Starmer's Future and Party Leadership

Sky News: the Vol Story Field . He takes responsibility like my kids take responsibility for leaving towels on the floor of the bathroom. They say sorry, then they do the same thing the next day . It's not another party's fault that you didn't win . There needs to be a consensus built and led by Keir Star mer because more of the same is not acceptable. Hello and welcome to Electoral Dysfunction with me Beth Rigby. Me Ruth Davidson and me Harriet Harmon. Now we are recording this on Friday night. It's a bit of a later episode than usual for us because it has been one hell of a day and what a long, long, consequential day. We finally had most of the results of these elections that we have been going on about for the past six months. And I sort of feel I've been in this gestation period, you know, and it's it's all come out today. Is that too much? Is that too much? I think I think if we start m stressing the metaphor and start talking about afterbirth, we could be in trouble, Beth. But I I mean it's a big bloody, hasn't it? It's been bloody. In terms of some of the leaders and some of the parties across different parts of the country. It's certainly been seismic and it feels like it's been a long time coming, this election, doesn't it? It really, it really, really does. I mean, both uh Nigel Farage and Zach Polanski, the reforming green leaders respectively called this a historic set of elections. And I actually think in this instance they genuinely are historic. And on the matter of Nigel Farage and Zach Polansky, the reform and green leaders. I'm sorry to say, ladies, you red and blue parties, it's no longer about you, is it? Labor and Conservatives, you're like who? Yeah, we're getting we're getting dumped, Harriet. Beth's gonna kick us out. She's gonna get like her mates Zack and Nye drowned and do electoral dysfunction with them. But I I think we do need to talk about the turquoise surge, as some people are calling it. And yes, whether this is the end of red and blue party politics or whether this is a midterm kicking for the two main parties. But it would be good to get onto the future. Like what do these results, not just what they wear, because people can tune into the news and see that, but what do they mean? What does it mean about the future of the politics of the UK? What does it mean for the government and how it's supposed to lead? What does it mean when you've got a room with a Prime Minister that's committed to the United Kingdom and you've got most likely First Ministers of Wales and Northern Ireland and Scotland, all of whom are nationalists that want to see the end of And I know we've banged on about this before, but but it's not just us that's talking about it now. This is out in the open amongst Labour MPs. What does it mean for the Prime Minister's future? And with Labour failing to win in Scotland being more or less wiped out in Wales and suffering very bad defeats, both to reform and the Greens across England. It's been a heartbreaking night for Labour, and I think everybody recognises that it can't just be business as usual after this. Yes, it's changed the local government and it's changed the it's changed the situation in Scotland and in Wales. So it hasn't changed the national government but, it will have a major impact on the national government because everybody will recognise the disappointment and dismay that was reflected in those results and realise that lessons have to be learned and there has to be a response to Must have been a hard watch for you, Harriet, the past twenty four hours. Heartbreaking. And I think you've got to recognise what a major disappointment it is. For example, Wales holds a very special place in every Labour person's heart because of its role in history, Welsh Labour's role in history. Although I mean i i I do remember in two thousand and nine Labour didn't win the popular vote. The Conservatives won the popular vote in two thousand and nine. And there were so many hopes in Scotland that it would be time for a fresh start with Anna Sawa as Labour's first minister in Holyrood. So disappointing that that hasn't happened and Labour has really been knocked right back. And a feeling that this was not really to do with anything that was going on in Scotland, but it was a result of people's dismay and protest against the government in Westminster. And I know we're going to talk a bit more about Scotland and Wales later, but the thing that really shocks me was just how big the disappointment is in Wales and Scotland because as you know, I've been banging on for weeks now that the big story's going to be Wales. Labour's going to lose it for the first time in a hundred years. When we had to do that thing at the turn of the year of who was our sort of person of the year, I said it was going to be Runap Yorith, uh, the play leader, and it looks like he's going to be the next first minister. But even I had no idea that we were going to go from a Senith, a chamber where one in two, half of all of the MSs that were in there were Labour MSs'. So half of the chamber was that. We've now gone to less than one in ten. That's enormous. And in Scotland, you