Streeting, Burnham, Rayner: Coming for Starmer's job?

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]The big question this week, will Kier Dharma go?

[00:00:02]>> As we discussed on our bonus episode last Friday, the local election results were not good news for Kier Dharma.

[00:00:08]We're recording just as ministers are coming out of a cabinet meeting, something that we're going to get into later because we've been in the room for those awful, awful meetings. So today, we're going to give our advice to the runners and riders who may well be leading the Labour Party at some point in the near future. I'm Cla Watson, a former special adviser to Theresa May and Boris Johnson. And I'm Helen McNamara, the former deputy cabinet secretary. And this is in the room.

[00:00:33]Well, it's a red letter day because 2,000 of you are now following us on Instagram, which we are so thrilled about. If you'd like to join those ranks, go to @ inintheroom.pod. You can also watch us on YouTube. Our channel is called In the Room Politics. And if you've got a question about the confusing, confounding, and sometimes maddening world of politics, you can email us on in the roomindependent.co.uk.

[00:00:58]I've sent a few of those myself.

[00:01:00]>> I don't know why we're promising we can answer any questions, but you can definitely email us questions and then we'll have a go.

[00:01:04]>> Well, Hen, we recorded on Friday about the local elections. What the hell has been going on since then?

[00:01:09]>> It's only a few short days ago, but it already feels like quite a long time.

[00:01:12]So, at the time of our recording, 81 MPs have said that they think that the leader of the Labour party should step down. We've had a clutch of PPS's, which is the most junior kind of non-ministerial role in the government, resigned yesterday and were rather hurriedly replaced. We've had one junior minister also resigned because she thinks Karma should go. We're very much still at the who stage of affairs in terms of people resigning. So no one that anyone's really heard of, but you know, you never know that might come soon. Um for a leadership contest to be triggered. So although apparently we're getting very close to the number of MPs who want Karma to go, what they haven't done is a line behind a particular candidate, which is in the Labour Party's rule book, which we've all become deep experts in. uh you theoretically need 81 people to back one MP to really trigger a leadership contest.

[00:02:03]>> Yeah, exactly. And that is something the prime minister was quite keen to draw attention to at cabinet this morning. So he said the Labour party has a process for challenging a leader and that has not been triggered. The good old process coming up once again. It's worked his hands.

[00:02:19]>> His hands are tied, Cleo. The process hasn't been triggered. There's nothing the guy can do.

[00:02:23]>> Yeah. It really it really reminds me of of Stalmer the lawyer here which is the idea that there is you know an absolute rule book. He knows it better than anybody and that shall be applied and I think as you have been keen to point out before when that meets politics that isn't really the case things can be written down and codified in lots of different ways but you know we have an unwritten constitution the Labour party's leadership rule book can be fairly unwritten when it really matters too.

[00:02:50]>> I'm sure that's right. Um the other big kind of case down with a lawyer thing we had was that it was all going to be solved with one big speech I think which we'll get to in a minute. So other things that happened over the weekend we had the appointment of Harriet some oldies but goldies Harriet Harmon and Gordon Brown popped up in Downing Street. Uh I think Harriet Harmon was appointed to do a job that she was also appointed to do last year or even perhaps the year before that to uh advise on policy for women and girls.

[00:03:18]And Gordon Brown's title is something like international global economics finance don't know envoy maybe >> that is actually pretty close but it's not quite right officially it is special envoy on global finance and cooperation.

[00:03:32]Oh totally understand what that job is.

[00:03:34]Y >> yeah what are the word salad?

[00:03:36]>> It didn't go down very well with people who thought that the voters on last Thursday were not saying what we really want is a return to 2008 please. Um, so I'm sure that the intent was to do something that was going to really help out Kharma. In practice, the reality of that was not so much. And it really occurred to me actually just just quickly on those two appointments that, you know, former prime ministers actually have pretty busy diaries. I don't just mean them on the golf course, but you know, the idea that on Friday afternoon, someone in number 10 thought, oh yeah, we should get Gordon Brown back in, who incidentally, you know, very popular within SW1 in in Labour circles, not amazingly wellreceived across the rest of the country. But that that those announcements were therefore planned quite well in advance. And I just wonder what results they were expecting from the local elections where >> that was the answer.

[00:04:24]>> Yes. Yeah.

[00:04:25]>> Yeah. And it it had a slight vibe of him getting mom and dad in to stop people bullying him, I would say. And that's with deep respect to both Harro Harmon and Gordon Brown. in the way these things often happen. There was a surprising little intervention over the weekend from Katherine West who for me anyway is a little known well she was a littleknown Labour MP essentially saying that if a cabinet minister doesn't get going and and challenge the prime minister get him to resign then she was going to put her hat into the ring which does by the way as a side note have this kind of amazing echo back to me of Tory MPs of your who've tried to get these things going and you know I've I've talked with colleagues and after sounding them Now I have decided to do the honorable thing make a complete hit of myself. So there there was >> I felt there was quite a lot of exhausted middle-aged woman as an exhausted middle-aged woman I can say this energy coming from her like oh for god's sake of none of you going to do it I have to do it myself again.

