When the British monarchy or political class wants to appear as an integral and integrated part of the people they claim to represent, the recourse to visiting a pub is recurrent: like walking through markets during election time in Catalonia. From Boris Johnson to Nigel Farage; from Theresa May to Keir Starmer; from Charles III to Prince William, or also the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, they all let themselves be photographed with a pint of beer in their hands or filling one, as if they had been doing it since they were children.

Andy Burnham wanted to make things clear from the outset. In the first meeting of his government, this Tuesday at Downing Street, the new prime minister has asked his ministers to focus on seeking "all possible avenues" to help families suffering from the high cost of living. Six hours earlier, the government's information and propaganda machine had already set the course for the new executive and, above all, how it wants its first actions to be perceived, after announcing a total suspension of VAT for domestic electricity from October 1, which until now was 5%. Burnham accompanied the announcement with a message on social media saying: "I said I wanted to relieve the pressure families are suffering, and that's what I'm announcing on my second day as prime minister".

Today, to start, we have a government crisis. The new Minister of Social Rights is called Raúl Moreno, until now general secretary of the department. He replaces Mònica Martínez Bravo, who lived in Madrid and worked in Catalonia, and who requested relief from President Illa. At the handover ceremony, Illa remarked that it was a change of minister but not of policies. As Aleix Moldes explains today, this will not be the last government reshuffle where the Minister of Health, Olga Pané, currently on leave due to a fractured fibula, will not finish the term, nor will super-minister Sílvia Paneque, who will be sent back to her city, Girona, to try to regain the mayorship for the socialists. It is worth noting that Girona is a state-level mayoralty, because the relationship with the Spanish royal family will not be fully normalized in Catalonia until the awards named after the Crown heiress, the Princess of Girona, can be held in the city.It is clear that, due to a government crisis, that of the United Kingdom, which yesterday premiered a prime minister, the Labourite Andy Burnham, who in a speech without a lectern or teleprompter pledged to "make politics work, and work better", promised a new political model and a new economic model, to reindustrialize the United Kingdom. Burnham went straight to the point: the cost of living must be reduced, homelessness must be ended (he went to prepare breakfasts at a shelter for homeless people in London), in short, to get the United Kingdom out of a crisis that we also know here, but which there has the specificity of Brexit. It has been a bad deal: think that since the United Kingdom left the European Union (now, in June, it was 10 years ago) they have had seven prime ministers, and Burnham, specifically, is the fourth prime minister of Charles III in less than 4 years. Charles III succeeded his mother in September 2022, now four years ago, and began his reign with Liz Truss (who only lasted 45 days), Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, and now Andy Burnham. The fourth in less than four years is a clear sign of political instability derived from national disorientation, inflation, stagnant wages, lack of affordable housing, or the deterioration of public services.There are no perfect countries, they all carry a backpack or another; what do I have to tell you about Catalonia that you don't know. Today the day began with train traffic interrupted between Lleida and La Plana-Picamoixons due to a cable theft, as reported by Adif. An incident that happens every two by three, and which speaks, above all, of the abandonment in which Spain has kept its railway network in Catalonia for decades.In the last few hours, the Football World Cup has given the idea of Spain the possibility to look in the mirror and like itself, to make the speech of "When Spain plays, we all play", of the inclusive nation. This is the pleasant part of the Spanish message these days. But the nationalist discourse soon appeared, consisting of saying that it was enough to go around the world with complexes and that young people went out into the street without complexes. Let this comment from the newspaper this comment from the newspaper La Razón.Come on, cover yourselves a little. The idea of a unified and Castilian Spain has never had complexes (with a slight exception, a tactical withdrawal at the beginning of the Transition due to an apparent bad conscience due to the association between Spain and Francoism). For the rest, Spain goes its own way, with its language, investments, and blocking of any legal recognition of its plurinationality. And, on the other hand, let's understand each other: they present it as a success of the idea of Spain that people go out to celebrate the successes of the only team, when it is the only possible team, the "normal" one, which is normal because it is mandatory for athletes under penalty of losing their federative license to play. The only uninhibited thing is the nerve they have.

The image is too symbolic to let it go: the United Kingdom has changed its prime minister through the back door. While Buckingham Palace reserves the main entrance for tourists, it forces the political power to reach the audience with the king through the so-called luggage door due to the restoration work being carried out there. It is through there that Andy Burnham entered, who this Monday at noon received the commission from Charles III to form a new government.

Second chance for Labour, but with little room for error. Andy Burnham was officially chosen as the party leader this Friday at an extraordinary congress with the overwhelming support of 379 out of 403 parliamentary group deputies, and will enter Downing Street on Monday with the mission "to tackle the big problems that politics has left aside", according to the first words he uttered after the formalization of his leadership.

