Andy Burnham opens up about dad’s loss of life – and the way he navigated powerful occasions in emotional clip
‘It was hard coming into office because I knew, as I was starting my journey as Prime Minister, he was ending his journey,’ Burnham says of his dad in emotional video
Andy Burnham has spoken about how his late dad kept him grounded and told him to do whatever he can to help people.
In a highly emotional video, the Prime Minister opened up about the loss of his father, who died aged 86 in September after living in a care home with Alzheimer’s disease.
The Labour leader appeared in a social media series called A Mug of Life, which sees host Will Shears offer a cup of tea to strangers to help combat loneliness. Mr Burnham recounted memorable cuppas with his mum on a Sunday morning as they’d try to navigate his dad’s illness.
He spoke about starting his journey as Prime Minister in July, while knowing his dad was coming to the end of his journey, describing it as different “overwhelming things happening at the same time”. His dad’s condition was so advanced that he didn’t know his son was becoming Prime Minister.
But Mr Burnham said he feels he can now celebrate his father, Kenneth Roy Burnham, known as Roy, saying his family were lucky “we had so long together”.
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In a heartwarming chat between Mr Burnham and Mr Shears, the PM says with a laugh that he has “too many” cups of tea a day – between 10 and 14. Mr Shears added: “I was talking to my gran and I was like, ‘oh, I’ve been asked to make tea for the Prime Minister and my gran was like, you have to make tea!”
Asked if he had a memorable cup of tea in his life, the PM said: “Goodness, I’ve never really thought about that. I think it would be well, probably with my mum, actually. When things were a little tough with my dad, and yeah, that would be (it).
“We used to spend a Sunday morning just trying to work it all out in our heads and go through all of the things around it and remind ourselves that we’ve been actually quite blessed, really. And it was easy to get ‘woe is me’ and, you know, get sort of weighed down with it. But my mum would always – we’d always have a cup of tea and work it all out.”
After Mr Shears said he was sorry to hear about the loss of his dad, and asked him how the last few months have been, Mr Burnham continued: “It was hard coming into office because I knew, as I was starting my journey as Prime Minister, he was ending his journey. I knew that, and it did make it quite hard.
“There was a moment in Downing Street on the day and I was holding my mum, and it was yeah, it was hard because overwhelming things happening at the same time, and yeah, I kept just thinking about that in those big moments.
“But I’ve got to the phase now where you know I can celebrate it now. I can really feel thankful for it all, because he just did everything and grounded me in the way that you would hope. And we were just lucky as a family. You know, we had so long together. My dad would be very like: ‘Just help people. Don’t overthink it. Just do what you can every day to do something.'”
Mr Burnham used his landmark speech at Labour conference to promise he’ll build a Britain his dad would be proud of. The tearful Prime Minister nearly broke down as he spoke of the influence of his dad Roy on his politics, and was given a standing ovation by delegates as he composed himself.
He paid tribute to the carers who looked after his dad and set out plans to build a National Care Service that is free at the point of use.
