When a political leader loses the confidence of their parliamentary party, it can trigger a leadership crisis that threatens government stability, as demonstrated by the 2024 UK Labour Party crisis where over 80 MPs called for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to resign, illustrating how internal party divisions and electoral defeats can destabilize even newly elected governments with large majorities.
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Britain's Newsroom | Tuesday 12th MayAjouté :
nor do I. Then she said, "Therefore, I urge you to do the right thing for the country and the party and set a timetable for an orderly transition so that a new team can deliver the change we promised the country." Now, the cabinet have been arriving uh some of them smiling, nobody saying anything.
People who looked particularly glum though I thought were the health secretary uh West treating especially many in the party very angry with him.
They feel that his fingerprints are all over this uh because he's now in pole position to run for the leadership. But I spoke to one of his team uh in the last hour or two and they said that's absolutely unfair. He said there's lots of people wanting the prime minister's job that West Street hasn't asked anybody to go over the top for him. But at the at least he is being honest and saying that he's ready to mount a challenge if the prime minister can't stay.
>> Well, welcome to Britain's Newsroom.
What an extraordinary day. We're asking, is it the endgame for the prime minister?
We're saying Kama could be forced to announce he's stepping down as early as today. Cabinet was meeting. We will be there right through the meeting this morning. Uh the home secretary Shivan Mammud is among three cabinet ministers already said he's got to announce a timetable for his resignation. 80 Labour MPs have now joined the mutiny.
>> Well, can he hang on, Andrew? And this time yesterday, we were about to listen to his reset speech >> which was terrible.
>> It was not enough. and uh one of the papers commenting today that he was using his least effective uh method to try and save himself. He's not known for his speeches. Yesterday was nothing special.
>> It was tired. It was full of cliches.
He's not an ortor. And the big announcement that he was going to nationalize British Steel, full stop.
Subject to a public interest. Come on, man. Make a decision for once. Get on with it. And and it's the parallels with the last days of Boris Johnson are just extraordinary because it it's exactly how the Conservatives did. Labor bypassing the standard way of getting rid of leaders and trying to force challenges and just res resigning on mass and that's enough.
>> And this is historic for Labour because this has never happened to a serving Labor prime minister ever.
>> Well, certainly postwar.
>> No. And one who won such an extraordinary majority just well less than two years ago. 1 year and 10 months ago, he was he was walking on water, wasn't he?
>> Yeah. Well, I'm not sure he was ever in the positive popularity rating, but nevertheless, >> but he had a majority the same size as Tony Blair, so he could do with with that majority what he wanted. Let's go to our political correspondent, Katherine Fster, chief political correspondent, Katherine Fster, who's in Down Street um as this extraordinary cabinet meeting takes place. Katherine, normally they would be talking about the king's speech, which is tomorrow, a major event in the political calendar, but I suspect to at the moment they're talking about can he survive that he can leave the change, but she is saying she doesn't believe.
>> Yes, I suspect so too. Good morning from Downing Street. It is quite surreal here. The roads are all closed getting ready for the king's speech. Uh I came in at half five. There was a marching band practicing for that. But it's possible that the legislative agenda that the king outlines tomorrow may quickly become obsolete depending on what happens in that building behind me where the cabinet are now meeting. Now, in the last few minutes, we've heard that 81 MPs have publicly now called for the prime minister to go. That is 15th of the parliamentary Labor Party. That is symbolically very important. That is the number needed for a challenge. The problem is of course that there is no agreement on who the best person is to replace the prime minister. Now as the cabinet arrived some were smiling. They were all very tight lipped. Uh one person that I thought was particularly gloomy looking was Wes Streeting. He is the health secretary. We know he dearly loved to be prime minister. He's made no secret of that. Uh but there's many uh in Labour very angry with him feeling that his fingerprints are all over uh this and that the plan is for him to move while Andy Burnham who is the most popular Labor politician in the country the mayor of Greater Manchester still doesn't have a seat and therefore not in the running at the moment. Now I was talking to uh an ally of West Streeting this morning who said that this was totally unfair that West Streeting hasn't asked anybody to go over the top for him. But he said look at least West Streeting has been honest. He has said to the prime minister he will not move against him. But if the prime minister's position is untenable, he's ready to go.
But look, we don't know what the prime minister will decide. We know that Shabbana Mimmude last night called for him to set out a timetable for departure. We know that others like Lord Hermer, like Steve Reed said absolutely you shouldn't go anywhere. Darren Jones, a key ally of the prime minister this morning on the broadcast round, saying that he couldn't get ahead of any decision that the prime minister might make, but also saying that he felt that the majority of ministers wanted the prime minister to stay. Why might that be? Well, look at the markets. Uh the Footsie plunging, uh guilt yields going up. As Paul Johnson of the IFS have said, borrowing, getting more expensive.
Markets do not like instability. And as Sakir Starma and Rachel Reev will argue, we're already in a difficult uh world, a dangerous world. The Straight of Hormuz is closed. Our bills are rocketing.
That's going to get much worse. There's war in Ukraine. Is this really the time to change? Leader, I have talked to people in number 10 who feel incredibly sad, who say, "Look, the prime minister is a decent man. Uh but it feels like the herd is moving. Also, uh Labour MPs who just feel that this is frankly mad.
Nobody knows what comes next. Andy Burnham maybe doesn't have time. Angela Raina, she still owes £40,000 in stamp duty. We hear that investigation still going on. Ed Milliban, he apparently didn't want the job, but maybe uh if it's if it's Wes Streeting or or somebody else, he might throw his hat into the ring. We don't know where this goes. And for all the talk of an orderly transition, there is no agreement on what might happen next.
>> Easy time for a prime minister to resign or be forced out. But with the king's speech tomorrow, whatever Starmmer says today has the potential to cause extraordinary chaos and even potentially a constitutional crisis. Do you think Labour MPs are aware of the timings here and what it might mean for the government's legislative program >> and his MPs revolted and that is one of the main issues.
>> I think the Labour party is having a collective nervous breakdown at this point. They are absolutely in civil war.
I mean, we saw Katherine West, that backbench MP, the other day saying, "If the cabinet don't move against him, I will." Um, she later softened that, but invited people to send their names in.
She said she wanted to transition in September. Then she went, "Oh, that was a typo. I meant by September." She said that she hadn't looked at the rules. It feels like a lot of people have obviously taken those catastrophic election losses very personally, are worried about losing their seats and are just thinking we have to get rid of the prime minister and we have to do it now.
The trouble is look before you leave. We don't know what follows. Nobody know what's what follows. And the prime minister, well, let's see. I mean, he was adamant yesterday that he wasn't going anywhere, that he's not going to plunge the the country into chaos, but it feels like the chaos is already here.
And it feels like a very long time, and it's only two years since Labour campaigned. I looked up what uh the now prime minister said at the beginning of the general election campaign and he said, "We will stop the chaos, that they will bring stability, country first, party second." They also promised uh growth. They also promised very limited tax rises. But hey, times have changed.
>> And Katherine, you know, the strategy in number 10, I've I just despared of it ever since Star's got in. Who thought it was a good idea to brief over the weekend that K Starmmer was going to make a make or break speech which would save his premiership. He's incapable of delivering a magisterial speech. It's not what he's good at. He's not an auditor. It was policy light, which was extraordinary. And the one area he took us to, which is what I predicted they would do last Friday, take us closer to the European Union, coming just days after uh local election results, where seats which voted massively for Brexit overwhelmingly rejected Labor and voted for reform. The entire strategy around yesterday was wrong as per usual. Who is running number 10?
>> I think one thing worth remembering is the process in the Labor Party is different.
>> Well, that's a good question and the answer is there's been a succession of people running number 10. We've had uh several chiefs of staff. We've had many head of comms. Uh the churn has been quite quite incredible because things go badly and somebody is thrown under the bus and so it goes on and so forth. But I was at that speech yesterday. Uh yes, it was underwhelming. To be honest, I didn't expect it was going to shift the dial because the prime minister was not a a natural orator. I thought he sounded more passionate in places. But what did we learn? British deal was being nationalized. We sort of were edging towards that already. Apprenticeships.
Well, yeah, we hear about that, but where are they really? And the whole key message, which is more Europe. I mean, I asked the prime minister whether Labour had abandoned the working class because clearly the working-class communities that were the core of the Labor vote in the Red Wall in Wales, in Scotland uh feel that they have been abandoned by the Labor Party and uh that the prime minister doesn't get it. I asked him that directly. It was a question about the Labour Party and the working class.
He answered well an entirely different question that I hadn't asked. He talked about Brexit. He talked about Nigel Farage. But the point is that workingclass communities uh much of the country has been struggling for a very long time dating back to the financial crisis and before that's why so many of them voted for Brexit. So for all the difficulties that Brexit may have brought and many people will say well it hasn't been done properly. We've not taken the opportunities. These communities were left behind long long before we left the European Union.
Brexit is not the cause of all our ills.
>> Cafe Foster outside number 10 keeping watch on the movements in Downing Street.
>> And we will also have our eyes and our ears not far from the cabinet room because it will leak like a sea. You could be quite sane. We're going to talk now to Carl Turner who um is the MP for Kingston Ponhull East. He had the Labour whip suspended because of his principled stance, I would say, on opposing uh Labour's plans to dilute trials by jury.
Mr. Turner, good morning to you. Um you are, it's fair to say, have been saying for some time Kama is in peril and probably not up to the job. What should happen now? A timetable for his departure, or should he just go? Well, when I was watching this uh just a few minutes ago, I I was reminded by Boris Johnson saying, "When the herd moves, the herd moves." What's happened, Andrew, is the herd is stampeding.
>> So, the prospect of Kia Star staying very long at all in Downing Street is rather remote in my view. The reality is he must set a timetable I think because unless we have some semblance of stability the markets will wobble and that is a problem that we need to avoid in my view I think we'll do it anyway frankly but I think we need to have a timetable where he sets a date and then we move towards that date >> but we have paralysis then don't we because we've got a a lame duck prime minister the timet what Would it be September, October around the time of the party conference? So you can have a proper orderly leadership contest, Mr. Turner, whereby Andy Bernham could possibly even take part in it. If it was a quick departure and a quick leadership contest, the king across the water, Bernham doesn't get a look.
>> Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I'm I'm not convinced that there's any prospect of Andy Bernham in any any event, Andrew, if I'm honest. I mean this idea that the national executive of the party 6 months on from saying you're not coming in are going to say well actually now we have the evidence that it's going to be unlikely that we hold on to the mayorality in Greater Manchester and it's unlikely that you can win a seat. We're now going to change our mind and say well at the time of saying it we had our fingers crossed but we've had a think now and you can be the candidate for wherever. I think that's probably unlikely in my opinion.
So the parliamentary labor party have a choice to make. Do they want West Streeting? Do they want Angie Raina? Or do they possibly want Ed Milliband?
That's where we are, I think.
>> Just about those personalities though, is it? It's about the factions and the politics that they represent. And the New Statesman this morning, of course, the Journal of the Labor Party is leading with the headline, is Labor about to descend into civil war? If we do see a leadership campaign, we're going to see all these arguments out in the open and it's unclear how they will be resolved. Do you think this is possibly the end of the Labour Party?
>> Well, if you were knocking on doors with me last week, you'd have thought that the Labor Party had already had died, frankly, because people were saying things that I've never in the 40 years of being involved in the labor movement ever heard. And the tragedy was it was all about Karma.
It is a vitriolic toxic.
We had our problems with Jeremy Corbyn, but the vitriol for Kia Star on the doorstep was much worse than I'd ever heard about Jeremy Corbyn. And remember, Andrew will remember this, I suspect. I was not a fan of Jeremy Coleman. Far from it. I ret I resigned as his shadow attorney general. Uh but honestly, the the there was parts of my constituency who begrudgingly respected Kobe.
The constituency now despises Kama.
So we have a massive hill to climb.
What we need to do is get a leader in place who can disassociate from what's gone in the last two years. I don't think it's all Karma's fault, frankly.
But what I would say is this. When you go to the country as we did in July 2024, promising to do away with the incompetence and chaos of the previous Conservative governments and promise to be holier than thou and then as soon as you're in start to mess around with more chaos, the Uturning, the policy decisions which were never pitch with the PLP, the winter fuel stuff, leaving everybody to think that their granny was going to have the winter fuel allowance taken from them. A Labor policy, incidentally, under Gordon Brown snatched away from them without mentioning it to the Parliamentary Labor Party. And that continued on and on and on and on until we got to the jury trial stuff. And I went into the chief whip at the time. I said, "This is the line for me. I can't do this. I can't possibly bring myself to agree to this ludicrous policy when the former Tory government had every reason to do away with jury trials in the pandemic yet resisted it because they knew it was undemocratic.
It was unpopular. It was unworkable. And at that point I realized there was no way that this government was going to carry on in any way like >> what you say about the the deep unpopularity of K star and certainly the polls reflect that and many of our viewers will absolutely agree with what you're saying about jury trials but nevertheless it seems unclear what replacing Starmer will achieve because many people many economists diagnosis of the major problems facing our country the fact that we think of ourselves as rich and we're not. We need massive cuts in public spending. None of those are going to be solved by the Labor Party because whoever is in charge of the Labor Party, the backbenches are not going to vote for the kind of economic reforms that we need to save the country. So what's the point in losing Karma?
>> Well, that's an argument that's being made by some MPs as well, not just you.
They say, "Let's hold on to Karma." But we know the longer we go on with the current prime minister, the more unlikely it is for us to mend with the electorate. And that's what we've got to try to do. It might not work. I'm not suggesting a new leader is going to w in and magic up some popularity for the Labor Party, but what I'm saying is there's a possibility of moving on from what is clearly a complete and utter chaotic debacle of a scenario which Karmama promised of to put to bed when he became the prime minister. We can't carry on like this. We need to act in the country's interest, which is what the prime minister promised. But I don't think there's any prospect of the whoever comes in calling a very early snap election. Why would they when we've got a big majority? Of course, I wasn't I was one of the MPs who was very vocal.
Every time the Tories lost a leader, I was screaming and balling saying, "Let's have a general election. You've no mandate." But the reality is that never happens in government. It never happens because why would they go to the country knowing they're going to lose? They need to get a grip of what's going on and try to mend our ways and give the country some confidence that whoever is in charge at number 10 is doing the best for the country.
