Machinery of Government and Future Challenges

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK As yet another British prime Mister steps down, is the country still feeling the effects of Brexit ten years on? I'm Tristan Redmond, one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. Kir Stahmer has become the sixth leader to resign since the Brexit referendum. Ever since that vote in twenty sixteen, the country's been racked with political instability And When will it end? For more, listen to the global story on bbc d. com or wherever you get your podcasts Hello. The curse has held true. I disappear for a day or two and some massive news happens I'm glad to be back and I'm making up for it because later on in this episode of Nscast, we're going to chat to Helen McNamara, who is the former deputy cabinet secretary. So we'll have a really good idea about how Andy Burnham. and the civil serervice might be preparing for his impending arrival in number ten Downing Street as our new prrime Minister. So that is one of the really interesting conversations we're going to be having on this episode of Newscast Newscast Newscast from the BBC. I will resign as leader of the Labour Party. And what will you do Stare it at all. Humanity's next great voyage begins. You know I like my busses. I'll come ono them. It's supposed to be me as a doctor.. Thinking about it like a panter helped. Do we play music now or what do we do Hello, it's Adam in the Newscast stududio. and I should just say the first conversation we're going to have on this episode of Newscast might be upsetting because we're going to talk about this huge report that has been done into failings in the maternity unit at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust Failings over years and years and years which saw some babies being really badly harmed or dying some mother is having terrible, terrible experiences or losing their lives while they were giving birth and the fact that the leadership at this hospital trust knew that there were problems four years And so this review has been done by Donna Ocndon, who is the noted Midwifery expert. She was delivering her report and her findings today and even just the press conference was very emotional, let alone reading the hundreds of pages of details about what went wrong at this hospital trust in Nottingham And my colleague, Michael Buchan, who's the BBC Social Affairs correspondent, has been following this for years and years. So I caught up with him to find out what he's been finding out today. And Michael is here now Hi, Michael How you doing Adam Very well, thank you. Now you've been following this story for years and I wonder if maybe we should start with the beginning and we can talk about Donna Ocadon's conclusions in a minute, but just tell me how this story in Nottingham actually began Well, the review which was published in this sateel earlier on today would not in all honesty have come about if it wasn't for T families in particular getting together And about late twenty nineteen, the Hawkins family had suffered the loss of their daughter, Harriet in twenty sixteen and the Andrews family will suffer the death of their sght winter earlier in twenty nineteen. and effectively what happened is that the Hawkings had been to find other families because they firminently believed that what they had experienced, the avoidable death of their daughter was not a one off And the Andrews family were effectively just googling to see what was known about maternity care in Nottingham once they lost their daughter They found an article about the Hawkins case Gary contacted Jack and from that small conversation. They found a slightly bigger group of harm farmers in Nottingham and they started pushing for this maternity inquirey, because for years the trust here in Nottingham used to describe each baby death in particular tragic isolated incident. and when you get more and more families coming together who have been the subject of a tragic, isolated incident, you begin to realize these incidents are not isolated, and so therefore they began to push forward this maternity review And then when we heard from Donna Ocnden today, the midwifery expert who spent four years investigating what was going on in Nottingham, she ultimately had spoken to two thousand five hundred more families Yes, there were two and a half thousand families whose cases were examined by the review and what they found was that hundreds of families had been failed either the babies had died, the babies had been harmed, the mothers had died or the mothers had been harmed and And you know to go back to the central point here, this is not something that the trust had acknowledged at all previously, was only forced into this independent review through the actions of these families. and what Dononna Okinton said is that they finally deserve the truth and the reasons why this had happened and the reasons are things that lots of people who have been following the maternity story for years will recognise. It was simply particular here in Nottingham a refusal to listen to women, particularly women in labour who were at home or falling up midwives with concerns and being repeatedly told, stay at home, stay at home, stay at home, when in actual fact what they needed was some medical attention. Then when they were coming into hospital A lot of them were being denied Cesarean sections. Th when something went wrong There was often no learning, there was no investigation, which means that services weren't improving. And all the while the families were experiencing this, what became apparent from the review is that dozens, hundreds of staff were complaining about the conditions within maternity to care, in particular saying we don't have enough staff and unless you do something about it, then mistakes will happen. The leadership of the organisation in broad term didn't do anything or certainly didn't do enough And here we are with all this harm finally being exposed Yeah, Michael, that's something that really leapt out from Dononna Okinon's statement when she was launching her report today, which was a very kind of powerful address to the nation really, was this little bit where she was talking about the culture and the leadership that led to all those kind of very practical things going wrong