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Andy Burnham has selected the most Northern Cabinet since the Second World War, a Telegraph analysis has found.
Some 13 of the 23 ministers in the so-called King of the North’s Cabinet represent seats in the north of England.
These include his Chancellor, John Healey, who represents the seat of Rawmarsh and Conisbrough in South Yorkshire, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, who is the MP for Doncaster, and Louise Haigh, MP for Sheffield Heeley and Mr Burnham’s First Secretary of State.
The appointments come after a YouGov survey this month found that voters were concerned that Mr Burnham would fail to unite the country by disproportionately favouring the North.
Mr Burnham’s purge of Sir Keir Starmer’s allies from the Cabinet increased its proportion of Northern MPs from 50 per cent to 57 per cent.
It also replaced the previous most Northern under Gordon Brown in 2010, when 55 per cent of his Cabinet members whose seats were in England represented constituencies in the North.
Steve Reed, the MP for Streatham and Croydon North in south London, was replaced as housing secretary by Angela Rayner, who represents Ashton-under-Lyne in Greater Manchester.
David Lammy, who served as deputy prime minister and justice secretary under Sir Keir, and is MP for Tottenham, was also removed from the Cabinet. James Murray, the MP for Ealing, and Peter Kyle, MP for Hove, were also forced out.
The reshuffle on Mr Burnham’s first day in office left only 13 per cent of the Cabinet representing seats in the south of England. Sir Tony Blair and Mr Brown had equally low representations.
It is understood Mr Burnham will work from Manchester at least one day a week at the new “No 10 North”, a satellite office of Downing Street.
The Prime Minister said the office would act as the “nerve centre of a rewired Britain” and take power out of Whitehall to redistribute it to the regions.
However, some Labour MPs have privately expressed concerns that his focus on the North risks alienating other parts of the country that feel left behind.
The YouGov survey – commissioned after Mr Burnham announced his flagship Manchester office – found that less than a quarter of the public (23 per cent) thought he would legislate in the interests of the whole country as prime minister.
The poll of 4,473 adults showed 27 per cent of the public thought he would govern mainly in the interests of the North.
This was felt most acutely by Conservative voters (45 per cent), Reform supporters (35 per cent) and Liberal Democrats (31 per cent).
A mere 4 per cent of voters thought Mr Burnham would govern in the interests of London and the South East.
Mr Burnham, who read English at the University of Cambridge, is the first prime minister not to have gone to Oxford University since Mr Brown, who attended the University of Edinburgh.
Almost half of Mr Burnham’s Cabinet (48 per cent) attended either Oxford or Cambridge University, an increase from the 37 per cent under Sir Keir.
They are also far more likely to have attended private school. Under Sir Keir, whose government added 20 per cent VAT to school fees, Ms Haigh was the only Cabinet minister to have attended a private secondary school, according to the Sutton Trust.
She was forced to resign in September 2024 over a historic fraud conviction.
By contrast, four of Mr Burnham’s Cabinet attended independent secondary schools.
These are Chris Bryant, the Northern Ireland Secretary, who attended £63,186-a-year Cheltenham College, Miatta Fahnbulleh, the Energy Secretary, who went to £24,597-a-year Beechwood Sacred Heart School in Tunbridge Wells, Alex Norris, the Justice Secretary, was a pupil at £19,809-a-year Manchester Grammar School, and Ms Haigh, who went to £19,611-a-year Sheffield High School.
