Burnham's first fortnight: the promises that set the clock

Prime Minister Andy Burnham is two weeks into office and already carrying a stack of pledges across domestic policy. The Mirror reports he has vowed to tackle "issues ignored by Westminster" including rough sleeping and fly-tipping; the Sun warns he has "made a rod for his own back" with the homelessness commitment, with insiders expressing concern about delivery.

The range is broad. The Express warns Burnham is "repeating Keir Starmer's biggest mistake" and "putting UK in danger" - the piece appears to concern defence spending and military preparedness, with the headline noting enemies "marvel at UK complacency". Separately, the Express reports the military "need answers on funding". GB News carries calls for Burnham to "rapidly expand prison capacity" following outrage over the early release of PC Andrew Harper's killers. The Mirror reports he is being urged to "step up" on child poverty as families face the summer holidays.

The revealing pattern is the frontloading. A new government's opening promises set the metrics by which it will be judged - and Burnham has now tied his tenure to rough sleeping numbers, prison capacity, defence expenditure and child poverty rates within a fortnight. Each is measurable, each carries a constituency that will hold the scorecard, and none can be delivered by gesture. The risk isn't the difficulty of any single promise but the breadth of the slate: every pledge is a future line in the opposition's list.

What to watch: the first quarterly rough sleeping statistics under this government, due from the Department for Levelling Up. The count is the clock Burnham has set himself.