>> Just before we let you go, Mr. Mr. Turner, does the king speech tomorrow, the king is going to talk about my government, my government will do this, my government will do that. Is he re it's going to put him in a very difficult position when the government's head the prime minister it looks like is going to have to announce a timetable for his departure meaning we'll probably have another king's speech in a few months time. It's a very badly organized coup isn't it?
>> It is shockingly uh badly organized. Uh and the reality is of course it causes embarrassment. Every single member of parliament, including some on the Labour benches, is going to be be speaking to the king's speech for the next 5 days after it's announced by the king tomorrow saying this is not really the uh program for government of the prime minister of the day. So, we need a new It's just going to be a mess. It's terribly embarrassing, not just for the Labor Party, but for politics and for government. And we wonder why people are cheesed off with politics and politicians. I'm ashamed of it. I think most Labor MPs will be ashamed of where we've got to. And I'm afraid it pains me because he was a good paline, the prime minister. But it pains me to say the management of the Labor Party and government which Karm has been in charge of has gone into this terrible state as a result of the way he's managed things.
It's been shocking.
>> All right, Carl Turner, thank you for being so frank. He is the MP for Kingston upon Hollist. He was a Labour MP until he had the tmerity to say it was outrageous to try and restrict jury trials.
>> Now, another another MP has urged to come. I think we're up to 81 or 82 now.
>> M. So, so another Labour MP, Paul Foster, who is the MP for South Ribble in Lancaster, has urged the prime minister, Saki Starama, to quit. That's in the last few moments. He's now the 82nd, >> but significantly a junior minister has resigned. Uh, and when one starts, there'll be more if he doesn't announce that timetable in my view.
>> Well, I think we've got Okay. So, in the prime minister's fightback speech yesterday, he made a particular announcement. Let's have a listen.
So, I can announce that legislation will be brought forward this week to give the government powers subject to that public interest test to take full national ownership of British steel.
>> So, got some breaking news. The prime minister, what is the breaking news?
>> No, I think this is the break today is the breaking news. Everything's up 82 MPs. But the prime minister announces that he's going to nationalize British steel but then added the caveat subject to a public interest. So we can't even make a proper decision on that as well.
Typical star. We have got the contributing of the critic Chris Bis who is an energy expert joins us now.
>> Is it in the public interest to nationalize British steel?
>> Well, shouldn't he have a shouldn't shouldn't the prime minister know?
>> I think the thing that we have to remember is that the entire situation of the steel sector is almost entirely downwind of policy. If you look at the carbon price, energy prices, it adds alto together in the round, it adds between 80 and80 and $200 per ton of steel produced. Now, if you consider that the Chinese are knocking steel out for less than $500 a ton in total, that's an enormous percentage of the cost. And this was intend this the purpose of this was to deter people from doing anything that emitted carbon dioxide. and you need to it's about two tons of carbon carbon emitted for every ton of steel produced. the the the point was that people would stop doing things like this, like making steel. And now we find ourselves with the consequences.
And I think that if if the government are going to impose costs like that, well, why shouldn't it sit on the on the Treasury's books if they were actually if the government actually found themselves on the receiving end of these costs? Perhaps they'd think about it a little bit more clearly. Um, so while many of us might not be in favor of nationalization in general, I think and this is a subject that the critic we've been thinking about a lot lately, Christopher Snowden wrote a brilliant article last week about this that we think about nationalization and privatization uh from the 1940s, the privatizations in the 80s after nationalizations earlier and we think in terms of that dichotomy.
>> I think I think the argument now is that that's an outdated way of thinking about things. We've got this system that's basically capitalist for the most part.
Private these industries are generally owned by private owners. Um but in terms of the actual who makes the decisions, who allocates resources, so much of that is now done by government policy, whether it's regulations, whether it's obligations, whether it's taxes, whether it's levies, the decisions are made in government and they pass it down to the private sector and say you you guys figure this out and make it happen and if you can't then you don't have a business. Um, so we've got a system that's basically capitalist, but it's not free market in any way.
>> Um, and we're now dealing with the consequences of this. So, >> well, it isn't it taking the worst of of free market capitalism in that we have no barriers really to speak of to stop countries like China, for example, that overproduce steel from dumping it in countries like ours, driving down the price, and then making it even less profitable to produce here. And haven't we got kind of caught between two ideologies? one of free trade and one of net zero which has obviously pushed up the energy price.
>> Yeah. Effectively and um I the government previously was talking about um these tariffs that they're imposing and the the the idea if you look at the at the start of this century 20 26 years ago this country was producing about 15 million tons of steel annually. Um that got down to is about 5.5 million in 2023 4 million in 2024. Now, I haven't seen complete data yet for 2025, but there's some rumors that that's probably about 2 1/2 million tons. It is a fraction of what we used to do.
>> Um, and this is this is the consequence of and it's quite deliberate that they that we we chose to have a different type of economy that didn't do these dirty things.
>> Um, and now we find ourselves up against and they're claiming that so the country I think it's about we use about eight or nine million tons of steel annually in this country. The idea was that we'd be producing half of that domestically.
Well, that is going to mean either we're producing a lot more than we are today or we use less. If you think about it, it could potentially mean either of those two things. Um, but in any case, sticking a tariff on a 50% above the quotota. That is going to increase the cost of steel to to people that are using it. And that is either either that means that we're producing more of it here or it means that we're using less of it, which will see fewer projects, fewer things happening uh and fewer things being made in this country. Who's going to decide if this is in the public interest? Who decides that? I mean, we may not have the same prime minister to order that review, but who would make the decision?
>> Uh, presumably some impeccably credentialed committee of uh of civil servants who who know what's in the best interests of everybody else.
>> Now, the first time steel was nationalized, I think in 1967, it didn't bode well for the steel industry. Of course, we had a lot of downturn during the 1970s. Do you think there's any realistic chance that nationalization could see a revival of our steel industry? I mean it might potentially mean that we that we retain some capacity. I think that if the government doesn't intervene at this point, we won't have uh we won't have a crude steel industry. So there's basically there's two ways of making steel. Either you recycle it using an electric arc furnace or you make it originally using uh using a blast furnace um uh which is an incredibly co BF bof type furnace which is incredibly energy intensive uh and cannot be done using electricity uses some electricity but it's mainly coal um uh which given the given the policy environment of the UK at the moment that the private sector is not going to do that competitively. The Chinese came in, Jingier Steel came in and acquired these facilities thinking that having some tow hold in the UK would acrew them some advantage. Well, they've learned that lesson. Um, the idea, and this has all been announced, by the way. We we knew that nationalization was coming down the tracks. It's been it's been announced to uh to to to give a bit of a boost because it sounds kind of labory.
>> Um, we knew that this was coming down.
Either they do something or it goes down. It's as simple as that.
>> Chris Bis for now. Thank you very much.
Uh, we're going to move back to our political correspondent, Katherine Forcer. She's in Downing Street because she has some news. The prime minister apparently has told cabinet he's staying put. Is that I thought he would.
>> Yes. Well, welcome to Downing Street.
The cabinet uh meeting behind me, an absolutely critical meeting for the prime minister, but uh some words have been briefed out to us uh to the effect that the prime minister says he's going nowhere. So apparently he will te telling the meeting as I said yesterday I take responsibility for these election results and I take responsibility for delivering the change that we promised.
The past 48 hours have been destabilizing for government and that has a real economic cost for our country and for families. The Labor Party has a process for challenging a leader and that has not been triggered. The country expects us to get on with governing.
That is what I am doing and what we must do as a cabinet. So that is the message from the prime minister to the cabinet.
Will they listen? We know that Shabbana Mimmude and some others have asked for him to set out a timetable to leave. But we know that others, Steve Reid, the housing secretary, Lord Herma, the attorney general, uh David Lammy, uh the justice secretary, um are saying no, you mustn't go. You need to stand firm. And of course, the prime minister is saying he doesn't want to go because he doesn't want to plunge the country into chaos.
And we're already seeing some chaos because the financial markets have opened, the stock market is down, bond yields are up. As Paul Johnson that used to run the IFS said, um, borrowing has got more expensive for all of us. And that is very depressing. This is all coming at a time uh where the economy is not in a good place, where the war in Iran is sending our bills rocketing.
That situation is likely to get dramatically worse in the coming months, even if the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, which is not going to happen anytime soon. Let's face it, there's a war in Ukraine. There's global instability. Uh we're living in a dangerous world. The the prime minister's argument is uh we need stability. This is not the time to indulge in a civil war. But look, we've also hit that symbolic threshold of 81 Labor MPs openly calling for the prime minister to go. That is 15th of the parliamentary Labor Party. So I think that is significant. But then again, it hasn't actually triggered a contest yet.
Will somebody in that building behind me decide to start that contest? we're streeting. Uh lots of colleagues very cross with him. They think that he's behind this, but his allies telling me this morning he's absolutely not asked anybody uh to go over the top at all.
But uh he's one of many people of course that would like the prime minister's job.
>> Katherine Forer, chief political correspondent. Thank you very much for that report. Outside number 10.
Going, going, but not quite gone. The prime minister tells his cabinet, "I'm not going anywhere as government ministers are failing to trigger a leadership challenge."
>> The prime minister saying he's not going anywhere, but in the end, it might be a decision that is taken from him.
And could it be taken from him by the people who are preparing to return to the building behind me? Ultimately, it is in within the power of MPs to launch a formal leadership contest.
>> Successor scramble contenders for the top job emerge, but there's no clear front runner. We'll have the latest.
Also, >> unions are backing the plan to >> so I can announce that legislation will be brought forward this week to give the government powers subject to that public interest test to take full national ownership of British steel.
>> And the trade unions are weighing in on this, saying they back the plan to save Skought Steel Works, something Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, called for in April last year. There has to be an immediate nationalization of this plant, an immediate nationalization of primary steel production in Britain.
Well, sound the alarm. We're here at British Steel here in Scumthorp after Prime Minister Kia Star made that announcement yesterday in a bid to save his position that British steel may be nationalized. We've spoken to the leader of North Lincolnshire Council. We'll get his views later on in the show.
>> I can hardly hear you. So, we're asking, is it the end game for the prime minister?
>> He could be forced to announce a decision or a timeline to step down as late as early as today, but that depends on where the cabinet ministers resign because he says he's told the cabinet >> he's not going anywhere. Well, reportedly Home Secretary Shabbana Mimmude was among three cabinet members last night urging Sakir Dharma to resign with over 80 Labor MPs now joining the growing mutiny. So, we're asking, can he hang on? Interesting.
>> We're also asking our viewers and listeners, do you want him to hang on because what comes next?
>> Indeed.
>> Would that be far worse?
>> The great unknown. Interesting that he is reported to have told the cabinet he's not going anywhere. I've said a long time, I think he's not going to go and he's going to have to be dragged out of that building. He is, as I said before, only the fourth Labour leader to win a general election. He's got his place in history. And he does not want to be the the shortest serving prime minor prime minister since the war, which he would be one year and 10 months. And he can say to the cabinet, okay, who would you want to take over?
Who's the successor? There's no Gordon Brown as there was with Tony Blair. When Theresa May went, it was obvious it was going to be Boris Johnson. It could be an astute move because now the the parliamentary Labour party will have to trigger the formal process of challenging him which means anybody who wants to stand against him has to get this magic 81 name on their nomination.
That means each individual candidate has to get 81. They may find nobody is able to do that or at least only one or two people. So perhaps it's a good move.
>> West Streeting talks the talk. But has he got 81 names? Possibly not. Even if he has, would he win the party in the country? I don't think he could. Does and does it mean um uh Ed Milliban throws his hat in the ring Angela Raina but what about the the so-called king of the north Andy Bern who hasn't got a seat >> it would take even if there was a bi-election it takes weeks to organize a bi-election >> exactly and so anybody on the so-called soft left will be disincentivized from trying to gain those 81 names because if they preempt a leadership contest now there isn't time for Andy Bernham to get back so it's open to the right we're treating Shabban Mammood but will they get enough nominations because they know they're not so popular amongst their members.
>> Let's go back to our political correspond chief political correspondent Katherine Fster who's in Downing Street and this extraordinary morning Katherine he is defying the the the herd with the herd as Carl Turner said to us isn't just on the move it's stampeding but he's defying the herd. He says he's staying.
>> Well, yes. When the herd moves, it moves. As Boris Johnson said, the herd is moving. Uh but at the prime at the moment, the prime minister is standing there and saying, "I am not going anywhere." So we've had some words brief that he has told his cabinet saying that he takes responsibility um for delivering the change that was promised and saying that the last 48 hours have been destabilizing for the government and that it has an economic cost for our country and for families.
We've seen that already uh when the markets opened this morning. Uh the cost of borrowing is gone even higher. The stock market is falling. Markets do not like instability and our economic uh position is already pretty bleak at the moment. So I think everything hangs now on what happened in the cabinet meeting taking place right now. We've got 81 MPs now have publicly called for the prime minister to go. That's a fifth of the parliamentary Labor party. That is significant because that's the number needed for a challenge. But the thing is there is no uh unity around who is the right person to take the prime minister's place. We've also got the fact that the king's speech is tomorrow.
We've got troops parading at 5:30 in the morning. Uh the king going to set out a government's legislative agenda. Is this really the time to push a prime minister out? Now I think a lot will hang on what is said in the meeting and how many of the cabinet say that they think he has to go. We know that Shabban Mimmude has said that. We know that Ed Milliband has previously said that but we know that others like Lord Herma, like David Lammy, like Steve Reed are saying you should hang on. Darren Jones, he's one of the PM's key allies on broadcast this morning. He was saying I can't get ahead of any decision that he might make. But he also said that he felt that the majority of ministers were still behind the prime minister. So frankly, I've got no idea what happens now, but nor does anybody else, not even the prime minister. I mean, he might decide to resign, but if he doesn't, uh, we don't know what happens. It feels like it is when, not if, he goes. But if and when he does go, we've got no idea who might replace him. Andy Burnham, the favorite.
He doesn't have a seat. Angela Raina still owes, we hear, £40,000 in stamp duty. There's still an investigation going on. Ed Milliband, well, apparently he didn't want it, but he might have a rethink. We don't know where this ends and this all comes at a time of great uh geopolitical uncertainty, economic instability. Uh who knows where we will be by the end of today.
