Andy Burnham has twice run unsuccessfully for the leadership of Britain’s governing Labour Party. Now his decisive victory in a special parliamentary election puts him within reach not just of that goal, but of entering Downing Street as prime minister.

安迪·伯纳姆曾两度竞选英国执政党工党党首，均告失败。如今，他在一次议会补选中取得决定性胜利，这不仅让他距离实现这一目标更近了一步，甚至有望入主唐宁街，成为首相。

A fluent communicator known for his bonhomie and charisma, Mr. Burnham has for nine years been mayor of Greater Manchester, where he cultivated an image of optimism, activism and the type of authentic plain speaking characteristic of northern England.

伯纳姆以善于沟通、平易近人、魅力十足著称，担任大曼彻斯特市长已有九年，在此期间塑造出乐观、积极作为以及英格兰北部典型直率风格的形象。

With a seat in Parliament representing Makerfield, in northwest England, Mr. Burnham will need the support of 81 fellow Labour lawmakers to mount a leadership challenge to the country’s unpopular prime minister, Keir Starmer.

如今，他作为英格兰西北部梅克菲尔德选区的议员重返议会。若要向不受欢迎的首相基尔·斯塔默发起党首挑战，他还需要获得81名工党议员的支持。

Supporters see Mr. Burnham — who in Manchester won the nickname “king of the North” for his defense of the area during the Covid-19 pandemic — as Labour’s potential savior against the populist right-wing Reform U.K. party, led by Nigel Farage. Critics portray Mr. Burnham as a political chameleon who would face the same economic constraints that have stymied Mr. Starmer’s lackluster government, and the same restless, impatient electorate.

支持者认为，伯纳姆——这位因在新冠疫情期间为曼彻斯特地区据理力争而被冠以“北境之王”称号的人——有可能成为工党抵御奈杰尔·法拉奇领导的右翼民粹主义政党英国改革党的救星。批评者则将其描绘为政治变色龙，称他同样将面临那些使斯塔默政府陷入困境、表现乏善可陈的经济掣肘，以及同样焦躁不安、缺乏耐心的选民。

Either way, he would be a different kind of leader from the one he wants to replace.

无论如何，他与其意图取代的那位领导者将是截然不同的类型。

“He’s just optimistic and happy and seems to enjoy being a politician,” said John McTernan, an adviser to Tony Blair when he was prime minister and someone who has known Mr. Burnham since his days as a researcher for a lawmaker in south London. “Leaders either inspire you, or they slightly depress you,” Mr. McTernan added, noting that there had been several recent prime ministers “who didn’t really seem to enjoy it” — Mr. Starmer included.

“他就是乐观、开心，看起来很享受从政这件事，”曾在托尼·布莱尔担任首相期间任顾问的约翰·麦克特南说。麦克特南自伯纳姆在伦敦南部为一名议员担任助理研究员时便与之相识。“领导人要么能激励你，要么会让你感到有点压抑，”麦克特南补充道，指出近几任首相“看起来并不真的享受这份工作”，其中就包括斯塔默。

马克菲尔德议会席位补选前夕，该选区的一条街道。

Mr. Burnham was born in Liverpool in 1970, to a father who was a phone engineer and a mother who was a doctor’s receptionist. He was raised in Culcheth, a village in Cheshire not far from Makerfield. Of Irish heritage, he attended Roman Catholic state schools and has spoken of his Catholicism, including meeting Pope Francis in 2023.

伯纳姆1970年出生于利物浦，父亲是一名电话工程师，母亲是一家诊所的前台。他在距离梅克菲尔德不远的柴郡村庄卡尔切斯长大。伯纳姆拥有爱尔兰血统，就读于天主教公立学校，他曾多次谈及自己的天主教信仰，包括2023年觐见教宗方济各。

“My mum was with me, and even though I’m not a Catholic in that full sense of the word, I felt the magnetic pull of the Vatican,” he said, likening his faith to his lifelong devotion to Everton soccer club. If you stop going to matches, he added, “you’re still an Evertonian; you can stop going to church but you’re still a Catholic.”

“我母亲当时和我在一起。尽管我并非严格意义上的天主教徒，但我仍然感受到梵蒂冈那种强烈的吸引力，”他说，并将这种信仰比作他对埃弗顿足球俱乐部终身不渝的热爱。他补充道，即便你不再去看比赛，“你依然是埃弗顿球迷；你可以不再去教堂，但你依然是天主教徒。”

Mr. Burnham won a place to study English at the University of Cambridge and after graduating, took a familiar path to political prominence, first as a researcher for Tessa Jowell, a lawmaker in south London, then as an adviser to the then-culture secretary Chris Smith.

