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Call the King: UK PM Keir Starmer tries to save himself · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Thursday May fourteen, twenty twenty six. Angus Taylor will
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  Speaker 1: tonight reveal big new policy ideas on tax, housing and immigration.
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  Speaker 1: It's the opposition leader's traditional budget in reply, where he
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  Speaker 1: gets to shred the government's effort and put up his
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  Speaker 1: own plan. That's an exclusive live now at The Australian
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  Speaker 1: dot com dot au. It's forty years since Paul Keating
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  Speaker 1: warned Australia risked becoming a banana republic if we didn't
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  Speaker 1: cut government spending, bring down tariffs and improve productivity. He's
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  Speaker 1: speaking exclusively to The Australian today as his protege Jim
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  Speaker 1: Chalmers defends.
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  Speaker 2: His fifth budget amid.
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  Speaker 1: Accusations we're back on the big spending train. Big changes
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  Speaker 1: are happening in Britain. It looks to be all over
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  Speaker 1: for Prime Minister Kirs Stalma.
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  Speaker 3: The House Secretary Wes Street, he has told allies, is
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  Speaker 3: preparing to trigger a leadership contest and resign as soon
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  Speaker 3: as tomorrow.
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  Speaker 1: Today The Australian's Richard Ferguson joins me to break down
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  Speaker 1: how Kirstalmer went from labor hero to political zero. Richard
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  Speaker 1: Ferguson is the Australian's Canber Bureau chief, but he's also
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  Speaker 1: our resident UK politics expert, and Richard that is always
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  Speaker 1: a difficult task. UK politics is confusing at the best
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  Speaker 1: of times. Right now, the big confusion for me is
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  Speaker 1: how did the glamorous of Bain, highly educated, impressive Sir
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  Speaker 1: Kiir Starmer Labor leader go from being the hero of
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  Speaker 1: labor in twenty twenty four to a total embarrassment in
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty six.
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  Speaker 2: The prop with Kiers Starmer Claire has always been that
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  Speaker 2: he's actually not that good a politician. He was very,
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  Speaker 2: very lucky in twenty twenty four. Labor didn't actually have
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  Speaker 2: a big increase in there what we would call a
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  Speaker 2: primary vote. Of course, they are just first past the post,
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  Speaker 2: so whoever gets the most votes wins, But they didn't
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  Speaker 2: get a big increase. What happened is Rischie Sunac's Conservative
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  Speaker 2: vote split and a lot of them went to Nigel
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  Speaker 2: Farag's Reform Party. And what's happening now is all of
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  Speaker 2: the parties are splitting. Most of it's going to Forage,
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  Speaker 2: a lot of the Labor vote is going to the
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  Speaker 2: Greens and the Liberal Democrats and obviously the nationalist parties
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  Speaker 2: in Scotland and Wales, and we're looking at points where
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  Speaker 2: labor is fourth, maybe fifth in the polls. Ker Starmer
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  Speaker 2: just didn't start with a lot of political capital, a
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  Speaker 2: lot of seas, but a very shallow political victory and
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  Speaker 2: not a lot of expectations that he would do that well.
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  Speaker 2: But he has just unbelievably missed every mark when it
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  Speaker 2: comes to policy, you know, starting off with taking money
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  Speaker 2: off of pensioners for their fuel.
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  Speaker 1: That was the government's first move. That was the first
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  Speaker 1: move winter fuel payments as they were coming into a
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  Speaker 1: winter from pensioners in one.
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  Speaker 3: So cause I just ask the Prime Minister why did
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  Speaker 3: he choose train drivers over Britain's vulnerable pensioners. So we've
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  Speaker 3: had to take tough decisions to stabilize the economy and
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  Speaker 3: repair the dammage, including targeting winter fuel payments whilst protecting pensioners.
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  Speaker 2: One it's the most unlabor thing you could imagine. But
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  Speaker 2: number two, it just really created this sense of what
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  Speaker 2: people call the care Starmer doom and gloom, like he
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  Speaker 2: paints a very gloomy picture of Britain He does not
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  Speaker 2: project optimism, He doesn't project hope. He does not project
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  Speaker 2: a sense that Britain can make its way out of
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  Speaker 2: a malaise. People do not want to hear that things
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  Speaker 2: are bad. They want to hear about how things are
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  Speaker 2: going to get better. That's what Thatcher was very good
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  Speaker 2: at the beginning and doing. That's what Blair was the
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  Speaker 2: master at. That's what Trump did. I mean Trump is
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  Speaker 2: in his optimism absolutely and make America agree again. Boris Johnson,
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  Speaker 2: I mean people forget Boris Johnson won a massive victory
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  Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen based on I can get Brexit done
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  Speaker 2: and where everything's going to be great. Kirs Starmer has
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  Speaker 2: never been good at that.
