The Future of the Labour Government

Sky News, the full story first . Can the Prime Minister survive this? Can the Prime Minister survive? Has the Labor Party lost its mind, sir? Are you backing Keir Star mer? Sir, do you think Keir Starmer should stay on, sir? Best Rigby? Best Rigby, are you ready for an extra podcast? Best Rigby, have you got have you got time to speak to Sky News? You've had a day of it, haven't you? Honestly. You're making me laugh because what happens is we're standing there and they're coming in and we know they're not gonna answer, but you got you know, it's like you gotta try, haven't you? But I and then basically there were so many people in Down in Charles, I just got I'm just gonna have to shout really loudly. Uh but when you play that bats me, I mean I just sound like a mad raving woman like yelling at someone. Anyway. Yeah I'm ready for a pod. Are you ready Ruth? I'm ready for a pod. Harriet, are you ready for an extra pod? I am and I was very glad not to see um podium man coming out. Do you remember the the man with the podium setting up the podium? Always when there was gonna be some catastrophe, the man with the podium would come out and also it would bucket with rain but it, did neither today. Can I just say Harriet, you haven't seen the man with the podium yet? Ow . So look, hello and welcome to Electoral Dysfunction Extra Episode with me, Beth Rigby, me Ruth Davidson, and me Harriet Harmon. Well, look, actually, Beth, you might uh consider rebranding yourself uh from Beth Rigby to Death Rigby, because um there are some people online that are saying that about you because every time you get close to Holl ering at number 10, another prime minister bites the dust and resigns. But we're we're not there yet. God . I mean, I know I get mixed reviews, but Death Rigby seems a bit harsh. Bit harsh No that is quite funny though. Goodness me, I have spent quite a lot of time at Downing Street over the past twenty four hours. So I went home for a few hours sleep, but then I got straight back there. Um it's been and we did say did,n't we , um last week we wouldn't come back early unless something huge had happened. But I I feel that the um the bar was well and truly not even crossed but leapt over uh with a record breaking leap in terms of uh how it has turned out for Keir Star mer over the past 40 hours. It's just been absolutely momento us the the news flow over the past twenty-four hours, hasn't it? Well yeah, can you take us through a little bit of it? Because it it's almost like you described it, the kind of pyramid. So it was backbenchers first, then PPSs, and now we're well at the point at which we're speaking to you, which is ten past three on Tuesday afternoon, we're now into the ministerial ranks, right? Yeah, exactly. So look, just to take you quickly through yeah what's been going on, Monday morning, we had the Prime Minister's big make or break speech where he had come under fire over the weekend because a backbencher Catherine West had called openly for him to stand down and she said she was gonna try and trigger a leadership contest if the cabinet didn't tell Starmer to go and Starmer didn't set out a timetable. So Monday morning was really high stakes for the PM. He does this speech. It doesn't land as it should have done with a lot of restless MPs. And basically the numbers of MPs publicly calling for him to resign have been, I don't know, a couple of dozen over the weekend that started ticking up, ticking up, ticking up. I then got wind that about mid afternoon that this was potentially expanding, that it was going to move from MPs, then it was going to move to these PPSs. Now they are parliamentary secretaries. They're basically ministerial aides to ministers. They're like the junior people in the commons. They are the lowest rung of the government payroll. I was told that they were gonna start to come out to resign uh or call for the PM to resign, and then they just started dropping early evening, like every half an hour. And then there was an expectation that maybe the cabinet would individually perhaps go in and see the Prime Minister, and then that did come to pass. Avet Cooper went in, the Foreign Secretary, John Healy, the Defense Secretary, went in, and Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, all went in for conversations with Starmer . I then learned that Pat McFadden, the Welcome Pension Secretary, and Steve Reed, the housing secretary, were inside urging Starmer to fight on. David Lamy , the Deputy Prime Minister, and Johnny Reynolds, the chief whip, were ringing around MPs and ministers trying to get them to come out and to support Starmer and basically they gone into complete crisis bunker mode trying to work out how uh he should respond . And as the sort of the evening drew to an end last night, it was looking very, very terminal indeed for the Prime Minister. You know, he's got cabinet saying, maybe, mate, you need to think about standing down. And so this morning, that cabinet meeting was a massive moment for him. And just to say, as of 3 pm uh today, it has continued. We've