伯纳姆考入剑桥大学攻读英语专业，毕业后走上了一条通往政坛的熟悉路径：先是在伦敦南部议员泰莎·乔威尔手下做研究员，随后成为时任文化大臣克里斯·史密斯的顾问。

While at Cambridge he met Marie-France Van Heel, who was born in the Netherlands, and they later married and had three children.

在剑桥期间，他认识了出生于荷兰的玛丽-弗朗斯·范希尔。两人后来步入婚姻，育有三个子女。

“When my wife got pregnant we actually hadn’t planned to have children at that time because I felt stability was important. We got married in October 2000 when Jimmy was 8 months old and I was in a difficult battle to win the nomination,” Mr. Burnham told The Guardian in 2009, referring to his efforts to run for Parliament.

“妻子怀孕时，我们其实并没有计划那个时候要孩子，因为我觉得稳定很重要。2000年10月，我们结婚了，那时吉米才八个月大，而我正经历一场艰难的提名争夺战，”伯纳姆2009年对《卫报》说，指的是他竞选议员席位的经历。

After he won election in 2001, representing Leigh, a northern district close to where he was raised, he became a junior minister in the New Labour government of Tony Blair. He was promoted to the cabinet under Gordon Brown and served as chief secretary to the Treasury, as secretary for culture, media and sport, and then as health secretary.

他在2001年当选议员，代表的是靠近家乡的北方选区利，随后，他进入托尼·布莱尔领导的新工党政府担任初级部长。戈登·布朗执政期间，他获提拔入阁，先后担任财政部首席秘书，文化、媒体和体育大臣以及卫生大臣。

In 2009 Mr. Burnham was heckled at a memorial service on the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, which resulted in the deaths of 97 Liverpool F.C. soccer fans in a stadium crush. It made a deep impression, convincing him that the families deserved justice after the police, investigators and the news media tried to depict the victims as hooligans and to blame them for the disaster. Pressure from Mr. Burnham helped secure a second inquiry.

2009年，在希尔斯堡惨案20周年纪念仪式上，伯纳姆遭遇了嘘声。那场球场踩踏事故导致97名利物浦足球俱乐部球迷死亡。这件事对他影响极深，让他相信这些遇难者家属理应获得公正对待，而此前警方、调查人员以及媒体曾试图将受害者描绘成足球流氓，并把惨案归咎于他们自己。伯纳姆的持续施压最终推动了第二次调查的展开。

After Labour lost the general election in 2010, Mr. Burnham ran for party leader, coming in fourth. In 2015 he tried again and was the early front-runner, only to lose to the left-winger Jeremy Corbyn, on whose team he later served.

2010年工党在大选中落败后，伯纳姆首次竞选党首，最终排名第四。2015年他再次参选，初期领跑，却最终输给了左翼政治人物杰里米·科尔宾，后来他还曾在科尔宾手下任职。

In 2017 Mr. Burnham left Parliament after deciding his future lay outside Westminster, and he was elected as mayor of Greater Manchester.

2017年，伯纳姆认为自己的未来不在威斯敏斯特，于是辞去议员议席，随后当选大曼彻斯特市长。

Robert Ford, a professor of politics at the University of Manchester, said Mr. Burnham had presided over a thriving local economy there, and had showed his political skills by increasing control and regulation of the city’s buses — winning a fight with transportation companies in the process.

曼彻斯特大学政治学教授罗伯特·福特表示，伯纳姆主政期间当地经济蓬勃发展，他在推动城市公交系统的管控和监管方面也展示出政治手腕——在此过程中与交通运营企业展开博弈并获得胜利。

“He turned what could have been a rather bland technocratic bit of policy — believe me, if Keir Starmer had been there it would have been — into a David versus Goliath fight,” Professor Ford said. “His big strength is he is very effective communicator, a very effective storyteller; he’s good at giving voters a sense of who he is, who he’s for, and what he’s trying to do.”

“他把一项可能相当枯燥的技术官僚政策——相信我，换成基尔·斯塔默来弄就是那样——变成了一场大卫与歌利亚式的战斗，”福特教授说。“他最大的优势是非常善于沟通，非常会讲故事；他擅长让选民了解他是谁、他代表谁，以及他想做什么。”

“In all these respects,” Professor Ford said, “he is quite a contrast with the incumbent Labour prime minister.”

