Latest / The Fourcast / ‘He’s going to fight, fight, fight’’ - how long will Starmer last?

Transcript

‘He’s going to fight, fight, fight’’ - how long will Starmer last? · The Fourcast

0:00
The idea he's going to collude in an orderly transition or or
0:04
resign is just for the birds. He's going to fight, fight,
0:07
fight. It was really hard to
0:09
overestimate how much the ill feeling there is towards Keir
0:12
Starmer out there in the communities and certainly up
0:15
here in in the North. The way that they talk about it,
0:17
it's it's honestly remarkable. I've never really seen anything
0:20
like it in terms of the the sheer unpopularity of of one
0:23
person. As opposed to sending letters
0:25
which are about yourself. Pop country 1st and tell us what
0:27
the solutions are. Get behind Keir * and let's go
0:31
and govern. We're past the point of no
0:33
return, aren't we? And, and this just sounds
0:36
delusional, Hello and welcome to the forecast.
0:41
And another febrile day in Westminster, with the Prime
0:44
Minister, for now, clinging on. But he's far from safe as a
0:48
succession of ministers are stepping down as we speak.
0:51
And the man who has become the PM's nemesis in the north, Andy
0:54
Burnham, is apparently down in London, shopping, plotting, who
0:58
knows? So it looks like Keir Starmer
1:01
might just hit the current average tenure of British Prime
1:04
Ministers 2 years and no more. Is this really the way to run a
1:08
country in the middle of two wars and a cost of living
1:10
crisis? And could anyone else do any
1:13
better for Labour? In any case, later on in the
1:15
podcast I'll be speaking to the Labour MP Preet Kor Gill who is
1:19
a Starmer supporter. But for now I'm joined by the
1:22
Liverpool Echo's political editor Liam Thorpe, who has
1:25
co-authored a book with Andy Burnham on how to transform the
1:28
country and the Observer columnist Will Hutton.
1:31
And Will I mean you? You think this is all madness?
1:34
I do, yeah. The resignation letters are
1:36
acknowledging that, you know, Keira is not really good at the
1:39
job. His incompatitis are obvious to
1:42
everybody and the speech on Monday was not very good and EU
1:46
turns and mistakes are there for all to see.
1:48
But he holds the mandate. I mean, he is the man who won
1:52
the election in July 2024. And you know, any successor
2:00
where whoever, however well it's executed an orderly transition,
2:04
a coronation, no contest, however it's organized, the
2:08
pressure to hold a general election soon afterwards will
2:10
become intense. If that happened to Theresa May,
2:14
she had to earn her mandate. It was Boris Johnson did the
2:17
same. Actually, you've got a
2:19
ferocious, lethal kind of kind of right wing media ecosystem
2:25
Who we who we insisting on it. And in particular, if the new
2:28
Prime Minister, who if he or she becomes a new Prime Minister,
2:32
may want to, you know, cast out in a different direction, maybe
2:36
become more pro European, maybe introduce wealth taxes, whatever
2:40
it might be, but that won't be. In the manifesto, yeah.
2:45
So the so it's a there would be without question, it seems to
2:48
me, or of very high probability, a general election by the spring
2:52
of next year and it will be a route at the moment it will be a
2:57
route Labour in disarray. And that's exactly what Farage
3:01
wants. Isn't this an election in 2027?
3:05
You know, because he doesn't want three years to lose his
3:07
lead and for more difficult stories to be unravelled about
3:12
him and and for Reform to start looking like any other political
3:16
party. Exactly, Farage has been on the
3:18
record saying he expects and hopes for a general election in
3:21
2027 and Virgo was said, you know that's impossible given
3:25
the, you know, 170 seat odd majority.
3:27
The Labour enjoying the House of Commons at the moment, but you
3:29
could see how that could pan out if Keir Starmer is deposed.
3:33
I think that's very much in the form very much kind of in the
3:37
cabinet's mind. I mean, I, I know for a fact
3:41
that just just to put it on record, Yvette Cooper did not
3:46
tell the Prime Minister over the weekend that he should organise
3:49
an orderly transfer, coming himself to orderly transition
3:52
and step down. And you know, there's a, there's
3:56
an awful lot of stuff going on, which is actually, you know,
3:58
adding to the feeble atmosphere. Look, I mean, I, it's, it's
4:04
problematic. I mean, I, I, I don't know how
4:07
successful a Kia LED government can be over the next 12 or 18
4:12
months if he continues to lead it.
4:13
Certainly if it's kind of any repetition of the, of what's
4:16
happened in the last 12 to 18 months, it could be a fiasco.
4:21
I'm hoping he's learnt, I'm hoping he's got people around
4:23
him who can make better judgements than he has made in
4:25
the last kind of 18 months. He he'll have to repopulate his
4:28
cabinet if he's to go forward successfully.
