Andy Burnham becomes the UK new prime minister

**Sarah Rogers** (0:01)
Five UK Prime Ministers in just four years. The latest promising a new economy. It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service. I'm Sarah Rogers. Russia feels the economic impact of its war with Ukraine after drone attacks hit its biggest online retailer. If you're going on vacation to Europe this year, why long queues might be waiting for you when you land.
Now, when the leader of a country is elected, it is of course generally hoped that they'll be in charge for the whole of their term and tackle the challenges faced by its people. Today in the UK, however, the fifth prime minister in just four years has taken charge.
Well, that was the reception for the leader of the left-wing Labour Party and new Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Mr Burnham came into power after his predecessor Keir Starmer lost the confidence of the party and the public, forcing a leadership change after just two years in office. He takes charge against an economic backdrop of high borrowing costs, slow growth and cost of living challenges. Here's what he had to say.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:14)
Britain needs to show the world that we can regain our stability once again. And that is our challenge, to make politics work, to make it work better.
I know people at home are fed up with politics. I hear you, and I want to be honest with you. We have not been good enough, and we need to be better.

**Sarah Rogers** (1:41)
Well, the new PM promised to build a new economy and spread more power around the country. His words made financial markets slightly nervous though, nudging up the cost of UK government borrowing. Here's the BBC's political editor, Chris Mason, on that revolving door at number 10 Downing Street.

**Chris Mason** (1:57)
There's no novelty value in recent years of these moments because we've seen them so frequently. So how does an incoming prime minister grab people's attention and hold it when people will think, well, I heard of Keir Starmer's 10 year plan, and now I'm about to hear of Andy Burnham's 10 year plan.
How does he break the trend of prime ministers who arrive here and talk about the long term and they're out the door pretty much in short order?

**Sarah Rogers** (2:23)
Well, that was Chris Mason there. Maybe Jane Sydenham, investment director at Rathbone's Investment Management has the answer. Now, Jane, we don't have any policy details yet, but how is this all being viewed outside of the UK?

**Jane Sydenham** (2:36)
It's a very important question because sterling is quite a small currency and it makes up about 3% of world currencies. At the moment, the pound is pretty steady, so that tells you that there's no international panic about this. On the one hand, on the other hand, the borrowing costs, as you say, the 10-year government bond yield is now over 5%. So that's risen by quite a bit on a single day, actually. It's up just under 2%.
So that shows you that there's a little bit of worry about, should we lend money to the UK? Is it safe? That's how markets think about these things in these circumstances.

**Sarah Rogers** (3:14)
And there will be international demands as well, indicating one of his first calls will be to President Donald Trump.

**Jane Sydenham** (3:20)
Yes. I mean, he's got a pretty full inbox. I'm not sure I'd want to have it. And one of the things that's tricky, of course, is the relationship between the UK and the US has become a bit strange since Donald Trump introduced tariffs, a new approach to trade and business, a new approach to relationships over defense, particularly over the Gulf. So there's a lot of things to resolve with those international relations too.

**Sarah Rogers** (3:47)
And we're talking about the backdrop of cost of living challenges. People are feeling that fuel prices are going up again due to oil prices. Where are we at now?

**Jane Sydenham** (3:56)
So today, the oil price is reasonably flat, but it's off, it's risen by about 22%.
As we thought that the Gulf War was coming to an end, the oil price fell sharply. Since then, it's risen by 22% as the hostilities have resumed as the drone attacks have continued. So people are worried.

**Sarah Rogers** (4:18)
And briefly, it's pushed up the cost of jet fuel, which has hit Irish budget airline carriers, Ryanair's bottom line as well.

**Jane Sydenham** (4:26)
Yes. I mean, Ryanair is a really strong player in the airline industry. It's one of the best run businesses, and phenomenally successful. But their pre-tax profits for the recent period were down about just over 30% because of uncertainty caused by the Iran War. Just fewer bookings and worries about the cost of the rise in ticket prices because of fuel increases.