福特教授说：“在所有这些方面，他都与现任工党首相形成鲜明对比。”

英国首相基尔·斯塔默、前副首相安杰拉·雷纳与伯纳姆在一起，摄于今年4月。

Mr. Burnham also led from the front during the pandemic, complaining that government lockdowns were penalizing regions like his, and making a speech in central Manchester that became famous.

疫情期间，伯纳姆也身先士卒，痛批政府的封锁措施让曼彻斯特这样的地区付出了不成比例的代价，并在曼彻斯特市中心发表了一场著名的演讲。

Perhaps the most consistent criticism leveled against Mr. Burnham, who served under three very different Labour leaders in Mr. Blair, Mr. Brown and Mr. Corbyn, is that he is politically malleable.

对伯纳姆最持久的批评或许在于：他先后效力于布莱尔、布朗和科尔宾三位风格迥异的工党领袖，因此被认为政治立场过于多变。

In 2022, after the last soccer World Cup, Mr. Starmer himself poked fun at his former colleague. In a speech to reporters, Mr. Starmer joked that Mr. Burnham “got to see his boyhood team Argentina win the World Cup” but that “it was a mixed bag because he also got to see his boyhood team France lose the final and his boyhood teams Morocco and Croatia lose in the semis.”

2022年世界杯结束后，斯塔默本人甚至拿这位老同事开玩笑。在一次记者会上，斯塔默调侃道，伯纳姆“看到了自己儿时支持的阿根廷队夺得世界杯”，但“这也是喜忧参半，因为他还看到了自己儿时支持的法国队输掉决赛，以及自己儿时支持的摩洛哥队和克罗地亚队在半决赛出局”。

Mr. McTernan acknowledged that Mr. Burnham’s reputation is of a politician who “likes people to like him” but said: “A people pleaser as a politician is much better than a people hater.”

麦克特南承认，伯纳姆给人的印象确实是一个“喜欢让别人喜欢自己”的政治人物。但他补充说：“一个讨好型政客总比一个讨人嫌的政客强。”

One common thread through Mr. Burnham’s career has been the idea that British politics and the news media is too London-centric, and that regional inequality has damaged the country, a point he made in his first speech to Parliament in 2001. During one recent interview Mr. Burnham said Britain had been “on the wrong path for 40 years.”

伯纳姆职业生涯中贯穿始终的一个主题是，英国政治和新闻媒体过于以伦敦为中心，地区不平等损害了国家——这一点他在2001年首次议会演讲中就曾提及。在最近的一次采访中，伯纳姆称英国“走了40年的弯路”。

本月，工党候选人安迪·伯纳姆与一位居民在梅克菲尔德选区。

Mr. Burnham raised concern among some last year when he said that the Labour Party ought to get “beyond being in hock to the bond markets” — a phrase he has subsequently said was misinterpreted. More recently he appeared hazy over an aspect of economic policy in one BBC interview. But in Manchester he pursued business-friendly policies to attract investment.

去年，伯纳姆曾引发一些人担忧，他说工党应该“摆脱受债券市场掣肘的局面”——后来他表示这句话被误解了。最近，他在一次BBC采访中对经济政策某个方面的回应显得含糊不清。但在曼彻斯特，他一直推行亲商政策以吸引投资。

According to Professor Ford, as a mayor, Mr. Burnham “got relatively used to saying whatever was in his mind” but, now has “been getting a rather sharp lesson in the need to weigh his words more carefully.”

福特教授认为，作为市长，伯纳姆“比较习惯于想到什么说什么”，但现在“正在接受一堂相当严厉的课程——那就是必须更加谨慎地权衡自己的言辞”。

How the skills he showed in Manchester would prepare him for the top job in British politics is hard to predict.

至于他在曼彻斯特展现出的能力究竟能在多大程度上帮助他胜任英国政坛最高职位，目前仍难以预测。

“It’s very different when you are sailing into the storm of 10 Downing Street, where there will be 150 issues on your desk every day,” Professor Ford said. “You don’t really get that much control over which ones to pick fights over, and you have no time to think.”

“当你驶入唐宁街10号那场风暴中心时，一切都截然不同。每天都会有150个问题摆在你的办公桌上，”福特教授说。“你根本没有太多空间去决定要挑哪一场仗来打，而且你也没有时间慢慢思考。”