[00:05:23]>> Yeah it's true but it also had this kind of interesting cascade effect because she was on the Laura Kunber show on Sunday immediately before Bridget Philipsson. Um, and it also put a bit of pressure elsewhere because I saw our old friend Josh Simons off of Labor Together was writing in the in the weekend papers. Helen, >> yes, he did. So, that was another kind of for close observers of these things.

[00:05:44]Josh Simons who wasn't obviously a cabinet office minister was kind of touted very much as a new Tony Blair a few years ago who ran Labour together, the think tank that Morgan Mcweeny set up. this is all kind of and then she said she said but Josh coming out in public with a kind of quite heartfelt thing actually about uh the problem being that Karma and the Labour party what the Labour party was doing in Westminster was miles and miles and miles away from what his constituents in the Northwest actually wanted um was yeah it's quite a surprising intervention.

[00:06:13]>> Yeah. Although I should just say on the Laura Coonsburg and the Bridget Philipsson and Katherine West uh appearing on the show on Sundays, it also intended a slight panic between you and I that we might have accidentally given ourselves labor bobs, but I think we're okay.

[00:06:26]>> I'm taking serious hair growth supplements to try and sort myself out or I might just go for full mohawk instead.

[00:06:32]>> Reverse moakin for hair. Um the other interesting symmetry was that the prime minister gave this interview to the observer saying he is going to be prime minister for 10 more years which I thought was you know I'm going to be Britain's next top model. Um but also there was this incredible picture from the prime minister's Twitter account from 10 years ago with the prime minister Wes Streeting and Katherine West herself taking their seats in the House of Commons. I mean, there was always a tweet, but this one was particularly good seeing the three of them together.

[00:07:05]>> And then on Monday, in the kind of typical salami slice fashion that has been um I'd say a hallmark of this government, the prime minister gave this big make orb breakak speech.

[00:07:17]>> They build it as a make orb breakak speech. So they kind of went out there saying this is what it was going to be, which is another kind of classic lawyer thing. One big speech to save the day.

[00:07:25]>> Trouble cuz it's make or could be break.

[00:07:27]And I would say most Labour MPs decided it was probably a break situation. He came out tireless, jacketless with his sleeves rolled up, which does have this kind of, you know, I'm here, I'm on the job, I'm I'm ready to get going. But then he did read word by word from an auto cue. So it doesn't quite have the same heft and power, I would say. Um but it it I think having these points, you know, judge me by the local elections, judge me by um my make or break speech, judge me by the king speech, like we keep having these kind of goalposts shuffled along for essentially Labour MPs to make up their minds. And there were three things that he said in the speech, weren't there? So the first was quite surprising. We've talked a bit about this on the podcast before of just how far the government are going towards not just alignment with the EU but kind of slightly suggesting that we would rejoin the EU which is remarkable and there's been lots of polling lots of Labour and peace kind of congratulating themselves that this is great because actually most people think Brexit was a mistake. You might well think Brexit is a mistake. You know opinions vary. But the question isn't should we go back to 2016 and decide whether to leave or remain. It's from where we are now.

[00:08:37]Should we rejoin the EU? And that's a like massive thing to just drop into the mix.

[00:08:42]>> Yeah, those are not going to be on good terms that we would rejoin. I also think this is something that we talked about on Friday about how you interpret polling. Are you really listening to what the public are saying? And when you actually dig into people's takes on Brexit, it is not Brexit itself that the majority of the public hate. It's that politicians haven't followed through and delivered it properly. And uh lots of people can end up being in favor. Some of the really interesting polling I've seen, which we'll put into our show notes, people can be interested in rejoining, but when they hear the implications what that actually means, particularly on free movement, people don't like it. I also think that it's this it's this mistake that I keep seeing again and again from frankly people who are quite welloff elite. uh they have a very particular set of views that they don't want to change and as discussed on Friday I don't think they'll be changing their views based on Thursday's local election results and that is the idea that Brexit is the cause of people's problems not a symptom of how people are feeling. This is exactly where the public have been pretty much since the 2008 financial crisis. And these people need to wake up to understand what vast ways of the country are actually saying here. And I don't think talking about closer alignment is is really going to cut it.