know, everybody, you know, nobody really thought this year that Labour could become the next first minister and Annas could become the next first minister. But we didn't reali thatze and it looks very much like from a historic low last time out in 2021, which in turn was a historic low from the time before. So they've gone down at the last election, they've gone down at the election before that, that they're gonna go down again. This is not just like it's it's a dip that they're pulling out of. There is something structural here that Labour is going to have to address. There's a lot going on, and it's going to need to be unpacked for a long time to come. I'll tell you what, there really is a lot going on. Let's whip through some of the big things that have happened in these May elections because there is a fair bit of it. My head is pretty scrambled, I'm not gonna lie. It's a mega picture of change in politics. Uh so I'm gonna run through that and then I want to play uh a question that we've had from one of our dysfunctioners because it's a really good question and I want you two to answer it. But before we do, let me breathe in. Because I've got to get through what's happened. So let me run through it. Number one, the Labour bloodbath. As you've both been saying, they've lost Wales for the first time ever. It's been held by Labour ever since devolution, the Senate. It's gone. The first minister, Elenad Morgan, has lost her seat. And I can tell you when those results came in, she looked like she was fighting back the tears. It was absolutely devastating for her. Labour also on track to come in third in Scotland. They've lost around half of the council seats they were defending in England. They've lost control of Brent in London, not a council scene at risk, as well as Birmingham, Southwark, Enfield, Hackney. Starmer is insisting he will not walk away. And to quote him repeatedly, this is what he said when I questioned him uh early morning in Ealin. He said, I'm not walking away. I'm not going to plunge the country into chaos. So that's the Labour bloodbath. Then the reform surge. They've declared themselves the clear winners. They've made gains across the country in the Red Wald, Heartlands, Hartleypool, Wigan, Tames ide, St. Helens, they've gained control of eight councils, including Gateshead, Sunderland, Thurrock, Essex, Suffolk. I mean, that's a pretty big patchwork across the country. They've got now more than a thousand councillors across England. They came second in Wales, where they now will be really, I guess, the official opposition. And then the Greens, they won two mayoralties the first time ever for the Green Party, Hackney and Lewisham Merralty Gaines. They won more than 200 seats across England. They gained a handful of councils, including Hackney, Norwich, and Waltham Forest. The Tories, the Tories taking a bit of a hammer in. They lost in their Essex Heartland. I'm actually in Essex because I came here uh for a rally for Nigel Farage's reform. Nigel Farage came to Essex, so delighted was he to take this true blue uh part of the world uh from the Tories. And this is where Kemi Badenock is an MP. She's an MP from the county of Essex. Uh, they've lost around five hundred councillors across England, a few positives. They regained Westminster Council. They've made gains in Wandsworth, uh, to take it from Labour control to no overall control. And the Lib Dems, they've had a pretty good day too holding on to Richmond in a clean sweep. Gains in Portsmouth stockport , no real gains where progressive vote is collapsing against Labour, though. The SNP at the time of the recording, they're on track to be the largest party in Scotland. Uh, they'll probably hold on uh to the first minister role. That will be the fifth successive term that the SNP, who apparently have been very unpopular in Scotland, Ruth, you can tell us all about it, hold on to Holyrood. So bloody take that in. I mean, you wouldn't have imagined that maybe two years back. And Plyde Cymru is the big gest party in Wales. So there you go. All right, take a breath, Beth. I mean I I know it winds and everything, but you know, you know, deep breathing, circular breathing, that was a big old rundown there. It's been a lot, Ruth. It's been a lot for a political editor. I can tell you that's a lot of news. And i that is a lot of news. There is there is no scarcity of news out there. But can I just say just I know that um this will probably have you like punching the screen 'cause we're we're we're we're we're quite a long way away from each other. But um you know it's just sad that we didn't do this at like three in the morning and we weren't doing it through the night like usual. Do you not think there's romance that's lost about all of this when you get a good night's sleep and then you get up and start the day. No, no, I I feel like I've put in the hours for David . I've put in a shift, babes. Yeah. All right. Well, look, we're gonna give you a break for a second because we've actually got a question from one of our listeners. This is uh Sophie who wants to put a Hi ladies. My question is do these local elections still reflect government performance or have they become a mix