Labour activists queued for hours to take their seats for Andy Burnham’s first party conference speech as leader.

Some were even left locked outside, such was the demand to see the prime minister in the flesh.

Burnham had promised to be “honest” with voters about the challenges which lie ahead as he sets about changing the country.

Burnham did not disappoint as he set out a raft of policy plans he hopes to will carry Labour to victory at the next election.

The PM said: “You may disagree with some or all of what I’ve said today but I have given you what you often say is missing from politics – honesty, ideas and a clear direction for the country we all love.”

Here, HuffPost UK looks at six things we learned from Burnham’s 70-minute speech.

The prime minister’s big announcement was a change to the rules on the state pension triple lock from April 2030 to save billions to plough into a new “National Care Service”.

Under plans introduced by David Cameron’s government, the pension currently goes up by whichever is higher out of the rate of inflation, average earnings or 2.5%.

Under Burnham’s reforms, the link to inflation or 2.5% will remain.

But he would only pledge that the pension will “hold its value relative to wages over time”.

No.10 sources later said that meant in some years, the pension would go up by more than inflation and 2.5%.

Burnham said “this change will generate significant savings that we will use to build up our national care service”, although it is still unclear how much that will be.

The new “fully funded” care service, the PM said, would ensure free nursing care for all elderly people in the country once it is up and running.

He said: “This is the deal – a state pension that rises every year, no care charges and a high quality national care service to give peace of mind in later life.

“I am going to go out and argue for that – a good deal for our pensioners and for older people in the 21st century.”

Mr Burnham vowed to strengthen public control of the water system with a Bill that will repeal “Margaret Thatcher’s ideological ban on public ownership of water companies”.

He said that will “start a 10-year journey to a very different water system”, giving local leaders new powers to hold water companies to account and closing loopholes used to pay big bonuses.

The Labour leader described the water industry as a “symbol of what has gone wrong with Britain” in which “shareholders never lose and the public never win, from which some have syphoned out easy money while the public picked up the bill for the sewage in our seas”.

The next Labour election manifesto will contain a pledge to overhaul the electoral system “so everyone’s vote counts and everyone’s voice is heard”, Burnham declared.

He said the first past the post system is no longer fit for purpose as he slammed the “political turbulence” which has seen Britain have seven PMs in 10 years.

Replacing it with a system of proportional representation will be fairer, Burnham insisted.

In a clear reference to Reform UK, he said: “We will all have failed in our public duties if we carry on as we are and open the door of No.10 to a divisive government on 30% of the vote or less.”

In the most emotional part of his speech, the PM mounted a strong defence of the United Kingdom as he paid tribute to his dad Roy, who died earlier this month after a battle with Alzheimer’s Disease.

He said SNP leader John Swinney’s claim that Burnham would be the last prime minister of the UK made him “utterly determined to prove him wrong”.

Fighting back tears, Burnham said: “Whatever its flaws, this country gave my dad a good life. And it has given his sons opportunities he didn’t get for himself.

“He recognised that and was grateful for it and so proud of what Nick, John and I did with them.

“If only, if only, he had been able to appreciate that moment with the family on Downing Street.

“The son of a man who failed the 11-plus becoming prime minister.”

The PM included the vote to leave the European Union among a list of decisions which he said had damaged the country, alongside “deindustrialisation, deregulation, privatisation and austerity”.

Brexit, he said, “hasn’t given us control”, instead “we’ve lost some of the control we had over our economy, as a decade of low growth has put us in a weaker position”.

“Brexit has done more harm than good,” Burnham said.

Later in the speech, the prime minister said he wanted to explore much closer ties with Brussels.

He promised to set out different options for the UK’s relationship with the EU in the future “and I will see if we can find consensus around one which will give us clarity about our position and the future of the continent that we live in”.

As part of his attempts to bring down the cost of living, the PM said the government will set up a publicly-owned Great British Grid to improve competition in the energy sector, speed up connections for businesses and drive down bills.

Burnham said: “Within 10 years, I want our energy costs to be in line with other nations in Europe. That means we must reform a broken energy market so it serves the public interest.”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

Labour would lose its huge Commons majority if Andy Burnham were to call a snap election, according to new analysis.

