Andy Burnham said the results of the US midterm elections gave the world an "opportunity now to unite around the issue that is affecting us all, and that's the cost of living".

The UK prime minister, speaking after the Democratic sweep, said American voters had signalled that they want to "see the world coming together and focusing on the things that matter to people".

Asked whether the result might make the US president more unpredictable, Burnham said Trump had accepted the outcome. "President Trump has accepted the results, and I feel the world has an opportunity now to unite around the issue that is affecting us all, and that's the cost of living," he said.

A domestic priority, an international argument

Burnham has put living costs at the centre of his first months in office, and he used the reaction to the US vote to restate the case. "That has been the issue that I have put front and centre in my first three months in Downing Street, and we've made moves," he said.

But he also set conditions that reach beyond domestic policy. "I can't get people's cost of living pressures down until the conflict in the Middle East is resolved, the conflict in Ukraine started by Russia," he said.

"These are the things we have to focus on now, and I hope the world has a moment to do that."

The argument is that energy and food prices are shaped by wars and trade disruption, and that a government cannot insulate households from those forces on its own. It is a way of explaining slow progress — and of asking voters to judge the government on its diagnosis rather than only on the numbers.

Reaction from the parties

The Liberal Democrats' deputy leader, Daisy Cooper, said American voters had rejected Trump's "warmongering and the economic chaos that it has caused" — a framing that puts the war at the centre of the price story.

The government's opponents are likely to argue that the prime minister is offering explanations rather than solutions, and that his own budget choices matter more than the outcome of a foreign election.

The Iran question

The remarks came amid speculation about further US action against Iran. Asked about suggestions there could be an attack in the coming week, Trump told the Financial Times on Tuesday that the US was "locked and loaded if we need to go, but there may be no need for it".

For Downing Street, that is the difficult part of the argument. If the conflicts escalate, prices rise and the government's room for manoeuvre shrinks. If they ease, the prime minister can claim that his diagnosis was right.

What it means politically

The US midterms are not a domestic British event, but they matter to a government whose economic strategy depends on global conditions. A Democratic Congress may change the politics of energy and trade, and it may change how the White House approaches the wars that Burnham cited.

For now, the prime minister's message is that the world should use the moment. Whether that produces anything concrete — coordination on energy prices, a new push for ceasefires, or simply a shift in rhetoric — will be tested in the coming weeks.

The reaction also fits a pattern in British politics, where leaders increasingly frame domestic difficulties through international events. The cost of living is the issue voters name most often, and the US result has given the government a new way to talk about it.

The political calculation behind the remarks is straightforward. A government that cannot control global energy prices needs a framework that explains why, and Burnham's framework is that wars and trade disruption are the cause and that international cooperation is the cure. That argument buys time, but it also raises expectations: if the conflicts do not ease, the explanation starts to sound like an excuse.

Opposition parties will press that point. They will note that domestic decisions — taxes, energy policy, public spending — are within the government's control, and that voters judge living standards by what they see in their own budgets rather than by the state of the world. The prime minister's response is that the two are connected, and that pretending otherwise would be dishonest.

The international dimension is also a test of relationships. A Democratic Congress may be more receptive to coordination on energy and trade, and the British government will want to be seen as a reliable partner in that conversation. Whether that produces anything concrete is the question that will define the next few months.

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For voters, the test is simpler than the diplomatic framing. Prices in shops and energy bills will decide whether the government's argument is credible, and no amount of international coordination will change that arithmetic quickly. The prime minister's bet is that the global picture improves before the domestic one is judged.

Ministers have said more measures will follow once the budget picture is clearer, and the opposition will press for detail in the coming weeks.