4:31
But I mean, I think. Let's come to to what happens if
4:33
he survives later on, because I mean, that's a big, that's a big
4:36
if, isn't it? I mean, Liam, from your, from
4:38
your from your point of view, this this makes sense from from
4:43
the popularity of Andy Burnham in your neck of the woods.
4:46
So I, I came on this podcast a couple of months ago actually,
4:50
and, and I said at the time that it was really hard to
4:53
overestimate how much the ill feeling there is towards Keir
4:57
Starmer out out there in the communities.
4:59
And certainly up here in, in the north, when I've been out in
5:02
places like Saint Helen's places across Merseyside, it's, it's
5:06
visceral. Now, whether you think that's
5:07
fair or not, I, I happen to think that it's a little bit
5:09
unfair. I think he's been pretty
5:11
disappointing, but he's he's, he's clearly not an, an evil
5:14
person. The people, the way that they
5:16
talk about it, it's, it's honestly remarkable.
5:18
I've never really seen anything like it in terms of the, the
5:20
sheer unpopularity of of one person.
5:23
And, and time and time again when I've been speaking to these
5:26
people, it's I could not vote for Labour with Keir Starmer in
5:29
charge. And so much so that I'm going to
5:32
go for reform. And we've, you know, to give
5:34
Saint Helens as an example, we've seen that it was a Labour
5:36
run council for the best part of 40 years.
5:39
It's now gone almost entirely reform.
5:42
However, when I then posed the question, what about Andy
5:44
Burnham, almost in every single case they say, well, if it was
5:48
Andy Burnham, it'd be a different story.
5:50
Now this is just, you know, my anecdotal evidence and it's just
5:53
in, in parts of the northwest where obviously he has a firmer
5:56
grounding. He's he's from Liverpool
5:58
originally and obviously he's, he's been very successful mayor
6:00
in Manchester. But these are the areas that
6:02
Labour has been routed in. These are the areas that Labour
6:05
has lost. Well, I mean, in terms of Keir
6:08
Starmer, I mean, you know, he he is showing every sign of wanting
6:11
to stick it out, you know, and to fight for his place and to to
6:16
actually do what what everyone kind of imagined he would have
6:19
to drop, which is, you know, that he's not going anywhere.
6:22
You know, he'll fight for his place.
6:24
He's got his mandate, He's got his five year mandate and he's
6:26
hanging on. And even if they do challenge
6:28
him, you know, he might actually just run in in the leadership
6:32
election. And challenge them.
6:34
I'm sure he will. I'm sure that's part of
6:35
Western's calculation. I mean, you know, people
6:38
criticise W for not going over the top, but I mean he's I mean
6:42
Kia thinks, and I think that the Wes camp probably recognizes it,
6:48
that actually if it's kind of Wes versus Kia, Kia could win
6:52
it. And then Wes is, you know, the
6:55
Wes kind of projects tish scattered.
6:59
So, you know, you, you, he's a fighter, Kia Starmer and he's
7:04
stubborn and he really believes that his career and his life
7:11
today has been about overcoming setbacks and coming through and
7:15
winning. I know some of his close friends
7:17
very well. And they will say precisely
7:20
that, you know, that he's you know, he just is not.
7:22
He's the idea he's going to collude in an orderly transition
7:28
or or resign. It's just, it's just, you know,
7:32
for the birds. He's going to fight.
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He's going to fight, fight, fight and believes that because
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he's got a mandate and because, you know, he thinks it's too
7:42
cautious by far, but he thinks the general direction of travel,
7:46
which he's going is is right. And anyone who succeeds in can't
7:52
do much different given the the kind of fiscal and monetary and
7:56
debt constraints and tax constraints.
7:59
And he so consequently, he's not going to, you know, he's, he's,
8:02
he's absolutely kind of a stubborn ox.
8:05
And you know, he's he, he kind of, he dared the cabinet today
8:10
to speak out against him and no one did.
8:13
Absolutely extraordinary, though, don't you?
8:15
I mean, I find the idea that they had a cabinet meeting and
8:18
Keir Starmer sat there with a table, many of whom think he
8:21
should go, some of whom had already told him he should go.
8:25
And he said, we're not going to talk about any of that.
8:27
And they all just accepted it and shut up.
8:29
It's talking about an elephant in the room.
8:32
It's not just, it was just like, I mean, I, I mean, we're
8:34
journalists, we're used to unruly, disobedient people
8:38
refusing to shut up when told we're not talking about that.
8:42
And you, you kind of hope that politicians are like that
8:44
because they want to change the world.