that you just mentioned there Running through all of this is a question of culture And what the evidence shows is that at Nottingham A toxic culture was allowed to take hold and was allowed to persist A small number of powerful leaders described in both family and staff testimonies as having infected the unit created an environment in which bullying was normalized, spepeaking up was dangerous And governance was shaped by self protection rather than patient safety Midwives describe being intimidated in governance meetings Junior staff described to us being afraid to escalate Inident review panel was described as intimidating, male dominated, and dismissive of non medical voices over very many Yes. And yeah, Michael there's a paragraph in her executive summary that just talks about all the terrible kind of behavior on the unit theyre Bullying, Napotism It sounds like it was a quite horrible place to work and not just that, but it had been investigated on those terms six times previously. Indeed, I think, you know, when you look at the fact that more than eight hundred cururrent and former staff at the Chost came forward and spoke to the Auckundland Review, which is hugely different, a much greater number than I've spoken to previous maternity inquiries. They were keen to emphasise both that they had been shouting about what was going on in the unit to their managers for years, but also that culture to which you talk about I mean, I think there was particular issues with Labor ward coordinators who would form cliques and would often leave the most junior and inexperienced midwife to deal with the most complicated cases on the promise that if anything went wrong they would be there to help out, but we know from sort of people that I've spoken to over the past few weeks and months that often when something did go wrong or, not necessarily wrong but when that inexperienced midwife felt that she needed help, she'd call out and she would not receive the help at all. She would then begin to feel that this was not something that she was able to cope with in her own further down the line of the consequences that people would walk away and the retention rate for staff was terrible purely because they found the culture so intolerable. And these cliakes and this intolerable culture within midwives is something we've seen in other reviews, but it also obviously drips into the attitudes on the experiences of the women in their care. and for instance, we know that one labor award coordinator used to write F or H beside the names of some women who were often at home or sometimes in the hospital and she was wanting to move them off the unit. The app is a swear word OH standing for off home. And so that' sort of culture of sort of try to the unit running in a way that they felt they had to, regardless of what the experience of their colleagues were, regardless of what the women actually wanted was very prevalent for a number of years in Nottingham. And I know you've got to know lots of the families who've been affected by this. And I'm sure there are lots of different views about what happened there in Nottingham and also different views about where they're at now now that this report has come out There are lots of different views in many ways, but in some ways there is also quite a clear request for them now particularly they wanting a public inquiry. basically believe that Don Akund has revealed the scale of the harm, but what she hasn't been able to do because that wasn't her remit is to hold anybody accountable and that's the thing the families are now pushing for in particular, because know there are no names of any individuals who are responsible from a leadership point of view for what happened in Nottingham. And that's been the same with a lot of these maternityative revuss is that Whilst individual midwives have perhaps been struck off their medical register for the mistakes that they have made no leader or executive at any of these trusts is held to account. And that is the same here in Nottingham. A good chunk of them actually didn't former executives at the trust actually didn't engage with the review at all And that is something that's particularly annoyed the families who are saying, You can't have this situation where you uncover and reveal all this harm, but nobody is held to account for it. So they want the public inquiry and they want accountability and they believe that if they get the public inquiry, then they will get a chance at accountability. Because of course of statutory public inquiry, those NHS employees would have to give evidence they would be able to avoid it And Michael in a minute, we're going to be talking to Helen McNamara, who hass been the deputy Cabinet seecretary for quite a few prime mininisters. and I'm going to ask her about how she thinks Andy Bernham will be preparing to take over as Prime Minister. Has Dononna Ouchndon given any kind of pointers or advice or tasks for the next prrime mininister to take up if he wants to address this pretty quick Yes. so the current Health Secretary James Murray announced in response to these findings that they would come up with an action plan for maternity improvement within the next six months. because next week there's another maternity review reporting and that's one that was set up by the former Health Secretary West Teting. That's chaired by Baroness Amos. That's a sort of broader inquiry into into maternity care in England, a broader inquiry, but in many ways a shallower inquiry as well. So he was saying, look, by the time We'll listen to Oundon today, We'll listen to AMosS next week and then within the next six months We will come up with an action plan. He also announced that, for instance a law known as MarthA's law which gives people a statutory right to a second clinical opinion, that will be extended to maternity care. What Dononna Orkund then said in response to that today is that's simply not good enough. The government needs to act faster Because in the next six months you will get more harm if you allow maternity care to go on as it is. I think the familyil has built up a good relationship but a reasonably good relationship with West Streeting and they had confidence that he got this and that he was on their side. There's undoubtedly because James Murray is new in the job there