Andy Burnham brings good vibes to Labour’s annual conference but tough choices are coming

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has been in the job for two months, and so far his party isn’t demanding his head. These days, that’s an accomplishment.The governing Labour Party opens its annual conference beside the River Mersey in Liverpool on Sunday, with Burnham pledging to turn the page on a decade of economic and political turmoil that has made him the U.K.’s seventh prime minister since its 2016 vote to leave the European Union.He says his message in a keynote speech on Tuesday will be: “It’s time for Britain to have hope again.”“We’ve had a decade since Brexit and it’s been a decade of too much drift, too much division, and we need to draw a line on that,” Burnham said as he arrived in Liverpool on Saturday.His message is aimed at both the British public and a center-left party that is hopeful but nervous — ready to embrace his promise of better times, but worried about economic damage rippling out from conflict in the Middle East.University of Manchester political science professor Rob Ford said Burnham’s difficult task is to win over “a skeptical electorate" eager for change, "while at the same time doing that within the constraints of a very difficult econ...