8:45
But the idea that they sat in a room and went, yes, OK, Kier, we
8:48
won't talk about that. Particularly when some of them
8:51
had already had already privately told him that they
8:54
were suggesting he would go. I find that remarkable that they
8:57
then just kind of kept their counsel and talked about other
9:00
other matters. Yes, let's talk about the Middle
9:01
East I. Think the only one I think, I
9:04
think this is, I think the only one who actually has actually
9:08
done that is Mahmoud, the home Secretary.
9:11
I I, I, I don't believe Yvette Cooper did that.
9:13
And I'm not sure that Ed Miliband did even actually, I
9:16
think. And that's, that's just thing
9:18
indeed, because, you know, I'm not sure that Annie Burnham LED
9:22
government or would actually want to want her as home
9:25
secretary. And certainly, you know, for
9:27
people like Kaja Rayner, she's an absolute hate figure.
9:30
But no, I mean, look, I mean, I, I, I, it's nonetheless, you
9:35
know, despite the fact that some of the, some of the stories are
9:37
a bit frenzied, there's nonetheless it was saying it's
9:41
yellow in the room. I mean, you've got, you know,
9:43
781 MPs or more now saying he's got to go, 3 minister of
9:47
resignations, 44 minister of aides.
9:50
I mean, you can feel the hurt movement.
9:52
Haven't talked about don't mention the war you.
9:55
Do you do? I saw a.
9:57
Report they said he was, he was, he was he was getting on with
9:59
some other business and I was like, how, how on earth is he
10:01
managing to do that? He's got, you know, is he like,
10:04
well, we're going to sort of have a look at potholes now or
10:07
something. And you know, I like the idea
10:08
that they come to the end of this meeting and sort of any
10:10
other business. No, nothing to say No, it's just
10:13
it's just hanging there. You know, I'd find that
10:15
extraordinary. I mean, the other thing somebody
10:16
else said to me today was, you know, it often it comes down in
10:20
these moments to the politicians partner or wife and those
10:24
conversations they have. And in fact, Keir Starmer said
10:27
himself that that Victoria, his wife is his closest advisor and
10:31
that she's always right and that, you know, that he he he
10:34
listens to her. But but in these situations, you
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know, the wife or partner is usually the one saying, sod
10:43
them. You keep fighting, you know, so,
10:46
so you know, they're, they're, they're not worried about, you
10:48
know, bringing the party together and all the rest of it.
10:50
They're worried about the person that they love and supporting
10:53
them. So so they are most likely to
10:55
prop them up and say you fight you, fight on you.
10:58
Can be sure that Justine Miliband is telling Ed that you
11:01
know, Chancellor yes, Prime Minister, no, I mean, I'm sure
11:05
that I mean, I mean I he doesn't want to go there again and I
11:09
think that they they he's already.
11:11
Been tested out. He's been tested, hasn't he?
11:13
I I, I don't think he, he, he wants to be chancellor and and
11:18
probably could be a chance foundry Burnham LED government,
11:21
but he's not going to go. So he's not going to he's not
11:23
going to stand in in cabinet and challenge, you know, I mean,
11:26
people like whether the size he might lose it.
11:29
So if it's, if it's and who else is going to do it?
11:32
I mean, it's who else has got the kind of heft to wait and
11:35
John Healey? I don't think so.
11:37
I mean it's not. And so in the absence of a, of
11:40
a, of a big beast, you know, ready to go, you have what you
11:44
have. And that's why I think you,
11:46
it's, it's to understand that, I think you have to understand
11:50
this dynamic of the importance of the mandate and the imminence
11:53
of a general election if someone takes over.
11:55
You see, I mean, I think that there is a bit of a gap between
11:58
London-based journalists like me and, and journalists have been
12:02
following Andy Burnham closely in the north like you.
12:05
In that we remember Andy Burnham as a Blairite cabinet minister
12:09
and then a Brownite cabinet minister, and then a man who
12:11
wanted to lead the Labour Party and lost and then wanted to lead
12:14
the Labour Party again and lost again.
12:16
And then gave up Westminster politics and went off to the
12:19
north and then suddenly reinvented himself as this super
12:22
popular man of the people. And yeah, it's it's kind of not
12:25
the guy a lot of people here remember.
12:28
And I do, I think you're totally right.
12:30
I think there is a big disconnect and, and no offence
12:32
to, to you guys in, in, in the, the, the Westminster bubble, as
12:36
we might call it up here. But in the, in the, in the lobby
12:38
particularly, I think there is that, that view of, of Andy
12:41
Burnham. And you're absolutely right.
12:42
He was a, he was a very much a company man.
12:45
He was a Labour guy through and through, going through the,
12:47
through the process of becoming a cabinet secretary.
12:50
And then obviously he had this big moment in his life where he
12:52
left and he came back to his roots as he saw it.
12:55
And he came back and got back in touch.