now had three ministerial resignations, including uh Jess Phillips, uh, formerly of this pod, the safeguarding minister, the biggest name really to stand down with an excoriating uh letter about the Prime Minister talking about it needing to be deeds, not words, saying that they're lacked an urgency and a passion in that government. And we've had now over 8 1 MPs. That's the symbolic number needed to trigger a leadership race calling for him to go. So it's like it's a mega day, it's massive and it is still moving. Well we're gonna bring Harriet in now because actually Harriet as well as being able to tell us a bit about how these things work in general, you're kind of part of the story of this story too, because it wasn't just the speech and the cabinet meeting that was supposed to show up uh the Prime Minister. He also, over the weekend, had brought in Gordon Brown, brought in you, Harriet, Harriet Harmon, uh, to come in and be sort of invoice for the government to show that he was listening more widely than just his close circle. Uh and actually it made our burner phone blow up, Harriet. So let me read you a couple people that got in touch. Uh Julie said, I hope Harriet's affiliation with the cabinet won't muzzle her 'cause I really enjoy her forthrightness. Neil says I was elated when the news popped up, and then it occurred to me that Harriet might have taken or might have to take a step back. So can you reassure myself on all Harriet's fans that she's not going anywhere? So Harriet, you have got a new gig. This is part of the Prime Minister's reset. And and I think it we can exclusively say that that you're joining us in the studio, having just done your induction uh into a job in government and and you know while the while the T V cameras are rolling that the government might be falling apart. I mean this this is not usual times, is it? Gosh. I mean this there's two things. Firstly, just to remember the context is that uh and we discussed this on our last pod, the absolute crushing elections that there were, and the results were coming through on Friday, and they were getting worse and worse, and then more results were coming through on Saturday. And it's one thing when you get opinion polls and the odd by-election going against you, but it's quite another when you get an absolute thumping from the public in Wales and in Scotland and in all the regions of England and there's the mounting fear about what if it carries on like this and oh my goodness, could we really face ending up with Nigel Farage? So that has been, you know, mounting the political anxiety. But on the other hand, um, you'll remember when uh Peter Mandelson um was fired, uh there was an sort of bit of an uprising in the women Labour MPs and a generalized complaint about misogyny. And Keir Star mer came to the women's parliament ary Labour Party and said, I agree that there is structural misogyny in government and I'm going to address it, but nothing programmatic came forward um from that um and obviously he's been thinking about what to do about that so uh he one of the things he's done is brought me in to be like an unpaid um part-time advisor , a bit like I've been anyway in the Foreign Office um for big for women and girls in relation to advising in the Foreign Office. And of course they brought back Gordon Brown to be uh to to to be thinking about international finance and how we can, you know, make sure that we get as much money as possible into the UK for the work that needs to be done. So uh both of us were brought in. Meanwhile then the atmosphere just ramps up and up and up because of the terrible election results. So we've now got something like um eighty plus Labour MPs saying the Prime Minister must go, but they are not, they they've all got different solutions to what the problem is. So that there's they're big in numbers, but they don't agree with each other about what who the replacement should be and what the alternative programme should be. So it's dissatisfaction, but without a clear path to resolving it. And I just feel and in fact ironically, I know this is Westminster, and Westminster is clearly inside the bubble. But between the House of Lords and here, the Sky Broadcasting Studios, I was stopped by two people saying, This is not what you got got elected to do, to get into shambles. Get on and run the government. This is absolutely intolerable. You should be sorting everything out. So there's a lot of people who think that they don't want to see uh preoccupation with changing the leader and just swiping right for the leader. Let's try another one. Okay. Look, just before we go on though, Harriet, just to be clear to everyone that's listening to this pod, and you are their pod friend, uh, talking about the government, just to be clear, one, you are not being paid, you're not on the government payroll with this advisory role. And number two, you're not bound by collective cabinet responsibility, are you? And tell us why both things matter. Well they do. And what I'm saying , and what I've always been saying on the pod, is what I actually