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  Speaker 1: After Brexit, Britain really needed to heal. There had been
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  Speaker 1: a huge divide, a city country divide and an ideological divide.
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  Speaker 1: But everyone was feeling the impact of Brexit in ways
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  Speaker 1: that I think perhaps the Leave voters hadn't quite anticipated.
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  Speaker 1: Kirs Starmer had that moment to sort of start with
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  Speaker 1: a clean slate, didn't he Why was he not able
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  Speaker 1: to reshape Britain's economy for the kind of post Brexit
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  Speaker 1: world in the way that he needed to. Was it
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  Speaker 1: that he just didn't really believe in Brexit and didn't
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  Speaker 1: like where the country was.
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  Speaker 2: Well we've seen that recently where he and as part
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  Speaker 2: of his pivot to win people back, he's saying, I
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  Speaker 2: want us to be at the heart of Europe, but
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  Speaker 2: I don't want to rejoin the.
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  Speaker 3: EU because saving shoulder to shoulder with the countries that
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  Speaker 3: most chair. Our interests are values and our animis that
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  Speaker 3: is the right choice for Britain. That is the labor choice.
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  Speaker 2: And it's like, well, you can't have both. If you
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  Speaker 2: want to be at the heart of Europe, you have
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  Speaker 2: to be in the European Union. But he knows that
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  Speaker 2: the labor voters who have gone to reform are the
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  Speaker 2: same people that went to Boris Johnson by even bigger
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  Speaker 2: droves according to the local elections, because a lot of
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  Speaker 2: Labor vorders in the North are very anti EU. They
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  Speaker 2: were leave voters. This has always been the problem with
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  Speaker 2: the Labor Party, and I mean the Labor Party. A
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  Speaker 2: lot of the Labor Party in the nineteen seventies were
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  Speaker 2: against joining the European Union. So it's always been as
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  Speaker 2: hard for Labor as it has been for the Tories.
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  Speaker 2: But he is a passionate Europhile, best buddies with mccrawlin,
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  Speaker 2: and I just think, you know, if he thinks that
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  Speaker 2: pivoting to a European message is going to win back
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  Speaker 2: voters from reform, I think he's on a hating to nothing.
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  Speaker 1: We hear these stunning numbers in Britain because it is
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  Speaker 1: just such a big country population wise, fifteen hundred labor
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  Speaker 1: seats wiped out at those council elections, ninety something labor
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  Speaker 1: MPs telling Starma to go earlier this week, one hundred
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  Speaker 1: and ten telling him to stay. And then nobody really
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  Speaker 1: quite being able to kind of work out who had
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  Speaker 1: the numbers or really organize a proper challenge. Why in
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  Speaker 1: this big, sophisticated political system wasn't there a challenger who
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  Speaker 1: was clear from the very beginning who could take Stamer on.
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  Speaker 2: So the Labor Party in Britain, unlike the Labor Party
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  Speaker 2: in Australia that loves nothing more than killing a leader,
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  Speaker 2: has always been terrible at getting rid of leaders. The
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  Speaker 2: Tories fantastic at it ted Heath what they did to
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  Speaker 2: Margaret thatcher Ra at the end, even though they were
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  Speaker 2: terrified of her for about fifteen years, which was leader ed.
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  Speaker 2: The way that they treated John Major, the way that
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  Speaker 2: they treated Theresa May and David Cameron and Boris Johnson
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  Speaker 2: and Lizdras and ressis Tories know how to kill a leader.
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  Speaker 2: I mean they could show Run and Gillard a few tricks.
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  Speaker 2: But Labor has always been bad at it. Labor has
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  Speaker 2: only ever got rid of one leader, and his name
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  Speaker 2: was George Lansbury. George Lansbury was the leader during the
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  Speaker 2: Great Depression. He led the party as part of the
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  Speaker 2: breakup with Ramsey McDonald because they had differing views on
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  Speaker 2: spending money during the Great Depression. But Labor has never
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  Speaker 2: been able to get rid of leaders. I mean, look
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  Speaker 2: at how desperately they tried to get rid of Jeremy
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  Speaker 2: Corbyn multiple times and they just couldn't do it. But
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  Speaker 2: we've got several problems with the leadership contenders. You have
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  Speaker 2: Andy Burnham, who is the mayor of Manchester. He was
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  Speaker 2: Gordon Brown's Health Minister, not in parliament. Not in Parliament.
