Muscat – His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik has sent a cable of congratulations to Andy Burnham on his appointment as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

In the cable, His Majesty conveyed his sincere congratulations and best wishes to Burnham for success in his new responsibilities, and wished the people of the UK continued progress and prosperity.

His Majesty also expressed his hope for further strengthening the longstanding relations of friendship and cooperation between Oman and the UK in a manner that serves the shared interests of the two friendly countries.

Burnham becomes UK’s 7th PM in a decade

Burnham formally became PM of the UK after meeting King Charles at Buckingham Palace on Monday, the fourth person to hold the role in less than four years and the seventh in a decade.

Burnham, who took over from Keir Starmer as leader of the Labour party on Friday, accepted the appointment as PM shortly after Starmer went to the palace to resign to the monarch.

A former Greater Manchester mayor, who only returned to parliament a month ago, Burnham headed to Downing Street where he spoke to the assembled media before announcing his cabinet.

Speaking without a prompter or notes in his first speech as leader of the UK, Burnham said that he was “acutely conscious” of being the latest in a long line of British leaders in recent years. “Britain needs to show the world that we can regain our stability once again, and that is our challenge: to make politics work, to make it work better.”

Burnham returned to parliament in a byelection staged by his allies with the explicit purpose of replacing Starmer, after the incumbent PM lost the support of many Labour MPs and a number of his ministers after a series of political mishaps and U-turns.

With no one else in the party competing to become leader, Burnham has been made PM without any contest and with limited scrutiny.

While the same happened for Rishi Sunak in 2022, he had fought a contest against Liz Truss weeks earlier and had very recent cabinet experience.

While Burnham has been an MP and cabinet minister before, he left parliament in 2017 to take the Greater Manchester role.