think. And usually I am thinking supportive thoughts about Labour, and usually I am thinking supportive thoughts about the government because just that's where I am in my mind. But you know there've been times when I've been very critical. But you were really strong on Mandelson. Like you were really strong on what needed to happen and how it hadn't gone far enough. But I think that I I honestly want to reassure all the listeners that I am definitely not being muzzled or coming in here as a government spokesperson. But it reminded me of something where when there was the run-up to the Iraq war invasion, and everybody was accusing Tony Blair of being just doing stuff because the Americans were telling him to do. And he was saying, no, it's worse than that. I actually agree with Bush. So when I when I'm actually saying things that are in alignment with the government, it's not because they're forcing me to do it. It's because I actually agree with it. That's good. So Harriet's gonna say what she thinks on this pod, which is mainly been quite supportive of Keir Star mer, which is fine as well. You are a Labour peer. You are allowed to bat your PM. I just wanna, let's just go back though. I just wanna go back, um, because we didn't really talk about this extraordinary like, post-cabinet melee that happened outside number 10. And I just want to quickly describe it, and then I want to ask you both about what you thought about it. Because what was mental and genuinely uh really astonishing this morning was that we knew Starmer was on the ropes. We knew that three cabinet ministers had gone in, and Shabana Mahmood certainly had told him to set out a timetable. We know that Ed Miliband's asked him to set out a timetable. Avet Cooper, John Healy, not quite sure what they said, but I imagine it was along the lines of think about the country and your party, have a think about what you're doing. You know, like the grey beards, if you think. Sorry, I'm not saying a vet cooper's got a grey beard. She'd be really annoyed with me if I sort of implied that. But you know what I mean. But they are also the men in grey suits. There's a lot of grey in Westminster euphemisms. So men in grey suits are the elders of a party that tap someone on the shoulder and say, Right, son, or or or love, it's time to step aside. Greybeards are people that have got a lot of influence and they're they're inside the party for a long time. They've got the touch and the feel of it. Why is it always men? What about grey bobs? Let's have grey bobs. Harriet's got a grey bob. Let's just rebrand it. Let's rebrand. Anyway, actually it's not, it's a lovely sort of white silver bob. The point is, right? So we're standing outside Downing Street. There's this crunch cabinet meeting. It's really unclear what is going to happen in that cabinet meeting. I'm told overnight by a cabinet source Starmer is inside holed up in the bunker. Um, the takeaways are being ordered. I found out they've got getting all the takeaways in, like working out what he's gonna do. And then we have no idea. I cannot get anyone to tell me anything before this bloody cabinet meeting. Anyway, the cabinet starts, number 10 put out a statement saying that the Prime Minister has opened the cabinet, saying a leadership race has not been triggered, and unless it is, I am carrying on and I expect all the cabinet to carry on around me. Then apparently various people uh stationed in the cabinet that were supportive of Keir Starmer made a supportive speech. And then the thing that blew my mind was we're standing outside number 10 yelling, thinking no one's ever gonna come and reply. And suddenly we had cabinet ministers come into our live point and making statements of support for the Prime Minister. And I can't remember having done this a few times that ever happening, and cabinet ministers coming out after a cabinet minister and telling us what happened in the room. Ruth, what did you make of that? Did you watch it? Were you watching it? I I did. And what I thought was really interesting about it is is to explain to people back home that the whole thing is that that cabinet is slightly supposed to be sacrosanct. That's why you don't see any of the minutes of what's said in Cabinet for thirty years under the 30-year rules. So it's almost like when you have a conversation with the Queen, you're not supposed to say what you said to the Queen. When you have a conversation in cabinet, it's not supposed to come out. You're supposed to be able to have a safe space where you can disagree with each other, you make a decision. And then when you all come out, you all put the government's point, no matter what your own position was in that room. So when everyone came out, and and then it's people started leaking to journalists. So it wasn't just the ones that were standing telling you things. People were then leaking, saying, Oh, so it was really weird. Starmer said we weren't allowed to have a massive chat about this between ourselves. We had to individually come and speak to him, like as you said, Shabana Mahmoud, Evet Cooper, and others