Burnham cancels engagements after death of father

Burnham pictured with his parents, Eileen and Roy, after he was selected as Labour's candidate to become the mayor of Greater Manchester in 2016 Prime Minister Andy Burnham has cancelled official engagements on Monday and Tuesday following the death of his father Roy, who had Alzheimer's. He had been due to host a meeting of business leaders in Downing Street on Monday, and was expected to speak at the annual trade union TUC Congress in Brighton on Tuesday. In July, Burnham spoke about his father's condition and said it had influenced his drive to reform adult social care in England. He had also said his father's illness was so advanced that he did not know his son had become prime minister. Burnham said he wanted to help "my dad and the millions like him" when setting out plans to reform adult social care. He said he had been "overwhelmed" . Burnham has described how his father, a former telephone engineer, had raised him with "laughter, love and support" alongside his mother Eileen in Culcheth, Cheshire. In his 2024 book Look North, he wrote that neither of his parents had attended university, but could have done had they "grown up in a different time and different place". "Their knowledge of that fact seemed to make them all the more determined that their three sons would go." Opposition politicians have offered their condolences to Burnham and his family.