of national protests, local issues, and tactical vote and especially as frustration with Labour grows in areas like the north east. I think that's a really good question from Sophie and I would say and I'm not ducking the answer on this, I'd say all of those are reasons there. And that I feel so dismayed about the outcome of these elections because I do think that they reflected and people were saying it on the doorstep, they feel really uh let down by the government , they don't trust the government. And I feel people are entitled to have a government that they can trust and that they can have confidence in. And it kind of dismays me to have a situation where in this country they don't feel that and that is a very big responsibility on government and above all um on Keir Starmer. So I think it also is obviously massively disappointing for all those Labour councillors who've been doing a good job locally. And often people will say on the doorstep, you know, I like you, I like what you've done, thank you for what you've done, but I'm not voting for you anymore because I'm really cross with the government and I'm gonna teach them a lesson. So I think all those councillors who've lost their seats, you know, it's very dismaying for them and very undermining as well for the Labour MPs in those areas, because councillors are very much part of the team. But also, it's just made Keir Starmer's job as Prime Minister more difficult. Because really, most of the things that you have to do in government, like house building, like you know, green energy, like transport, like sorting out high streets. They're not done just from Westminster, they're done by the government in partnership with councils. So actually, the government will have to forge new partnerships with these uh Green Councils and with the reform councils. And actually, there's always been a good partnership between Labour and Government and Labour Councils, Tory and Government and Tory councils, but also if Tories in government, often Labour councils would have very good working partnerships with them, and vice versa. So this is a kind of new challenge. Are these people, are the reform people going to be serious counsellors trying to deliver for local people and will they work with integrity in partnership with the government who's delected to deliver for high streets, for job creation, for transport, for housing. So it's just made Keir Starmer's difficult job even more difficult. But my goodness me, you know, he said he's not going to stand down, but he's certainly got to step up. Um and lead that rebuilding of confidence. Because when people are struggling, which they clearly are, they blame the establishment, and there's nothing more establishment than the Prime Minister. I mean it,'s interesting because, you know , reform's strapline for these elections was vote reform gets starma out for a set of local elections and Welsh parliamentary elections and and uh Scottish Parliament ary elections vote before we get starmer out. I mean you couldn't get more of a national message and actually I just interviewed I just interviewed Farage uh and I sort of asked him I said, is it has Starmer been your greatest asset in the elections? These elections? And what I was getting at is exactly what you just said, Harriet, that actually, such is the disillusionment and unhappiness with both the previous conservative government that has now flipped to the Labour government, that actually people are voting in a way where they just, you know, they're giving a verdict on the incumbent parties. And he said,, ye Yeahah , ironically, Keir Starmer is my greatest asset as Nigel Farage. And normally , in local election campaigns, you do go and ask the leaders about what cam they'paigre ning on and what their local agenda is and what they want to do uh in councils and how they want to run local government and what can they offer the public. And really, this felt for me very much like a debate that was in the national arena about what the current state of our our politics were. One of the really interesting sort of extrapolations that happened in this was that if you look at where labor lost its votes, they went down about 10% in the affluent areas, but they went down about 40% in the most deprived areas. That's four zero, not fourteen per,cent forty percent, almost half of Labour voters in the most deprived areas of England, uh no longer voted for them. You know, this cost of living crisis has been going on for the best part of a bloody decade. And why wouldn't you vote for a party that says it's going to blow everything up. So it's it is that kind of voting of hopelessness. And the you know the Tories, you know, we haven't really talked about them yet. This hasn't been a good election for them. It's not been as bad as it might have been, and that seems to have covered over the cracks in in some of the commentary. But but this was a vote, not just for for Raj and Polansky, but it was a vote against Labour and the Tories, because there is no trust there, there is no belief there. And neither of the par two parties at the moment are kind of selling hope and we we have to get onto it and we have to sell delivery