>> Kathine Foster, our chief political correspondent. Thank you so much for that report. Well, going to move now to our deputy political editor, Tom Harwood. I think he's in College Green near the Houses of Parliament, right in the thick of it today. Tom, what a day.
And as Katherine says, what happens next?
Well, exactly. This is such a difficult moment for the prime minister. It's worth uh restating the fact that no one in the prime minister's uh operation expected or hoped for getting to the point where we have reached today. More than 80 Labor MPs calling for the prime minister to go. Uh parliamentary private secretaries resigning. One minister resigning. Everyone asking the question, who is next? When is this train going to where is it going to go next? Who is going to go next? And frankly, this is all in the context of a time when politics is in flux. Anyway, you might be able to see behind me the fencing that has been started to be put up ahead of the king's visit to Parliament tomorrow, the king's speech, the opening of a new session of parliament. All of that rigomearroll is being delivered tomorrow. And yet in the midst of it all, we have this putitive contest. Now, when the prime minister decided to host the king's speech this week, people thought that it could have been a clever ploy from the prime minister to uh keep MPs away from Westminster over the course of the immediate aftermath of the local elections, only formally coming back to Westminster tomorrow for the state opening. And yet, what happened while members of parliament were away in their constituencies over that long weekend? Well, clearly members of parliament have been speaking to their constituents. They've been speaking to those councilors who lost their seats.
They've been ruminating over the results of that series of local elections and indeed national elections in Scotland and Wales. They've been able to speak to real people outside of the Westminster village where I'm standing now, but real people up and down the country and hear what they have had to say about the prime minister. Could it be that the prime minister's ploy has actually backfired? That his idea of keeping members of parliament away from the corridors of power where they're known to plot and uh sulk. Instead, they've been speaking to real people out there in the country. And has that actually precipitated this enormous wave of of discontent within uh parliament? Members of parliament far more than the prime minister's team will have expected have now called for him to go. But crucially, what happens next is the question. This could all move incredibly quickly if the uh next stage of uh people calling for the prime minister to resign publicly rises through the ranks. We've already had backbench MPs, PPS's, a junior minister. There is only one further rung of the ministerial ladder to hear from and that's the cabinet.
>> Tom, thank you. Extraordinary day. What a time to be a political reporter. And um as Tom was saying there, Andrew, no particular process has been triggered yet. We don't know exactly what's going to happen. Well, to dribble a leadership contest, one of the contenders needs to get 81 signatures of backb of MPs, >> and that's a big ask. That's a big ask.
We've got our panel with us. Um, we've got Kevin McGuire, co-host of Pierce First podcast and commentator Pierce Pottinger. Kevin, you're a lifelong Labor man. Can you conceive could you could ever imagine when Starmmer walked triumphantly into Downing Street with a majority of 174 172 that within a year and 10 months we'd be at this position?
>> No, but he did only win with 34% of the vote which was a record low to get a majority vote was split on the >> few Corbyn in 2019.
>> Uh that's right who got 40% and it was only two higher than Corbyn got in 2019 which was 32%. So there was always a fragility around his leadership and that he got off to the to the worst of starts because he had no real plan. He was too gloomy. Uh 3 weeks in winter fuel was taken away from most pensioners. There was a row at the same time about his own glasses and suits pales into insignificance compared to the se the 5 million pound Nigel Farage has taken from a Tai crypto tycoon. But nevertheless going to be different they'd be squeaky clean. grown up are back in power. The chaos is over. This is chaos, Kevin.
>> Yeah, he lost he lost the initiative and he's never been able to get it back.
Labour's had two dring in local polls last year as well as this year. He's hemorrhaging votes on the left to the Greens and he's losing seats and some votes on the right to >> brazing it out as I thought he would.
Can he if he can survive if the cabinet don't move against?
>> Yeah, I think I'm not sure he can survive now. I think I think you either jump or you will be pushed. I do recall Gordon Brown in 2008, 2009, early 2010 when he was prime minister three times beat off attempted coups. But Kia Starmmer isn't Gordon Brown. He hasn't got the team around him. What's saving Star to some extent now is there is no candidate head and shoulders above the rest to succeed him. West Street in the health secretary of course fancies his chances, needs to go quick. Angela Raina needs to go slower because of her tax affairs aren't sorted and Andy Bernham wants it to go slower still the great Manchester Mayor so he can get a seat in parliament >> which isn't an easy thing.
>> No, this is the chaos of the tour years we visited.
>> It is it's it's I mean who would have thought um that so quickly into his um time this would situation would unfold.
Starmmer has shown himself now, I'm afraid, not to be a man of integrity because if he was in a man of integrity, he would resign. He keeps saying he made mistakes and he takes responsibility, but he's not taking responsibility. If he took responsibility, he would be a man of honor and resign. The problem is that then I think in the circumstances we'd get the deputy leader the deputy prime minister who people are forgetting is calamity lambi and I mean it that is even the problem is without star look at the bunch we're facing >> he could do what Theresa May did announce she she announced she was going in May and she left left in July giving the tries time to elect >> well I I think that they he this business of an orderly departure it's not very orderly It's very messy. Um, but I mean, if you can set a timetable, we're not that far away from September when their conferences. So, they can they can do this. They've got this absurd voting uh procedure within the Labor Party. But this is actually more than the Labor Party. This is to do with the running of the country and at the moment it's in it's installed. No one is doing anything at the moment because of this.
>> But he's deeply unpopular. Yes. amongst his own party, amongst the people. But it doesn't actually follow that it's the responsible thing for him to do to step down. If in six months time we end up with a very left-wing uh prime minister, markets crashed, requiring a bailout, mortgage rates through the roof, will really be thanking him for that will happen with him because the bond market in a mess already proven. The reason he's so unpopular is he's proven to be completely and utterly useless.
I quite like a more leftwing prime minister. Can I just can I just say who is putting more money in the pockets of working people and improving public services at a better rate. There are enough people still to tax who are doing very well from capital capital. No, no, no, no, no. Absolute rubbish. You could you know it the wealthy pay more tax proportionally than history and they will if you two pay two economies Kevin one for the rich and one business as usual is not working for working people. So Kevin >> your government's put tax you are I'm putting you in the electoral college of lab because just remind people it's labor MPs have a vote, party members have a vote and trade union members have a vote.
>> Yes. And it's one person, one vote.
>> Yes, but that but it's a cumbersome, lengthy process. It appears to who would you choose?
>> It's not it's it's not cumbersome. It's quite it's quite simple. How long would it take? You need you could probably do it in two months. You can go to three months. You can do it. No, it's not necessarily all chaos as you as you do it. But you got to prime minister for two months. The civil service would go on strike.
>> Every the markets will be fearing who comes next.
>> This isn't this isn't uh to you know what happened with Liz TR. The tries did it in 3 weeks.
>> Yeah, you can you can do that quickly.
But that was an emergency and look where it got them.
>> I mean, the the fact of the matter is it isn't just Star that caused the vote.
It's the whole government. Every single one of them in every department has failed has failed this country shamefully.
This government is putting more people out of work. It rewards people.
>> There's 800,000 more people in work. It is an absolutely outrageous >> factually incorrect. There's 800,000 more people >> unemployment Kevin has gone up every month bar one,000 more people in unemployment has gone every month every month labor government the number of people though are in workers the workforce has gone bigger there are 800,000 more people in work nearly a million young people between 18 and 25 not in work not in employment not you can critique the government but there are some just verifiable facts and one of them is 800,000 more people are in >> you didn't tell you if you were to have a vote, who is the man or woman who's going to save this country?
>> I would have I would have thought this is a dilemma for the Labour party and the UK Labor government is clearly the Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is the most popular and he hasn't got a seat and that is a pro that is a problem. You have to get him into parliament first. You may not be able to get him into parliament because the opposition parties would throw everything >> and that could take the bi-election takes weeks to organize >> a month at least a month. So, so that's going to delay that delay contest even longer.
>> Andy Bernham, let's not forget when he was a minister in the past, he he was in three different departments only for a year at a time, mostly less than a year, and he achieved zero in his time. I mean, he would be a disaster. He may be a little more of a populist figure, and he certainly comes across as a warmer personality. It wouldn't be difficult.
He can communicate. He can communicate a bit better than Starmmer. As I say, that's not difficult. It's not a very high bar, but it's a pretty awful prospect to have either Star Burnham who's in attacks quagmire streeting who's clearly mad and insanely ambitious and you just need to look at his eyes to you don't want any of them. You want Bad Knock or Far. But if you look at if you look at if you look at Labour, you got to think who would do better for Labour.
>> We got to go back to Andy Bernham. what is a safe seat?
>> So they take they finally rest persuade somebody to go to the House of Lords causing a bi-election. Uh voters don't like unnecessary bi-elections. Where is a safe seat? Even even Labour lost 25 seats in Manchester last week.
>> Even even on those figures Labour had at the last uh council elections last he would have won 100 plus seats in in parliament. I accept that a bi-election is special and it may not be replicated.
That would be a huge gamble and if you don't have him if you don't have him in the race you under that under undermine then destroying the legitimacy whoever is the gold medalist before appears in um we have got some breaking news that Steve Reed Steve Reid of course the housing secretary and a key star loyalist is calling for unity >> but he wouldn't he >> I'm sure that'll help marvelous isn't it?
>> He is star's best mate in the cabinet.
Yeah, don't forget incidentally we have still got a raft of Mandlesson papers to come out that could cause Star even more embarrassment and West Street West is the crucial particular >> West Street was very close to Peter Manderson.
>> So there's more of that to come. Um, we've got a situation here where also the spectre of Ed Milliband, I think it's unlikely that he would become leader, but he's very popular in the party and his lunatic policies that are causing such damage to business in this country. Insane policies by, as I call him, Millie Mad quite rightly because he is he is the one who really ought to be seeking medical. He's a net zero zealot.
>> Yes, he's he's it's well, you mean protecting us from our oil and gas price shocks in the future.
>> And I think you know it. We know that Milliban was so bruised by losing in 2015 cuz he thought he was going to win and the toys won their first majority for a very long time. They've said he couldn't possibly do it again. But if but if Miliband if if Andy Bernham can't come back, does Ed Biban run? Cuz he won't want West Street. I I don't think he will. I think he's eyeing the treasury and being a chancellor. And the reason the reason I think Labour would have a particular problem with Ed Milliban isn't isn't all that nonsense you've just uh spouted. It is because he fought a general election and lost >> badly >> and lost. You get a you get a clean skin. You cannot make that accusation.
>> So why did you lose before and he changed that? That's right. You would see endlessly him eating that bacon sandwich.
>> I've come up with the solution for the future government. The be the ideal one would be to program artificial intelligence uh based on Margaret Thatcher's policies and her speeches and we could have an exumed Margaret Thatcher as our leader because that's what this country needs.
>> What with the pole tax and our own party turning on her and kicking her out of >> She won three elections, Kevin.
>> Yeah, she won three elections.
>> She went to a bit longer than this.
>> She went mad. This guy has been a prime minister for 1 year and 10 months and there's been questions over his leadership going back months but he's had 19 new terms of our recent prime minister >> kind of scandal corruption clearly he appointed mand >> he's clearly had longer than Liz tr I think he might have had longer than richy sunnac now >> no I think got to two years he'll almost beat him >> and this these things matter to prime ministers because Theresa May was desperate to last longer than others but I mean Um Miriam is pointing out her daughter who was born in 2010 >> the eighth prime.
>> Eighth prime minister.
>> That's astonishing. Went to a banana republic in 16 years. Cameron May.
Oh Brown. That's why you get your eighth.
>> You used to laugh at Italy for having all these prime min.
They've got probably the best in Europe.
Georgia Maloney who everyone loves.
>> Hang on. She's in trouble in Italy. Not everybody loves her by far from it. A lot of people do.
>> Some do.
>> How what what what do you think of a cabinet min do I mean cabinet of hearing the prime minister saying I'm not going it does it Boris was finished when the chancer of the Jackarishi Sunnak and his housing secretary was it housing secretary um >> Steve no um Boris's housing secretary was um >> Michael Javit.
So that was the end of the beginning of the end. Does it take two or three cabinet ministers to say I'm resigned? I >> I think so. Um Shabban Mammu, the home secretary, if she's been in there and told him to go set a time to I think she she's in a really difficult position now where street will have to think does he in the ring >> but he doesn't want to be seen as the executioner.
>> We might have to be.
>> Well pal let's leave it on that.
>> Can I just say before we go you can't your lot can't even organize a coup.
What happened to Katherine West? She was going to move against him. It was going to be a letter. She changed her mind.
She's written the letter. There was a typo in her email. Pathetic to say two words to you. Liz and Truss.
>> Panel. Let's hold it there. We'll come back to you later. But we're now going to go to GBN's deputy political editor Tom Harwood. He is in Westminster. Tom, an interesting tweet from Steve Reed calling for unity. Do you think that will cut it?
This is the message that we're going to hear from the people around the prime minister that uh now is not the time to make a move. Steve Reed pointing to the market saying that this has real consequences for real people's lives. Of course, the cost of government borrowing has jumped today and I think we're going to hear a lot more from people around the prime minister that the uh games as they would describe it being played in parliament are making the situation worse for the country. On the other hand, of course, people might point to the fact that government that borrowing costs were rising anyway that they are much higher in this country than any other G7 country. Some critical uh economists have described what they call a premium on the cost of our debt.
Because of the way that the economy has been managed in this country, uniquely we have higher borrowing costs than other comparative countries. But that's the economics of it. Fundamentally, this comes down to politics. And politics is what's playing here on so many different levels. Yes, we have this widespread discontent within the Labor Party, but one of the interesting things about this is it is widespread. That word, it's not due to one faction or another faction.
And we know that the Labour Party has been riven with factionalism for many, many years. But if you look at the names who've come out calling for the prime minister to go, some of them sit on the sort of center center right of the Labor Party. Many of them are from the left of the Labor Party. Some are seen as being careerists. There isn't a clear factional direction of those calling for the prime minister to go and and and that's worrying for the prime minister because he uh clearly is not fitting the bill for a widespread of MPs. He's seen as an electoral liability and frankly as someone who didn't do what he promised to do. There was a widespread belief in the Labour Party that just having sensible people in Downing Street rather than the unruly Tories would fix everything in this country. All you need is the adults back in the room and everything will work out fine. Well, clearly that theory has been tested to destruction. There are structural problems with this country that have led to this carousel of prime ministers over the last 7 years. I think it is no wonder that we are seeing such fragility in our politics that we're seeing uh prime ministers on average over the course of the last six or seven years last 2 years each. This is the sort of world that Italy found itself in in decades past. It's the sort of world that all countries find themselves in when there is no growth, when people don't feel better off in their pockets, when people in the country are hurting.
