Britain's new leader shifts power from Downing Street to Manchester with 'No. 10 North'

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Britain has a new hub of power: a bland modern office block about 165 miles (260 kilometers) from the prime minister's official London office and residence at 10 Downing St.

The Manchester low-rise is home to “No. 10 North,” the flagship of new Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s pledge to be a different kind of U.K. leader. Burnham was mayor of Greater Manchester before vaulting back into national politics, and one of his first acts was to set up a branch office in the city. It’s both symbol of and engine for his pledge to give local leaders more powers and spread economic growth around the country.

Burnham calls it “a North Pole that balances the South Pole" of Westminster politics in London. Critics have called it a gimmick.

It’s certainly a novelty. While past British leaders have spent weekends in their local constituencies, or at the prime minister’s official Chequers country retreat, none in living memory has had a large-scale office outside London. Burnham plans to work there at least one day a week, alongside a full-time staff of aides, experts and civil servants.

“It’s not another office," Burnham said Friday. "It is a fundamental change to the way the country thinks about growth and investment."

Burnham believes Manchester holds the key to avoiding the fate of Keir Starmer, his predecessor as Labour Party leader and prime minister.

Starmer stepped down in July after two years in office, following missteps, policy U-turns and his failure to get Britain’s sluggish economy growing.

During nine years as Manchester mayor, Burnham was praised standing up to central government on behalf of a proud, battle-scarred northern city that gave birth to the Industrial Revolution, movements for social change and a dynamic music scene. He gained the nickname King of the North for his championing of the city — and his political ambition.

Burnham promoted what has been called “Manchesterism,” a form of business-friendly socialism that involves harnessing private investment for major projects and decentralizing government to give communities more control over housing, transport, training and public services.

The city center boomed during his mayoralty. Skyscrapers sprouted from vacant lots, service industries grew, a thousand coffee shops bloomed and a municipally run network of bright yellow buses and trams crisscrossed the city.

Now Burnham wants to replicate the approach across the country, using No. 10 North as the engine room for redistributing wealth and economic opportunities to areas blighted by shuttered industries, lost jobs and an exodus of young people.

In a first step, Burnham announced Friday that mayors will get to keep a greater share of income and business tax revenue from their areas, calling it the “biggest transfer of power, funding and responsibility from Westminster in a generation.”

Many of the details haven’t been announced, however, including how much new money mayors will be getting.

Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said Burnham’s bold early moves suggest “he does mean business in terms of changing the overall mechanics of government.”

“We have one of the most centralized countries out of all developed democracies in terms of how much money and decision-making power gets hoovered into the center, how little there is for the provinces to do,” Ford said. “He does seem quite determined to change that, but that’s a huge job.”

Burnham's critics point out that Manchester’s boom hasn't spread to all its outskirts, and the anti-immigration party Reform UK has been a beneficiary of voters’ discontent.

It’s envisioned that No. 10 North will eventually get a brand-new headquarters as part of an inner-city redevelopment project. For now, it shares a building with a chain pub, a civic register office and a branch of the cyberintelligence agency GCHQ.

It’s very different to cramped, stuffy 10 Downing St, a 350-year-old townhouse awkwardly converted into the hub of a government that has grown too big for it.

Supporters say No. 10 North is already a breath of fresh air. Rose Marley, chief executive of Cooperatives UK, an umbrella group for member-owned businesses, felt the difference when she was invited to a meeting there.

“It was so refreshing that it wasn’t us having to travel to London all the time,” she said. “Westminster might start realizing how bad the trains are and how much it costs when they have to come back the other way.”

Marley, who advised Burnham when he was mayor, likens the impact to when the BBC moved production of some programs to Salford in Greater Manchester.

“For the first time ever, the likes of me were asked onto the BBC sofa,” she said. “It meant voices like mine started to appear on the sofa and a diversity of thinking started to be heard.

“The voices that are furthest away from what you’re saying and what you believe, that’s when you need to listen the most," she said. "Westminster really does need to listen to all the parts of the country.”

Most Mancunians are proud of their city, and many support the idea of it getting more control over its own affairs.