as well. But I do wonder whether or not the reason why Farage has focused on Starmer vote reform to get Star mer out is because if he were to succeed and obviously Keir Starmer is not going to stand down and perhaps we'll discuss that in a bit, but if he were to succeed and Keir Star mer was ousted from the prime ministership and somebody else came in, then if sure as eggs is eggs, what would happen is that Farage would come forward and say, But actually, I won the last election. I've got more votes than anybody else. I should be being Prime Prime Minister. We should have a general election. This person, nobody asked you who this next person is in Downing Street. It's an elite stitch up. And actually, therefore, let's have a general election now. And that would create real instability and rather than actually building confidence of people in government and in the Prime Minister, and people need to feel they can have confidence in their government and the Prime Minister, it would actually have the reverse outcome. And look, on this matter of kind of how local politics do play out on the national stage. Sky News does a projection where they take local election results and they do what's called a national equivalent vote share. And they basically say: if you took these results and you extrapolate it out to a general election, and this was repeated in a general election with all the caveats that they you have of people vote differently in local elections to general. But if you did extrapolate it out, the result would be reform would become the largest party in parliament? Now I got quite excited because it had reform at twenty-seven per cent, the Tories at twenty percent, Labour down at fifteen percent, and the Greens at 14% the same as the Lib Dems. And for me, I was getting excited because if the Tories are in the top two, then you might get that kind of anti, you know, that tactical vote against reform. And then, Beth, you're going to burst my bubble because it also has what the projected seats would be. Yes. And and I am gonna burst your bubble, Ruth, here, because on the House of Commons projection, if you s extrapolate that out, reform are the largest party with 2 8 4 seats. Labour would come in at 110, and the Conservatives would come in at 9 6, the Lib Dems at 80, SP 36, Green 13, Plyde 13, right? So Nigel Farage would have the largest uh party. He could try to form a government. I think the issue is he would be forty-two seats short of a majority on this. And so he'd have to find someone to either help prop up that government. It's gonna be hard to run a minority government if you're 42 seats short. And when I asked him, would you ever do a deal with the Conservatives? He simply said no. But I think that that is , you know, in black and white, okay it's a projection, but it gives you a sense of the idea that Nigel Farage really could win the next general election based on put the performance of his party in these elections. If the Tories get ninety six seats at the twenty twenty nine general election, I will eat my flip flops on camera for electoral dysfunction audience. I'd enjoy that. Make sure they're magenta . Hello, I'm Hannah George. And I'm Taylor Glenn. And together, we are the award-winning true crime comedy podcast, Drunk Women Solving Crime. Each episode, we invite a celebrity guest to discuss a true crime case. And we do it a little differently than most. We've covered cases like the lottery fix that happened on live TV and the girl gang who terrorized Victorian London. 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Search Chase Boosted Saver. 18 plus UK residents available to new Chase current account customers for their first 31 days, 4.41% gross. Interest paid monthly Well look let's take a bit of a closer look at what's happened in Scotland where, the SNP is on ce again the biggest party, and it looks like that's thanks in part to its split amongst the anti-SNP group of voters and unionist voters. In terms of the percentages, uh SP will be the biggest party. They'll be the biggest party by, you know, a mile, and then there'll be a clump of all the other parties underneath them, all within sort of a few seats of each other. The SNP won't get a majority. Uh, we still don't have all the results in, but they're they won't get a majority. But their vote share is down between between sort of nine and a half percent on the constituencies and over 12.5% on the list at the time of this recording. So they've taken a big hit in terms of their vote share, but they've still got loads of seats. Uh and they've been a beneficiary of the vote splitting in lots of different ways. The Tories are also down a bit. So they're down sort of 10% in the constituen cies and eleven percent on the lists, uh, because there's two different types of seats in Scotland. So big hit for them. They've lost lots of seats, so they'll probably go down to historic low from a historic high. So it's big swing for for the Tories. Labour, and this is what's really interesting, they've only gone down a bit, so sort of between two, two and a half percent in the constituencies, about one and a half percent on the list. So they've not lost a lot of vote