It's very quick uh to blame politicians because ultimately politicians have the power to change things. They have the power to make those difficult decisions.
I heard in your discussion earlier you were talking a bit about Margaret Thatcher. Now perhaps her her solutions to the 1980s wouldn't fit the solutions today. But clearly she took on the dragons. At the time the things holding back the British economy were uh union power grinding uh the economy to a halt.
Today it's not union power so much.
That's the big drag anchor on the British economy. But there are other problems. Look at how people can't do much in business without being dragged through judicial review. Look how hard it is to build things in this country.
Look at all of the difficulties that uh politicians have been refusing to deal with and and how that's dragged down our economy. Fundamentally, it's that economic weakness that has led to this political instability for prime minister after prime minister after prime minister. It is uh I think there is very little doubt that the prime minister would have been able to survive for example the Mandlesson scandal if people felt better off in their pockets. I mean after all Tony Blair managed to survive not one but two Mandelson scandals while he was prime minister and there was a growing economy and each and every year people were feeling better off the proceeds of growth could fund better public services. That's not the world we're living in today. We're living in a much more fragile world because the politicians haven't taken on the big questions.
>> Tom Harwood, our deputy political editor, thank you so much for that report. From the heart of Parliament, we can see Big Ben behind him there on College Green where of course normally all the politicians are keen to be seen.
>> Exactly. So they're all now obviously inconscous of Parliament waiting for the outcome of the cabinet because when people leave the cabinet, will any of them um say anything to the cameras? famous here of course Kevin you remember in 1986 when Mike Han walked out of cabinet announced his resignation over the western affair and people to bring her down is west streeting the great showman going to announce I've decided to throw my hat in the ring when he leaves relieves the ring >> yeah I have no idea yeah it's it's not impossible people will resign uh or they may all come out and one person may be designated to go out and speak on behalf of the prime Steve Reed Pat McFaden one of his one of his faithfuls are the traitors uh stay silent >> what should happen to the speech tomorrow. Well, >> because this is a serious constitutional matter.
>> Oh, it is. I mean, I think the king might open by using the old joke. I mean, take my government. Someone please.
Well, I mean, he's got a really difficult ask because I think in all seriousness with this situation, unless it is resolved today, and let's look at a worst case scenario, the situation stays as it is, but very, very rocky and it keeps splintering right into tomorrow. And then the king's speech is going to have to be um a speech based on the policies of a government that may actually none of the cabinet ministers may be in position in a few months time. It's nonsense.
>> Should it be postponed?
>> No. No. That's that ain't going to happen. It's a it's a program for a government. This is a question who will head that government and to some extent which moved the king's speech deliberately because he wanted to use that as a way to help save him from the disastrous results he was expecting. So he knew this was going to be as bad as this and he's standing there. He made this terrible speech yesterday which did him more harm than good. I agree with that. And um you know as I said earlier if he was a man of integrity he would have resigned by now.
>> Kevin who in number 10 who was the brain brain box who spun all over the weekend make this is the speech that was saved the prime minister's premiership. He's going to be visionary and passionate. He can't do any of that cuz he's not an ortor and there's nothing inside. All we learned was he's going to ban some farright march at the weekend and nationalize British steel which I thought we'd already announced already.
>> No, they hadn't announced the uh nationalizing of uh of of interest by the way.
>> But it is Yeah, that's what it should have been nationalized a year a year ago. I said that last >> in April uh in April last million pounds a day. I think it's 1.3 is now. Yeah.
Before we move on, and we're hearing that the chancellor, Rachel Reese, has pulled out of an event in the city of London this morning. The Treasury has confirmed that she was due to take part in a fireside chat with the Lady May of London at the city's global risks summit after attending cabinet. She's pulled out, I assume, because there are too many difficult questions. because there's a bonfire going on.
>> I mean, she she there's no way the chance is about to resign over because she's the only one who keep clinging on to be alive.
>> No, but they will they will want to try and speak officially with one voice. So, somebody will be put out. But I think the prime minister himself is going to have to speak, but he may be saving it until tomorrow because >> questions. Yeah. And you als Well, no.
>> No, there's no Yeah. But he will make he'll have to present the king's speech in the afternoon to parliament and then there is a debate and all the opponents >> bait not will respond to absolutely which she'll be relishing it. Of >> course she will.
>> He he won't be. I mean that's the situation.
>> He'll make it to then.
>> Don't you I I I have a feeling that this um last stand this kind of Kuster's last stand is really not going to work. And I I would expect there to be a cabinet resignation any minute, >> but that doesn't necessarily get rid of you. Now, Boris Johnson fought on until he could not anymore. Gordon Brown, I'll go back to 2008, 9, 10, he fought them off. 2009, he had three cabinet resignations. He lost his home secretary, work and pensions secretary, and the community secretary, local government secretary. And he and he survived.
>> Yeah, you made the point that GRA had a great history in the Labor been around a long time. This guy's only been an MP for 5 minutes, >> but he may I look he he should he should just say, "Look, here's the timetable. I accept it's time it's time for change."
>> He's not. It doesn't mean he'll be gone tomorrow.
>> Should the Constitution of this country be rewritten so that we can't have these terrible leadership crisis?
>> No, I don't think it's to do with the cones in a year. No, I think it's more to do with the um the Labor Party constitution and the way of course it's run effectively by its pay masters, the trade unions who cause so much havoc in this country.
>> It appears you're you are in the in the 80s with Thatcher. Uh look, it doesn't work. It doesn't work like that. I've actually long thought five years five years is five years is too long for a parliament should be four. I like the fixedterm parliament act the conservatives and lib dems introduced so you can't just call it a general election when you like I thought that was a good idea I'd like electoral reform so it's a fairer system I would also like a clause if you change parties you're an MP you have to fight bi-election and if you change prime ministers after 3 months 6 months whatever the period is you got to have a general election because although it's a parliamentary system and this is entirely within the rules it always feels a bit wrong because as a presidentidential side to the market.
>> I mean I I do agree. I think even when Boris Johnson went there should have been a general election.
>> Um because I think a change of prime minister and a prime minister that the because effectively these elections now come down rather like in America to presidential to individuals and the leaders and for that reason I think you cannot change prime minister and not have a general. You can. It's perfectly legal under the system because it's a parliamentary system.
>> I I think it's wrong and there should be a general election and I'd like I mean God help us if we had one now because we'd get the most fractured um labor disastrous forever.
>> What with that Palansky who's CP and now there's somebody there's the first minister coming out that is Steve Reed the housing secretary.
Is he going to talk to the cameras? He is. I thought he would. So, we're gonna go to Dan Street.
>> Well, we can see Steve Reed talking to journalists there now and I wonder if he'll be telling them uh that the prime minister is going to hang on. And of course, one of two things could happen now. Either things will change by the end of the day.
>> That was a very short statement by Steve Reed who clearly made his statement and was not willing to take any questions.
Now, there'll be more cabinet ministers leaving because the cabinet mining is over. be interesting to see who leaves last >> because how long does street does west streeting stay and who's who's leaving now >> Lisa Nandi >> Lisa Nandandy won't be having any impact Lisa Nand ran to leadership Kevin against um she did she finished a poor third in uh 2020 wasn't it when it when it was um but nevertheless she's a she's a a voice for Andy Burnham now >> she is and so we we can see the deputy prime minister David Lami.
>> Of course, um Lisa Nande did say yesterday that um Andy Bernham should not be blocked again from returning to >> Well, they all seem to be saying that now. They weren't saying it at the time, Kevin.
>> No, a few did, but a lot of others because they didn't want to challenge the prime minister because clearly he he always says it's left to Labour's National Executive Committee, but it they did.
>> We've just seen the chancellor leaving with her good friend Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary. They were both smiling and chatting. You would not think there is a major crisis engulfing 10 Downing Street. No sign yet of West Streeting.
>> No, absolutely. But a cabinet meeting that's lasted just an hour, which is extraordinary given what's going on >> cuz it it should have been talking about the king's speech, but I imagine most of it was talking about the prime minister's future.
>> No Ed Milliban, no Wes Street.
>> No. Who? And no Shabban Mammud, the home secretary uh um who could be major players in a leadership contest.
>> Well, of course, we will be following that all day. And I do think Andrew, one of two things could happen now. Either uh the prime minister will hold firm. He will keep um deciding that he's going to stay on and there'll be a lull because it will take some time for uh leadership challenges to gather those 81 signatures. It might take days, potentially even weeks, especially if they decide to delay things till Andy Burnham could return. So that we could see a lull. Now, alternatively, if cabinet ministers start to resign, as Kevin has said, uh in quick succession, then it may be that Star has to change his mind and either resign or set out some sort of timetable, but he could still cling on. Andrew and uh Kevin Pierce, do you think there is a chance that he will just carry on? He is. Yeah, I mean, he's so deluded to keep going.
>> He's so deluded. I think he could. It's interesting. I think another person who hasn't come out is Lord Herma who of course is one of his closest buddies and legally and in terms of the attorney general will be man he the man he consults most about his position and also in terms of process with the king's speech. Um there's there's there may be a lot of discussion still going on and the fact there's no statement yet is very uh relevant I think.
>> Yeah. I mean I thought Steve would talk for longer because he is the prime probably most trusted aid in the cabinet.
>> Yeah. Him or Darren Jones who but they go out and they fight for and put the prime minister's kiss. He will have come up and said something like he's he's carrying on. Yeah.
>> Is what he stay put. who is the chief secretary to the now this this is Peter Kyle who is the business secretary he's now talking to journers too now he is incredibly close to west streeting the health secretary uh uh Ed Milliban is just leaving not saying word Hillary Ben the Northern Ireland secretary he's been around a long time seen it all before of course but um >> Peter Carl is engaged in quite a long conversation so we'll bring you uh as soon as we can what he's saying but he is clearly supporting the prime minister otherwise I think he wouldn't It'll be organized. Those those who speak will have been asked to speak on behalf of the prime minister. Those who uh are less supportive will be asked to say nothing. And Liz Kendall >> Kendall's going to talk to the media.
Well, she she'd be sat.
>> It's kind of it's kind of what you would call the Blairite ring of uh of Labour here. Liz Kendall, Peter Kyle, Steve Reed. We we're really just now lacking Darren Jones and then he probably got the four. But there were speculations that Darren Jones could even be a candidate to be Labour leader.
>> Yeah, I think this is very ambitious.
>> Very.
>> Yeah, but I think it's getting into a mad world. That's speculation.
>> Well, because the thing is Kevin, there's you and I know so many MPs who think it could be me.
>> Look, every of course it will go will go to bed at night thinking I may get the call. And if you're if you're Darren Jones, you never want to say no, I'm not interested. No, I've got no chance because you want to be courted by either the current prime minister or the next prime minister and given a job >> and and so this is Liz Kenner. She's now talking to to to more media. So should this will all have been agreed to?
>> Yeah, these are the faithful.
>> The real question is if these cabinet ministers are now supporting them as they say obviously they are. What did the prime minister give them >> to support them? What has he conceded or said?
>> This is the this is the fifth of the faithfuls I would say. He's the work and pension secretary now. He is an uber loyalist. He was in the 10 as as a political adviser to Tony Blair. So he's been around a very long time. Solid, steady, not a leadership contender.
>> He looks exhausted. Yeah. Slumped shoulders.
>> Well, he's fed up defending the prime minister, don't you think, Kevin? It must be coming very tired.
>> Well, it's hard.
>> He's a he's a veteran of uh the last Labor government and the Blair Brown.
>> He was in Brown's camp.
>> Yes. So, so he kind of knows the risks of uh attempted coups, leadership challenges, changes, prime minister, however we wish to describe it. But that's interesting. The five people who have come up to speak are all known supporters of Karma at the moment. And >> he looks as happy as a pbearer, doesn't he?
>> Which is what he probably is.
>> He's he's got granite face features at the best of times as except when he goes he's a do a Scotsman. Except when he listens to Bruce Springsteen. I think that's early time let his hair down but you can't scene probably absolutely exhausted. I mean I remember during the last days of Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss I wish you seen that. MPs are living on adrenaline at this point not knowing what's going to happen next.
Unsure what to do. Watching on Twitter like everybody else to see who's said what. He's probably not slept. But I mean, if you're leading a party that has made it clear right across the board, as Tom Harwood made a very good point, it's the breadth of people who have are not supporting him. If you've got a complete range of most of the party saying it's over and he's not accepting it and the vote in the electoral, the local elections made it clear what the electorate the worst results ever.
>> He is not listening. He is deluding himself.
>> Three threearters of these non ministerial MPs haven't called for him to go. I mean, look, I think it's hugely significant the number who have 81.
>> Yeah, exactly. So, it's not the entire party.
>> Uh, and it's across the >> And until it's a junior minister.
>> Yeah. And until or if you get cabinet resignations, it doesn't feel >> you may attempt to tough it out. It doesn't feel Kevin like that there's about to be a cabinet resignation when because wouldn't you send the five out after the cabinet ministry resigned?
>> Yeah, but the person who's going to resign may not resign there and then if there is anybody like that they may get they may go back think about it and then put in a letter of of resignation. May I'm not saying they will >> we speak we're greeting staying behind to tell the prime minister why with a heavy heart he's going to resign from the cabinet >> or he has another meeting or he's left via the white hole. uh exit explain that which which number 10 is connected to the cabinet office which is on Whiteall itself and you can go out there without having to go through the gates and there's less force. Now that could be telling in itself if you're dodging questions or you could just say look this isn't a day for me to be shouted at in number 10. Yeah, >> Ed Ed Milliband uh bra now he's believed to have told the prime minister to set a timetable.