12:56
He, he talks about his book many times about losing touch with
13:00
himself in, in Westminster, losing faith in the system,
13:03
coming back up north. And he and, and obviously his,
13:06
his outlook on life and on politics has definitely changed.
13:09
I think he's a far more radical politician now than he was when
13:12
he was in Westminster. I think he's got bigger ideas,
13:15
bigger vision for kind of how to even up the country.
13:18
A lot of his, a lot of his politics now is about see how in
13:21
unequal this country is and how it doesn't work for so many
13:24
different people. And you know, if you go to
13:26
Greater Manchester, I do think you'll struggle to find too many
13:29
people who would be able to see has done anything but a really
13:32
strong job as as the mayor. You look at the growth record in
13:34
in Manchester, things like public transport, that kind of
13:37
visible delivery, which you know, if you as, as Will was
13:40
saying before, Keir Starmer has not delivered.
13:43
OK. It's a different set of
13:44
circumstances when you're in national government but you've
13:47
got Labour in power, you've got Labour mayor in power in Great
13:49
Manchester. You can see that delivery
13:51
happening on the ground. How that translates to
13:53
Westminster is a totally different question.
13:55
But I think, I think when you ask people here, they say, well,
13:57
he's done stuff, he's got stuff done.
13:59
And on the other side I think it's fair to say he's a much
14:02
better communicator than Keir Starmer and people feel that the
14:05
perhaps they can connect more with him.
14:07
You know, you ask about the Farage in comparison and people
14:10
for whatever reason, think that they, you know, working class
14:13
people think that they can connect with Nigel Farage.
14:15
Now there's many reasons why I think that's a bit of a fallacy.
14:18
But he's created that persona for him.
14:20
And ever since COVID, I would say with Andy Burnham and that
14:23
famous moment where he came in and rallied against the
14:26
government in his, in his Kagul on this, on the steps outside
14:29
Saint Peter's, in Saint Peter's Square, there has been a change
14:32
in his dynamic. He is seen as outside of the
14:34
Westminster system, outside of this, this system that doesn't
14:38
work for so many people and I think that's a big part of his
14:40
appeal. But I mean, will does, does that
14:42
survive more than a couple of weeks contact with being back in
14:46
Westminster, do you think? Well, all the evidence is that
14:52
if you're going to the successful changes in mid
14:56
parliament since the war have always been produced by a leader
15:01
who is untainted by the previous kind of he takes over, she takes
15:06
over. It's only been he's that take
15:09
over actually, but they've take over and they're they're
15:12
independent of the the preceding years of failure.
15:17
That's one thing. Secondly, they have to strike
15:20
out in a different direction. And thirdly, they have to judge
15:23
the timing of a next general election.
15:26
Look, I'm a I'm a Burnham fan. I think that he meets, he ticks
15:31
all those boxes. I mean, he is complete, his
15:33
hands are completely clean because not part of the failure
15:36
of the last two years. After two years, I think
15:38
Manchesterism is a thing. What is Manchesterism?
15:43
I think that it's a combination of, you know, getting the
15:47
economy right and I think there's, I mean, there's pockets
15:49
of desperate social economic stress in Manchester, but by but
15:52
by the on the in the round, it's one of the most successful kind
15:55
of city outside London actually. And the question, and I agree, I
15:58
agree very much with what Liam said.
16:00
That's partly about infrastructure.
16:02
It's all and partly about some very, very interesting kind of
16:08
young companies that have been emerging kind of from the from
16:12
the technology and science of Manchester University and the
16:14
allied kind of top university around Manchester.
16:17
And he's done that alongside kind of kind of supporting kind
16:22
of the social infrastructure of Manchester.
16:23
I mean, the beeline bus network, for example, uh, and that
16:28
combination of a kind of a kind of social solidarity and kind
16:32
of, and a ladder opportunity is the kind of, and he's pulled it
16:36
off. He's done it and he's and he and
16:38
there aren't many mayors who can who can say that.
16:40
And and to bring that to the national stage and to try and
16:43
kind of help other cities around the country reproduce that
16:46
success would be a thing, I think.
16:47
One of the core tenets of Manchesterism is that it's it's
16:50
kind of a place based idea rather than sort of politics
16:53
based. So, you know, the idea of what
16:55
Manchester needs is different to what Liverpool needs or
16:59
certainly to do to with what parts down South need.
17:01
So bringing the different forces together, whether that's the
17:04
private sector, public sector, community entrepreneurs and kind
17:08
of bringing those heads together.
17:09
And I think what Burnham's done very successful is be the kind
17:11
of chair of those various organizations, bringing groups
17:14
together and using that to rejuvenate public services in
17:17
particular and make public services that have clearly not
17:20
been working for so long for so many people.