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  Speaker 2: He doesn't have a seat. So everybody every time there's
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  Speaker 2: an MP ready to stand aside for Andy Burnham, and
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  Speaker 2: then the MP says, I'm not standing aside for Andy Burnham.
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  Speaker 2: It's not happening. He tried to get a certin foul,
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  Speaker 2: then he tried to get and then Starmer used the
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  Speaker 2: Labor National Executive. I have to say this is quite
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  Speaker 2: an alban easy move. He actually managed to get the
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  Speaker 2: National Executive to block Andy Burnham so he couldn't run,
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  Speaker 2: so he couldn't be a threat. You've got Angela Rayner
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  Speaker 2: who had to resign an at tax scandal, the former
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  Speaker 2: deputy prime minister, and she's trying to come back from it.
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  Speaker 2: But most people are like, oh, we think the fact
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  Speaker 2: that tax affairs are still not resolved means we're probably
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  Speaker 2: not going to go for you, So she's trying to
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  Speaker 2: get behind Burnham. Maybe it could be Ed Milliband, who was,
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  Speaker 2: of course the Bill Shorten of the British Labor Party.
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  Speaker 2: He beat his older brother David, who everybody thought would
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  Speaker 2: be a better option after Gordon Brown lost government. Everybody
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  Speaker 2: thought he was going to win the twenty fifteen election
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  Speaker 2: against David Cameron and he lost because of big spending
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  Speaker 2: and big taxing policies. What does that sound like, Claire?
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  Speaker 2: But he might have his chance of coming back. And
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  Speaker 2: then you've got Wes Streading, who would be the openly
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  Speaker 2: gee Prime Minister, he's the Health Secretary. He as a blairate,
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  Speaker 2: very centrist, and his mentor as Peter Mandelsson, the discreased
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  Speaker 2: former ambassador to Washington. So they have terrible choices and
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  Speaker 2: they have been unable to move and it is the
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  Speaker 2: epitome of what is wrong with the Starmer government. They
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  Speaker 2: have no guts and they have no clue.
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  Speaker 1: I hear a lot of analysts saying that it's really Mandlsson,
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  Speaker 1: the Mandlsson scandal that has brought Keirstalma so low. This
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  Speaker 1: is of course the ambassador whom he appointed to the
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  Speaker 1: court of Donald Trump Mark two, and ignoring security warnings
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  Speaker 1: from the civil service, and ignoring the manifest problems that
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  Speaker 1: would arise from Peter Mandleson's close association with Jeffrey Epstein
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  Speaker 1: over the years. Now, of course, Peter Mandelson denies that
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  Speaker 1: he knew anything about Jeffrey Epstein's offending, and there's no
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  Speaker 1: suggestion that he was himself an offender. He was a
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  Speaker 1: huge figure in the Labor Party. Do you really think, though,
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  Speaker 1: that this is what is angering Britain's about Keir Starmer
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  Speaker 1: or is it the fact that you can't walk down
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  Speaker 1: the street in London without getting your mobile phone stolen,
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  Speaker 1: That they're just as here. House prices and the cost
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  Speaker 1: of leaving are out of control, that the post EU
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  Speaker 1: landscape is so difficult for Britain's economy.
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  Speaker 2: I think that Peter, look, the Peter Mandelsson thing gets
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  Speaker 2: to the heart of some of Kier Starmer's key failures.
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  Speaker 2: Number one, when you promise that you're going to restore integrity,
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  Speaker 2: you can't go then and appoint Jeffrey Epstein's best buddy,
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  Speaker 2: who resigned twice while he was working for Tony Blair
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  Speaker 2: in scandalous circumstances. Like Peter Mandelsson is scandal central. He
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  Speaker 2: is the human embodiment of scandal and drama. But it
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  Speaker 2: appears that Kirstormer wasn't really that involved in that decision.
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  Speaker 2: It was mainly made by his chief of staff Morgan,
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  Speaker 2: no former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney. So you've got
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  Speaker 2: the problem number two for Starmer, which is that he
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  Speaker 2: doesn't really seem to get involved in anything. He likes
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  Speaker 2: to read his papers, he likes to read his brief
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  Speaker 2: like the barrister he is, and he doesn't really like
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  Speaker 2: the human element of being a Prime minister or is
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  Speaker 2: he just.
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  Speaker 1: An expert at throwing people under the back?
