An ambitious former Whitehall policy adviser who has worked for the Labour Party for most of his life, Andy Burnham said he had got his dream job when he became Secretary of State for Culture, media and Sport in 2008.
But he had other dreams to dream. He could not resist a promotion to Secretary of State for Health in the hurried reshuffle of 2009.
And less than a year later he had thrown his hat into the ring to succeed Gordon Brown as Leader of the Labour Party. He stressed his Northern working-class roots and said he wanted to reconnect with people who had lost faith with Labour.
Just scraping past the hurdle of 33 nominations, mostly from MPs north of the Trent, he said he would not disown the Party’s record in Government, but acknowledged that it had made a number of mistakes.
He presented himself as the anti-establishment candidate on the side of the grass roots against a “self-serving elite” which didn’t trust its members.
He called for a radical reform of the tax system, based on a tax on the rental value of land. But his campaign seemed to falter as the summer wore on.
He first entered the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in Brown’s first prime ministerial reshuffle in 2007. Only seven months later he got his own Department as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in the reshuffle following Peter Hain’s resignation.
He promised school children at least five hours of high-level culture a week in addition to the national curriculum, including cultural visits and opportunities for participation in arts activities.
He had succeeded Lawrence Cunliffe in the safe seat of Leigh in 2001, with no previous campaign or local government experience. Cunliffe's 1997 majority of 24,496 was substantially cut, largely due to a turnout of less than 50 per cent, but he still won nearly 56 per cent of the vote. There was virtually no swing in 2005.
He served on the Health Select Committee for two years before becoming Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary David Blunkett in 2003. A year later he moved to be PPS to the Education Secretary Ruth Kelly.
He got his first ministerial post in 2005, returning to the Home Office, now under new management, as Parliamentary Under Secretary. A year later he may have been grateful to escape, even to another troubled Department, especially as it involved a major promotion to number two at the Department of Health, responsible for service delivery and quality.
With a strong reputation for efficiency, he drove through important reforms such at the eighteen-week waiting target, somewhat eclipsing his boss Patricia Hewitt. But he was booed and heckled by health workers dissatisfied with their pay rise.
He was special adviser to the first Secretary of State for Culture Chris Smith for three years, having been parliamentary officer for the NHS Confederation and administrator for the Football Task Force. Before that he was researcher to Tessa Jowell for three years in Opposition.
He was credited with having persuaded Smith to target more lottery money towards former coalfield areas, including Leigh.
In his maiden speech he owned up to having made Commons history in 1996 by ringing the future Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell on her mobile phone in the Chamber, but said it did not seem to have harmed her career. Nor did it seem to have harmed his when he took over her former job.
A local Lancashire lad, born in 1970 to a family from Liverpool, he went to a Roman Catholic high school in Newton-le-Willows and read English at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He joined the Labour Party at fourteen, radicalised by the Thatcher years and the miners’ strike.
He is a member of the Co-operative Party, TGWU and Unison. He gives his main political interests as health, sport, media and education, and is a keen pro-European. Seen as an authoritarian, he promoted identity cards as a Home Office Minister, and was one of the early advocates of the smoking ban.
His looks have attracted almost as much comment from lady columnists as his politics. Rosie Millard in The Sunday Times concentrated on his “huge brown eyes, perfectly-shaped eyebrows… luxuriant lashes”.
He found himself in hot water when he attacked the former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis for resigning his seat to fight a by-election over civil liberties. He said Davis should pay the costs, and referred to “late-night, hand-wringing, heart-melting telephone calls" to the director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti. Miss Chakrabarti threatened to sue, and Burnham apologised.
He married Dutch-born Marie-France Van Heel in 2000 and has a son and two daughters. Revelation of his expenses claims caused some embarrassment when he pleaded with the fees office to pay a £16,000 bill for decorating – “otherwise I might be in line for divorce.”
Something of a football fanatic, he has written books on the industry, plays for the House of Commons team and is a lifelong fan of Everton FC. He also enjoys rugby league (Leigh RLFC) and is a good cricketer.
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