[00:10:05]He did a very strong kind of his own personal leadership which I mean it's quite odd to to deliberately lean into not the Labor government, not the Labor movement, not the manifesto, not the team, but the I I I there's a lot of kind of I I I am going to lead which I don't I mean that's an >> perhaps not a wise choice to have done yesterday and probably something that's pushed people who might well have been with him even further away because it does feel quite egotistical. Okay, so a quick recap on where we are Helen. So since the prime minister's speech Monday morning, which feels eons ago, frankly, where he said he wasn't going to walk away, he was going to fight off any leadership challenge, that's true. He's doing that and using the process to help him because we are approaching this magical threshold of 81 MPs who are unhappy with his leadership, but they are not all backing a um contender yet.

[00:10:55]So, you know, an amazing labor inertia is what is keeping him safe for now.

[00:11:01]Meanwhile, on Wednesday, it's going to be the king's speech and the horses are all trottting around nervously getting getting ready to go on parade. Yeah, big excitement for that. And in the meantime, there's this awkward situation where the prime minister's had a cabinet meeting this morning and you know, we're told that the members of the cabinet like Shabbana Mammud, he's the home secretary, have said that he should set out a road map for when he is going to uh go. So, we're going to have a lovely chat next about how incredibly awkward the interpersonal part of all this is because, you know, if it is if it's tricky to watch on Twitter and if it's tricky to watch on um the news channels, can you even imagine what it is like behind that black front door?

[00:11:44]So, I was watching uh on the news last night and it was that absolute classic when these things happen. and everyone's outside Downing Street with the outside broadcast cameras and the lights. And I was just thinking to myself, this is like really actually you have to have a bit of sympathy for the people the other side of the door. Particularly there's like teenage children that live on that street.

[00:12:02]>> And you sort of don't have to do it like this. I do feel there's a real kind of there's a grubbiness and a kind of feeding frenzy and just a slight unpleasantness sometimes about how far we quickly tip into how intrusive this is. I think you and I have both been in Downing Street when it's really really grim and those, you know, the end of Theresa May's premiership, there was quite a lot of showdown cabinet meetings where there various points, you know, she was coming under massive pressure and she was going to be made to step down and you're just kind of there's this massive anticipation because the cabinet meeting is the one thing that is everybody knows when it is. Everyone processes up. is a very kind of performative piece of theater and if you're actually in the room quite often and I suspect but obviously don't know this has been the case today it's a bit of a damp squib so you get all of this kind of I'm going to be briefing this and I'm going to be saying this and actually quite often ministers telling their own teams or I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that and then they all sit there together having slagged off the prime minister like almost up until the door of the meeting room sometimes quite literally having been sending messages and then they sit there in the room together And there's like just a massive awkwardness where they're shuffling and looking at their shoes or trying to talk about all sorts of, you know, non things and no one's really catching each other's eye. And then somebody in our day was quite often Michael Gove who would suddenly make an impassion defense of the prime minister.

[00:13:28]And he'd be looking at him thinking, pretty sure that quote just before this meeting came from you, but here you are.

[00:13:35]Here you are standing up telling everybody it's really not okay. And then there's like a virtue signaling thing that goes around the table. And all these people who you know full well are trying to topple the prime minister are then saying the thing is I just think colleagues really should calm down and remember who we are and what we're here for. And you get this massive pomposity with the undercurrent of like we all know that you're all you're all at it.

[00:13:57]>> Yeah. A lot of regretful nods, a lot of clapping actually and not like ironic like slow claps but actual kind of happy clapping. I mean it also needs to be said I I've I've been very much at the kind of junior end of the spectrum as a staffer here and obviously uh more senior but coming in and working in that building when you're not in the room for those kind of really intimate should we stay should we go what's our plan you know it was brief that the prime minister was getting in takeaways last night and a few key advisers were there and they were working out what to do and you know as far as I can see about 8:00 p.m. last night they started hitting the phones to get people to come out and defend them. I was thinking, have you guys been on an away day or something?

[00:14:39]Where where have you been? But if you're elsewhere in the building, you know, it can be a lovely sunny day like it is today and Tuesday 12th of May and then you go inside and it's like all the sunlight and vitamin D and oxygen has just left you and you've you've walked into the kind of underworld of the vampires and it's this sense of dread that is kind of dripping through the walls and the sense of inertia like you it sounds really difficult but many many staffers just sit and refresh Twitter and and are getting more information from watching the news like anybody else than they are from inside the building because the kind of information tree just breaks down and the the doors close and that bunker mentality people talk about really does happen. I honestly think and it's like a bunker within a bunker. I think that the people in the people outside of the inner circle in number 10 are obviously the least of quite often the least wellinformed in the whole of Whiteall >> because nobody nobody remembers to tell um I'm Peter Hill the principal private secretary for Theresa May was really good at remembering that actually >> every everything had happened in the in the inner circle and then was happening outside in the media and there's this gap in the middle where all the people who worked in the building might actually quite appreciate it if their bosses stood up and said actually this is what's happening today or this is where we are or this is where we're worried. to it's very easy to forget all of that when you're in the office.