“I think it makes sense,” said Sam Turner, a nursing lecturer. “Because the north is very different to the south, there are different house values, there’s different land values, with different salaries.”

But Ford says Burnham will need to show that he is giving power to all parts of the country, not just Manchester.

“You could go to Liverpool down the road, or Leeds, or Sheffield and they’ll say, ‘Well, you know, an office in Manchester isn’t necessarily an office for us,’” Ford said. “So that’s an argument he still has to win.”

Lesley Lebbon, visiting Manchester from Newmarket in eastern England, said No. 10 North is “a start,” but that other regions need attention, too. She’d like to see “more No. 10s, maybe an East and a West No. 10.”

Still, “I like the idea of what No. 10 North represents,” she said. “I think any progress has got to be better than no progress.”

Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham, third left, holds a National Economic Council meeting at No 10 North at Heron House in Manchester, England. Friday July 24, 2026. (Christopher Furlong/Pool Photo via AP)

Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham holds a National Economic Council meeting at No 10 North at Heron House in Manchester, England. Friday July 24, 2026. (Christopher Furlong/Pool Photo via AP)

Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham during a visit to a family center in Sheffield, England, Friday, July 31, 2026. (Annabel Lee-Ellis/Pool Photo via AP)

Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham arrives to hold a National Economic Council meeting at No 10 North at Heron House in Manchester, England. Friday July 24, 2026. (Christopher Furlong/Pool Photo via AP)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched an intense barrage of ballistic missiles and drones overnight into Saturday, killing at least nine people and injuring 22 civilians in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities said.

The strikes came two days after a major Russian attack killed at least 10 people and injured more than 50 others across Ukraine, as Moscow apparently looks to exploit Kyiv’s critical shortage of Western-supplied anti-ballistic missile defenses. The relentless cycle of attacks dims the potential of reaching a diplomatic end to Russia’s more than 4-year-old invasion of its neighbor.

Russia’s defense ministry said Saturday it had launched a “massive strike” against “Ukrainian military-industrial complex facilities and logistics centers in Kyiv.”

A five-story residential building in the city's Solomianskyi District was damaged by falling debris and a fire broke out. Rescue workers evacuated 35 people from the upper floors of the building and two people died, with eight reported injured, including two children, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service.

In the Darnytskyi District of Kyiv, seven people were killed and another 14 injured after the attack caused fires and damage to houses, vehicles, an administrative and non-residential building, the emergency services said.

Elsewhere, emergency workers extinguished a fire in a non-residential building in the capital’s Shevchenkivskyi district. There was no additional information about earlier reports by the district mayor that people were trapped in another residential building.

Damage to commercial and residential buildings was reported in two other city districts.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pressed the United States and other Western partners over Ukraine’s need for more Patriot anti-ballistic missile defense systems to counter missile attacks from Russia.

The Ukrainian leader late Friday said he spoke to U.S. Vice President JD Vance and discussed a meeting with President Donald Trump earlier this week in Washington, which Zelenskyy described as “positive and productive.”

“The Russian air strikes on our country continue and air defense, specifically interceptors for Patriot systems against ballistic missiles, remains a top priority,” Zelenskyy said Friday in a post on Telegram.

At a NATO summit in Ankara in July, Trump said the U.S. would give Ukraine a license to make Patriot systems, but he appeared to move away from that commitment on Friday during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, saying he had not yet made a final decision on the matter.

From a basement shelter where she was taking cover as a second air alarm sounded for another wave, Liudmyla Nakonechna, 64, described how she was woken by loud explosions at 1:30 a.m.

“I ran into the corridor and was standing there when the bathroom door was blown off its hinges and struck me in the leg,” said Nakonechna, whose health is poor after undergoing cancer treatment. “I heard the sound of shattering glass. My balcony was covered in glass and it was completely blown apart, while the windows in my bedroom were also blown out.”

Nakonechna had not taken cover in a shelter since Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, but the stress became too much, she said.

“It’s getting worse by the day,” Nakonechna said. “Whereas before there was an attack once every two weeks, or maybe once a week, now it happens practically every day. It is incredibly hard to bear this psychologically.”

Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)