>> Somebody else just left but I'm not quite sure who that is. Kevin >> Pier isn't there a more fundamental problem here which is that we've seen politicians whether that's Karma Boris Johnson Bishnak promise to do things that people want to be done whether that is cut the cost of living stop the boats and yet time after time the words just do not match reality it's unclear to me even if someone does replace Starma with more charisma that they're going to be able to close that gap >> well the famous television interview Starmer gave with Andrew Neil where he made all these pledges and he's broken every single one of them. M I mean the man it's far from U-turns and he keeps saying oh I understand people's frustration it's not frustration it's anger we are and the British people are telling Starmmer loud and clear we don't want you as our leader >> because he's not actually leading anything he's got no vision no real idea what to do his only solution to anything is either international law or run to Europe >> we've not had a prime minister since the Second World War who's won the popular vote in a in a general election. On the question of votes, he hasn't they haven't smashed the gangs, but numbers are down by a third. Net migration's falling dramatically. It's about a quarter of what it was, but of course twothirds of people think it's rising when it's when they are both falling.
Kevin, explain to me. Carl Turner was on this morning, the MP. He's now an independent MP the >> whip. Yeah, he's a Labour party member, but he's >> looked he said, "I've been a Labour Party member for 40 years. been campaigning on the doorsteps for 40 years. He said he has never ever encountered such visceral hostility to a Labour leader who said it dwarfs the anger over Corbyn. Yeah. And he uh I think he resigned as shadow attorney general over to Jeremy Corbyn and anti-semitism. What why has he triggered such distaste amongst the voters? I I think I think there are two reasons and and um one of one is his mistakes and he always only won a small you know although 34% looks much higher than the 26 27% reform of uh polling but I think there's been a death of difference and social media has highlighted failings and people now get used to hurling abuse at politicians and all respect is gone.
There's no way Margaret Thatcher in this current era would last 11 years. Tony Blair wouldn't last 10 years. There's no way Robert Walpool would last, you know, 21 or 22 years as he as he did it did at the beginning. I think that's changed.
But he has made big mistakes.
>> Point is absolutely true here. It's valid because >> the social media is without any doubt caused an enormous rise in the appalling behavior towards all politicians and not just politicians but people in general.
common courtesy, civility are really in the decline and quite often very hard to find. And I'm afraid that the the the the social media hatred that comes so quickly uh and so viciously uh is really a a very damaging force. I am sure that one of the things should Starmer succeed he will do is start this uh ban on social media for under 16s as they've done in Australia.
>> Get on with it.
>> Well, I think he's going to do that.
>> Although in Australia more than half of uh under 16s say they still use it. But that's not to say there isn't a case for a king speech if if you know I think it'll be in the king's speech. Yeah.
along with giving up everything back to Europe, which is what he's planning to do.
>> I think you're right about social media in terms of it enabling a lot more um coarse discourse than we've had before and 24/7 news which makes everything speed up. But I think there's something more going on which is this political realignment that we hear people talking about. And I think the two main parties or what were the two major parties are certainly not now. Conservatives and the Labor Party are now split down different lines than before, which makes it impossible for any faction to gain a majority. Let me This is exactly what happened under the last government. The reason that Rishi Sununat couldn't stop the votes is because had he tried to do what was necessary, leave the ECR, um deliver a more hardline version of the Randa plan, half of his party would not have voted it through. Starmmer and whoever replaces him are in exactly the same position now in the Labour party.
Half of his MPs might vote for the kind of welfare cuts and changes to public spending that are necessary, but the other half wouldn't. And whoever takes over, nobody will have a majority for any actual change. And we are stuck.
We're in this stasis now because the political parties no longer represent the kind of dividing lines that we really see.
>> Yes, I think that's true. And also the social media is really responsible for the success of Zack Palanski. And I mean if you think Starmmer's bad, look at Palanski. Lie after lie after lie. The man is really uh questionable. I mean, he's basically an unemployed actor who's a bit of a drifter who's got himself into a series of jobs in the past, including hypnotherapy for about 10 minutes. And he's made endless claims speaking for the Red Cross. Lie. He's said he was on the council of hypnotherapists. Lie. He's now appears is not paying his right counsel. Where have we heard that before? I wonder if Angela Raina's listening. I mean, this is absolutely >> the the psycho drama in the Labour Party means Zach Palansky is getting away with what I would call political murder.
>> Well, he will he he will he will for a bit until it's resolved. You're quite right. But look, we got a fracturing of our politics in this country. And people are demanding change, but people want very different change. And the electoral system gives you the tyranny of the minority whereby parties win power without winning the popular vote or being forced to create coalitions to broader represent people in the country.
I was no great fan of the conservative liberal democrat coalition. But nevertheless, there were two parties there that if you added up their m their their public vote, there was a majority.
>> Yeah. And if you looked at the local election results last week, reform tries would be on 47.
>> The others >> 51 51.
>> Yeah. The the left form the coalition >> Greens Labor Libdems more vocing the health secretary just leaving number 10. He's pointedly not speaking to the media. I've never known West Streeting not speak to >> he doesn't have the normal bouncing step that we've become a >> and he um is Yeah. So what's gone on?
>> Well, that's a very good question. That would be interesting if he's been sat then there's definitely a leadership contest underway. Perhaps Kevin Starman thinks he'd beat him.
>> He might. Now, of course, I'm just just going back. John Major beat off John Redwood in the Conservative era >> closer than people remember.
>> Yeah. Jeremy Corbyn lost a popular a vote of the Parliamentary Labor Party in 2016, but then won the won the uh resulting election. Um I doubt I doubt uh if it came down to Storma v Street I very much doubt that Storma would win that.
>> Okay, we're going to go to our Jubilee political correspondent Katherine Forst who's in Downing Street. Katherine, >> yes. Well, good morning from Downing Street where the cabinet have been emerging following that critical meeting. We just saw Wes Streeting in the last moment or two absolutely tight lipped. He normally quite likes to talk to the media but not today because of course he is uh the number one candidate potentially if the prime minister should fall. Now what we are hearing from the cabinet ministers who have spoken to the press is that no one challenged uh the prime minister saying he should stand down publicly in that cabinet meeting.
So, Peter Kyle, the business secretary has uh said that the prime minister is showing quote really steadfast leadership and say that they had a purposeful meeting uh talking about the big issues facing our economy and society. Nothing has been triggered. Uh Liz Kendall, the science secretary, also said that they talked about the challenges we faced as a country and said, um, look, this government will do what we were elected to do, which is serve the British people. The prime minister has my full support in this. uh the Labour chairwoman and attorney alurly sorry also said prime minister's got full support and Pat McFaden work and pension secretary has said uh asked what to do that the government should carry on so outwardly now a show of support from cabinet ministers emerging apart from west we're treating who didn't say anything now all the questions now uh 81 MPs have put their names forward that would be enough to trigger a challenge. Uh but there's no agreement as to who that candidate should be. Uh many suspect that West Streeting might decide to move. Um his allies told me this morning that he's been very clear to the prime minister that he won't start this off. But if the prime minister's position is untenable, uh then yes, he's ready to go. And we know that he's one of several who would like his job. Of course, Andy Burnham, who would like his job and probably would be the favorite, is mayor of Greater Manchester and doesn't even have a seat. So, if things accelerate quickly, that rules him out. Angela Raina, too, but she's still mired in uh tax affairs with the HMRC. All the while, we've got the king's speech tomorrow. So, let us see what the next few hours brings. Things could move very quickly. Uh or there could be a pause.
We could get through the king's speech and the prime minister could still be in office. At the moment, simply no one knows.
>> Katherine Fer outside Downing Street.
Well, let's move slightly down White Hall towards College Green where Tom Harwood, our deputy political editor, is waiting for us there, Tom. The 81 names is significant, but they're not united around a particular candidate. And therefore, it's merely only a petition, isn't it? There's nothing particularly uh worrying for Star in that number.
>> Yeah, >> that's right. It's a symbolic number rather than one that triggers something automatically. Now, if 81 names were to publicly declare to one particular candidate, that would automatically force a leadership contest. But I think there's something else that is now in that number. I think we're up to 82 or 83. This is the number that actually wipes out the government's majority in the House of Commons. If around 83 MPs were to rebel on any piece of legislation, it would mean defeat for the government. And we have seen that before where the government's had to retreat from its legislative agenda and U-turn. And we've seen that the government, despite its enormous majority, has been very, very fragile on particular issues. But now we have what would be in mathematical terms an absolute majority of the House of Commons declaring they have no confidence in the prime minister. Now it's not a formal no confidence uh motion. Of course it's not. But it is indicative that actually this is a prime minister who hasn't just lost the confidence of over a quarter of his party but in mathematical terms more than half the House of Commons. That carries weight. but also of course were a uh politician to launch a challenge against the prime minister, they could be relatively confident of the sort of names that they could get to back them because now 83 84 maybe even 85 of these names are in the public domain. There'll be others who are keeping their powder dry uh and their mouths shut for now.
The question is, will someone in the cabinet, will a putitive leadership contender take that next step? Um there have been some commentary uh online talking about uh leadership contests or uh almost leadership contests in other political parties and most famously I'm sure it's been discussed on this channel already in 1995 Michael Portillo had phone lines installed uh outside his uh potential campaign office. It was seen that he was preparing to challenge uh John Major, but then he never challenged John Major.
It's seen as if he might have missed his moment then, walking up to the brink and then retreating. Well, it looks as if there have been several members of the cabinet who have been preparing for a leadership contest. The people who've been whining and dining, their colleagues, who've been going for secret dinners over the course of the last few months. people like Angela Raina and Wes Streeting and of course Andy Bernham too has been uh working on his campaign his shadow campaign for many months now.
Well, those are just three names at the top of the Labour party who could say something today, who could fire that starting gun today. And in many ways, it looks like the prime minister is challenging them to do just that. In his statements, he said that uh yes, 81 uh politicians have have called for him to go within the Labour party, but they haven't backed one individual. There is no formal contest as we speak. Some might read that as a bit of a challenge, in the words of John Major, put up or shut up. Could it be that the prime minister is really challenging his cabinet there to uh put their money where their mouth is? and for any potential leadership candidate, for anyone who really does want to be prime minister, that now is the moment to declare that, to launch that campaign formally and collect those 81 names for them themselves.
>> All right, Tom of Westminster. Well, I mean, you know, he's brazing it out, Kevin, isn't he?
>> The prime minister at the moment, >> and he and he's digging his defenses and erecting his wall while Andy Burnham isn't an MP. Yeah. Who is his biggest threat?
>> Yeah. And if Andy Bernham was there, there's no doubt Andy Bernham would win, which is why he was blocked from standing in that bi-election a few months back.
>> Do you buy this idea that if uh uh that the National Executive Committee, which disliked the candidates for a bi-election, has changed its position and would now allow Burnham? uh not not yet because it's still controlled by Kia Star but there are elections underway for the constituency section in which yeah that's when the re results are announced so he could lose control then there's a union section he may be losing they try to get them to vote as a block uh in in solidarity but that may fracture so his grip on the party machine will will loosen quite right to say he's in office but not in power but you can feel after an event like this you You don't have the power, the clout.
You did because you can you can only do it you can only really do it once >> and they'll come again.
>> Many times over the last six months we've said this might be the thing to finish Starharma and it hasn't.
>> So I mean he is not someone for giving in >> when it's his own future. And like all prime ministers when they get the job they they don't really want another job because this is the best job they've ever had or will have. Really interesting quote from a piece by Henry Hill in the critic critic this morning.
He says, "This is a prime minister, remember, who is fighting for his political life, but even with nothing to lose, he has nothing to offer." Which I thought was very what is Karma about?
What does he want to be prime minister for? What is he offering the country?
>> Well, the question is what did he offer the cabinet? Because I don't believe they all supported him.
>> He said volunteer in the last ditch.
That's what he said.
If if you're in if you're in SC, you'll be quite happy if you nationalize a steel.
>> He may have threatened.
>> Well, of course, it's all left to play for it could be completely different by the end of the day.
>> Welcome back. It's 11:00 on Tuesday the 12th of May. We are live across the United Kingdom. This is Britain's newsroom with Andrew Pierce and Miriam Kates.
>> Going going. that he's not gone at all as he secur tells his cabinet defiantly, "I'm not going anywhere." Loyalist cabinet ministers like Steve Reed have rallied MPs to unite behind his chum.
Yes. Uh cabinet ministers coming out making supportive noises about the prime minister. All except for Wes Streeting.
Will he make his move? It may be the best chance he ever gets.
And all eyes will be on how many people follow him over the brink if indeed he does move. But also in interesting news, some reports now that Andy Bernham has been spotted on a train down to London.
>> I'm not going to shy away from the fact that I've got some doubters um including in my own party.
>> Labor civil war. The prime minister's premiership is imploding. Ministers are in revolt. One minister has resigned. a rather genuine one, but nevertheless, 81 MPs have signaled he should go. He thinks he can turn it round.
>> Meanwhile, his successors are scrambling. Contenders for the top job emerge, but there's no clear front runner. We'll have the latest. And >> and we're going to go to Katherine Fster, our chief political correspondent, who is in Downey Street where it's all been happening.
Yes, it's all been happening. And we've also just heard that Andy Bernham has been spotted getting on a train to London. What might that mean? Of course, he's the mayor of Greater Manchester. He is the prince over the water, if you like. He is the favorite among many uh Labour MPs to be the next prime minister, but he doesn't have a seat.
And at the moment, there isn't a vacancy for prime minister because a cabinet meeting has just concluded. We've had a succession of cabinet men ministers uh Liz Kendall, Peter Kyle, Pat McFaden coming out and saying that the prime minister is showing leadership that they are united on dealing with the challenges facing the country and basically that he's going nowhere. That is the message uh that number 10 briefed to us uh when the cabinet meeting was still going on. Uh one exception to that sort of show of solidarity was the health secretary Wes Streeting a man who we all know wants to be prime minister.
He's made no secret of that for many many years. Uh he came out he said nothing. Uh but there's so much speculation that he might decide to move now because I spoke to one one of his allies earlier and they said look he said he will not start this but if it comes to a point where it is untenable for the prime minister to remain uh he is ready to challenge he's got the numbers and at least he is being honest about it. We don't honestly know what happens next. The king's speech is tomorrow. They've been parading uh marching bands along St. James's Park at 5 in the morning in preparation. Are they really going to depose a prime minister at this point in time? Uh nobody knows what happens next. It was a government that came in on the back of Labor chaos and they promised to end the chaos to bring stability and yet here we are again. And if this prime minister goes, we could be looking at six prime ministers in Britain in just 7 years.
>> Extraordinary.
>> What a statistic. As I said again, we're a banana republic.
>> We like variety. Maybe that's Catherine.