A calculation based on the latest opinion polls shows Labour would be by far the largest in the House of Commons with 253 MPs.

But that would be 150 fewer than they have at the moment, and leave the party 73 seats short of an overall majority.

At the moment, Burnham has a working Commons majority of 166.

The forecast, by Election Maps UK, shows Reform UK coming second with 136 seats – 128 more than they have now – if an election were held tomorrow.

The Tories would be third with 101 seats, 17 fewer than they currently have.

The Lib Dems would be unchanged on 72 seats, while the number of SNP would jump from 8 to 43.

Although Burnham does not need to call an election until 2029, speculation continues at Westminster that he could be tempted to do so next spring.

Supporters of the move say he should capitalise on the boost in support Labour has enjoyed since he replaced Keir Starmer as prime minister.

An election victory would also give Burnham his own mandate, and another five years in power.

However, the Election Maps UK analysis suggests he would need to do a deal with another party, most likely the Lib Dems, in order to govern.

Speaking to the BBC in July, he said: “There’s no early general election. I don’t think people want it.”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

For Andy Burnham, it has been the summer of his dreams.

He has finally been able to enjoy the fulfilment of his life’s work, having become Labour leader at the third time of asking – and prime minister – on July 20.

Without the inconvenience of having to answer to parliament, which went into recess the week before, Burnham has largely spent his time making a string of announcements and seemingly endless TikTok videos with well known content creators.

In his first week in No.10 alone, the new PM announced a business rate cut for the hospitality sector, a £2 cap on bus fares and scrapping VAT on electricity bills.

There have also been announcements on reviving “hollowed out High Streets” and a crackdown on “rip off discounts and subscription traps”.

Burnham has also been travelling the length and breadth of the country, meeting voters and hammering home the message, if indeed there was any doubt, that his government will do things differently than Keir Starmer’s.

He even managed to squeeze in a visit to the Hill Dickinson Stadium to watch his beloved Everton record a rare Premier League victory.

If you throw in his comprehensive triumph in the Makerfield by-election on June 18, it is little wonder that Burnham has rarely been seen without a smile on his face over the past three months.

He will be well aware, however, that as sure as summer will shortly make way for autumn, his political honeymoon is also coming to an end.

Alex Newton, deputy director of the More in Common think-tank, said Burnham still faces a huge challenge in winning back the voters Labour have lost since the 2024 general election, especially those who have switched to Reform.

Brits are also evenly split on whether the prime minister attempts so far to tackle the cost of living are simply a publicity stunt or a genuine effort to help them, he said.

“Some 54% weren’t confident he will address the cost of living,” Newton told HuffPost UK. “That kind of pessimism means that if he doesn’t deliver on this, it will hit Labour and his approval ratings.”

The prime minister is faced with a lengthy list of other issues, each with the potential to throw his new government off track.

Here, HuffPost UK looks at the various challenges facing the PM as MPs return to Westminster on Tuesday.

On day one, justice secretary Alex Norris will set out how he plans to exempt two of the killers of PC Andrew Harper from the government’s highly controversial early release scheme.

Norris was given that particular hospital pass by Burnham following a huge public backlash to the prospect of Jessie Cole and Albert Blowers walking free after just six years behind bars.

But even if, as expected, Norris does manage to tweak the policy to keep the two men in prison, the sight of other dangerous criminals getting out early will undoubtedly damage the PM’s standing with the public.

The sight of 230 migrants crossing the English Channel on a single boat became one of the defining images of the summer.

Although Home Office statistics showed that the overall number of asylum seekers arriving in the UK is down by 23% compared to a year ago, a YouGov poll showed the public believes the total has actually gone up.

Burnham’s acknowledged the importance of solving the problem by visiting Dover at the start of August, when he vowed to be “relentless” in his attempts to stop the boats.

But it is a problem which has confounded several prime ministers. If Burnham fails as well, Nigel Farage is waiting in the wings to replace him in No.10.

If the first priority of government is to keep its citizens safe, then providing the necessary funds for the military should be its number one priority.

