Five teenage TikTok creators were invited to stand outside 10 Downing Street and film content with Prime Minister Andy Burnham. It is one of the first visible signs of a government plan to bring social-media influencers into the heart of its communications. BBC News

The five — Will, Lottie, Megan, Ellen and Poppy, aged between 17 and 19 — have built up millions of likes on TikTok through edits, memes and nostalgic footage of New Labour, the period when Labour was last in government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Their invitation to Downing Street followed an earlier appearance on the campaign trail in Makerfield, a constituency in north-west England. There, the same group of Labour activists were invited to canvass — meaning knock on doors to ask people to vote — with Burnham during a by-election, which is a vote held to fill a single vacant parliamentary seat. They also produced video edits from the campaign. BBC News

One tactic that went viral during the campaign involved Burnham signing and posing with red pre-made cocktails popular with Gen Z, an image that generated thousands of likes on the platform. BBC News

Megan Cassidy, 19, from Havering, told the BBC she started making Labour content roughly a year ago. She described being at Downing Street as "surreal". Cassidy said Burnham "gets it" and is "a lot more charismatic" than other politicians, naming Keir Starmer by way of contrast. Her fellow creators told the BBC that Burnham was "natural" and willing to appear spontaneously in their content. BBC News

The young activists said they were given direct access to Burnham and to footage of him by his team. They are not paid for the work and keep full editorial control over what they publish. BBC News

Burnham became Prime Minister on 20 July 2026, succeeding Keir Starmer. The New York Times He is Britain's 59th prime minister. AP News Upon taking office he pledged action on the cost of living and delivered his first speech as Prime Minister on the same day. PoliticsHome

The Downing Street influencer reception itself was not new. PoliticsHome reported nearly a year earlier, in July 2025, that No 10 had hosted its first reception for influencers as part of a plan to bring them into the government's communications work. That reporting came before Burnham entered office, but it set out the framework his team now appears to be following with greater intensity. PoliticsHome

The arrangement reflects several pressures that Westminster communications staff know well. Labour's own polling and campaign strategists have long known that younger voters get their political information mainly through short videos rather than television bulletins or newspapers. TikTok in particular rewards informal, personality-driven content that the platform's recommendation system pushes to more users. But this kind of content sits awkwardly alongside the conventions of political journalism and the Cabinet Office's guidance on how government communications should behave.

The fact that the five creators are unpaid and keep editorial control is the detail most likely to attract scrutiny from those who advise on the ministerial code (the rules ministers must follow) and the Electoral Commission (the body that regulates election spending and conduct). Unpaid volunteer content creators sit in something of a grey area: they are not regulated as political advertising because no money changes hands, but their videos still work like campaign messaging and can reach far more people than a local party's paid online advertising. The creators say they approached Burnham's team, not the other way round, and that they decide what to publish. Those two points distinguish this arrangement from a normal paid deal with an influencer. Whether that distinction survives closer regulatory scrutiny is something the party's compliance team will need to watch.

For the Burnham team, the reasoning is straightforward. The Prime Minister scores well in polls on personal warmth and being relatable — the very qualities Cassidy pointed to when she said he "gets it" — and short-form video makes the most of those traits at very little cost. The contrast she drew with Starmer, whose public image is widely seen as more focused on policy detail, is one Burnham's strategists will be happy to see amplified naturally by sympathetic creators rather than paid for through party advertising.

The broader context here is a shift in how Downing Street handles the relationship between governing and content creation. Previous governments treated influencers cautiously, hosting the occasional reception or arranging one-off collaborations. The Burnham team's willingness to give teenage volunteers sustained, direct access — and to have them filming at the gates of No 10 within days of his entering office — suggests a more built-in approach. The campaign trail in Makerfield served as a testing ground. Downing Street is now the staging area.

How this sits with the lobby (the group of journalists accredited to report from Westminster), with Ofcom's growing interest in regulating online platforms, and with Opposition parties that do not have similar access to sympathetic young creators, are the political questions that will follow this strategy in the weeks ahead.