is undoubtedly questions amongst them as to what he will do, but a broader question is that even if he is committed to it, will he still be in post the next few weeks because of this pending change of government. So a lot of uncertainty. Yes, the words are heard that the government has said T today buy the farmilies, but they want action now and not words because repeatedly governments of different colours over recent years have made similar statements. We will improve maternity care and that hasn't happened. And Michael talking about words, I see that Nottingham University Hospital's Tust has put out an open letter about this today. What did they say? Well the The chief executive of the trust said today that he unreservedly apologized for the harm and the distress of the trust had cost over a number of years. he wasn't in post. When a lot of the harm took place, he's been relatively newly appointed in twenty twenty two after the review began. And he has got a new leadership team as well. But undoubtedly, he said to me today that he had considered his position because of the sheer scale of the harm that had been revealed by this review, but he did say that he believed for the moment he continued to have The confidence of the board of the trust. They continued to believe that they were in the right that maternity care was improving, but that work had to be done not just to improve care in the hospital, but to rebuild trust with the wider Ntingham community Michael, thank you very much and thanks for doing this story in such a sensitive way because I imagine it's a very tricky one to talk about. So thank you very much Not at all. Thankks Adam As yet another British prime Mister steps down, is the country still feeling the effects of Brexit ten years on? I'm Tristan Redmond, one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. Kir Stahmer has become the sixth leader to resign since the Brexit referendum. Ever since that vote in twenty sixteen, the country's been racked with political instability. When will it end? For more, listen to the global story on bbc dot com d or wherever you get your podcasts Now as promised we're going to catch up with Helen McNamara, legendary former civil servant who was the deputy cabinet seecretary in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one So knows a few things about what happens when a new prrime minister takes over in Downing Street because she witnessed a few leadership changes in that time. And now that she's out of the civil service, one of the things that she does is hosting a podcast called In the Room where she lifts the lid on some of the things that happened in the many important rooms that she was working in And the important room she's in today is the newewscast studio. Hello. Welcome to our reasonably temperatured studio It's lovely and cool. How's your podcast going, by the way? It's going very well, thank you. We're having a lovely time me Cleo on in the Room together. It's really good. Were I' Pomo down to a tea. Thank's see how I've learned. Also, I mean is I hope you're finding that it's a good medium to really explore things and you probably find yourself saying way more than you've ever said before Yes, and surprising me comfortable with saying way more than I've ever said before actually. Wh knew? which we benefit from too. So watching Andy Burnham's preparations to take over as his Prime Minister, what's your take about what's going on and how he might be going about it Well, I mean, you've got a feel for the guy, right? It's not a lot of timeerrain. Well, I think it's not a lot of time So if you think it was only last Thursday that he won the Makerfield by election, and nobody seems to be putting the hat in the ring or having enough MP supporters to be able to actually challenge him to a leadership contest. The default on is he's going to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on what the seventeenth of July is it? Yeahes. the nominationations open on the ninth, close on the sixteenth so there's no other candidates. then it's a day or two after that, yeah and What do you think about that timing? Be some people are saying, o, Starmer did it to kind of stiff him a bit because Team Bernna maybe had wanted longer to prepare maybe until September I mean, you always want longer to st do your homework, don't? you'd rather have a bit more of an extension and a bit of time to think about things. I actually think it was the right thing to do becausecause you can't have a Prime Minister who can't take decisions and can't do things. It's just We didn't really have a set up in government that allows for a caretaker prrime mininister or whatever months of lameed decery. Yeah it's not good for anybody actually. It's unpleasant for the person for all the person in the job, the person who's going to the job, it is just nothing's going to happen. So it's much better for the country. to have an actual Prime M minister who's motoring and can do things as soon as possible But it just shows you all the contradictions in our system. becausecause you've just said, oh, you can't have a vacuum for too long, but equally, Andy Burnham's sort of not got as long as you would like in an ideal world. So sort of there's no answer to that. Welcome to being in charge. I mean, there's a lot of the difficulties I expect he's going to have in the next few weeks is basically a brilliant run up to actually what it's like once you're behind that big black door in real life and it is where you work. and There's not a huge amount of optionality. And you are totally at the mercy of events and you're always trying to run your program and do things, but you know, not entirely in charge. Have you managed to get any hints about what he is actually doing? So we know he had a one on one with Starmer a couple of days ago. His team are sort of letting it be known The gist of some of his personnel decisions like oververnight they let it be known that Rachel Reeves could still have a job in the government, but it won't be as good as Chancellor What are you sort of sensing? Well, the really exciting thing is, you know, I think it is true that James Pannell is going to be his chief of staff that is a really brilliant thing for anybody who cares about competent government program being Why is that Well, James Panell, I should