has no plan to turn the ountry arond and runs the Party in a ‘divisive way’,  suggested yesterday.

In what appeared to be a pitch for a return to Westminster, the Greater Manchester Mayor said ‘wholesale change’ was needed.

Ahead of the Labour conference this weekend, he refused to rule out a leadership bid and said he would be happy to play ‘any role’ as he criticised the Prime Minister’s approach.

He said: ‘To me, the issue of the confrence is not who is the deputy leader [or] who is leader. The issue is: where is our plan to turn the country around? This kind of challenge… cannot be met by a very factional and quite divisive running of the Labour Party.’

As Sir Keir flails in the polls after a series of calamities, Mr Burnham told The New Statesman: ‘I’m going to put the question back to people at Labour conference: are we up for wholesale change?

‘Am I attracted to going back into my old world and the old way of doing things in Westminster? Well no, I wouldn’t find that attractive.

 am I ready to work with anybody who wants to put in place a plan to turn the country around? I’m happy to play any role. Yes. Because the threat we’re facing is increasingly an existential one.’

He called for a ‘rolling back of the 1980s’ with utilities such as housing, energy, rail and water in public ownership.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has said ‘wholesale change’ was needed and revealed he has been approached to challenge Keir Starmer (Pictured May 14, 2025)

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He described his vision as ‘aspirational socialism’ and called for Labour to ‘get back to speaking to working-class ambition’.

His blueprint also includes higher council tax on expensive properties in London and the South East, income tax cuts for lower earners and borrowing £40billion to build council homes.

And last night it was reported that Mr Burnham had revealed how MPs are privately urging him to challenge Sir Keir for leadership of the party. ‘People have contacted me throughout the summer, yeah,’ he said.

‘I’m not going to say to you that hasn’t happened, but… it’s more a decision for those people than it is for me.’

Mr Burnham claimed No10 has created a ‘climate of fear’ among MPs and accused Sir Keir’s team of ‘alienation and demoralisation’ in the party.

Saying that it would be a ‘wrench’ to leave his role in Manchester, he said he was fed up with being accused of spending ‘every waking minute of my life thinking about how I, you know, take over and that’s just not true’.

He added: ‘It’s the plan that matters most, rather than me. Can we agree on a plan to turn this country around by retaking control of those essentials and being bold about it, and then helping to reduce the cost of living and helping control public spending as a result?

‘It can’t be just a changing of the guard: you have to change the whole culture… are people up for that?’

To run against Sir Keir in a leadership contest, Mr Burnham would have to resign his position as GReater Manchester mayor, win a Westminster seat in a by-election, and receive nominations from at least 80 Labour MPs.

He also insisted there is an ‘unhealthy culture’ in politics based on ‘point-scoring’. He believes proportional representation should be introduced to allow for coalitions of the ‘progressive majority’.

He also appeared to attack Chancellor Rachel Reeves for refusing to increase borrowing for fear of economic instability. ‘We’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets,’ he said.

There are many hurdles for him to clear before he could challenge Sir Keir, including winning a seat in Parliament.

He was an MP until 2017, but a by-election is the only way he can return ahead of the next general election.

The party’s executive board, led by those loyal to Sir Keir, would need to agree he could stand in a seat. And it would need to be one Labour could win – tricky with Reform UK doing well in the polls.

Asked if she would welcome his return, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told the BBC: ‘There isn’t a vacancy so I’m not sure which job he’d be applying for.’

But one backbencher told  he ‘would have a caucus of support’ if he ran, and another said: ‘If Andy’s going to go, he’s got to come out. He’s got to stop playing footsie with the Labour Party and say that the current man’s not up to it