17:22
You know, I'm up here in the North and you only have to ask
17:24
anyone about the trains up here. It's a kind of running joke
17:27
about how how poor they are. But you go to great Manchester,
17:30
it's, it's an incredibly efficient and and almost
17:33
luxurious public service system at times if you, if you get the
17:36
Metrolink. So it's bringing those those
17:37
ideas together and it's this is where I find it really
17:40
interesting in the context of him potentially moving into
17:42
Westminster, because so much of it is about devolution and about
17:46
giving, pushing more powers out of Westminster into the regions.
17:49
You know, Andy's talked before about a sort of German style
17:52
kind of federal system where everywhere individual places
17:55
have much more power to to sort of self govern.
17:58
Now you ask any Prime Minister if they want to give away power
18:01
and they usually don't want to do that.
18:02
So it would be very interesting to see how that translates.
18:04
But yeah, it's a it's a very place based approach.
18:06
He says he tried to sort of take the politics out of it and work
18:09
on what is best for that region. Is there an element though of
18:13
it's just a bit easier to be good and popular at being a
18:17
mayor because the the range of powers is limited?
18:21
The kinds of things you're looking at is tends to be about
18:23
new growth, infrastructure, convening people, you know, kind
18:27
of soft, soft power stuff to some degree.
18:30
And when you get to central government and Westminster, it's
18:33
actually delivering and fixing the big things and it's massive.
18:38
It's a massive job and it's massively broken.
18:41
And so the same approach may not work.
18:45
Completely correct. It's a massive, massive
18:47
difference and you only have to look at something like the
18:50
Hillsborough law, for example, which obviously Andy Burnham has
18:52
been a huge proponent of that has taken, you know, we were
18:55
promised it, you know, well over a year ago now.
18:58
The fact that it has taken so long is partly because you're
19:00
having to deal with all these different organs of the state,
19:03
different civil servants, different priorities.
19:05
It's one it's one reform where I just thought surely Keir Starmer
19:08
can get this over the line and it hasn't happened yet.
19:10
So that's just one example. So the, the wheels in the civil
19:13
service and the Wales and government move a lot more
19:15
slowly than than in, in Greater Manchester combined authority.
19:19
And you're completely right that, you know, if, if, if Andy
19:21
Burnham, you know, the powers that he has, they're usually for
19:25
quite positive things, things that you're bringing to the
19:27
table. You know, it's the local
19:29
councils that probably have to make the cuts and have to have
19:31
deal with those kind of difficult decisions.
19:33
So it's a totally different ball game.
19:34
I totally agree. Do you think people are being
19:39
naive in imagining that popular Andy Burnham, the the mayor of
19:44
Greater Manchester, could could transfer that popularity to the
19:49
national scale? He wasn't a wasn't a
19:51
particularly successful cabinet minister, it wasn't a
19:54
distinguished chief secretary, it wasn't a distinguished.
19:56
It was a very, very short period at culture, media and sports and
20:00
wasn't and and health was OK, but not fantastic.
20:04
So, I mean, it wasn't, you know, it's not a stellar record in the
20:07
kind of fag end of the New Labour years.
20:11
You know, then he had a he's, you know, he's had a crack at it
20:13
and failed and at the leadership.
20:16
And so, you know, there comes a time when you have to, there
20:22
comes a time when you know those question marks kind of exist and
20:26
I. Suppose he would say he's
20:27
changed, you know, as as Liam was saying that he's learned.
20:31
But the, the, the question is, you know, can you transfer what
20:34
you've learnt as a mayor to succeed at a national level?
20:38
You know, Boris Johnson didn't think.
20:40
I think there are, there's 3 or 4 aspects of him that I, that I
20:45
think are really important. One, he's a communicator. 2,
20:50
Actually, he has charisma. 3, I think he does have a vision.
20:55
Four, I think a major element in economic and social policy going
20:58
forward has to be about devolving power to get quick
21:02
results. And he knows how to do that.
21:04
Those are, those are, I think you can overstate the kind of
21:08
the international stage. It's fairly obvious what you
21:10
have to do in Ukraine. It's very obvious you have to
21:12
get as close as you can to Europe within the kind of red
21:16
lines of the manifesto. It's fairly obvious you have to
21:19
be wary about Donald Trump. And it's fairly obvious that you
21:21
have to look for any resilience given what's happening in the
21:23
Straits of Hormuz. I don't think those are hard
21:26
things to get right. What's really hard to get right
21:28
in Britain is the domestic agenda.
21:30
And maybe he's the man, but I come back to the point that
21:33
actually, if he wants to strike out a different direction, the
21:37
pressure on him to call an election before 2029 will be
21:41
intense. And you know, the, the, the
21:44
judgement call that he has to make, as well as, you know, the
21:47
Parliamentary Labour Party and Labour Party activists.