should we do a should we do a Wikipedia about James Perel? So I mean, we will have met him in various guyses our lives. So I knew him first of all as a very, very junior political er because he was in Gordon Brown's government in a few jobs and he famously resigned the night after the local elections in two thousand nine. and said that Gordon Brown should resign too. And I remember that being one of the most dramatic ten o'clock news I'd ever seen at that point. That tells you what a quiet era that. It was a gentle time. That's the Secret state for DWP, I think. Yes.. And he was trying to do some quite big welfare reforms.. And I then next met him when he came to work at the BBC as head of audio and education And he was quite instrumental in setting up BBC sounds There go like weirred irony. Yeah, how did you know him? So I knew James first when he was first a mininister at the Department for Culture Medum and Sport. So I worked for Tessa Jowell, who was then the Secretary of State And James' first ministerial job was as a junior minister in that department. so which is also we've got Andy Burnham also who used to be secretary of State for Culture Medum and Sport. My little DCMS heart is very happy. It's a DCMS finally, a DCMS takeover of government. And I do think that the reason why there's lots of reons to be excited about the notion that James Pennell might be a chief of sta, because he's a very deeply experienced serious person who's got all sorts of things. so he went from being H at the BBC with you guys. He then ran a university. he's now worked in the private sector for a bit as well. So he takess an awful lot of boxes. He's a very decent, good, proper liked man But he's also known Andy Beren for a very, very, very long time. and I think that that's the bit that having been in the center for a long time, it makes such a difference if people are able to draw on real life relationships, not relationships that are political convenience or very new ones. they've got really, really, really deep roots. They work together for I think although every time I get this slightly wrong, I get all of this specialuff No, it's not thatue I that you' got your own. I' got my. Yeah got my own nagging. And so they shared an office, didn't they when they They young MPs. They did. And so they really have a very strong bond from a long time ago. And I think that's a really good thing. Alth I remember in the COVID era, you were very worried about like the macho culture in down street? Isn't there a danger that it's like two lads running the show again I wouldn't, I mean, I've known James and Andy for a very long time. That's not really their vibe so I wouldn't be as worried about that We only had hear Andy Burnham on the morning after the Makefield B election, give full and appropriate credit to all of the women who'd actually done the work for his campaign and been running it all so I don't think either of them have got that reputation. Yeah, the two MP's are known as the Northern Queens. There They go. So many regal metaphors. So in terms of of preparing somebody to walk through the black door and take control of the levers of government, whether those levers actually work or not. I mean Where would you start on your checklist of things Andy Bernner needs to be getting his head round? So the thing that my former colleagues would say in the Civil Service that has been really missing in the government since twenty twenty four is an idea of kind of a really clear sense of What is this government here for? know, it's a criticism that was made for poor Ole Ki Salma for a long time. It wasn't weren't really sure what his politics were, what his motivation was, what were they supposed to be doing? kind of not not the how of the government, but the what and the who we're here to serve And I think number one on Anti Benan's list ought to be what is he going to say on the steps of Downing Street on the day that he becomes Prime Minister? That kind of little speech isn't just a useful thing for the telly and then go off inside. It has absolutely incredible power in the public service for being able to refer back to it. because you can think, what does the Prime Minister think about this? We had this memorably with Thesa May. She had a really good version of like her speech that you genuinely found useful if you were working miles and miles away from her You could be like, o, this is what Yes her theme was the burning injustices. and then she listed some of the burning injustices in the country as she saw it. And I can say, yeah, that's a useful guide for if she hadn't had to do Brexit and all that hadn't gone wrong, that's what she would be wanting everyone to achieve on her behalf. Yeah. Totally. So it's not just a nice TV moment. It's not just a nice TV moment and it's not a moment to say things that are totally meaningless. It's your chance to really set out. And Andy Bennam is going to have to do that because He didn't win the election So there'll be lots of kind of like, well, where's your mandate come from? What do you really? You're just the MP for Makerfield, You haven't really got all these things. So it is a golden moment for him at the beginning of his being Prime Minister to actually say, this is who I am, this is what I stand for, this is what my government is about. So I think getting the words of that right, making sure that it's not just, you know motherhood andapple pie, and also that you aren't actually committing to some toottally deranged things that three weeks later you're going to say actually, no we can't do that. turnurns out. And it's a reminder that yeah, when Kir Starmer came in, he basically had to change And working people and that was kind of it. It's very vibes based. I think you need to go beyond the vibes based into some actual things. You were talking a minute ago about his remarks, Andy Burnnham's remarks in Makerfield the morning or not that Makerfield is a place in itself becauseuses lots of towns, there's the constituency. Makerfield, reminder. Have you had some complaints? No, no, no, I just like to be accurate a geography course Um, I Listening to that speech If you were then advising him on things that you could then do sort of policy wise or announcements he could make or further signals he could send to the civil serervice and the