Could it be though that Wes Streeting actually manages to leave his rivals for dust here? Because if he is organized, if he has those names and nobody else does yet, then he could take the crown before Andy Bernham's even arrived at St. pancress or maybe King's Cross from Manchester.
>> Uh well, yes, but no, because basically, yes, he's in the best position. Andy Burnham doesn't have a seat. That would take weeks and weeks. Even if somebody stood down to allow allow bi-election, even if the NEC changed their rules, um it might be a contest that would rule him out. But there is no way on earth that most people in the parliamentary Labor Party are just trying to see who that is. Um, >> sorry, >> so much shouting here as absolute chaos.
There is no way on earth that the parliamentary Labour party are simply going to allow West Streeting to take over because he's perceived on the right of the party, many of them absolutely cannot stand him and those on the left will not tolerate uh West Streeting just marching in and taking the crown. So they would have to put up their own challenger. Now could it be Angela Raina? That tax investigation still looming over her. Ed Miband, well apparently he would prefer that Andy Burnham came back. He also uh told the prime minister several weeks ago that he should set out a timetable for departure. But maybe he might decide that he has to stand. I don't really see any world in which we have a calm orderly transition or handover. not least because the prime minister is saying he's not going anywhere, but there is no unity at all over who should come next.
>> And of course, Antie Raina Katherine is is on record is saying she'd rather stick pins in her eyes and let West Streeting become prime minister without a fight. So there would definitely be a bloody battle and it would be messy.
>> Okay.
>> Are we talking about Jenny Chapman?
We've got cafe enforcer there outside number 10 Downing Street. We've seen >> try to grab Jenny Chapman in a moment.
There's a minister just being absolutely mobbed by press. But when she gets away from who she's with, we will see if we can grab her. Um I would imagine that she's making supportive noises because anybody plotting on removing him uh will not be coming to talk to us. Also, Jenny Chapman or Baroness Chapman as she is uh was a very big figure behind the scenes in in supporting Kia Starmer. It feels like a very very long time ago now. Um when he became the leader of the Labour Party, but of course he became the leader of the Labour Party promising a lot of things that he then later abandoned and uh they got elected promising an end to the chaos, promising change. they haven't delivered that change quickly enough for people and uh there's no agreement on what would be the answer but I think it's worth bearing in mind that Nigel Farage and reform campaigned in the elections in England in Scotland and Wales on a message of vote reform get K star out and there's some in Labor absolutely despairing thinking why on earth would we do exactly what reform want us to do and get uh take a leader out now. A leader who is very unpopular with the public but is considered to be good on the international stage.
>> Katherine, an interesting contrast with the Conservatives message at the last election which was vote reform, get Karma.
>> Yeah. Yes. Exactly.
>> And so it proved >> indeed. and and Katherine, if any news on the king's speech that will still go ahead tomorrow despite the utter chaos behind the scenes in his majesty's government.
>> Well, we're in pretty uncharted territory because I don't think there's ever been a situation that a prime minister might have to announce that he's going to go the day before the king's speech, but it seems uh that it's all set to go ahead. Um it would be very very embarrassing for the king indeed to be laying out a legislative agenda um if the prime minister has already said that he is going to stand down. I don't know what's going to happen in the next few hours but it could be uh that people decide to hold their horses for now and we get through the king's speech but then people move after that. It's very very febral for all the people um having a nervous breakdown about what has happened in the elections and thinking we need to get rid of him and we need to get rid of him now. There's plenty of others who feel despairing, very sad and just think that this is absolute madness because they promise change. They promise not to be like the Conservatives. Labour find it difficult to get prime ministers into number 10, to get prime ministers elected. And of course, if they replace the prime minister, opposition parties will say they have no mandate. Just as happened when the Tories removed Boris Johnson, then we had Liz Truss and Rishi Sunnak.
And people would say the public did not vote for this. And if they change Saki Starmer, uh the public will not have had the chance to vote for the new leader and that new leader could take them in a very different direction. Andy Burnham, he said basically, don't worry too much about the bond markets. Well, the bond markets are absolutely having the heebie-jebies. The cost of borrowing is going through the roof. It was already high. The stock market is falling. And that's one of the arguments that the prime minister used to his cabinet this morning saying that economic stability is important. Stability is important. Uh because if you don't have that, there is an economic cost to all of us. We are already seeing that play out and that's happening at a time where things are already not good. Uh we've got war in Ukraine. We've got this conflict in the Middle East. The straight of form is closed. Our energy bills are going up.
Uh who knows if we're going to get away on summer holidays. And that situation's likely to get dramatically worse. But will Labour MPs listen? And will streeting take this moment probably his best chance? because if he doesn't take it now and Andy Burnham gets back in, it may be uh that he will never get that prime ministerial job that he's always coveted.
>> And Katherine, quite significantly, one of the ministers who spoke to the media to say the prime minister is staying and we all support him, is Peter Kyle, the business secretary, who is of course very very close to West Streeting.
>> Yes, that's right. Uh Peter Kyle is an ally of West Streeting at the moment. He is sounding loyal. He said, "We've been talking about the challenges that face uh the country." We know that the two of them uh went out to the cinema at the weekend and I think they saw was it the devil wears prada too. I think they did.
So, uh, they were asked the other day what had been discussed and Peter Kyle said, well, you know, we always discuss the the state of the world and the leadership, but sort of intimated that they hadn't discussed the prime minister specifically owed to have been a fly on the wall. Uh, I think all eyes now on West Street in Baroness Chapman, will you talk to us? What do you think is going to happen with the prime minister?
Can he hold on?
>> Yeah, of course. He's doing a very um good job. He's leading the cabinet this morning. He is making decisions about the country. He's putting the people of the country first and not the psycho drama that uh we could take the opportunity to indulge in. I hope very much hope we don't. I don't think we will. And I think that what I saw this morning at cabinet was a whole group of people come together and really focus on the needs of this country.
>> But you promised to stop the chaos. What went wrong?
>> We will stop the chaos. We will.
>> Baroness Chapman where >> Baroness Chapman saying that they will stop the chaos. Um well that is her optimistic view but it does feel like the chaos frankly is already here. Uh who knows what the coming hours will bring but we will of course bring you every twist and turn here on GB news.
>> All right Kath that's cutting for Kevin Baroness Chapman is the uber Uber star loyalist.
>> Yeah Jenny Chapman she's minister of state in national >> development. She's not a cabinet minister but attends uh when he was first elected she was his chief aid.
absolutely loyal and she kind of had a cheery view uh of it which I don't know that you get from Steve Reed who always looks like he wants to nut you but the yeah but the dilemma for Wes Street if he doesn't move now is does he become the David Milliband of this era if you recall when Gordon Brown was in David Milliband the foreign secretary three times he was the champion of people revoling against Gordon Brown and each time he failed to put his hat in the ring >> he was persuaded not to do it by Peter >> Peter Mandolson that well-known political journalist >> indeed pierce we will come to you in a minute but we are going to go back to Westminster because GB news is deputy political editor Tom Harvard is joining us there from college green um Tom we just heard Katherine Fer speak to Baroness Chapman who said that the government will really focus on the needs of the country I'm not sure that will be particularly reassuring to backbench Labor MPs this morning >> it's worth putting in context just who Jenny Chapman is. She's been uh tied to the hip with Kia Star since they stir served in uh Jeremy Corbyn's shadow ministerial team together. Kia Starmer was shadow Brexit secretary. She was shadow Brexit minister and in fact they traveled the country together uh ostensibly to explain Labour's Brexit policy then to local Labor parties. This was uh later seen to be sort of the beginnings of Kstarma's leadership campaign. Having those rubber chicken dinners with local Labor parties throughout 2018 2019 meant that when the t time came for a leadership election, he was in pole position to become party leader. That was in no small part down to Jenny Chapman who actually lost her seat of Darlington in the 2019 general election and then was put in the House of Lords by Siria Stalmer after that.
She was a key element of why he became leader in the first place. So no doubt uh that is one of the key key reasons why she is one of the faces of the sort of rear guard action to try and keep him in his position as Labour Party leader today. It's interesting looking at those who have come out to defend the prime minister, the loyalists who are the closest people to him. But perhaps what's also worth looking at is those who have said nothing at all. Those cabinet ministers who remain silent, who are thinking over their options, who are perhaps thinking about when to move.
That is perhaps more uh indicative of where this whole thing is going to go than those who have always stood by Saki Starama than his closest allies in parliament and what they're telling the media publicly. It might be worth thinking about what those who aren't speaking are thinking about privately.
>> All right, that's Tom Harard at Westminster. We still got our August panel with us. Pierce Boscher. Um it it just feels like we're back in the bad old days of the tourism voting.
>> Well, it does and a prime minister against all the odds. Yeah. I mean it's the sad state of affairs of politics in this country at the moment. But I do think Kevin's point um about streeting is very opposite because quite frankly although he hasn't said he's standing going to stand against him, he he's been making he's been on maneuvers.
so publicly he's so much the person if he doesn't stand now he may miss his opportunity forever like David Milliband missed his opportunity and actually I'd much rather have David Milliband and Ed Milliband anywhere near us David Milliband was an intelligent man and who I think is a pretty sensible man and even speaking as non labor I would have to say I would much prefer David Prime Minister, they picked the wrong Milliban. I always thought that at the time.
>> Yeah. Of any Laborite, David Milliban would be my number one choice. But I do think streeting, if he's got the coahones to do it, he should do it today. He should stand up, be counted, >> give it. Otherwise, he'll always be the man who never made it.
>> Maybe he knows he hasn't got the 81 names.
>> Maybe he does. But Pierce, this goes back to my earlier point, which is that we're talking about personalities. And absolutely, there are some Labour MPs, cabinet ministers that would be more attractive leaders than K Dharma. They have more charisma. They're better at communicating. They're more natural and authentic. Absolutely. But that doesn't change the fact that nobody knows anymore what the Labour Party stands for, who the Labour Party stands for, what kind of policies they would want to implement if they had the chance.
Everything they've tried they have reversed because they can't get the majority in parliament and I just don't see that changing with any potential leader that they have.
>> That's right. But that's that's not too that's not the case on two levels. Uh Miriam, one is you'll see a program tomorrow whether you like it or not in the state opening of parliament uh the king's speech. And the second thing is they have some achievements. They get no credit for them. Whether it is the higher minimum wage, the renters's rights act, create security for tenants, whether it is new job rights, whether it is child care, whether it is breakfast clubs, these these are all achievements I think they can point to and they can they can hail >> in terms of where we are.
>> They they make a difference to a lot of people's lives, but people are not well.
Why are so many Labour MPs demanding goes >> because a lot of one a lot of people just don't feel that change yet because they've had a terrible squeeze in living standards and wages and then secondly the public has taken against Kia Starma the frontman the prime minister the main person and so they're not listening to Labor and the reason you know the 80 81 whatever it is now have come forward is they hear on the doorsteps they hear in pubs they hear in cafes they hear it in supermarkets when they go to do their shopping that people say I don't like that K star >> but Kevin you don't like that K star >> no I don't know I look I at the beginning no at the beginning I said they should have gone for Lisa Nandi who's now the culture secretary going back to that leadership contest in 2020 now I've always seen he's he's failings he's proved to be less competent than I thought he would be the one thing I thought he would do would be unexciting and run a pretty yeah pretty boring. A pretty boring ship. He and Rishi Suda had more in common in their styles than either would ever care to admit. But politically, he's got it completely wrong. Going back to the winter fuel allowance, which politics is essentially whose side are you on? Who do people feel you're representing? And when you're taking wind of fuel allowance away from 10 11 million pensioners who are on very small occupational pensions, you're taking away from a a billionaire.
That's one thing. You won't save very much money though, but you're taking it away or so from people on small amounts of money. You you you turn later, but you don't get any credit for it. You've already upset people. Yeah. It was insanity. And it showed immediately that farmer had no political judgment because if you had any judgment, you'd say, "Hang on a minute. We can't take that away from pensioners because that would be disastrous." I mean, what he is is he's a lawyer and he's obsessed with the law, international law. He's he spends his life trying to be seen as an international statesman, which he's not.
He's a laughingstock. He's he's hides behind the international law on everything like the chaos, like immigration. He put his buddy his former buddy in chambers, the dreadful Herma in as attorney general, a man who's made his fortune representing enemies of this country. I mean, he's made U-turn after U-turn. He's got no political judgment.
He has a a shocking cabinet full of terrible people with no experience of anything. And yet he still thinks he can cling on as leader.
>> Sorry mate, it's over.
>> Well, let's go back to where it's all happening. GB News political correspondent Katherine Forester is outside Downey Street. Catherine, you've seen a succession of cabinet ministers leave this morning. Which do you think had the greatest spring in their step?
>> Uh well, the ones that came to talk to us were all very uh optimistic. uh positive about the PM. We just spoke to Baroness Chapman as you saw a few minutes ago. Uh she is an Uber Starmer loyalist and she said, "Look, we're getting on with working out how to deliver for people what they need." And I said, "Um, you said you'd uh you said you'd stop the chaos." And she said, "Uh, we will stop the chaos." We will stop the chaos. So that's uh from a member of the cabinet this lunchtime.
Although it feels very much like the chaos is very uh much already here.
Clearly she and there are others in the cabinet too feel that this is not the time to change leader uh not least uh because Westminster is getting ready for the king's speech tomorrow to lay out the government's legislative agenda for the next term. Uh but I think uh what happens in the coming hours could be critical. West Streeting who's normally pretty happy to talk to the media very very tight-lipped walked away giving nothing away. I think a lot depends now on what he does next because he has told the prime minister in the past that he won't move against him first. But if it's clear that the PM's position is untenable uh then he will challenge for the leadership and he says he's got the numbers. This is likely the best chance that the health secretary has to get the job that he's always wanted. While Andy Bernham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, the favorite uh among many, seen as the best option because he's the only person that polls better with the public, uh the general public, the voting public in terms of being a leader while he is out of the picture and doesn't have a seat. Uh but if West Streeting moves, he won't move alone.
There's no way that those on the left of the party will allow that. So then we might see Angela Raina, while the HMRC are still investigating her over her tax. She said yesterday that it was a mistake not to let Andy Burnham uh stand in Gorton and Denton. Uh we might get Ed Milliband again. uh he has said to the prime minister in the past that the prime minister should set out a timetable uh to go. He apparently doesn't want the top job. But again uh these are people who are not just going to sit aside and let West Streeting walt into Downey Street. But of course we are getting a little bit of ahead of ourselves because currently the prime minister is still adamant that he is going nowhere. another minister of people.