share, but they were coming from a historic low. On the counter to that, the this the parties on the up, again, like elsewhere in the country, are the Greens who are going up. They've won their first first past the post seats that they've ever won. They won a seat in Glasgow, a seat in Edinburgh, and they've picked up more in the list. We still don't know what the results are, but they could be anything from the third to the sixth party. The Lib Dems, who had been a pretty big party for a while until the coalition with us and then got hammered at Holyrood uh as as a punishment for that and have taken a long time to come back. They're now back. They were picking up seats and constituencies and their vote shares up as well. And reform. Reform didn't really stand in Scotland, so they didn't have MSP that they'd won before. They only stood in like one seat. They'd had about 3,000 votes across the entire country last time. They've got 16% as a Scottish Conservative , uh in a party that has long been or had been the opposition, official opposition, hadn't it, for a long time. How many times was it official opposition? So we're the official opposition from uh two thousand and sixteen. So for two terms. Yeah, so how does that feel? Yeah, I mean I I think it was priced in. We knew that we weren't going to be the the second biggest party coming out of this election. I think there's a personal disappointment because I know how hard we worked uh and and all of the kind of sacrifices, the family events you don't go to when you're a party leader, the you know, the the calls you have to take when you're stepping out of weddings, like the just how the impact it has on everyone's lives for the time that I spent as leader, and we went from 15 seats up to 31, and we went from not being the main opposition to being it, uh, and and all that sort of stuff. So the the idea that that's all been wiped out, and then some.' Thats you know, personally very sad. I've been messaging colleagues that I served with today to commiserate with them that they're going to be out of out of office. Uh, and some of them are great. I think some of the frustration as well is the way the electoral maths has worked. I mean, we've got sort of more constituency seats uh than many people thought we would do. We held the the sort of blue wall all around the the south. We've still got Aberdeenshire. We were within one to two thousand votes of of, you know, three or four seats more, but reform being there, they did more than that. And if you'd you know, I'm not saying that all the reform votes added would would be necessarily Tories and and you can tell from the numbers that that they wouldn't have been, but I I think there was a chance that we would have picked up a couple of extra ones and we would have picked them up off the SNP. And they're in constituencies where there's a clear pro-union majority, clear pro-union majority, uh, and they've now got a nationalist MSP. Uh and and that's just a a function of the fact the Greens don't really stand. But your job is to, you know, your job is to sell yourself to the electorate. I mean I I've heard a lot of my colleagues in Scotland saying that, you know , almost blaming reform for standing, but that's not good enough. You know, you you it is it it's not another party's fault that you didn't win. It's your job to sell your party as the best option for that seat and for the countr I mean, Harriet, I I watched Anas Sawar when he c he came on uh the Scottish Labour leader when he came uh on stage uh to make his announcement, to make his statement, and he said the party is hurting. He was asked again about whether Keir Star mer should resign. You remember he was the only one back in February that went over the top and said Starmer should go. And to be fair, Sawar didn't go in again on Starmer. But I mean for Scottish Labour , this is a bitter pill to swallow, is it not? Oh I think it's very bitterly disappointing, not least because they know that there is so much dissatisfaction with the way the SNP have been running Holyrood and so much dissatisfaction with the health services and the school system and all sorts of other SNP policies and Labour in Scotland believed they could win it and that Anna Sawa could become the first minister if it was about how you're running Scotland, if it was about Holyrood and if it was about what you want for services and the economy in Scotland. But the SNP were determined to make it and they succeeded in making it a referendum on the government in Westminster and on Keir Star mer in particular. And once you'd got that axis being what you choose on, then the situation just drained away from Labour in Scotland. And I think Keir Starmer will have to do a lot of really serious thinking Just one other thing on Scotland before I then why want to go into Wales. I also thought something to note was Stephen Flynn the current SNP leader in Westminster, is stood and has won a seat in Holyrood. So he'll trigger a by-election in a a Scottish constituency uh for Westminster. But that guy clearly he is uh uh walking his path I would say is he not to trying to be the next first minister fair? Is that what's uh what's going