country, what sort of things would you be pointing him towards to enact what he was talking about that morning So I think the biggest thing and I suspect this is one of the biggest things he's going to do, which will change the country is the devolution agenda properly. So he's a man who has been banging on about devolution For a long time as Mayor of Manchester, he's got more devolved powers than any other area of the England in any extent And I think he will have to. foollow that through. He's a big believer in it. It's putting power back into people's hands. so I suspect we'll see some of that. And then there will be would be a good way of doing that. There was like a big bang thing in week one. Be think about it, we spent so much of our time talking about leveling up and how can you create new pots of money that are easier to access. There's already loads of elected mayors with various different types of powers that no one's quite the same as the other. A lot of this stuff kind of does already exist. o, this is proper in an Oh yes. It's not exactly headlin. It's not vibespace. not's not headline. It's not headline grabbing either perhaps, but I would have said Yeah but he'll have to make it sound that. Yeah he can make anything sound R surely, but like proper fiscal devolution. So devolution if you really want to competitive areas for bidding for growth property devolution of business rates, allowing areas of the country to charge zero rates for certain industries. If you want a really prosperous life sciences industry, you would be saying, okay, well in my bit of the country life sciences is going to be our thing and we want to be able to have a differential tax rate to them to attract the talent. All of those things, that probably, and I can sort of feel my former treasury colleagues, you shouting at me. Yeah becauseuse that's a l massive loss control for that. It's a massive loss of control. But hello, welcome to devolution. That's what it means. And some of it's not going to work as well. You have to be quite brave Which of the potential chancellors do you think would sign up to that Is that a thing Ed Milliband could sign up to? Is that a thing Darren Jones could sign up to? Is Darren Jones really a potential chancellor Some of the papers are saying that I'm guessing you think he's not from that reaction. I don't know. Darren. ye Sorry, Darren. I think probably Andy Burnham is so powerful now that whoever is his Chancellor is going to sign up to what Andy Berham wants to do, I expect.. And I can't see his doing anything other than some quite strong fiscal devolution. And also, if you remember right at the beginning of the Stara Premiership when Angela Ryna was the seecretary of State in CLG, the community's local government department, which sort of has control of some of these things She had quite an ambitious agenda for evolution in power to places. and I think we might see some of that back and who knows, even Angelw R Weaynerack U Yeah, and I wonder if she'll go back to do that again actually because if that suddenly becomes the hot ticket in government us She presably want to be at the hot ticket dispensary. Do you know what who wouldn't want to be at the hot ticket dispensary, but my little bureaucrat heart also thinks it's quite a good idea to have people who know what they're doing. So one of the big risks that you've got now is that you'll have it's much better to be doing getting used to your new department, understanding your new brief over the summer holidays when you haven't also got to turn up in Parliament every week and explain yourself It's a massive mountain to understand What is your job now as Secretary ofate for Transport and how does it all work? And the fact that you're probably going to have a whole new set of people is slightly worrying. So if there were opportunities to I don't know, put a seecretary of state who'd been in that department before back into it read isn't it Rad? Yeah. that's an interesting point about the summer holidays. I hadn't thought of that. That is very so there's no urgent questions. there's no legislation you've got to go and launch and then answer hundreds of questions from back benches and select committees on. So actually yeah, you do have aboutout six, eight, ten weeks even to get your head down. It worked really well then Boris Johnson took over at that sort of time, actually. It was really it kind of is a very useful time to be able to just really read into your brief Okay, so that's that's devolution and a revolution in like town halls, maybe What's another big area you think you'll want defense. Yeah defense. So I mean that's, you know, it's obvious as the day is long, but he's going to have to do something big on defense. Butang on isn't the defeense investment plan that infamous cursed document that led to John Healy resigning Kir Starmer quite insistent that he will finalize that in his final weeks and take it to the NATO summit in Turkey, and that'll be the last thing he does as Prime Minister. Which is lovely, great, fantastic. That doesn't mean Andy Berham isn't going to also do some stuff on defence in the summer, I expect because I'm sure he'll want to differentiate himself. And I expect if you look at what Andy Burnham talked about in Manchester and what he was doing, he will probably talk about defense in terms of re industrialization. That's another thing that Angela Rayna has talked about before is actually how do we increase defence spending but do it in a way that massively backs British business and massively backs British business in parts of the country that really desperately need investment. So I think you'll see a much more kind of Britain first, regional Dvolution, all of those things will kind of bleed through all of the announcements that he makes I expect. I'm sounding a bit like a broken record, but I'm wondering how he will make that sound A exciting and B that it's happening very quickly because we all know that doing things like invvesting more in defense as a big number Actually then once you start to try and find projects that you can spend it on and structures that you can support or creating new structures or having an aspiration, I remember they have an aspiration to set up six munitions factories, but that will take four or five years to do. I'm just