21:49
And actually, you know, and if you believe in democracy, you
21:52
know, is, is, is, is it right to have an election once again,
22:00
kind of many years before it was scheduled to be held and
22:03
actually and, and revoke the vote that was made in 2024?
22:07
It's really, really tricky. And you know, or in the past,
22:12
governments and parties have been punished for that.
22:14
That's the trouble. And I, I find it, I find it
22:17
extraordinary difficult to kind of navigate my way through this.
22:20
And I if, if it was a coronation and there wasn't a contested
22:28
competition, there wasn't worth treating going for it or say an
22:30
Alcons or someone who may throw that in the ring.
22:34
If it was, if it was an uncontested election with
22:36
everyone rallying around him and him managing to find a way
22:39
through the kind of necessity of changing course while being
22:46
congruent with the terms of the 2024 manifesto commitments, you
22:51
know it's probably worth doing. But it's high, high risk and the
22:56
Cabinet wasn't prepared to make call today.
22:58
Liam, you're. Just going to say something.
23:00
It's got to win a seat. It's got to win, win a seat,
23:03
hasn't it? And, and, you know, if you look
23:05
at those election results on Thursday and Friday, where is a
23:08
safe Labour seat now in, you know, there was talk of him
23:11
going for a seat in Saint Helen's South that's been ruled
23:14
out by the incumbent Mary Rimmer.
23:15
But even if he had been successful there, you know,
23:19
Labour would just reduce to two seats on a, a council that they
23:21
previously ran, reform one every other seat basically.
23:24
I mean, there's many obstacles in his way here not to find
23:26
someone to stand aside. Then he's got to go and win it.
23:29
And it's very difficult message, I guess, to say to someone in a,
23:32
in an area like say it was Saint Helens.
23:34
You know, I'm here to serve you. Well, everyone knows why he's
23:37
trying to get a seat. Everyone knows he's getting a
23:39
seat because he's going to go on and be Prime Minister.
23:41
You can't really say I'm here to be a top constituency MP because
23:45
it, you know, people aren't stupid.
23:46
They know. So it does.
23:48
It's going to have to come across a little bit cynical.
23:49
But then people might like the idea of their MP being the Prime
23:52
Minister. Yeah, yeah.
23:53
I mean, you're certainly going to raise the profile of the
23:55
place, isn't it? Well, then people might think
23:58
he, you know, he has the power to change things in their, in
24:02
their lives, you know, and. I think they're going.
24:04
I think if he, if he, I think we, I think we can all agree
24:07
that if he stood in Greater in Gordon and Denton, then he
24:10
probably would have won that seat for Labour.
24:12
You know, he had, the polling suggests he was the only
24:14
candidate who would have won that.
24:16
And obviously now everyone's looking at the fact that Starmer
24:18
decided to block him there. What about Will's concern?
24:20
That's, you know, you, you just won't have the democratic
24:24
legitimacy to carry on really changing the agenda in a massive
24:29
way that wasn't in the manifesto, that you will be
24:32
forced into an earlier election than you would like and that
24:35
could be an absolute gift to reform.
24:38
It could be, but just to give it a a a little sort of reverse
24:42
ferret it actually, I actually think it could potentially work
24:44
slightly better for Andy Burden because he will have less time
24:47
as Prime Minister, less, less time in that, you know,
24:51
unrelenting limelight will mentioned before the savagery of
24:55
the the right wing press for any Labour Prime Minister.
24:57
I actually think it could work better for Andy Burn to have
24:59
less time sort of associated with the failures of this regime
25:03
before, you know, seeking a new mandate.
25:06
I mean, we're all we're all guessing here.
25:07
I honestly don't know. But I, I personally felt, and I
25:10
spoke to some MPs the other day who were supportive of Andy
25:12
Byrne and they said they would prefer him to have got to get
25:15
the job a little bit closer to an election so that there's less
25:18
time for, you know, the press to do its thing.
25:20
And for, for him to be kind of come, you know, I guess
25:24
besmirched with some of the, the failure and the stagnation of
25:27
this current Labour government. So it could work in his favour.
25:30
But you know, it's anyone's guess at the moment.
25:32
Can I just also ask you about the economics will, because I
25:34
mean, you know, if we have a very prolonged period now in
25:40
which Andy Burnham has to find a seat, a minimum of three weeks,
25:45
probably more to actually hold the by election.
25:49
And then they've got to go through a Labour leadership
25:51
process. And if that's contested, that's
25:53
going to take a couple of months and it's not resolved until
25:56
September. And all the while the markets
25:58
are wondering, are we going to end up with Andy Burnham, Ed
26:01
Miliband and Angela Rayner and a soft left government that's
26:05
going to want to borrow more? Is Keir Starmer going to be able
26:09
to turn around and say, look, the economy is in trouble
26:12
because of this? You are wrecking and damaging
26:15
Britain with this self indulgent contest back.
