India, July 27 -- Keir Starmer's attempt to cut Britain's disability benefits bill ended not with a coherent reform but with a series of concessions, reversals and rebellions that fatally damaged his authority and accelerated his departure from 10 Downing Street.

His successor, Andy Burnham, is now signalling he intends to try again, but with a different approach, framing benefits as conditional rather than simply cut, and drawing on political capital his predecessor never fully possessed.

Burnham indicated in his first major interview as prime minister that some benefits would become "conditional," suggesting a shift in the design of welfare support rather than a repeat of the crude eligibility cuts that tore Starmer's parliamentary pa...