trying to think of what are giant grabby things he can say in that space And there are things that come up stream faster than that, right? So if you have apprenticeships, there are things that you can turn on quicker. I also think we really have to challenge how long it takes to do things. We learn in COVID days that actually if you really want to do something quick, you can And I think there has to be an urgency. What I fear is that Andy Benerm and his team with all of this exciting new energy you're going to get sucked into I can't possibly and I couldn't and it takes three weeks and you can't do that before you've done this and then everything takes years and years and years, they just haven't got time to do that. They need to be absolutely willing to take more risks and move faster. And I hope that the big because that's what the I mean that's the kind of arithmetic of Parliament and the time they've now got yet, they haven't got years they've got two. Yeah, I'm just trying to find an email we had from a newscaster who's called Nick Mugridge. and he says, Hi Newscast. I was just listening to Matt Chorley on Five Live and Lorraine Kelly was on talking about PMQs. Lorraine said she'd heard that Andy Bernham might have a London based control center and a Manchester based control center at the same time. Have you heard that? Is it practicable I think that's in the financial times. Yeah, as we speak. I think Lorraine obviously re Lancial Tes. Hy Lorraine maybe surprise me surprise me Iicon. What do you think about that idea T number tenans esn't sound like a tremendously brilliant idea to have two number tenens if that's what it is. If his idea is he wants to keep some of his excellent team who live in Manchester doing excellent work for his excellent government now as Prime Minister. Great idea. Act So we've kind of already got that for the treasury, haven't we? Arlington. Yeah, and there's quite a lot of government departments who are up in Manchester and all over the country anyway. So I'm all for in general, can you take power away from London? I think creating two number tenens Putting one of them in Manchester is not a good idea and I would make Parliament M I wouldn't I This might bear with me. might sound a bit crackers and everybody thought this was Boris Johnson'sad idea and actually I should confess it was my mad idea. Really? Yeah, because and what you suggested to him and he ran with them. Yeah, and we did quite a lot of. So this is that I people used to think it was a Dominic Cummings' hair brain idea andt to the lords if they didn't do what the Tories wanted to do. I don't think so the plan was Parliament definitely needs restoring and renewing. so they do have to move out of that place or it's something that has to happen quite soon So if they're going to move out of it, why not move the House of Lws to York, it was. so And that was your idea. Yeah. Because it's a really good idea, Adam. because you've got to be I love York. York is actually the centre of the United Kingdom, not London. I had quite lot of fun. I'm from Yorkshire, so I had quite a lot of fun explaining that to people that actually. Was York ever our capital a thousand years ago? Of course Naturally. There was a Roman Emperor crying in N York actually. But I do think there are really big symbolic things that Prime Minister Andy Burnham could do that are real about moving power around, not kind of slightly opening a secondary office somewhere else, but actually what do you really do that changes the power dynamics Now I suspect the You know, moving the House of Lords toew York temporarily is not on the agenda. But I do think they need to be thinking about really, really big symbolic things that send the signal that he wants to make change happen. So maybe a whole government department Yeah and ParliamentMabm sport at Manester. Yeah, the Olympics in the North is what we did as well. think the Parliament is the problem though,? because Parliament is in SW one. So you have to do something where decision making is genuinely outside of SW one Interesting and you've got up. I mean, I'm just trying to think how many MPs there are in York. I think this is the four MP Roughly. So that's four MP's would be fine with it with six hundred for four I wouldn't le thoseers. I wouldn't leave the commons I'd move the lords. Yeah think Well that's eight hundred plus.. Exactly. They were wasn't a very popular idea. Also a very big train bill because they'd all be claiming expenses for train. Vy big train bill. live here. Yeah. Okay E. I mean, it does sound like you're an Andy Burnham and also by extension, James Prinnell, fan Um And you're sounding quite positive about how it might go Do you have any concerns H anything happened that made you think, o, I'm not sure I worried a bit about that photo on the first day, so If you were just a normal person watching Telly, you had crying cased armor. Yeah, literally Literally crying, whichich is a horrible, horrible thing to see. And then at the same time, you have these wildly overre excitable grinning MPs on the steps of Westminster Hall in their hundreds. all, you know, obviously including Rachel Reeves. Yeah, it was And also Steve Reid. Steve Re who had been who'd been the Starmer's biggest defender on the airwaves for the three weeks proceding. And he gets a special prize because he was very close to the front of that photo. And I just thought that is crass. So that's the only the only thing that I've seen that I think Wow, I get that you're all really excited about this, but can you also behave with a bit of dignity and seriousness and I worry a bit like you would do with any political parties that you've seen up place that there'll be a bit too much school settling and blaming and all of those things when actually we really do need you know, even people who aren't supporters of any particular party, you can see that we need a government that functions really well, we need a government that's working really well, and I hope that they can, as West Streeting said he would, all pull in the right same direction, whether that holds when There aren't four hundred and seventy jobs that can be given to everybody. Well, yes, because that's the other thing about thatot. I mean obviously Labour would say, o, hang on, we do this every time we win a by