26:18
Down. Let's get on with running the
26:20
country. Actually, we're already there.
26:22
I mean, I mean 20 and 30 year bonds are yielding 5.8%.
26:25
That's much higher than bonds in comparable European countries.
26:29
And it's a 28 year high for borrowing costs, for God's sake.
26:34
And I, you know, and that weighs against, again, heavily on
26:39
challenges. I think it's all very well
26:41
saying, you know, I'm against fiscal rules and I want to kind
26:44
of, you know, borrow more. It's just not on.
26:47
I mean, the British debt and deficit position is
26:50
extraordinarily precarious. I'm not sure people really
26:52
understand how precarious. I mean, it's true our national
26:56
debt in relation to GDP is comparable levels to an even
27:00
lower actually than you know, France, for example or Italy,
27:04
but that's not the point. The point is our debt is done on
27:07
it in sterling, not EUR. It's largely held by it's
27:11
largely held by sellers. The Bank of England wants to
27:13
sell it. It helds those end of our debt
27:15
foreigners were our buyers, but kind of watching nervously.
27:20
I mean, who's who are the, where are the natural buyers of
27:24
British of British government debt?
27:26
And consequently, because they aren't there, our interest rates
27:31
are kind of are the highest in the G7 for kind of 10 year, 20
27:34
year and 30 year bonds. And, you know, you may say you
27:40
want to, you want to escape the kind of the tyranny of the bond
27:43
markets, but you, you know, you just can't.
27:47
So you, your only way out is to kind of do things like kind of
27:52
abandoned the triple lock and have an average lock, which I've
27:54
advocated really return to the kind of welfare reform agenda.
28:01
You've also got to find increases in defence
28:03
expenditure. I mean, it's not, I mean, this
28:06
is the kind of cup of roses that Andy Burnham's going to inherit.
28:12
And you've got and you would have an election within kind of
28:15
12 months of having got the, of having got the leadership of
28:17
having to make made some really, really toxic decisions.
28:21
So economically, it's, you're quite right, a long drawn out
28:25
process of finding a seed, having election contest, all the
28:28
rest of it with the bond markets looking on.
28:31
Very. I mean, I, you know, it would
28:33
be, you know, you'd all the time, all the time to be the
28:37
risk of a run on Sterling. I mean, Liam, you know who is
28:42
more wrong? You know, are the bond markets
28:44
wrong about Andy Burnham or is it just Andy Burnham who's wrong
28:47
about the bond markets? Well, that, and that is a
28:50
question way above my, my, my training.
28:53
But what what I would say is that, and, and obviously he
28:56
spooked a few people with those comments and there was there was
28:58
a plenty of briefing. He has rode back.
29:02
He has rode back. Yeah, he has rode back.
29:04
But then he also said he wanted to take defence out of.
29:07
Yeah, out of out of out of public borrowing.
29:09
I mean, it's just like, that's sort of fantasy economics isn't?
29:12
It yes, I mean, if you look back to last, last, last the last
29:15
Labour conference here in Liverpool, I think everyone can
29:18
agree that Andy Burnham's sort of pitch that he made at that
29:21
point was a little bit chaotic and didn't land well at all,
29:25
particularly it was just badly timed.
29:26
But comments around the bond market, it gave the, you know,
29:30
the Labour government plenty of ammo to push back and he was
29:32
being compared to Liz Truss. I think he's slightly finessed
29:36
some of those comments now. I think he was trying to shake
29:38
things up a bit. You know, I'm, I'm certainly not
29:40
here to speak for him, but I think there was an element of
29:42
trying to sort of shake things up, get some news lines out
29:45
there and also sort of suggest that we need to look at things
29:48
from a completely different angle.
29:49
I think one of the main criticisms of, of Starmer is
29:52
that he came in promising change and it's been so, so pedestrian
29:57
that no one has really felt it. And, and even those, you know, I
30:00
get frustrated because you'll, you'll see things come into
30:02
force that people in this part of the world will really benefit
30:05
from, like the renter's right rights bill, like the scrapping
30:08
of the two child benefit cap. And it's completely just lost in
30:11
the, in the morass of the, the mistakes and the mundanity of so
30:14
much else of what this government has, has, has been.
30:16
And, and you know, some of that, lots of that is their fault.
30:19
Lots of it is the fact that they don't get as fairly hearing from
30:21
from the media as as perhaps the Conservatives would have done.
30:24
But there have been some, there have been some really
30:26
progressive and positive policies that have come in from
30:28
this government. They're just not very good at
30:29
talking about it. And that's the massive part of
30:32
the problem. And Keir Starmer's communication
30:33
is, is is pretty woeful. I think it's it, it doesn't come
30:36
across well. People do not feel in any way in
30:38
touch with him. And so, yeah.