>> How long for Andrew?
>> I've said all along he's going to brazen out. I've thought all along that he'll he'll still be probably clinging on up until the Labour Party conference when the when the tribe gathers, the trade unionist, the party members, MPs, uh, and it's in Liverpool this year and that will be fascinating.
>> Well, Katherine Foster, thank you very much. Now, in studio, we are joined by Michael Ellis, former attorney general and constitutional expert. Michael, there are so many angles in this story.
Hello, not least the parallels with many of the uh weeks and months that we live through in the last government. But I'd love to get your view on the constitutional impact of this leadership crisis the day before a king's speech.
>> Well, first of all, Andrew and Miriam, I thought that K star said no more psycho dramas.
>> Yes, you do.
>> Um and here we are today. But look, where we are constitutionally is quite interesting. People have wondered about what happens tomorrow if Karmama was to go. Now it doesn't look like Kama is going to go. That's sort of clear at the moment and I think that they're corraling loyal cabinet ministers to come out and speak to the camera crews in Downing Street. He intends to stay.
But um we haven't had a postponement of a state opening of Parliament at this short notice. Well, I can't find an example in the last 100 years. We've we had a postponement um in 1980 uh and again in 1976. There was one in 1945 and another one in 1924, but those four examples that go back to World War I were weeks in advance, three or four weeks in advance. Um so they weren't the day before.
>> And I can tell you now that there are about a thousand military personnel and about 200 horses waiting to do their stuff tomorrow. So I think that the state opening will go ahead. There is actually for those interested in the arcane process, there is a way of adjourning at this late notice. And what you do is both houses assemble as if they're going to hear the king and the Lord's commissioners tell them to go away again. Um but that hasn't happened well uh for for probably several hundred years.
>> Okay.
>> Um so I don't think it's going to happen tomorrow. But there's an interesting little bit that you may recall from previous um state openings when the late queen or the king um gave the speech.
They always said at the end, my lords and members of the House of Commons, other matters will be laid before you.
And that's a catchall because what it means is that the prime minister of the day can add new things that the sovereign hasn't mentioned. It does mean that if there was a change of leader during the next session, the next parliamentary session, they can lay other matters that the king doesn't mention tomorrow.
>> Could there be? So hypothesize we have the king speech tomorrow star falls whether it's in the next few weeks or September. Do we have another Can we have another king speech this year?
>> Well, there's technically nothing to stop it. But I don't think that would be necessary or likely. I think that what would happen is that if the new prime minister didn't want to run up with certain things that are mentioned tomorrow that Kama wanted to go with then they simply wouldn't bring them before the houses and if they wanted to put new measures before the houses they would consider it having been included in that catch all phrase other matters will be laid before you.
>> So constitutionally I think you know the good old British constitution several centuries old actually has backup processes for everything. Um so constitutionally and both practically in terms of the military personnel you know and the military horses and the road closures and the availability of all the key figures. Uh that obviously would be extremely disruptive but um I don't think we're going to see the Lord's commissioners tomorrow say uh thank you all for coming off you go. I don't think that's likely to happen. I I imagine we never know what the king thinks about politics because he never tells us and and the audience with the prime minister always remains private. It's a very important part of the constitution. You can't think anything else though that he'd be other than displeased with this chaos.
>> Well, of course, you know, I think that >> I mean we're it's making the country an international laughingstock in my view.
Well, we are changing our prime ministers with frightening frighteningly frequency and we have to really look I think don't we Andrea Miriam about why it is that prime ministers don't seem to be able to survive more than two years.
um that there is something. Is it the quality? Is it the the pressure that they're under? The system isn't working as it should. Uh you know, >> is it social media?
>> It it's a number of different things probably, but it obviously isn't a good thing for the markets. If you look at the markets, they're not happy about what's going on at the moment, and they'll be even more unhappy if there's uh more unscheduled change. So, it's not good for the country's image. It's not good for our international reputation.
It's not good for the economy or the international markets or the London markets. So all in all, it's it is a psycho drama that Kstarma and Labour said they were going to avoid.
>> Do you think that the markets the bond markets have become a straight jacket around our politics? Because of course Andy Bernham famously said a few months ago that we should ignore them. And that sounds all very nice until you realize that we're so indebted, we're owned by foreign debt that we have to pay attention. I think Andy Bernham was being a bit naive there. Even in Margaret Thatch's day, she said, "You can't buck the markets." Didn't she Andrew? And the point is that they they actually want to be led the markets.
They want to have security and shity.
They want to know what's going on.
>> I don't think the markets there isn't a force that wants to lead the country from the markets, but they want to have proper leadership and they want to have um you know security of knowledge about what's happening next. uncertainty is the biggest uh disheveled.
>> But if we were in less debt, if we were less indebted, we could be more politically bold. So for example, uh going back to the Liz Trust analogy has been raised several times today.
Actually, what got Liz Trust into hot water was not the tax cut for bankers.
It was the huge amount of borrowing that she wanted to engage in to help people with energy prices at the time of the of the Ukraine war. But she couldn't do that even if she thought it was politically correct because we're in so much debt.
>> You make a very good point and not only are we in huge debt, I think the bigger problem because other Western countries are also in a huge debt and they don't have the inflexibility. What we have tended to do is successive governments is lock down certain percentages of our GDP to spend on certain things. That means that there's less and less flexibility about being able to do things. So if you if you have legislation which binds you to spending x% on defense, x% on you know welfare, x% on other things, you restrict yourself and actually any chance to fix checker has an increasingly small amount of budget that they can play with and that gives um an inflexibility that makes it very difficult to do bold things. But I think the main reason we haven't had political leaders that are prepared to do bold things and Karma's speech yesterday where he was going to reset everything, I mean it was literally embarrassing >> because it was the same old thing. There was nothing bold about it at all. It was as though he were talking to a Labour Party, you know, sort of um group and not to the general public. And this inability to function outside of the political bubble is incredibly damaging.
>> It it I I watched it with amazement the speech because I thought you don't get it.
>> If that's the best you've got, that is not going to save your premiership.
>> The truth is he has the political nouse of a broom handle. I mean there is absolutely no political >> broom handle.
>> There's no political antenna there at all. And it's not a left or right thing.
You have to understand where people are thinking and how they operate.
>> No instincts.
>> Taking your jacket and tie off and making a speech to Labor friends is not going to change the weather when the situation is a full crisis as it is now.
>> I thought you probably spent more time fussing about should I put a tie on or a jacket than he did about the speech because the speech was woeful. I'd heard most of it before.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, Henry Hill writes in the critic today. What does the prime minister think is going on around him?
>> Yes. Well, this is it. This is it. But if you're surrounded by policy wonks who are telling you what largely what you want to hear, >> um then I'm afraid you're not really going to you're not going to be able to come up with anything new.
>> Well, Michael Ellis, don't go anywhere.
We will be coming back to you. But we've now got down the line Jason Cowi, who's the former editor of the News Statement.
Jason, thank you so much for joining us.
>> Now, you Hello. You wrote a fascinating piece yesterday in the Times talking about um the various factions within Labor and what awaits the party should they go down this route um of changing leader. Can you explain a little bit more what you said in that piece?
>> Yeah, it was my column for the Sunday Times. Um what I what I was saying because it was on immediate response to those absolutely appalling election results right across these islands. I mean Labour were beaten everywhere, losing to everyone. What I said was that Stalw's authority is shattered not only in the parliamentary party but in the country at large and if he continues and you know he the guy's the guy's in deep trouble this morning. If he continues he will only continue as a kind of puppet of the soft left faction of the parliamentary labor party. If you remember Miriam his great mantra was country before party. Mhm.
>> That was the slogan on which he ran and very quickly it became party before country and now it's his own survival before anything else.
>> Jason, he's brazening it out if that's the right expression currently. But how long can he brazen it out for?
>> It's looking very bad for him, Andrew.
You're absolutely right. I was learning a few lessons from Corbyn, Jeremy Corbyn in 2016 when he they tried to topple him after the Brexit referendum and he said, "Look, you know, I may have lost the complete confidence of the parliamentary party and Starmmer hasn't lost that yet.
I'm going to tough it out and take on Owen Smith, the the average challenger that and he won convincingly. Stalmer has none of the popularity that Corbyn has in the country among the members of the Labour Party. But you know what is he? He's a resilient fellow. He's a determined fellow and he believes he has a mandate. He ran a commanding general election victory only in 2024 and he believes that is his mandate to continue. I think he's deluded about that but nevertheless that's what he believes.
>> But Jason, even if Starmmer were to step down or be removed and replaced with somebody more charismatic, more popular, would that actually make any difference to the Labour Party's long-term prospects? We can see, for example, with the Conservative party, Kammy Benedo has personally very good poll ratings and yet her party is still stuck on 19 20% in the polls. It's made no difference at all. Could a change of leader actually give Labor back that popularity that they've lost?
>> It's a it's a very good question, Miriam, and I explored it in my Sunday Times column. I think what we're seeing in this country, but also across Europe, is is the decline of the old center left and center right parties. It's a trend not just here but but but everywhere.
Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and France and so on. Everywhere we look, the center right and center left are not necessarily losing, but they're losing vote share and they're struggling for relevance. And this is a huge problem. I think the Labour Party was very much a party of the 20th century.
Now what was it originally? It was a combination of the Labor interest, organized labor and what you might George Orwell used to call the kind of book train socialist, you know, the Fabian socialist, the intellectuals. It was a coalition that just about held.
Labour didn't win many general elections, but they won some and they had some significant leaders. Clement Atley, Harold Wilson, Tony Blair, and others. Clear Karma isn't one of them.
But that era has gone and I think the party no longer knows what it is and for whom it speaks. It claims to be the party of the working class. Well, look what happened in the working-class heartlands, in the South Wales valleys, in the Red Wall seats in the north of England. Labor were absolutely defeated and rejected by whom? Reform UK >> and the king of the north, Andy Bernham.
J Jason, um he's apparently on a train to London. We don't know what that's about. Um with your with your perception of the Labour Party and the current political climate, do you think there is a safe seat that can be made available for Andy Bernham that he can win and then uh challenged Star for the leadership? Is that does that safe seat exist anymore?
>> It's extremely difficult. I I guess there will be safe seats in Liverpool >> and there may be safe seats in in Manchester. I don't know. I mean, things are so volatile and and changing.
Burnham was once at Westminster. He now he's now coming from outside Westminster. You know, he was seen as a little bit of a lightweight when he was at Westminster. You know, well-meaning, but um didn't lack didn't have the substance. But he's gone away. you know, he's he's great mayor of Greater Manchester. He's been perceived to be successful and he's actually quite popular in Manchester and he's actually a very good communicator. And in their desperation, they are seeking perhaps a candidate who's not in the present Westminster um setup and he may be that candidate. But indeed, Andrew, if he if he's able to get through the mechanism of the party, you know, very complicated national executive um committee, which is the kind of rule making body of the party, which blocked him when he tried to stand in the Gorton and Denton bi-election, um if he if he's able to get through the NEC and then find a seat, someone maybe retires and gives gives up their seat for him, there's no guarantee he will win it. Andrew, you're absolutely right. And that bi-election, what an amazing event that will be. will be an absolute media circus. Gordon and Denton was already where Matt Goodwin ran for a reform and we saw what happened with the Greens ultimately won.
I mean, imagine just imagine what might happen if Burnham has a has a seat and there's a bi-election. Great for us in the media >> and fortune favors the brave as well, Jason, doesn't it? Isn't that the expression? So why doesn't Wed Streeting if he's got the numbers and I've read a hundred times that he's got the numbers why doesn't he run now because no Burnham Angela Raina is wounded over her tax affairs. It would be a shoe in wouldn't it?
>> He's very much asking well if if he was to declare he would be challenged from the soft left of the party they wouldn't they it wouldn't allow it to be a coronation. So a candidate would emerge you know would it be Angela Raina would be Ed Milliband you know previous leader of the party. So I don't think um West treat will just be h hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand handed it it um he's asking himself that very question he said I don't want to be the first mover against karma although in many ways he and his allies or his outr rididers have been plotting and scheming for some time for this moment and you're absolutely right for fortune does favor the brave you know sometimes in politics you don't choose the moment the moment chooses you >> Jason Cowie thank you so much for joining us this morning Jason Cowi former editor of the News Statesman.
Really interesting analysis there.
>> Yeah. And we've got Michael Edison. You saw them close up in the comments as did you as did you, Mary. I mean, who do you think is the most impressive potential candidate?
>> Well, I agree with what Jason was saying about Andy Burnham being considered quite a lightweight when he flopped in the leadership campaign, which is why he lost votes.
>> He did. and he was a, you know, gave the distinct impression of being a nice person, but he was actually considered quite a lightweight. So, it's very interesting. Um, West Streeting, I think, is pretty desperate to get his move in right now because he knows that uh the it's his best chance because of the lack of uh uh the availability of other candidates, but um he clearly he also has major enemies. I mean the the Labour party is incredibly fractured um and fractious and usually they keep that below the surface but there are those who will move very quickly against West Streeting. I I dare say I'll make a prediction whoever replaces Karmama will not last the full 3 years left in this parliament. I don't think so.
>> So that really would be the Tory psychodrama all over again.
>> Well I mean I think they won't last the full 3 years.
>> Well then there'd have to be a general election. Well, >> well, let's bring in our deputy political editor, Tom Harwood. Tom, I don't know if you can hear in the studio, but Michael Ellis is predicting that a replacement to Kar for Kstar will not last the rest of the parliamentary term. What do you make of that?