did last night. So when some of the cab when they broke up the cabinet and some of the cabinet ministers who'd not had a chance to have a conversation with them said, that's great, Keir, that we can have a chat with you one-to-one. Can we please schedule that for today? He was like, no, no, we're not doing that today. Uh, and and basically said talk to the hand, which is extraordinary. So not only did you have cabinet ministers walking out and saying exactly what was said and sticking to a script, but you then also had them phoning up telling people what had happened that wasn't being that it wasn't being said on camera. So it discipline is broken down to a degree. Um the kind of hierarchy in the chain of command has broken down to a degree. And I'm reminded of a phrase that was used at the point at which Ian Duncan Smith was being tapped on the shoulder and told it was time to go and he was fighting for himself. And it was called mural difficulties. Ian Duncan Smith had mural difficulties because he couldn't read the what writing on the wall. It just is it's so tenured and tone deaf. And uh and it just it just seems as if he's the manner of his going seems to be in the manner of his his his ruling because I I cannot see him surviving this. You know what I love about Eurostar? I can change my ticket up to an hour before departure. I was supposed to get the 6 a.m. train, but when I got home at 3 a.m. I thought hey what's the rush? So I switched it to 2 p.m. and now I'm traveling fresh as a daisy. Drink monsieur? Coffee, please. Eurostar, together we go further. Change is limited to date and time. Pay ticket price difference subject to availability. Policy varies by class of travel. See Eurostar.com. 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And I think the last question's really hard to answer, but I reckon you might know a bit about what's going on in cabinet. If you could share what you feel able to share, I'd like that. Then I'll go in the news and report it because Well with that um statement that the Prime Minister issued after cabinet, he was more or less saying, wasn't he, put up or shut up. You know, there is a process. I was uh I was elected uh to be leader of the Labour Party, I was then elected to be Prime Minister, and actually if you want to get rid of me, there's a process, you've got to have eighty-one names and you've got to put yourself forward as a candidate. And if that's not happening, which it isn't, I'm getting on and governing. So he's basically saying to them, he's not going to listen to them saying you should go, because he said, I'm not doing that, I'm staying, and if there's a challenge, there's a challenge, but there isn't. But he should be listening to them about what their concerns are and what he thinks the solutions to the problems are for the country. So I think we need the the Prime Minister needs the cabinet to be actually helping point the the way forward. And the other thing is about the the setting out a timet able. That is a bit of a euphemism really because setting out a timetable is like you're fired. And the question of how much time you have is really a bit neither here nor there, because it's basically said you're out, you don't want to go, but you're out. So I think an orderly transition is is just a euphemism . Yeah, I mean, look, if you talk around the people around the PM, some of the cabinet ministers that are supportive, they say the same. They're like, as soon as you set a timetable out, you're done. Like, and no one's gonna do that. But look, Harriet, let's cut to the chase he's got like I don't know eighty something MPs now calling for his resignation he's got three uh ministerial resignations it might be that one of the cabinet decide to resign too I don't know if that's gonna happen, but certainly that's what I think uh some of those that are agitating for him uh to stand down uh would want to see. I mean, even if he clings on, Harry, he's done, isn't he? Going back to the Roost point, I think like, hasn't his authority bled away so much it is not recoverable? Even if he sort of hangs on in there, which is unclear at the moment, I just don't know if there's a way back for him? Well, I think the way to be able to be Prime Minister is to have a big majority, to be popular with the country and have the confidence of the country, and have the confidence of your members of Parliament and the Cabinet. And anything that chips away with any of those undermines your ability to do what you need to be doing. And clearly it is not good at all to have eighty Members of Parliament saying you should go, albeit they've got different ideas of what the solution is. They're not united in who should replace him. They're united that he should go, but they haven't got an alternative candidate or an alternative proposition and and sense of direction . But I also remember that when times were really difficult for the Labour government when Gordon Brown was prime minister and the opinion polls were terrible and we were losing by elections. And we had two cabinet members resigning. Do you remember