Keir Starmer left behind a £5 billion black hole in the government’s Defence Investment Plan (DIP), which John Healey needs to fill when he delivers his first Budget as chancellor in October.

That is the same John Healey who resigned as Starmer’s defence secretary over the then PM’s failure to commit to spending 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) on the military by 2030.

Despite that, Healey has so far refused to commit to coming up with the cash himself, despite now being in charge of the nation’s purse strings, an apparent U-turn dismissed as “unforgivable” by the Tories.

With the geopolitical situation now more uncertain than at any time since the end of the Cold War, Burnham and Healey simply have no other option than to find the money needed to defend the realm.

The fact that Burnham became Labour leader and PM unchallenged, he remains untested in a number of areas – none more so than on foreign affairs.

Although he has said he wants to be more domestically-focused than his predecessor, he can hardly ignore the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Iran and Gaza, this is a situation which can best be described as sub-optimal.

It was significant that he chose Kyiv for his first foreign trip, a clear sign that Burnham will follow the example of Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and Starmer in offering Volodymyr Zelenskyy his steadfast support.

The PM even gave the Ukrainians a British blueprint for developing their own long-range missiles – a move which enraged the Kremlin.

On Gaza, Burnham has criticised Starmer for his response to Israel’s bombing campaign in the wake of the Hamas terror attacks on October 7, 2023.

The PM’s future approach to that conflict will be another defining issue of his premiership, with the potential to blow apart the tentative left-of-centre coalition he has been building.

As if wars around the world were not enough to contend with, Burnham must also try to maintain a positive relationship with Donald Trump, something Starmer ultimately failed to do.

The early signs have been positive, with the US president describing the prime minister as “terrific” on the basis of one telephone call on Burnham’s first day in the job.

However, this view seems to be based on the assumption that Burnham will satisfy Trump’s desire to see the North Sea opened up to more drilling for oil and gas.

Although he has vowed to be more “pragmatic” on the issue than Starmer, the PM has also insisted he will stand by Labour’s manifesto commitment not to award new drilling licences.

The pair are due to meet at the UN General Assembly in New York next month.

As unpalatable as it may be for a man who once said Trump was not welcome in Manchester, making nice with the president would give Burnham one less headache to contend with.

September will also see Burnham’s first Labour Party conference as leader, an event which promises to be far more upbeat than a year ago, when it was already apparent that Starmer was not up to the job.

With Labour now topping the polls and imbued with a renewed sense of optimism, the prime minister can expect a hero’s welcome.

It will not all be sweetness and light, however, with left-wing campaign groups determined to pile pressure on Burnham to declare Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide, and to impose a complete arms embargo on the country.

Doing so would provoke an angry backlash from groups such as Labour Friends of Israel, however, and trigger the kind of party split which the PM is determined to avoid.

Political consultant Laura Emily Dunn told HuffPost UK: “The return to parliament will be a test of the PM and the government’s prioritisation – which of the hot topic issues will they want to deal with first? Early prisoner release? The The economy? Small boats? The devil will be in the detail.”

Senior Labour figures said Burnham should enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend, as it will only get more difficult from now on.

One told HuffPost UK: “Andy came to office making a lot of big promises, and his summer has gone well.

“But that means the party’s expectations are sky high. How will he manage that through Labour conference, the Budget, a spending review process and weekly PMQs sessions?

“Andy promised all sorts and now they are hinting the Budget will be steady. Basically – the runway on promising all things to all men is getting shorter and shorter.”

The source added: “Apart from ‘vibes’, what’s the difference with what Starmer was doing? That’s not to dismiss vibes – they really matter – but politics always comes back to policy in the end.”

A Labour MP added: “I think his main challenge is all the promises Andy made as mayor of Manchester to the membership will need to be kept.

“Any hint he’s reneging on them will pour rocket fuel on the Greens when they’re on the ropes. He’s also got to navigate a restive Parliamentary Labour Party, with some pissed off Starmer loyalists, and he’s got to start delivering for an impatient electorate.

“Basically, Andy’s September 2026 biggest problem is Andy Burnham from March 2026.”

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