[00:16:00]>> The thing that was really useful for me though as a junior staffer was our office was right next to the cabinet room. So we looked out onto the sort of vestibial where all the cabinet meet beforehand for coffee and biscuits and it's obviously incredibly awkward because they all know that they're different runners and riders and they're gearing up to say something and and it can take some of the sting out of it because they have to stay and chat and be human with each other before they have their actual meeting. And I would see uh another little room where you would occasionally take a cabinet minister in to have a nice chat. And there is this box, isn't there? Like a like cubby holes where they can all put their phones. Yeah. So, it's quite an important rule that that you're supposed to before you go into the cabinet room, even if you're a cabinet minister, put your phone in this little cubby hole.

[00:16:45]They don't always do that. Some cabinet ministers carry more than one phone. So, they have a phone for leaving >> the old burner. the old burner and a phone for taking with them. One of the things that obviously nobody really apart from an incredibly niche set of people I was very very outraged to find out but uh one of the cabinet I think it's Steve Reed tweeted from inside the cabinet >> in support of the prime minister >> doesn't matter it could be in support of anything you shouldn't be tweeting live from a cabinet meeting and also you shouldn't be Darren Jones who was out there doing his Darren Jonesing uh in defense of the prime minister that's the chief secretary to the prime minister who runs the cabinet office and is the poor soul who is is quite often featured on our cuz he's sent out to defend the individual regularly. And there he was doing the morning media round this morning. He briefed out the listen. He briefed out the cabinet agenda. Cleo, you're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to say, "Actually, this morning we're talking about X or Y or Zed. The cabinet is supposed to be a sacred place." So, I was very offended by that. And also outrage to discover that there's 32 people attend that meeting.

[00:17:48]>> What?

[00:17:48]>> I think they've probably gone past the like Christmas dinner extension. They must have had to buy another one. I don't know how you even get 32 people in that room.

[00:17:55]>> Yeah. Do you think they're on like double double decker couches? Or maybe they're like one in one out. Maybe they've just really snuggled. Maybe they're maybe they're much more slender.

[00:18:02]Yeah. And that's not including obviously staffers who will sit around the outside too. That's a that's a full room.

[00:18:08]>> That is going to that room is not going to start.

[00:18:10]>> You can't really avoid eye contact in that situation cuz there's just too many eyes >> everywhere you look.

[00:18:15]>> Maybe that's the way to get out.

[00:18:16]>> Um well, how about the name that everybody keeps talking about? I want to talk this morning about Andy Burnham and does he have a route to become leader of the Labour Party slash prime minister.

[00:18:28]>> So I find this one really interesting.

[00:18:30]So I think there's a there's a like fable of what is not working in the tale the recent tale of Andy Bernham.

[00:18:36]>> Should we begin with the first point which is he is not an MP. He's the mayor of Greater Manchester.

[00:18:40]>> The mayor of Greater Manchester.

[00:18:42]Apparently he wanted to stand as an MP.

[00:18:45]He wanted to resign the mayoralty and he wanted to stand as an MP and rejoin parliament and he wanted to stand for Gorton and Denton which is the constituency where there was a bi-election where it was Hannah Spencer the green former plumber who is now an MP and it was Andy Burnham had wanted to stand and contest that seat which had been held by the Labour party and he had been blocked from standing by the NEC which is the governing committee of the Labour party. Shabban Mimmude the chair had recused herself rather magnificently from that decision. But all of the briefing was that it was Kia Stalmer and his team that' been very clear that Andy Bernham was not allowed to resign the mayoral trigger a mayoral election and that he was not allowed to get back into parliament. Now my view is that when you look at the outcome of that election result which was basically the Green Party won and then the vote was split really green reform Labor, it might have been a much more politically smart thing to do to let Andy Burnham fight that seat because if Andy Bernham had fought that seat probably I mean who knows he might well have won and then he would be part of the runners and riders now. But actually what could have happened is that the the vote would have been split between Labor and the Greens and the reform candidate would have won. Now you might think that's like why would that be in the interest of the Labour party? Well, instead of going into this recent round of local elections, having given the Greens a massive bounce of having won this election in the Labour heartland, you know, having annoyed Andy Bernham on the sidelines, you could have had a live living example that if you want to stop reform, you've got this. It doesn't work. the kind of Greens Labor split. So it could have actually been to the prime minister's advantage to let Andy Burnham stand, >> but that would have required foresight.