on ? Well, that was clearly the the kind of um strategy from the SNP when if you remember at the point at which uh Hamza Yusuf left government because the Greens uh broke off the coalition. Uh and the, you know, the the the SNP ship was listing. Nicholas Sturgeon had been arrested. The investigation was going on. Her husband had been arrested. You know, there were there was a real, real kind of, you know, they needed somebody, an old hand-in, to steady the ship. You know, John Swinney had been SNP leader before. He didn't particularly enjoy it and he didn't have a particularly good electoral return for it. He was doing the party a favour by standing, and the sense would be that either Kate Forbes, who was the deputy, who'd lost to to Humza, or Stephen Flynn would come in and that would be the fight, and one of the two of them would be the successors, and that he would take them into the election and and you know, and and and that would be it. He's now gone from being a loser to being a winner, you know. So I I think he'll stick around for a bit. Stephen Flynn wants to come in, but but um the rules on dual mandates changed last year. So um uh there's forty-nine days if you're an MP that's just been elected as an MSP to hand in your resignation as an MP. So it's gonna be a really quick by-election. This is gonna come pretty quick, and it's not just gonna be one, there's gonna be two because st uh 'cause when Stephen Flynn won in in Aberdeen in one of the Aberdeen seats, his his ex colleague, uh Stephen Gethens, who used to be the Northeast Fife MP, who lost his seat a couple of years ago, he won in one of the Dundee seats. So there's gonna be two by-elections in Scotland. One in which nominally uh the Labour Party would think it should run against them, that'd be the Dundee seat. But the Aberdeen seat, Stephen Flynn only squeaked home. He squeaked home by about twelve hundred votes. This the Tories were second, and there was over three thousand reform votes. So it's gonna be a doozy of a by-election. Right, well let's go to Wales because it has been a hugely uh historic day in Wales. Plyde Cymru is now this biggest party, reform UK a close second, and a very, very, very bad day indeed for Labour. As I was saying at the top, uh, they have controlled the Sen ith since devolution came to Wells 2 7 years ago. Uh, they have been winning in Wales for more than a century, but it has all come crashing down. And even the first minister, Eleanor Morgan, lost her seat in those regional seats. Remember, we were talking about the regions in which they returned six candidates. In her region , she did not even make it into the top six and she lost her seat. And I have to say I w she looked glassy eyed, I thought, when she was uh taking that in. She looked she looked a bit haunted. It must have been absolutely awful experience for her and for Welsh Labour. Because what she said was, I take responsibility for the loss, and I'm resigning as the leader of Welsh Labour. She said, UK Labour needs to change course and wealth needs to be distributed away from the southeast. That was about as spicy as she got when it came to a criticism of Keir Starmer. He was not mentioned. She did not call him out . She did not call for his resignation. She did not criticise him directly at all. She simply said UK Labour needs to change course. What did you make of that, Harriet? Were you surprised that she didn't go for him? I've got so much admiration for a learned Morgan. She is a very s sophisticated person who's, you know, d been decades in politics, Elinda Morgan, and I think she will really be needed. I hope that Keir Star mer will have her in really quickly and listen to her. Harriet, I know that we had all expected Labour uh to lose control of the Senate. We've all been saying it for months. Uh, but when it hit, how did it feel? Uh and and what have you picked up from the party? Well, I think that you know dismayed is an understatement. I think Labor people in Wales and really across the party in the in the country as a whole are absolutely devastated about what's happened in Wales. And I do think that, you know, when the dust settles, there will have to be again, Keir Starmer will have to think about how he can really once again win the the confidence of people in Wales in their government in Westminster because again he was very much the issue on the doorstep and lots of Labour campaigners were saying we can't even talk about our candidates in Wales. We can't even talk about the Senate because actually all they want to do is be sending a message to Keir Starmer. So there is really he has got to build his bridges with with people in Wales. So in terms of of Plate Cymru being the largest party in Wales, obviously they're uh green is one of their big colours, that's their colour going into and we haven't talked about the greens, which is definitely one of the stories of this election. And I think it's a story of this election in lots of places, including uh in Manchester in the Northwest, but it's really a story in London. They've surged up to twenty-two percent across London if if you look at the the m more in common kind of polling that's been extrapolated across