>> It's entirely possible that the same carousel of prime ministers that we've seen for the last six or seven years continues to roll on. that a new person comes in uh promises the world promises that somehow they can get the country out of the bind that it's in. Promises the unicorn politics that somehow we can have uh low taxes, very high public spending and we don't need to worry about the debt interest costs of this country which are currently over a hundred billion pounds a year just servicing the mountain of debt that we have. We could have another politician come in pretending that the debt's not a problem, pretending that they can promise all things to all people and it doesn't have to cost a penny on tax and that only uh the very super rich would have to pay and that everyone can get on normally. You could of course have a politician coming in incredibly popularly promising all of that and then within a few weeks realizing that politics doesn't work that way that we are reliant on the generosity of international creditors to be able to run the country that we have such an enormous deficit as a country and such an enormous mountain of debt that actually the freedom of movement for any prime minister is limited by those international creditors. And this is the problem for a country that has quite as much debt as Britain, for a country that has lost as much respect as Britain in many ways on the world stage. That we are, to use a phrase from Andy Bernham in hawk to the bond markets. That if the government does things that the bond markets don't like, well, the bond markets have the government by the proverbial. And that is a problem. That is a problem that has uh weighed down not just this prime minister and this chancellor but the one before that and the one before that too. And crucially unless there is a politician who comes forward and says what the country frankly needs to hear that it's going to be difficult to get out of this rut that there are going to have to be big and bad decisions that are going to have to be taken to get us onto a more stable footing where we're going to see this game play out again and again and again.
A politician comes forward, promises the world, gets into power, and it turns out that they simply can't deliver it. I could imagine a new Labour leader become prime minister on a huge wave of popularity, thinking that they have solved everything. The country loves them and loves them for the first few weeks until it comes to that first budget where actually they're faced with the economic reality that we face as a country. That then could be a perilous position for any politician who wants to promise the unachievable.
>> Thanks Tom.
>> I'm not sure I agree with the first part of your analysis. I'm not sure we are going to see anyone swept to power on a wave of popularity. Again, the prevailing mood seems to be we've tried everyone else. We'll give you a chance but with no great hope that anything will change.
>> Entirely possible. But uh if we look at certain polls, there are individuals who are seen to be much more popular than the current prime minister. I think it's uh not beyond the realm of imagination that a new prime minister could come in on positive numbers or at least very low negative numbers. Certainly far more popular than the minus 40 minus 50 that we see this current prime minister languishing at. But again, just how quickly that all disintegrates, I think uh might surprise many in the Labour Party.
>> All right, that's Tom Harwood. Thanks so much. Now, of course, a big announcement from the prime minister this week was the nationalization of British steel subject to a public interest test, whatever that means. John Harrison is from UK Steel. Morning.
>> Good morning.
>> What does it mean?
>> So, this is an important step. It means certainty for British steel and its workforce. So it means ultimately the government will now own the company and can direct it and also hopefully get some co-investments in at some point as well.
>> Does how much does it cost?
>> We don't know yet. So there's been >> the government hasn't got any money.
>> Well, there's been negotiations going on with Gingier who are the current owners.
We don't know yet how those negotiations have gone, but we'll need to see the detail of the legislation before we know how much this >> I mean, are we talking billions?
>> I do not know. It could be millions. It could be billions, but we don't know this. But critically, if we don't support British steel, we lose our sovereign capability to make steel from scratch in this country. We'll be the only G20 country in the world not to have that primary steel making capacity.
So, it's a vital thing the government is doing at the moment.
>> Of course, last April the government stepped in um to take hold of Jinger with emergency powers. Parliament was recalled, I remember. Um and since then, the government's been propping up uh British still I think 1.2 million pounds a day they're saying it costs. Do you think then that actually the intention here is to save the blast furnace that despite what Ed Milliban might want and that net zero fanatics might want they are determined to keep that primary steel making capacity.
>> Well the blast furnaces at British steel are getting on in years at the moment they can't go on indefinitely. The plan previously was to replace those with EF furnaces at some point with co-private investment. What UK steel has said is they should keep those furnaces running until the new EFs at some point come online because again if those blaz furnaces go off over overnight tonight we lose the capacity to make rail structural steel and other types of steel. So for the moment they they should keep >> but although there are many advantages to the electric arc furnaces the one thing they can't do is produce virgin steel from iron ore. Isn't that a necessary sovereign capability that we retain at least one blast furnace in this country? And we've lost Port Tolbert. Of course, >> it's a bit of a myth that you can't make all types of steel in electric arc furnace. If you have the right amount of raw ingredients in an arc furnace, you can make pretty much any type of steel and unlike blast furnaces that require imported iron ore. We have a surplus of scrap metal in this country. So, actually makes us more sovereign capable than the old blast furnaces do.
>> If the government stepped in sooner, Nigel Far was caught talking about nationalizing British steel last April.
>> If they'd stepped in sooner, could Port Tolbert have been saved?
>> They're completely different issue.
Tolbert was a commercial deal with the previous government or co-investment in their furnaces there. It's totally removed what's happening at British Steel. That deal had been kind of solved and signed already. This is a very different issue.
>> How many jobs are at stake?
>> Goodness me. At British Steel itself, there are a few thousand, but in the wider supply chain that British Steel supports, >> it's tens of thousands. So, it's not just British Steel itself, it's the wider supply chain and their customers.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And I imagine being political here, some of those jobs are in labor constituencies. You may say that I couldn't possibly comment but uh Skunkorp is a steel making town you know as are a lot of uh places around the country. They are voters. I'm sure that is possibly a consideration but fundamentally this is about our national sovereign capability to make that steel from scratch.
>> Of course one of the challenges for the British steel industry from recent years has been government energy policy. Not just this government of course but successive governments trying to uh transition our energy supply from fossil fuels to electricity. But all the taxes that have gone into that, all the different tariffs have made it extraordinarily difficult for high energy industries like steel to operate.
Do you think now that the government is paying the cost of energy for British steel, they might start to wake up?
>> Well, energy is one of the few shoes in the steel strategy the government didn't directly tackle. You know, as you say, we are paying I think the highest energy prices in the developed world, especially industry, much higher than France, much higher than Germany and most of our close competitors. It's critical if British steel and the wider steel sector are going to be viable in the long term to get those energy prices down and we are telling the government that quite >> and is Ed Milliband listening to the net zero.
>> Well, we're having some great conversations with the government.
They've already done some things. We've had support for network chargers. The supercharger has gone to 90% for the cost of energy. We're having ongoing conversations with all different um branches of government about how the government can go further.
>> Right.
>> John Harrison, thank you very much for >> really interesting. Well, whoever takes over or doesn't from K Dharma, I think the steel industry is such an important >> big big issue and politically after what happened in the local elections last week uh where Labour seat Labor wiped out in some of its traditional seats. Um big problem. Let's go to Katherine Forester who's in Down Street. Um any more where it's been extraordinary comingings and goings, Katherine? We're all still waiting to hear if West Street's got anything to say. He was unusually tight lipped when he left number 10 this morning in the meeting.
He was he's normally a great one for talking to the media, but he was very very quiet. In fact, I think we've got a clip of him ignoring all of us. Let's have a look at that now.
>> Where's Do you WANT TO BE PRIME MINISTER? WILL YOU CHALLENGE KARMA?
WHERE'S DO YOU WANT THE JOB OR NOT?
THAT'S OUR VERY own Keith Baze that you can hear with that voice booming out. He is becoming uh the legend of Downing Street uh doing those shouts. But yes, uh we're streeting strangely silent or perhaps not strangely silent because I think so much hinges now on what we're treating does or does not do next because it looks like the cabinet nobody directly told the prime minister that the time was up. uh the prime minister's office brief note saying that he was going nowhere that he'd been elected uh to bring change and improve people's lives and that was what he was going to do and then a a succession of cabinet ministers came out and made supportive noises uh Peter Kyle uh the business secretary Liz Kendall the science secretary um Baroness Chapman an uber loyalist of the prime minister spoke to me and said look uh the prime minister is getting on with the job of of running the country, making people's lives better. When I said what happened to uh uh stopping the chaos, referring of course to what they said before the last election about the tries, uh she said we will stop the chaos. Watch this space on that. Uh but also uh we've had a couple of tweets from cabinet ministers. Uh Steve Reid uh the housing secretary has retweeted Paul Johnson who used to head up the Institute for Fiscal Studies and he had been saying that Starman Reeves are not kidding when they say this political uncertainty causes economic damage. The only reset being achieved at the moment is higher borrowing cost result we're all worse off. Now Steve Reed has retweeted that and he said this is not a game. This instability has consequences for people's lives. The people who will be hurt most will be those who elected us less than two years ago. We must unite behind the prime minister. And a similar message now uh coming from the defense secretary John Healey. He has posted on X and he has said people are worried about current conflicts and looming global crisis.
They expect their government to lead the country through as the prime minister is doing. More instability is not in Britain's interest. Our full focus must now be on dealing with immediate economic and security challenges. And of course, we know the world is very dangerous. There's a war in Europe. Uh there's this conflict in the Middle East. The straight of form is closed. uh even if it reopened tomorrow and there's no prospect of that, our bills are going up and the the knock-on effects of that are going to get substantially worse.
So, the argument of many is this is not the time to unseat a prime minister. Uh talking to people in number 10, they said that the mood is very sad and there are plenty of people horrified at what's going on. Uh but I think now it feels like the prime minister, and I'm reluctant to say this because it could change in two minutes, has been given a bit of a reprieve possibly uh till after the king's speech, which of course is tomorrow. That could change, however, if the quiet man's treating the health secretary decides to make his move. This is probably his best chance that he's ever going to get because if Andy Burnham, the mayor of uh Manchester, gets back into parliament, he is the favorite among uh many MPs and indeed uh quite a few cabinet ministers too. We will see what happens. could be seen to be quite a clever move by the prime minister because in refusing to stand down to resign voluntarily. He is forcing his rivals to put their money where their mouth is to go through the proper processes of standing of exposing themselves as challenges rather than having dinners in the back rooms of Westminster and trying to get people to resign. Perhaps this is one of his best strategic moves.
Well, it may well be and we know that, you know, he fought to get to where he is. Um and we know too that yes 81 well more than 81 MPs have publicly said he should go but they are not united uh behind a single challenger and West Streeting's allies told me this morning in no uncertain terms uh that Wes treating uh will not seek to unseat the prime minister unless it is clear that the prime minister is going to have to go. At the moment it's not quite clear that he's going to have to go or not that he's going to have to go right now.
So, is West Streeting really going to move? Because if he does, there's plenty of people in the Labour party that frankly cannot stand him. And if he moves, others will move too. And given uh the chances uh that they will move, they will ultimately put him to the left of the party. Uh Wes treating could move and end up not getting the job anyway.
>> Well, Katherine Foster outside Downey Street where it's all happening or not happening now. Exactly.
>> We've still got Mike Glas just for a minute or two. Mike, they're piling in, aren't they, cabinet, is to try and make it very difficult for somebody like Streing to challenge. They're saying, "Look at the markets. Look at the chaos.
Maybe he hasn't got the 81 names anyway, >> possibly. But I think the ball very much now is in Streeting's court. It's really down to him as to whether he makes his move or not." And some would say that if he doesn't make that move, then does he have the uh the resolute uh nature to be prime minister and to be leader of the Labour Party because now is his moment.
You can see from the the maths that um he would not be challenged by Burnham because Bernham isn't available or by Angela Raina because she isn't available for tax reasons. So it's now or never probably for West Streeting. Is he going to make his move? I have to say that um you know Kem Bened has been doing really well in bringing the prime minister to this position. The reason why he's under this pressure from his own parliamentary Labour party is partly because of things like the humble address um that was incredibly successful move and of course she was very effective previously with this. Yeah. On the Mandlesson matter but also on the grooming gangs um issues.
One thing I think could happen, I I have no information about this, but one thing that is a possibility in 1892 after the uh the Queen Victoria's speech from the throne, um the then opposition laid an amendment to the Queen's speech that they had no confidence in the government of the day. You can lay an amendment on the Queen's speech. If the government of the day does not win the Queen's speech debate by custom and convention, the government collapses.
>> But with the majority of >> But the Turkey the Turkeys would have to vote for Christmas for that to happen.
>> Yeah. Extraordinary.
>> Um but you know, technically it's a possibility and it would it would put people it would put people under pressure.
>> We've just and we've just heard that Andy Berner has been spotted at Houston station. Was he coming down to embrace >> might be going shopping? given us a 19th century analogy. What about a 16th century one? This is like Mary the first riding to London when she hears that her brother has given the throne to some random cousin and she wants for herself.
>> Well, this is where we are right now because we're, you know, if if we're talking about possible postponements of the state opening of Parliament at a few hours notice, that hasn't happened for centuries. Um, certainly hasn't happened in the last 100 years. So, every time we've had adjournments, it's been several weeks, three or four weeks notice. I think what's going to happen here though is the pressure on K star is zombie.
>> He is going to be the zombie prime minister. He'll be standing there as a zombie leader. That's his difficult >> and everybody knows it.
>> And stay or go. He won't be able to get anything through parliament. Well, thank you. It's always a joy to talk to you.
>> Well, >> well, that's it from this memorable day.
I think I was put right. I said he's going to brazen it out and cling on.
>> What about tomorrow? might have.
>> He'll still be there and he'll and it'll be the king's speech which will be a very difficult king's speech. And look at the king's furrow brow when he makes that speech tomorrow because it will enjoy it.
>> Well, up next is Good Afternoon Britain with Mark and Nana. But the latest is that 85 MPs now want the prime minister to go and GBN's deputy political editor Tom Harwood has all the latest on this huge day in politics.
>> Westminster stands in the eye of the storm. You'll see behind me that the green stands quiet. The fences have been erected for tomorrow's king's speech.
And yet all around the sense of swirling chaos, the sense of danger for the prime minister. Quiet now, but a wave of disruption throughout yesterday and into this morning. Resignations from parliamentary private secretaries and one minister. More than 80 members of parliament calling for the prime minister to go. And now this curious waiting, waiting and watching, waiting to see what happens from the principal players in this drama. Could a putitive leadership candidate take this afternoon as the moment to challenge the prime minister formally, as the moment to declare the start of a formal leadership election? or might they wait until after the king's speech tomorrow? This is the question that grips Westminster as the drama continues to unfold. For his part, the prime minister has effectively said, "Put up or shut up." He's putting a brave face on the fact that more than a quarter of his parliamentary party have put their heads above the parapit and said, "It's time for the prime minister to go." This is a daring moment for those who have called on the prime minister to leave and a dangerous moment for a prime minister not yet two years in the job. Of course, he's provide presided over more than a dozen U-turns.
He's presided on two disastrous sets of local elections. In many polls, the Labour Party now sits in fourth place.
And the question becomes, just how much more can the Labor rank and file take?
Just how much more can Labor politicians stand up to as this uh disastrous uh situation in the polls at least continues to Go.
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