James Pennell and Hazel Bliers? And the question was: is the government then is is that mean Gordon Brown's gonna have to resign? But because there wasn't a formal challenge, which at that point was being anticipated from David Millerband, but he never put himself forward, nothing ever happened. So it was like a failed coup. But I mean a failed c oup might fail to to topple the prime minister off his perch. But what it also does is undermine public confidence in the government and makes it harder for him to do his job. Same as it's now har der for him to do his job if he's got green councils and reform councils blocking the partnership that's needed. Do you think this is going to be a failed coup, Harriet? It's too early to say, isn't it? Well the Prime Minister is saying he's not going anywhere. He is um unless there's a challenge. And I you know, I can't necessarily see where the challenge is coming from, but that doesn't mean that he shouldn't be acting on the discontent that there is. And also in relation to Andy Burnham, who of course can't be doing a coup at this point or at least mounting a leadership challenge because he's not an MP and you can't challenge for the leadership of the Labor Party unless you're an MP . But actually, if we're looking at having a team of all the talents when the country's facing terrible odds and the the Labour Party is got a cloud hanging over it, clearly, Andy is part of the solution to that. And could it be that that Keir Starmer could say, actually, we need all the people in cabinet to be the very best people for the country? And that includes uh Andy Burnham and I'm gonna call him back in and he's gonna be part of my government. I mean there's all sorts of things that can actually happen there to strengthen the situation, but nobody wants chaos. I mean they they really don't. And at the moment there's no end game. There's instability, but there's no end game. And that as I say, that is what happened with Gordon Brown, but he carried on until um I think the difference between Gordon Brown and Keir Starmer is that actually Keir Starmer's poll ratings are even worse. And it it wasn't off the back of a really visible sense that the public were reje cting you, and we've had a really visible sense of that in terms of the election. And and and Harriet's right, you know, the authority of a prime minister is an ephemeral thing and it's made up of lots of different strands, but public popularity is one of them. But the one the other thing that's different between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party is if anybody thinks that what happened after various Tory prime ministers fell was faction al and was, you know, ill-tempered or scratch y. They have like we have nothing in terms of internecine warfare on the Labour Party. They are masters at it. If he falls, which I think he will, I don't think this is survivable, this is going to get very messy very quickl y. And I personally, I mean if I was a betting woman, I personally might think that I would be looking beyond all of the front runners, the West Streetings, the Shibana Mahmoods, the Angela Rayners and the Andy Burnhams, none of which none of whose outriders seem to be able to stand each other. And I'd be looking at at who's a consensus candidate, who's almost like a second choice for all of these people. And my my money, if I had money, would might be on a vet Cooper as an adult in the room. Let's come to the runners and riders. Because the fur the first thing, Harriet, is I know that you currently don't want any runners and riders. I think you've made that clear. But you also said about sort of star players on the pitch. Actually you didn't say that, but I just love football, so I mentioned football related analogies. But people have been talking about bringing back star players onto the pitch and talking about Andy Burnham coming back to Parli ament. Are you saying now you think that the PM should allow Andy Burnham back? That actually it would be a good idea to let Andy Burnham come back to Westminster? Well if he can construct a sense that the cabinet is there to support the Prime Minister to do the best for the country in very difficult circumstances, if he can really build that sense, then why on earth would he not have Andy Burnham as part of that? You know, he has got huge uh talents, you know, he's he's he's brought back Gordon Brown to to add some help and some heft. So I just do think that it's one thing having a big internacine factional cont est when you're in opposition. But it's quite different when you're in government because you've got a job to do of running the country. You can spend any amount of time when you're in opposition tearing yourselves apart and um choosing different leaders and having a big turnover of leaders. But if you do it when you're in government, the public think that that's not what the deal is. They think the deal is to change the Prime Minister at elections, at general elections. And the other thing is that it's much easier to be the king across the water, as Ruth says, you're always popular if