there. And I think it'll give a bit of a a shudder to some of the Labour MPs and the fight that's going to happen within Labour about who's the biggest threat. Is it reform to our right who's cannibalizing us in red wall parts of the country, or is it the Greens to our left that's taking chunks out of us in the northwest and in London. I think there's a a real difficulty that Labour's gonna have to navigate here. What I felt in Southwark is that the people who voted green were the sort of people who previously, when there was dissatisfaction with Labour, would have voted Lib Dem. So the Greens have stepped into a space that the Lib Dems used to occupy. So now Southwark Council is no overall control, and it's the same in Lewisham. So I think there's been a little bit of changing places between the Lib Dems and the Greens as the alternative to Labour. But I think there was a lot of reports on the doorstep, although I didn't find it when when I was door knocking i in Southwark, but there were very many reports, not only about people criticising Keir Starmer, but particular concern about Gaza and particular concern about young people voting green, not necessarily on environmental issues, but about concerns about the lack of opportunities for young people and as I say, uh very much concern about what's going on in Gaza as well. But honestly, Greens and Labour, I mean it has been an absolute tarf war in my part of London. And and look, just to give you a bit of colour on it, Hackney has always been diehard Labour. It's one of those safe constituencies. It doesn't matter what you vote. Hackney will return a Labour MP to Parliament. And it is at the moment Diane Abbott, although I think she's now lost the whip. It is absolutely hardcore Labour and it's been won by the Greens. They also took the Meralty. And I think in those inner London seats, which have always run red, to see this green wave increasing them must be absolutely existential. I mean Harriet People have got quite short memories and although Labour has been building up its strength in London over a considerable period . There's often been different political situations in London where, you know, the Tories until not long ago did actually run Wandsworth. Not long ago the Lib Debs didn't run Southwark. I remember Greenwich had an SDP MP. You feel when you lose all these Labour councillors that London was forever Labour and this is a seismic change and it's kind of too terrible to contemplate. But actually in the past Labour's fortunes haven't been so good in London, but Labour has fought its way back and that's what it's gotta do again. Probably going to be some people in CCHQ, Conservative Central Head Office, that are having a look at some of these numbers coming in and thinking, do you know, with the right candidate, a cheeky wee donut strategy for the mayoralty, as in the London Mayoralty, you just wonder if there's a way of squeaking through the middle there. I don't know if if like a name, like maybe like a James Cleverley type fancied it, whether they would give it a crack. And I mean that's just another question that then comes and plagues Kears Armour. You know, it it''ss just every t where you look, every thread of this election in every part of the country just makes it look like a really hard shift for the Prime Minister right now, doesn't it? Yeah. The Prime Minister. There's still a lot of chatter happening about his political future. He came out really early this morning. I saw him in Ealin. He was out at 8 a.m. talking to activists and saying, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's a tough set of results. We've got to show the country that we're going to change deep breath, but I'm not going anywhere. Come and fight me. Come and take me on if you you dare was really the message I think to the party, don't unleash the chaos is what he was arguing. It was kind of almost threatening. It was a bit like come on then if you think you're hard enough. And then as the day progressed , what we got was slowly a drip, drip, drip of MPs beginning to talk about a timetable for departure. And this was really being left led by MPs in the soft left, sort of figures, influential figures figure like the former transport secretary, uh Louise Haig . Then the big pushback came and the cabinet started then putting out the tweets of support, Rachel Reeves, John Healy, Darren Jones, Liz Kendall, uh Peter Carl to insist that the Prime Minister wasn't going anywhere. I mean, Harriet, is there gonna be an attempted coup? What's going on? Well as we've discussed on this pod before uh Keir Starmer is clearly determined to fulfil his responsibility having been elected less than two years ago to actually deliver the changes that he promised the country from his position of being Prime Minister. And although there has been endless talk about challenges, none of us three on this podcast did think that it would materialize, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of concern and it doesn't also mean that it doesn't have a very undermining effect on the government and very distracting. And I think that bearing in mind there clearly isn't going to be a challenge. A lot of people