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  Speaker 2: Well, he is an expert. I mean the classic meme
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  Speaker 2: now of ker Starmer is you know pur Paul told
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  Speaker 2: me that I am Promeinista and I'm furious to discover
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  Speaker 2: I'm Prime Minister and i want something I've done about it,
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  Speaker 2: Like it is always I didn't know it's somebody else's fault,
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  Speaker 2: but it appears because he isolates himself. He's just interested
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  Speaker 2: in reading papers, He's interested in process, but he's not
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  Speaker 2: actually interested in politics. He's not actually interested in the
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: human element of politics. For example, Anthony Albinezi, the master
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  Speaker 2: of knowing everybody their place and being the puppet master
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  Speaker 2: of the Australian Labor Party, he doesn't have that kind
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  Speaker 2: of political nouse internally or externally as a communicator. But yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I think it just epitomizes all the problems with him
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  Speaker 2: and the problem of Britain, and I think any prime
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  Speaker 2: minister would face it in Britain. You know. Look, you
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  Speaker 2: know I've just been back to Britain and you know
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  Speaker 2: I didn't get my phones snatch. London's pretty nice, but
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  Speaker 2: basically everywhere outside of London. I was walking down Glasgow
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  Speaker 2: and I was back in Scotland and walking down the
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  Speaker 2: street and the pavements were just a mess. You wouldn't
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: see anything like this in a suburban street in Australia.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Like as everything looks run down, everything is gloomy. They
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: never recovered from the global financial crisis, they never really
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: recovered from Brexit, and I don't think they're going to
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: recover from the Aram war very soon.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Once a week we assume kirs Dalma goes and has
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  Speaker 1: a cup of tea with King Charles the Third and
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  Speaker 1: they would have a chat about policy and everything else.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: I assume those meetings must have been very interesting in
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  Speaker 1: recent months, given that King Charles himself has some serious
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: experience dealing with a fractured in fighting institution beneath him.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Right, you always know that there's problems in British politics
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  Speaker 2: when the King or the Queen before him kind of
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: has to mop up the mess. So we saw that
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  Speaker 2: when Charles did a masterful job in the United States
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: after the fracturing of the relationship between Donald Trump and Cirquier,
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  Speaker 2: you know, extraordinary set out values and charmed everybody. Was
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: the chief diplomat of the UK par excellence, incredible.
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  Speaker 4: Our two countries have always found ways to come together,
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  Speaker 4: and by jove, mister Speaker, when we have found that
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  Speaker 4: way to agree, what great change is brought about, not
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  Speaker 4: just for the benefit of our peoples but of all peoples.
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  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people watched it. And when
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  Speaker 2: he'd actually be a pretty good prime minister, maybe we
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  Speaker 2: should just let the King lead everything. But he is
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  Speaker 2: now actually involved in this labor leadership drama because the
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: King's Speech, which is where the government lays out all
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: its policies, a bit like we have just done with
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: the budget here in Australia, the King is supposed to
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: go to Parliament give this speech the lists all the
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: legislative agenda for the government that year. In Britain, that
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: has been scheduled, just as dozens upon dozens of Labor
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: MPs have said the Prime minister, the King's prime minister
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  Speaker 2: should go. So there are reports that the Palace said
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: to number ten, are you really sure that the King's
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: speech should be happening right now? Like? Should he really
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: be opening parliament? Do you guys want to wait? And
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: of course Keir Starmer has pushed this because he knows
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: that no minister wants to be seen, no leadership rival
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: wants to be seen embarrassing the King by launching a
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: challenge just as he's about to give the king speech.
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  Speaker 2: So once again Peer Old Charles is having to deal
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  Speaker 2: with this.
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  Speaker 4: My lords and members of the House of Commons, and
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: increasingly dangerous and volatile will threatens the United Kingdom with
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: the conflict in the Middle East only the most recent example.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Ken a new leader of the lebor Party, possibly turn
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: this around and avoid Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: I think it would be incredibly difficult. Now we have
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: seen situations where new prime ministers have seemed to be
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: facing doom and pulled it back for the brink. No
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: clearer than when Theresa May's government was on the absolute nose.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Everybody thought the Tories were disaster and Nigel Farage, then
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: leading the Brexit Party, was having a huge upswing. Boris
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Johnson turned it around and won them a massive majority,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: So we know that it can happen. But I think
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: any of the candidates, even if it was the very
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: popular Andy Burnham, even if it was the far less
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: popular Angela Rayner, is treating our ed melbind or whoever
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  Speaker 2: else might put their behind that in the ring. I
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  Speaker 2: think they're going to have a very difficult time. Thanks Richard,
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  Speaker 2: Thanks Claire M.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Richard Ferguson is The Australian's Canbra bureau chief. For all
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: the latest from the UK and around the world, visit
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au