[00:20:26]>> It would have required foresight and I mean I'm not a political operative and if even I can work out that might have been better then probably you'd hope that they could be smarter than that.

[00:20:36]The other thing that is a bit like your point about everyone's an expert on develop betting. We've all, you know, become experts on the Labor election rule book. I mean, there's a very good House of Commons library note, which >> she's had her highlighter pens up, people, so look out.

[00:20:51]>> I Well, I love the House of Commons Library. Um, it's very good. But, uh, it has in it that the the rules are and everyone's talking about the rules are you have to be an MP in order to be a um a candidate for the leadership of the Labour Party. That was only written down quite recently. So in in general, do you have to be an member of parliament in order to lead the parliamentary Labor Party and be the prime minister? For sure. There's no nowhere that says actually these things have to happen in a perfect sequence.

[00:21:20]>> So it would be perfectly possible were the Labor Party to decide to do this to have a leadership election to allow Andy Bernham to stand and then to kind of sort it out slightly afterwards. So if he becomes the lead the Labour party then have a bi-election and then I mean super awkward if he doesn't manage to win that seat. So you'd want to really really deploy the big guns but all of that is possible. I think it's just a perfect illustration of the kind of mess we've got to and the way that people get so trapped in this very very close thinking. These aren't laws of gravity.

[00:21:52]M >> this is a rule book which the Labour part has changed god knows how many times including know disastrously in 2014 to make it one me one vote which has allowed all sorts of other things discuss they could just let Andy Bernham be part of the competition and actually everybody should want that if if there is going to be a contest now for leader of the Labour party for the love of God it needs to be a clean one and not have like another king over the water and I didn't get my chance and I got wrapped up in some sort of process they should just go for it pick a person and then back them and then please get on with it.

[00:22:22]>> Helen, do you think that there is a sort of mandate problem with Andy Bernham because he has not actually been elected to become an MP? Do you think people can make a fair argument that this is not what the public voted for if he becomes Labour leader?

[00:22:35]>> So you can either say that K was the Labour leader at the point of the election and therefore he needs to be the Labour leader until the next general election. That's a perfectly kind of quite pious but you know you can make that argument or you can say actually what matters the most to the country the party the you know into whatever is having the best person to do the job and I think there will definitely pe be people who will recoil with horror and if Labour party members are pearl clutchers they will be clutching their pearls pearl wearers rather um at the notion that actually you could just say what the hell Andy could be on the ballot paper and then sort out the MP bit slightly sequentially or be doing it live while there's a bi-election going on or whatever whatever >> but actually I don't think really process is the point and what people will really care about is is this person any good are they actually effective at managing the parliamentary Labor party do they have a plan do they look like a good prime minister do they sound like a good prime minister the kind of technicality of actually according to the rule book on page 34 he should have done this in this particular order and it's been an unconstitutional B I Who cares? All of this stuff is completely made up and the Labour Party excel in sort of processes it applies to themselves and then they also excel in process that applies to the rest of us.

[00:23:51]But it's like a bit wake up and smell the coffee. We don't even if we ever did live in that world. We definitely don't live in it now. We have got to have a functioning effective good government as soon as possible. Not at least just get sensibly through the next winter.

[00:24:04]>> Yeah, I agree with that. I think a botched leadership contest now means whoever replaces Thalma honestly could be gone by Christmas. Um and and we have another one like I think we could have a a Liz trust situation if it's not done right because it is such a divided parliamentary party and we've said this so many times but the thing that keeps Karma safe is the failure for them all to coalesce behind someone and so you have to have a situation where people don't feel like a key candidate was kept out on a technicality and that kind of thing. Um he am I right in thinking he also could come in through the lords which would be >> quite out there.

[00:24:44]>> It would be he will be bold. He could do but I just don't think he I don't think he needs to. It's perfectly possible if enough MPs back to Andy Burnham. The magic 81 number of MPs say actually we'd like it to be Andy Burnham. Then you could start the contest, start the bi-election, you could do it sequentially. You could do whatever. All of these things are possible because they are not laws carved in stone even.

[00:25:06]They are laws that can be changed with the stroke of a pen. And actually Kia Star as a former lawyer would be pretty good at reddrafting the handbook to uh reflect this >> as a retirement project.

[00:25:16]>> Yeah, exactly. I thought of a perfect job for myself.