were saying, well, we're not gonna push him out now, but he'll have to be gone after the May election. Well, we're after the May election and there's no sign of a challenge. And therefore, I think people have got a choice. And the choice surely that they should make is to be part of and help the government do better and deliver the change that that they've promised. But more than that, really listen and learn the lessons. And people can either be, well, at the moment, obviously, Labour MPs who are all in their constituencies, so they're not coming back to Westminster until the thirteenth of May. So they're all separated from each other but massively in contact on WhatsApp and talking to each other and sharing their absolute misery of what's happened. But I think really they need to move on from that to a practical discussion of learning the lessons and a debate about the way forward. Everybody at the moment is gonna have their own version of what needs to be done to sort the situation out. But there needs to be a consensus built and led by Keir Star mer about what the government is going to do differently because more of the same is not acceptable. The the country are entitled to a government that actually delivers on its manifesto, but more than that, they're entitled to a government and a prime minister which gives them a sense of direction of where the country's going and hope for the future. So it's not just about delivering the nuts and bolts, it's about a narrative. It's about telling the story of where people can all feel the country's going for the better. Do you think that if it carries on like this, he can lead the Labour Party into the next general election. Isn't he gonna hand the country to reform? That's what some Labour MPs are saying me. That's what they were texting me this morning. They're like, Keir Starmer's gonna hand the country to reform. That's what they're fearing. Handing over to reform is every Labour person's nightmare, and you can imagine what it must have felt like for Obama to have been president and hand over to Trump , you you you don't want to see after a period of office things going in completely the opposite direction. But I actually do believe, and you know, I know people think that this is you know, stupidly optimistic, but I think that although reform have got very deep and very energized support, I don't think they've got the ability to create a broad enough coalition to actually get into number ten. I sort of fear to tread in here because I'm from a party which has a a very recent history of getting rid of lots of leaders in short period of time and it does you no good electorally . However, uh I think the very worst thing that the Labour Party could do is spend a very long time discussing whether Keir Starmer's going to go or not, and talk about themselves and be basically ungovernable as a political party. So it has to either get rid of them now or stick with them. The idea that you spend like six months, a year talking amongst yourself, having inter-nes ign warfare, is Andy Burnham going to get a by-election or is is the NEC gonna block him? Blah blah blah. Like it's just I mean that turns the country off so bad. And you will just see reforms numbers go up and up. Someone sent me maybe the most perfect expression of sort of the frustration that some Labour MPs have with Keir Starmer at the moment when he, you know, stood in front of the cameras and I was there. I asked him every which way about taking responsibility? Did he think he had to resign? Was he handing the country to reform? I mean, every single option of kind of putting that question, he had one answer. I'm not walking away. Uh, I'm not plunging the country into chaos. Uh, and one MP texted me afterwards and said, he takes responsibility like my kids take responsibility for leaving towels on the floor of the bathroom. They say sorry, then they do the same thing the next day. It it is the idea that it doesn't matter how many times he holds his hands up and says, I'm sorry, he still makes unforced errors, he still shits the bed, and he's still a drag anchor on the Labour ticket. Responsibility must mean listening, learning the lessons, and actually being determined to rebuild that confidence and get the government back on track. And he's got to rebuild the confidence of the public, but he's also got to rebuild the confidence of the extremely shattered members of parliament. Can I just ask you, indulge me one more thing on this, Harriet? There has been so much talk from a lot of your colleagues on television uh today about Andy Burnham, Andy Burnham coming back to Parliament. It seems to be a number of MPs want him back in Parliament. I guess some of them would want him to potentially succeed Keir Starmer if he's not able to turn things around. What do you think about that? Well I just think it's very much easier to look incredibly successful and to be incredibly popular when you're not in the hot seat. And although Keir Starmer has got a responsibility for some mistakes and some errors and being too downbeat at the beginning of government, and you know, pointing Peter Mandelson and all sorts of things, there are some things which