election and we get together on those steps and take a picture. But I take your point that I've never the same tradition can feel very different in different circumstances. And also say I mean you're a close observer. how many times have you seen that many people on the steps of Western's Tall A? I mean maybe not that many, but I've defitely seen the tradition play out, but maybe not quite that extent. Yeah and also just that point about winning. you will you've seen a lot of winners up close and you've seen what victory does to politicians. They love it. And sometimes I wonder if they go a little bit mad because it's such an unnatural, unhuman thing to experience Yeah, and I think the sad thing about being Prime Minister is it doesn't really take very long for the shine to wear off that because even in the process of just deciding who gets which job, you've got to disappoint a lot of people, you'll have people who are grumpy with you. Base most decisions you are making if your' Prime M minister are going to upset somebody If it was an easy decision, and the answer is yes That's being made somewhere else. someomebody else is having the fun of that. That's the secretary state or a junior minister or somebody else. you only do difficult things if you're the prrime Minister. So the relentless reality of having to actually choose X rather than y, and actually this is going to be good for housing, but it's going to be terrible for the environment or it's going to be good for transport, but it's going to be terrible for skills. Those are the choices and trade offs. So the actual brutal reality of that being the job, I mean, yeah, there's lots of great things about it and lots of people want to do it. know, But it's not a kind of fun upside which of the lovely things shall I do today kind of jobs Here's another kind of nerd policy question We've all got very used to hearing about the B network in Manchester. intntegrated bus network that was taken back into kind of public control, not necessarily public ownership, but public control and the B network in Manchester everyveryone loves it now What is a way of rolling out that sort of thing on a massive scale so that more people feel that sort of transport revolution If you werere having to design a nationwide or maybe an England wide policy for that, what would you be looking at? Wow, that's quite a question. I think it probably is buses actually. O old favorite There's a lot of the bus network that just doesn't exist anymore. And if you wanted to make people feel happy, particularly in rural areas where people feel L the world is not designed around them because every public serviceices in cities and it's all if you could just flood the country with Eing buses, maybe electric ones to keep Ed happy. And of course Toris Johnson had a big nationwide bus plan. So there's a plan on the shelf there will be get implement. Yeah, it's probably Iv and ready. No. I and ready and this week of all weeksh anniversary of the Brexit referendum. And yeah, that's interesting. I also wonder if there's a few other things, not necessarily on the shelf, but already happening that Andy Burnham canbe take package up and rebrand. So for example, GB Railways T turning into a sort of unified railway network instead of all these different fr like some bees on it, basically. Yeah, and it's bees. That's already happening. Yeah. And I wonder if he could maybe take that and take some credit for that and maybe rebrand it or boost the branding a bit. There's a world in which he's very lucky. also and then GB energy which is actually only set up to invest in energy projects Could that turn into something that seems a little bit more consumer facing Yeah, absolutely. and he' he's Proably inheriting something where the numbers are going in the right direction. so sort of the opposite of Ke Starm's beginning to his term So migration numbers are which everyone cares about the falling Really significantly, the growth figures are actually a bit more encouraging than expected. I still not good. but there's a world in which actually he's luckier than ed Do you think there's a world where Kir Starmer gets kept on as foreign secretary can't see that happening. I think it's pretty weird if you've been the Prime Mister. I mean the poor guy probably needs a break apart from anything else So I would definitely recommend prescribe that and it's's pretty weird if you've been prime mininister and then hanging around the cabinet table in the wrong place. And are there any things around the machinery of government like the setup of the cabinet table, for example, the number of departments that you think actually have been crying out for change for ages and this could be the opportunity to do it. And Andy Burnham might seem like the guy who would do it Do you know one of the funny things was because the Brexit anniversary and various things, I found one of my old photographs and when Boris Johnson became ter and he had so many people around the cabinet table that we had to get one of those you know Christmas dinner time when you have the extra table and the extra table and the smaller child around your grands. Yeah, exactly. And it's not quite the matching tablecloth, That's what we had. So I think that there is definitely a space for trying to have as smaller focus and as cabinet as possible. that actually the time he's going to be most popular and have the most power is right at the beginning Can he have the necessary brutality to really make sure that he's got right people in the right jobs I think one of the things that is Absolutely crying out for change is by Hall itself. Everybody says that. the current prime Minister says it, I'm sure Andy Bern will say it, the Cabinet S secretary herself says that actually this needs to happen. and that would make a really big difference. I think he starts it's not just about reducing the size of the state. It's about making it much more effective. It's about changing some of the dynamics about how these things work. I think that is a right for the doing actually rewiring state, very good idea we could talk for hours and hours and hours. You mentioned the Cabinet seecretary and Tony Romeo. Will she be sitting down with Andy Burnham and having quite candid conversations with him about what he wants to do and how she can And the