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Andy Burnham has arrived at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool as he pledges his government will bring about radical change for Britain. The prime minister has promised to take the country in a “new direction” after a decade since Brexit had resulted in “drift and division”. On the eve of the conference in his native Merseyside, the prime minister unveiled a new scheme to help first-time house buyers and also announced he was expanding the job guarantee scheme by giving young people on health benefits fast access to opportunities.
However, he acknowledged the country faced a “challenging” set of circumstances at the budget and he would have to make tough choices to maintain the public finances. He said his vision would leave “people able to have hope again that things will improve, that life will get better – and it will”. On Sunday, party chair Bridget Phillipson, deputy leader Lucy Powell and first secretary of state Louise Haigh will be among the speakers.
Russia and Putin the ‘biggest threat’ to UK security, warns Streeting Wes Streeting has labelled Russia and president Vladimir Putin the biggest threat to the country’s security as he warned the UK is at the “greatest risk” of war in his life. Defence secretary Mr Streeting said the threat was behind the decision to “deliver the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War”. Speaking to The Sun on Sunday ahead of Labour’s conference which starts in Liverpool on Sunday, he said: “Without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest threat facing Britain is Russia and President Putin.
“We’ve got war in our continent. We’ve got a Russian president who has imperialist ambitions, who is constantly testing Britain’s defences, Nato defences and testing the strength of our alliances. Wes Streeting, the defence secretary (PA Wire) “And so, the sobering reality is that we face a greater risk of war than we’ve done at any point in my lifetime.” He said he is confident the country has what it needs to remain safe, but the same would not be true if defences were to “stand still” for five years.
“Strength builds deterrence, and deterrence makes it far less likely that we will end up in a place we don’t want to be – which is at war with Russia or, indeed, anyone else,” he said. Dan Haygarth 27 September 2026 07:31 Healey reveals plans to get more British products and services bought abroad The Government is launching a new scheme to encourage foreign companies to buy more British goods and services. Chancellor John Healey has announced a new UK Export Finance product, Flexible Finance, aimed at providing loans to buyers in fast-growing markets such as Brazil, Morocco and Mexico, to incentivise them to purchase British products.
The chancellor is expected to reveal more details of the scheme in his speech at the Labour conference on Monday. Mr Healey said: “We’re backing British businesses to strike more deals overseas, especially in countries which are growing fast but where we don’t have a big British footprint. “This is a new approach and part of the argument I will make in my speech in Liverpool on Monday that we are backing British industry and British innovation, helping create more markets abroad and more jobs at home.” He added: “The British export market is strong, making Britain the place to do business.
Companies across our four nations are seizing the opportunities to sell their goods and services around the world, but there are some markets we are yet to properly capitalise on. “This new pilot is a win-win for the companies that can continue to scale up, and for the communities in which they can inject new jobs and growth.” Dan Haygarth 27 September 2026 07:29 Burnham should still call snap election and campaign on reversing Brexit, former adviser says Andy Burnham should reconsider calling a snap general election and make undoing Brexit the centrepiece of the campaign, a former Labour government adviser has said. Mr Burnham tried to “knock dead” the idea of going to the polls early in interviews on the eve of the annual Labour party conference.
But Ben Judah, a special adviser to David Lammy in the Foreign Office until earlier this year, believes the prime minister could pull off an election victory to rival Boris Johnson’s in 2019 if he seized the moment on Europe. Read more: Dan Haygarth 27 September 2026 07:26 Burnham and Healey hint at tough choices to come, as Labour conference begins Both Andy Burnham and his chancellor have hinted at tough choices for the Government this autumn, despite the prime minister’s intent to push forward a message of hope at his first Labour conference since seizing power. Mr Burnham acknowledged he and the chancellor John Healey face a “challenging” set of circumstances at the Budget, and said he is prepared to take tough decisions to deliver his change agenda.
Elsewhere, Mr Healey signalled he was willing to make the case to Labour backbenchers over welfare reforms, as there was a “moral duty” to ensure a generation of young people get into work. Their room for manoeuvre at the budget has been severely constrained by rising borrowing costs, pushed up by the US-Iran war, among other global events. Speaking to The Guardian , Mr Burnham insisted his Government could both bring forward a radical reform agenda, and maintain the public finances amid the fraught economic situation.
He suggested the public would have “more respect for us if we go and grab something difficult ... and say, ‘right, we’re going to do something here’, rather than constantly playing the political game before fixing the problems”. He added: “It’s challenging, definitely, but there are still things that you can do. Always in politics, there are things that you can do.
The question is sometimes, are you prepared to do them? Yeah, I am prepared to do them.” Speaking to The Sunday Times , Mr Healey meanwhile suggested he was ready to argue his case with Labour backbenchers opposed to welfare reform, as a means of containing the ballooning costs to the public purse. He told the newspaper: “I first got elected nearly 30 years ago for part of Rotherham and in the 1990s, in South Yorkshire, the level of youth unemployment was one in three.
“That, for me, is a moral duty that this Government now must pick up again, with nearly a million youngsters post-Covid, before the election, not in employment, not in education, not in training. “I refuse to see a generation in jeopardy. I refuse to see a generation condemned to a life on benefits.” Dan Haygarth 27 September 2026 07:24 Daniel Haygarth 27 September 2026 07:22 Burnham arrives at Labour conference for first time as leader Andy Burnham has arrived at the Labour annual conference for the first time as the party’s leader.
He has promised to set out “a new direction for the country”, insisting he can bring about radical change despite economic headwinds. Ahead of the conference, he said: “We’re going to make this a really important week where we set out a new direction for the country.” “We’ve had a decade since Brexit, and it’s been a decade of too much drift, too much division, and we need to draw a line on that.” He said his vision would leave “people able to have hope again that things will improve, that life will get better – and it will”. Harriette Boucher 26 September 2026 21:02
Source: The Independent
