UK leader Burnham gathers his Cabinet after sweeping away Starmer supporters

LONDON: New UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham will gather his Cabinet for a first meeting on Tuesday, after purging allies of predecessor Keir Starmer from the government.

Burnham made a small down payment on his pledge to give people “breathing space” in their finances, announcing a tax cut on energy bills that will save the average household about 45 pounds ($60) a year. The cut will take effect Oct. 1, Burnham said, with the funding coming from scrapping a plan for digital ID cards announced by Starmer.The former mayor of Greater Manchester entered Downing St. on Monday after replacing Starmer as leader of the governing Labour Party, becoming Britain’s seventh prime minister since 2016. Starmer resigned just two years after winning a landslide election victory, forced out by his own party after a series of missteps and U-turns.First, he set about remaking the government in his image.

Starmer’s finance minister, Rachel Reeves, is out, replaced by John Healey, a former defense secretary who resigned in June and accused the Treasury of failing to spend enough on the military at a time of rising threats. In an interview after he quit, Healey called the Treasury “a dead hand on dynamic government” andWes Streeting, whose resignation as health secretary in May helped topple Starmer, takes over the defense portfolio.The Ministry of Defense said the frigate Neustrashimy was being shadowed by the Royal Navy when it conducted the exercise in international waters about 46 miles (74 kilometers) south of Plymouth in southwest England.Burnham removed several of Starmer’s senior ministers from the government including ex-Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, former Business Secretary Peter Kyle and Starmer’s chief secretary, Darren Jones.

In a reminder of the growing international tensions Britain faces, a Russian warship carried out a live-fire weapons exercise in the English Channel on Monday, the day Burnham took office.