you're not in the hot seat. But then they would immediately start to be torn to pieces by the pl press. And then Nigel Farage would say, yes, this election last week, it showed that the public want change. But they don't want change from Keir Star mer to Andy Burnham or Keir Starmer to West Streeting. They want change from Keir Star mer to Nigel Farage. They want me. So we must have a general election. This new person, you had no chance to have a say in choosing them. This is just the elites changing the people sitting in the top chairs. And therefore he would be starting to call for a general election because you haven't had a say. So I think there would be further instability. And I think that that's something that's got to be borne in mind. But more than one thing can be true, Harriet. More than one thing can be true. It can be true that it is not, you know, it it is it it it does produce instability to change your prime ministers often, and I'm saying that from a party that, you know, got very used to it. It can be completely suboptimal. Yes, it takes up time and effort when it should be spent running government, running departments, running services. But it can also be true that the Prime Minister is part of the problem and that he's a political dud and your party and the country is better off with somebody that can do the job better. Can I just come back to Andy Burnham because actually I have got a bit of intel on Andy Burnham. Now he's back, he's actually in London today, having meetings . Uh, this is one of his allies. They say they can't say who he's having meetings in, but regarding a leadership contest, Andy Burnham does have a route back. He isn't prepared to trigger uh at the moment. The power to keep this controlled is with the Prime Minister, and we can't be reckless. So that's an Andy Burnham backer. And isn't that interesting? That what it seems to be to me, if you're West Street in and you would like to run for the leadership, it's in your interest to go now. If you are those that might want Burnham back or you're on the soft left, you want to keep the Prime Minister in place and you want to slow this all down . And it's very interesting to me because I was told at the weekend that Andy Burnham did have a way back, that there is an MP somewhere that will uh stand down to allow him to run in a by-election . But he clearly doesn't want to agitate for this or trigger that or move that right now. What do you what do you make of that, Harriet? Do you think that makes sense to you? I think that's quite an enigmatic statement. I was trying to work out what it actually means. But I think the truth is that most people in the country, and certainly most people in the Labour Party, want the Prime Minister to succeed. Who I spoke to on the phone that was pretty despairing, I have to say, said to me about what was happening, how disorderly it was, how dangerous it was. They said, I think the Labour Party is about to put itself out of power for a serious period of time by repeating the mistakes of the Tories, someone that clearly did not want this leadership bid uh to be, or this leadership race to be triggered. I mean do you look at this, Ruth, and think the Labour Party is blowing itself up? Or do you actually think that they need to change Keir Starmer in order to have a shot Well so so there's a lot of Tories that are pretty gleeful about this because the Labour Party was was, you know, stuck the boot in a lot when we were changing our leaders and they p applied tons of pressure, and that's fair enough because they were in opposition . I'm not gleeful, and I'm not gleeful for a couple of reasons. One, because of the Scottish aspect. You know, there are a lot of people in Scotland that don't support my party. They didn't support us when we were in government, when we had the referendum. Part of the no campaign was like, don't worry, it's not always going to be a Tory government down south. The idea that a Labour government would fall apart and would be terrible does not help us. The idea that the next government could realistically now be a reform one, like trying to argue that Scotland's staying within the United Kingdom under Nigel Farage is you know is is better than other opportunities. But it also comes down to what one Labour minister texted me when we were chatting about this over the weekend, which was if the next election is Keir versus Nigel, Keir will lose. And that's where a lot of Labour MPs are. So they think that it's not it's not optimal. We don't want to necessarily Um just one more thing, Harriet. Do you think that pr Keir Starmer would be the Prime Minister by the end of this year? You just couldn't with a hand on heart say yes or no to me, could you, right now? You can say I hope so, but you can't know for sure. I think yes. I think I think there's every chance. At the end of the day, our system is you vote, you get the party into parliament, you get the prime minister, and they govern. That's what it always used to be like. And I think we should keep with that and not have the chaos we've had in recent years.