4. Regional bias

Burnham has also engineered what has been called a ‘northern takeover’ of the cabinet, reflecting his political roots and support base. Some 13 of the 23 cabinet ministers (56.5 percent) represent constituencies in the north of England, making Burnham’s the most ‘northern’ UK cabinet in the post-war period. Of these 13, five (21.7 per cent of the cabinet) have parliamentary seats in Burnham’s heartland of north-west England, which has prompted criticism about overrepresentation at the senior executive level since the region accounts for just 11 percent of the UK population. In contrast, only 3 cabinet ministers (13 percent) were elected in constituencies in London or southern England. It should also be noted that the so-called ‘senior quad’ of PM, Chancellor of the Exchequer, First Secretary of State and Home Secretary have seats in northern England (3) and the Midlands (1), with no representatives from the south of the country. Skewing cabinet representation towards northern England also aligns with Burnham’s political project of rolling out ‘Manchesterism’ on a national scale and his desire to break Westminster’s grip on power by establishing a ‘No.10 North’ unit in the city where he was mayor.

5. A representative cabinet?

Well, no and yes (it’s politics, after all!). As just mentioned, the north of England is geographically overrepresented in the cabinet, but in other respects too Burnham’s senior ministerial appointments do not reflect the country as a whole. Over one-fifth (22 percent) of Burnham’s new cabinet were privately educated compared with just 7 percent of the UK population. In Starmer’s first cabinet, only 8 percent of Labour’s senior ministers had attended private school. To put this in a wider perspective, recent Tory PMs have presided over cabinets with, in most cases, a significantly higher proportion of privately educated ministers. Under David Cameron in 2015, 50 percent of the cabinet went to fee-paying schools and the corresponding proportions for the May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak first cabinets were 30 percent, 64 percent, 68 percent and 61 percent respectively. Furthermore, like most of its predecessors, Burnham’s cabinet is dominated by Oxbridge graduates, with 54 percent of senior ministers having attended either Oxford or Cambridge. Currently, less than one percent of the UK population studies for a degree at these two elite universities. In comparison, 39 percent of Starmer’s cabinet and 52 percent of Sunak’s were Oxbridge educated. Four members of Burnham’s cabinet (14 percent), including Shabana Mahmood (Home Secretary), Miatta Fahnbulleh (Energy Secretary) and Kanishka Narayan (Minister for AI), have ethnic minority backgrounds, which is roughly in line with the 16.9 percent of the UK population in this category. This representation is slightly higher than under Starmer (12 percent) but lags slightly behind the Sunak cabinet (16 percent). Finally, of the 23 full members of the cabinet, 12 are female which is something of a landmark since it is the first time the UK cabinet has a majority of female full members. When ministers eligible to attend cabinet meetings are included, raising the overall total to 28, the number of women increases to 14, establishing a 50:50 gender division.