A recent scene sums up Andy Burnham, 56, pretty well. Three weeks ago, as he was about to return to the House of Commons as a elected Member of Parliament for Makerfield, he explained that he was traveling to London to take up the post of "mayor". He immediately corrected himself: "I mean MP". The slip of the tongue was revealing. After almost a decade at the head of Greater Manchester, Burnham no longer sees himself as just another member of the Westminster establishment, but as the mayor who has turned the great northern city into a political idea and a different way of understanding the United Kingdom. A look that he now wants to move to Downing Street, and which he can start to make real from Monday, when he receives the commission from Charles III to form a government and thus become the first number 59 of the United Kingdom.

The United Kingdom has a new messiah. One more or a real one? Or perhaps just another politician, naive enough, who believes he can change the system and not the other way around? Questions that, for now, have no answer. In any case, the man is called Andy Burnham and in all probability will become prime minister in just under three weeks, following the resignation announcement of Keir Starmer a week ago.

In 2018, this correspondent travelled to Boston (Lincolnshire), 212 kilometres north-east of London. Two years after the referendum on membership of the European Union, ARA wanted to test whether the so-called capital of Brexit regretted a decision that was proving very difficult to implement and was causing a permanent political crisis in Westminster. No, on the contrary, Boston remained proud of its stance, at least according to the testimonies I was able to obtain.

Who is Andy Burnham beyond the stereotype of Manchester and Mancunianism? The United Kingdom asks itself the question, as it could become a new prime minister in three weeks, after of the resignation announcement of Keir Starmer. In a gesture of acceptance of the brutality of politics, the first in functions met this Tuesday with his successor de facto outside Downing Street, as has been revealed The Times.

A mid-morning this Monday, as the acting premier, Keir Starmer, had just announced his decision to throw in the towel and leave Downing Street, the former mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, 56 years old, married to a Dutch citizen and with three children, arrived at Manchester Picadilly station to catch the train to London. He was carrying a bag containing a suit and, undoubtedly, many hopes. Burnham appeared surrounded by journalists, and all sorts of passers-by pointed their mobile phones at him. He was escorted by a pair of police officers; however, he was accompanied by some of his female advisors. He did not shy away from the attention, nor could he avoid the nerves. To such an extent that he declared to the BBC cameras that he was going down to London to take possession of the mayor's office. "I said as mayor; I mean as a Member of Parliament." A slip of the tongue.

A tearful and emotional Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for less than two years, announced this Monday that he is stepping down in a speech of just over six minutes. After a weekend of reflection at his country residence, and having communicated his decision to King Charles III, the premier has come to the conclusion that everyone around him had already accepted, perhaps less so himself. But the pressure has finally become unbearable given the evident lack of support within the Labour parliamentary group.

Good news for British Labourism and, at the same time, bad news for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and also for the ultra Nigel Farage. The incontestable victory in the Makerfield constituency by Andy Burnham in the by-election to the House of Commons held this Thursday opens a new phase in the party's crisis, and positions the Mayor of Manchester as the main contender to succeed Starmer in Downing Street. Burnham obtained 54.8% of the votes (24,927 ballots), very comfortably defeating the Reform Party candidate, Robert Kenyon (15,696). After almost a decade focused on local politics, the so-called King of the North will be able to return to Westminster, where he already tried to seize the party's reins after the electoral defeat of 2010.

The streets of Ashton‑in‑Makerfield and Hindley, the two main towns in the Makerfield constituency in northwest England, still echo a past that no longer exists. Their inhabitants would like to regain the security of a mine closed decades ago or the stability provided by the wages of a factory now reduced to ruins. Instead, they are faced with logistics centers, service companies, healthcare and elderly care providers, and zero-hour contracts that do not guarantee a single work shift.

The Brexit wound continues to bleed the British Labour Party, and by extension, the United Kingdom. The crisis that opened up in Keir Starmer's government last week following the electoral catastrophe of May 7 –and the growing internal pressure to oust him– has once again placed membership of the European Union at the center of the debate, as the tenth anniversary of the referendum approaches on June 23.

British politics has been advancing for decades like a Shakespearean comedy of errors: the characters change, but the pattern repeats. Long before the Brexit referendum, a decade ago, Westminster was already chaining cycles of confusion, miscalculated maneuvers, and governments trapped in their own mistakes. From 1974 – with two general elections, the fall of the conservative government, the winter of discontent, and unions at war – to parliaments without an absolute majority in the 21st century, passing through the illegal suspension of Parliament in 2019, the British system has shown a recurring fragility that contrasts with an image of impeccable solidity. The resignation announcement made this Monday by Keir Starmer, when he has not yet been in government for two years, once again highlights this.