[00:25:18]>> And the other thing that's happened really rapidly, a bit like talking about members of the cabinet suddenly saying, "Come on, shouldn't we be more grown up than this?" You can see in both the MPs, the spads, the briefers, the commentary, just how rapidly everyone goes from, "Let's get Kier Dharma" to I'm just not sure we should be changing our leader all the time and shouldn't we be asking bigger questions and it's sort of you get whiplash from the the the uh change in tempo of like is this really the answer to the country? any of these people who want to be leaders of the Labour party need to set out really clearly not just to their own members but also to the to the rest of us like what is the point of making them the leader and what are they going to do what's their answer to the questions because Labour have the most extraordinary amount of actual real life power they don't feel like it doesn't feel like it but they really do they can change the country if they want to they just need to coales around a plan and then do it all right so that's where we are up to now um we are in sort of silly season now post the cabinet meeting because no one quite knows what's going to happen next. We got to see how MPs, Labour MPs sit with this new information. The prime minister is sitting behind his process and they have to coales behind someone. And you know, a sign that we are in this silliness is that we've just been able to track Andy Bernham's train journey from Manchester down to London. He has arrived everyone.

[00:26:38]So hold on to your hats.

[00:26:39]>> But there are others too. Shall we start with Angela Raina?

[00:26:44]>> Yes. I mean she is a good a very magnificent thorn in Kama's side actually because obviously they were a kind of team of rivals while she was deputy leader of the Labour party and deputy prime minister um but by all accounts they haven't always seen eye to eye they represent quite different wings of the party and so when she left government in September uh the kind of opportunity for her to be on the back benches get a base beneath her causing some problems I think has been pretty inevitable and she has made some quite tricky statements about Mandlesson, about some of his policy positions in the last few months that have not been helpful. Um, so it seems pretty clear she's been gearing up for something like this. Apparently, she's been making money in the city, talking to uh traders there and big banks, and she's been learning about defense and kind of boning up on that part of her knowledge that she doesn't really have, which I think is fair enough. Um, she is also just a flaming red-headed vixen and I kind of love her. Much of the public have really liked her until this HMRC tax situation, which is when she had to step down as deputy prime minister because although the row is still ongoing, she allegedly uh did not pay tax on a house that she bought. And that has actually really not gone down well.

[00:28:07]If you look at focus groups about her, the t the tax thing is is just really hated by people. And so they had to be quite careful, I think, about backing an as fun as she is. You know, she she reminds me of someone who when you have one of those friends where you think you're really fun, I love going out for like a drink or dinner with you. Would I start a business with you and like reorggage my house to do that? I don't know. And I don't know if that is >> Peter's just gonna be a really strong stare.

[00:28:38]>> I know. I I'll do it with you in a second. Here we are. Here we are. My wagon is attached to yours, Helen. Um, but I I wonder whether when push comes to shove, uh, some of that, you know, enjoying her authenticity and thinking that she's fun. I wonder once the kind of head-to-head polls start coming out, which they inevitably will, some of her backers might lose their nerve. It was surprising. She did issue a statement on Sunday, I think it was, which was both managing to be kind of well, this is not okay. The situation needs to change, but not it kind of pulled its punches quite a lot. And I thought that was surprising that that definitely said to me that she's not actually sure she wants to do this because if you really wanted to do it, you'd be coming out fighting.

[00:29:20]>> And actually, as as has been pointed out by quite a few people, she did not talk about immigration in that statement. She was very complimentary about Andy Bernham and said it was a mistake that he'd not been able to run in Gorton and Denton. So we'll park that for now. Um but you know to have to have backed a potential rival. But you know the government's immigration record is actually pretty strong. It's come out it's come down under the Labor government >> really significantly. Really significantly.

[00:29:46]>> Yeah. And uh it's quite interesting to not sort of point to that as a success.

[00:29:51]And you know there there are these stories that she thinks Shabbana Mimmude should go as home secretary. Poor Shabban she keeps you know I must take her name out of my mouth but um I quite like and I want to get on to talking about her shortly. Angela she might have been supportive of Andy Burnham. She did not talk about where's streeting though in her little chat GBT statement. What do you make of Helen? Well I think Wes is the all the Westminster rumors are that Wes is the one who is most ready to launch his campaign. I think the question about where's incredibly ambitious for the Labour Party and for himself. That's not a crime. He uh is a very good communicator. He's very good in the telly. He's got very quick turn of phrase. He's not frightened of tackling arguments head-on. So, he's quite good if you put him against a reform person or a green person. There's lots of kind of boxes to tick on where streeting could look really good. The question is still the question, which is why and what because he is he's he has not set out in any way, shape, or form what his mandate or prospect is. He's not got a reputation as being a big developer of ideas or a thinker in the Labour party. His like his heritage is not here is my diagnosis of the problem of our state and here is my plan for doing it. So I think the fear when it comes to Wes is that where she says talking about them first when it comes to mistreating or the secretary of state for >> I like to call him Wesley snipes because um people snipe at him pretty badly too.

[00:31:10]>> I see what you've done there.

