Burnham and Trump will meet for the first time at the UN general assembly in New York. Composite: Kin Cheung\/Getty Images; Tasos Katopodis\/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenBurnham and Trump will meet for the first time at the UN general assembly in New York. Composite: Kin Cheung\/Getty Images; Tasos Katopodis\/Getty ImagesUK minister warns of impact of Trump\u2019s Iran war on next month\u2019s budgetBridget Phillipson says Burnham\u2019s past criticisms of US president not an issue as PM prepares to meet Trump at UNNext month\u2019s budget will be made more difficult by Donald Trump\u2019s war with Iran, one of Andy Burnham\u2019s cabinet ministers has said, while adding she did not expect the prime minister\u2019s previous disparaging comments about the US president to be an issue.Burnham is expected to meet Trump early next week at the UN general assembly summit in New York, the pair having previously spoken twice by phone since Burnham entered No 10.As Greater Manchester mayor, Burnham said Trump would not be welcome in the city, saying also that UK politicians who indulged him \u201cshould be ashamed\u201d.Asked about the comments, Bridget Phillipson, the Labour chair and minister for women and equalities, told Sky News: \u201cLook, I think what you\u2019ve just described there is politics. The president knows that.<\/p>\n
This is far from unique.\u201cPeople will express views at different points on different topics. And that\u2019s no bar to having a strong relationship.\u201dShe nonetheless repeated UK condemnation of Trump\u2019s on-and-off military campaign against Iran, which has disrupted global oil supplies, causing significant inflationary pressures, saying this would make life more difficult for John Healey, the chancellor, as he plans the budget.The economy was, Phillipson said, \u201cin a strong position\u201d, especially with growth figures.She said: \u201cBut that\u2019s not to take away from the very real challenges that you identify, particularly where it\u2019s come to the conflict we\u2019ve seen in the Middle East and the impact that that\u2019s been having on businesses and on families close to home.\u201cWe took the decision not to involve ourselves in that conflict. That was the right call. The US will take their own foreign policy decisions, but I believe, and still believe now, it was the right decision for us as a country not to get involved in that conflict.<\/p>\n
Of course, something that, had Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage been running the country, we would have jumped headlong into a conflict with it without end.\u201cAnd yet, and we do see the consequences here at home and as we go into the budget, making sure that we are doing everything we can to give people that breathing space to tackle those challenges around the cost of living has been at the forefront of everything that Andy Burnham has done since becoming prime minister.\u201cI know it\u2019s at the forefront of the chancellor\u2019s mind as he\u2019s planning for that budget later on next month.\u201dskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBurnham warns of \u2018difficult decisions\u2019 in budget as inflation rises to 3.1%Read moreIn a later interview with the BBC, Phillipson was dismissive of comments by Jim Ratcliffe, the petrochemicals billionaire, who said this week he had lost confidence in the UK due to levels of immigration and taxation.She said: \u201cYou\u2019ll forgive me if I do take with a pinch of salt what someone who is a tax exile has to say about our country.\u201d Ratcliffe is resident for tax in Monaco.Burnham has previously defended his comments about Trump in a similar way, saying of the US president: \u201cWell, he\u2019s said things as well, and everyone says things as politicians. In the moment, you meet people where they\u2019re at, and you find a connection with people, and that\u2019s always been my style.\u201dWith the wider UK-US relationship, there were \u201cdifferences of opinion\u201d, Phillipson said, while arguing that Burnham could see beyond those differences with Trump in maintaining invaluable ties.She said: \u201cWe don\u2019t have the same political outlook, but the relationship between the UK and the US goes beyond any one president, any one prime minister.\u201cIt\u2019s something that has stood the test of time over many centuries, despite political differences. They come and go. What matters most is the British national interest.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s what Andy Burnham will deliver for our country.\u201dExplore more on these topicsBudget 2026Andy BurnhamDonald TrumpBridget PhillipsonUS-Israel war on IranEconomicsUnited NationsnewsShareReuse this content<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Burnham and Trump will meet for the first time at the UN general assembly in New York. Composite: Kin Cheung\/Getty Images; Tasos Katopodis\/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenBurnham and Trump will meet for the first time\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}