30:40
And Andy Burnham would would Andy Burnham fans would argue
30:43
he's much better at connecting with those ordinary people.
30:47
Keir Starmer has got a mandate from the British public, as has
30:50
the Labour government. What they needed to be doing is
30:53
reflect on what has been of course, some disappointing
30:55
election results. What you then don't do is
30:58
suddenly have an internal war and have public theatrics in the
31:02
way that we are seeing. What you do is you go away, you
31:04
reflect, you be humble and you come back with a response to the
31:07
very clear message that the electorate gave about making
31:10
sure that the Labour Party is able to tell its story, it's
31:13
delivering on its manifesto commitments and the parties of
31:16
the British public. That is what we expect now.
31:19
Nobody expected any of my colleagues to be behaving in
31:23
this manner and what we are seeing is really not putting the
31:26
country first. That is what the Prime
31:28
Minister's, you know, priorities are.
31:30
That is what the majority of Labour MPs want to see is that
31:34
we put the country 1st and we come back to respond to the
31:38
electorate's concerns. I mean, isn't it just a bit late
31:41
to be arguing this? You know, so many of them have
31:44
gone over the top. You know, they've identified
31:48
themselves. They've put their names to
31:49
letters saying, saying stand down.
31:53
And, and that is the point at which it becomes unsustainable.
31:56
You know, they're not they're politicians.
31:58
They're not just going to say, oh, I was wrong.
31:59
I'm going to go back. In more well, well, look, we've
32:03
got over 400 MPs and we're we're hearing from 80, but we're also
32:07
hearing that there's more than 100 that have put their names to
32:11
a letter saying that this is not the time and colleagues must
32:14
refrain from you know, in turning inwards.
32:17
We need to be outward facing. That is exactly what the
32:20
electorate expects from us, not to be talking about leadership
32:23
change. We've had instability in this
32:25
country and what we need is stability.
32:27
We have a war in Ukraine, we have a war in Iran.
32:29
The priority for this Prime Minister, that's exactly what he
32:32
did at his cabinet this morning is think about how we going to
32:35
respond to the fact that the Strait of Hormuz hasn't been
32:37
opened. We've got a cost of living
32:39
crisis. People are really the pinch and
32:41
this is only going to get worse. That's got to be the priority of
32:44
all of my colleagues. I mean it, it should have been,
32:47
but the point is that we're, we're past the point of no
32:51
return, aren't we? And, and this just sounds
32:53
delusional, you know that? No, I don't.
32:55
We've been here before. We've seen what happens, you
32:59
know, with the Conservative Party when, when you get these
33:01
kind of herd movements, you know, and some of the herd has
33:05
moved and, and you, you know, it's not going to move back so.
33:11
Well, well, look, I mean, you say that the herd has moved, but
33:14
actually moved in for what? For what purpose?
33:17
There's been no trigger process taken place.
33:19
I mean, this is a number of MPs sort of setting out, you know,
33:23
their stall. Actually, they were, you know,
33:25
elected on the very same mandate that Keir Starmer has.
33:28
They've got a responsibility to serve the British public that,
33:32
you know, elected them. And that should really be their
33:35
focus. I don't.
33:36
You see what's going on, don't you?
33:37
You, You are now criticising your colleagues.
33:39
This is now a part party that is at war with itself and and that
33:43
is a disastrous look. And it's unbelievable, frankly.
33:46
I mean, you know, given, given the extraordinary victory you
33:49
had two years ago and the enormous electoral majority to
33:54
to have this party now fighting itself.
33:58
Yeah, look, we're not at internal war with each other,
34:01
you know, with respect, I mean. I mean, you can't, you can't
34:04
deny that. It's just a fact, you know,
34:06
that's not a match of opinion. With respect, I mean, I've been
34:10
in opposition for eight years. I have been fighting hard to get
34:14
a Labour government. We have one, We have a lot of
34:16
people in the new intake that don't have political experience.
34:20
You know, what they are showing is not political courage and
34:23
actually it is incumbent upon people like myself.
34:25
I'm not going to war with my colleagues.
34:26
What I'm respectfully saying to my colleagues is, you know, do
34:30
not disrespect the electorate. Turn outwards, look, find the
34:32
solutions. Actually, what the 7080 of you
34:35
should be doing as opposed to sending letters which are about
34:38
yourself, put country 1st and tell us what the solutions are.
34:41
That is exactly what I'm saying. Get behind Keir Starmer and
34:45
let's go and govern because that's what is required from us.
34:48
Tomorrow is The King's Speech. Colleagues have not even
34:50
listened or heard what we are going to be doing in terms of
34:54
the next session. And that's why everybody needs
34:55
to have calm heads. Just calm down, unite.
34:58
But let's get on with the job. Pregil Thank you very much
35:01
indeed. Thank you.