[00:31:11]>> He's got his detractors Helen. Okay. I would say >> I will refer to him from now on as the secretary of state for health until that is not true. Anyway, Secretary of Health. Um are you just going to get like a better communicated version of Kier Armor I think is the question. And or has he actually Yes, he's been Secretary of State for Health. The NHS has gone through some really difficult and challenging things. Some things are going well. Waiting lists are going down. Some things are going really badly like the abolition of NHS England has not been a wellrun or smooth process.

[00:31:38]There's all sorts of kind of question marks there. Is he going to be bring the sort of excellent public administration, attention to detail, grip, ruthlessness, and an actual plan for what the country needs? Like big question mark. I think is he well organized and well-liked?

[00:31:52]This is his family. I mean, he's been part of the Labour Party since he was a student politician. It's very much in the blood. And it's worth remembering that these people have known each other for decades. Their adult life has been spent with each other. So the the kind of ties and the grudges and the loyalties go back a million years.

[00:32:10]>> Yeah. And he carries with him, this is part of my Wesley Snipes gag, but he he carries with him.

[00:32:16]>> Just commit to the gag. Keep it. It's a good guy. We're going to sweat it.

[00:32:20]>> So good. Um but he carries with him a lot of the baggage that the prime minister does. You know, he's seen as very close to Peter Mandlesson. He's seen as very close to Morgan Mcweeny. He is um he's he is despised actually by some of the Labour MPs and there are already briefings that are kind of trying to kneecap him before he's even become leader or prime minister. You know, the Mandlesson point I think is an important one because if you remember, he was the Obony cabinet minister who sort of jumped the gun on the Humble Address and the Met investigation by releasing his text messages between himself and Peter Madison preemptively, >> which is a very good political move to be fair to him. He's got good judgment on those things. Well, he certainly felt it at the time, but I wonder depending on when the next tranch of the Madison files comes out whether he'll be actually looking quite exposed compared to the other other candidates because they'll only have his messages to judge.

[00:33:16]>> I'm sure this is for one of our later, you know, when we've got the other tranch, but one of a Labour party insider said to me the other day that 43% of all Labour prime ministers have had to fire Peter Mandlesson. Like all Labour prime ministers ever. I thought that was a really a really excellent stat. Anyway, >> that's an amazing stat. Do you want to know another quite good stat?

[00:33:34]>> Yes.

[00:33:35]>> 65% of the prime minister's reset speech, make or break reset speech yesterday morning >> was recycled from his party conference speech in October. Not so much of a reset. That's the big story. The other thing about West Streeting which is material actually particularly when it comes to whether donors are going to back him or not is that his parliamentary majority is tiny and on any vote projection I mean and he only just scraped through it's under a thousand. He only just scraped through the last election it's almost impossible to imagine given where we are now that he was that seat is safe and so you're going to have a leader of the Labour party who has to basically run away from their own constituency. It's called a chicken run famously and go and take somebody else's seat. And that is a that is a bad look.

[00:34:22]>> Okay. Well, we've done uh Andy Pandy, Wesley Snipes, and Angela Ripen. Um how about we just have a little look at a few lesser mentioned names, but people I a couple of them I think are genuinely quite credible and good and therefore they haven't got a chance. Yeah. I mean, Al Khan, I think he's good. For for anyone who is not familiar with him, he's a defense minister. He used to be commanding officer of the special boat service. He would he would negotiate really well. That's for sure. Um I mean he's done quite a bizarre tweet this morning which is just a picture of the sky saying good morning which I sometimes it's just better to say nothing at all as Roland Keing would say. Um I think he is I think he's impressive. He's just an interesting tough character. I suspect he just comes across as a bit flatfooted politically. If you're not watching this on YouTube, it's worth just going to have a look at Cleo's face.

[00:35:18]>> I'm wearing burgundy and I've gone burgundy. What can I say? Someone who else has got me blushing is Shabbanammud, the home secretary. I think she's I think she's got a really good track record. She has just stayed tough and she stayed on her brief and she's just liked across system which I don't think you know I hear civil servants really like her. She's a good minister. Ed Milliband, could he make a return? Helen. Okay. Iette Cooper, the foreign secretary.

[00:35:45]>> Sorry, >> she's not going to Labour Bob. So, she's out probably.

[00:35:47]>> She's out for on Bob grounds. Although, you I'm sure we're going to get to this again that there will be no female c candidates. And I do it does drive me mad that if you look at other parties, it's just insane the party have not managed to elect or go anywhere near electing a female leader.

[00:36:04]>> And yet, so many senior officers of states have got women in them. But you're right, none of these women are being talked up at all.

[00:36:11]>> No. and I just talked up Shabban mood and now that's over.