reason I asked that question in that way is I remember when Liz Trust took over. ime minister and she says the access talks that she had to the civil Service were quite weird and that they didn't flag up any pitfalls to her. They were only answering very factual questions in a very factual way. Billy? That what she said, I can't I can't comment on you were I there I wasn't there I know that when we did the same thing with Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt when Theresa May was standing down did we offered to both Jeremynt and Borenson and obviously Borisson took more of our ask up And I spent a long time with them telling them where we were, we weren't we didn't hold back on the problems, and we worked quite closely with them before they came into power the whole team on exactly what it was going to look like, what his diary was going to be, all of the kind of relentlessly practical things, but also seem really big, you are going to have to decide whether it is X or Y and that's going to be in your intro. So I would expect that the cabinet seecretary, now that the Prime Minister has said, those talks can go ahead, we'll be doing exactly that. And that's partly where Andy Bern's team need to focus on the what is our government here for and the politics and not slightly get distracted into the bits that the civil serervice will be really good at, which you know Oh, let's talk about these processes, Minister. Yeah, exactly Rather than the decisions themselves. Yeah. Also I mean, I don't know Antonio Romeo, the cabinet seecretary, but she doesn't strike me as a very kind of like, yes, Minister, I'll try and pull the wool over your eye your eyees kind of person. She's not No She'll be very ambitious for what a Prime Minister can do and what the government can do and how she can make sure that the civil service can deliver for the new Prime Mister from day one Um Can the fiscal rules be tweaked in a way that lets the government do more, but doesn't make the bond markets feel that the government's getting out of control with its borrowing. Yes becausecause the treasury are very skilled plenty of ways in which you can it's all about confidence. I mean, so your bond markets and city question is actually all about that material thing of confidence.. And so things like It sound silly, but Actually, James Pidell as the Chief of staff is a massive confidence inspiring thing. that the more that Andy Burnham looks like he's going to govern in a very serious way You know, you saw andy Bam in a suit and tie, which I hadn't had money on. Wasn't a great suit though. no acc. I was a bit sad about that. I thought, you know, come on, surely. There was a dress code in the comments so he had to. Is that? Yeah, Gentlemen have to wear a tie and a jacket in the commons. It's the rules. You know I didn't even know that? Yeah. Well, there you go. Mbe you can change that too. Good job. Good job. you weren't advising the Prime Minister on that. Well I very rarely. tryed up put a taxit forest. I very rarely dressed people over everyone to be pleased Oh ye, so there's actually quite a lot more room for maneuvre in the fisc rules and around the fiscal rules as long as Our lenders think you're a serious person and you're credible Entirely and it's like I shouldn't get too fixated on the actual words of the fiscal rules. If to believe that is almost the wrong exactly the wrong mindset which gets us into a pickle in the first place, because it's not that the people who are expressing confidence or not in our country by buying or not buying our bonds. are looking at paragraph three of subsection seven of whatever clause and say, well, actually technically, this is whatever. It's about do they believe that this is a government that is going to be able to competently govern so that you're going to get your money back in the future. It's much more and I would say this, I'm not a treasury, not a treasury person. but it's more simple than it looks, which is about confidence. So people confident this is a government that's going to deliver it, it's going to do the things it wants to do, it's going to do with a necessary radicalism and with an open mindedness towards actual economic growth Last question about his diary In theory Andy Brham could be primeinis. few days before the Worldorld Cup. I knew this is going to be about the World Cup. Good, so youve prepared that Would his officials, if you were one of them, advise him to go if England are in the final of the World Cup Yes, he and Kir Starmer should go together if England are in the fininal of the World Cup because that would be the nice thing to do But Kir Stahmer was criticized for traveling too much and being out of the country. Is Andy Burnham going to want to make his first thing going to like a nice jolly in America England doing in the final of the World Cup. Can you imagine people think if the Prime Minister wasn't bothered about that and didn't go? I think it's much better to go. And I'll say he likes football And he can have his first buyout with Trump. Eactly. they're handing the trophy over. He will learn very hard that everythingthing in the Prime Minister's diarary, something that looks like it's going to be a nice experience. is not going be That's the classic one ye. The civil serervice will absolutely put so much around it that they'll suck the joy out of most things. If last last question If this all goes amazingly well And White Hallle is reformed and the culture of our politics has changed by the arrival of one man and his colleagues who you think are serious people. wouldould you go back in? M no. That chapter is over definitely. Yeah Fair enough, very clears. I'm not a politician, Adam, so I can just say no. Yeah. Well thanks are saying yes to us today. Thank you. It's a pleasure. And we're going to end with a very high quality piece of correspondence, as you will hear from newscaster Mara, who says, Hello newewscast team It's fair enough that Italy is often invoked when discussing political instability, but if Italy is to be used as a reference point, it's worth recalling Giuseppe Tamasi de Lamp Pedusa's novel Il Gato Pardo which I, as an English speaker know as the leopard which is set during the Italian Unification. Famous line reads. Oh here we go. S Vogliamo Chitutoang comi Pisona Chituto cami