[00:36:15]Just to finish, regardless of who ends up being amongst the runners and riders, perhaps we could give do a bit of catch all advice for them um and things that are worth doing covering bases. So each one of them if they haven't already got a spreadsheet they need to get a spreadsheet going and it'll be colorcoded which we love depending on whether they think someone is in their camp whether they're this is the first rule of politics learn to count. So basically work out who your backers are.

[00:36:44]>> Obviously the best thing to do is to have a few endorsements and if you've got a load you want to be able to trickle them out at the right time. You might have a few you know former senior Labour people. I bet everyone's trying to get Tony Blair. Um, you might get people in the House of Lords. You know, for Labour, you want union bosses backing you. You want to have clusters of MPs. So, you just talking about the 2024 new intake of Labor MPs. They're quite a powerful lobby now. And they can use that to both, you know, actually shape where they want the parliamentary party to go and to get a few, you know, particular things. It might be jobs, but it might be, you know, funding for particular interests that they have, that kind of thing. Inevitably, there's uh trying to meet with newspaper editors and lush them up a little bit to get them behind you saying nice things about you. And I think one of the things I would say to, and I suspect it's going to be West Streeting, he'll be most accused of this, is at least in toy leadership contest, nobody wanted to wield the knife first. Nobody wanted to be brutous. So there was this kind of lemming quality of everyone trying to work out who's going to go first. And I actually thought, and you were able to correct me, that Katherine West might have been a decoy over the weekend to try and like pave the way for somebody else. But it sounds like she really did just go for it very bravely by herself.

[00:38:10]She fired her own starting gun and I thought she'd been helping somebody else. And there's another little bit just for the for the MPs who are working out what to do. There's this really crucial moment on resigning from your PPS or ministerial jobs where quite often you don't want to be the first to go because if it goes wrong, you're out on a limb, but you don't want to be the last to go because you're unlikely to be able to leverage yourself a better job because you've just fallen in with everybody and it's so grotesque and everyone's trying to work out what everybody else is doing. And again, it's not a good day for governing the country. We've got a cost of living crisis. We've got an international crisis, but still this is what it boils down to.

[00:38:50]>> That is absolutely solid gold advice about how to win a leadership election that anybody who wants to should listen to. My side of this is not any of that obviously wouldn't occur to me. My side of it is are you ready to actually govern? So I would hope that he for the country's sake actually whoever is going to be leader of the Labour party next is going to come out fighting and have a plan a bit like the first 100 days in 1997 where you know exactly every single day the thing that you're doing and you've gone through every single department of state. Quite a lot of the governing this government has been doing is basically on the edges. So instead of asking big and fundamental questions about how our economy is structured, what matters, the really kind of profound principal stuff, they are instead taking a little tiny set of questions which the civil service is serving up to them which are all kind of the icing on the surface and >> in the public interest >> in the public interest of course and they've not got into tackling any of the big fundamentals which is the why does everybody keep voting the same way saying this isn't working for me. You are not going to get the answer to that or any change that works in time for the next election unless you do something really radical. So whoever the next leader is, they need to come in with a really radical achievable program for government, which they have, by the way, got the agreement of before they are elected. So you'd want the new leader to have a really rockolid team of people. I mean, I'm probably just now making up something that just doesn't exist in any way, shape, or form. But in your ideal scenario, all of the governing that I've seen that works, particularly around a prime minister, is when you have a rock solid team of the people supporting the prime minister who will lie down in the road for them, but are smart enough to be able to shut the door and say, "Actually, you've really cocked that up, go back out and sort it out." So, there needs to be brave honesty and a really close team, but who are super loyal.

[00:40:35]>> Yeah, I totally agree. I think actually the two bits of advice inevitably marry together really well because if you're taking the kind of small P politics bit this is an existential crisis for the Labour party and they've got to treat it as such and they've got to really get this right they have to be quite swift and they have to be very very clear similarly they have to treat it as a as a crisis once they come into government and I completely agree the only way to treat this is as you an imminent imminent threat to us if we don't get things right and that's the only you know all the kind of hyperbole we see on Twitter and um the kind of feeding frenzy that we get that energy needs to be channeled into actually governing as efficiently and kind of aggressively as possible. Thanks for listening to today's episode. Remember to follow the show on your podcast player and leave us a fivestar review if you enjoyed it. And please do email us your feedback and your questions. That is in the roomindependent.co.uk.

[00:41:38]And of course you can keep up to date with all the best little videos and clips on Instagram at inthetherroom.pod.

[00:41:44]This podcast is part of the independent podcast network and is produced in association with nextchapter studios.

[00:41:50]The executive producers are Carrie Rose and Olivia Foster and the producer is Sam Durham. And a special mention to our content editor, Maya Anushka, our video editor, Valerie Raza, and our I'm looking at you now, Dan. And our videographer, Dan Faber. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.