The Future of Political Accountability

Hello and welcome to Not another one with me, Steve Richards, Ian Martin, Miranda Green and Tim Montgomery. And amidst all the epic dramas being played out, the biggest news of all, we're all in the studio. And um Ghost. It's it's I haven't seen any of you for ages. It's like meeting sort of it's like a kind of Beatles reunion after a um completely deluded. Um but has everyone got energy for this podcast 'cause I know Tim you've done about forty eight hours continuous yeah work. I I'm pretty busy. We all pretty b uh but we're all up for this. Definitely. Can I just say as well, not another one. We called it 'cause not another Br Brenda of Bristol, not an other general election. But it's proven to be such a good name, isn't it? Now we've got not another one for a leadership election, not another one for Prime Minister. Yes . Yes. Absolutely. Not another one. Brenda from Bristol. She really is the hero of our age. And it it reminds me, of course, you know, how time flies. We started this podcast in the during the twenty twenty four general election. Labour landslide, and now we are in another leadership crisis. Now, we're recording this at a moment, this is the problem with podcasts at the moment, of fast moving or possibly not fast moving events. So we're going to try and explore themes which have a timeless quality. And this is one of them . What do we know at the moment as we record that for all the pressure, all the MPs writing to say he should go. The resignation of quite well known ministers, people like Jess Phillips, with a scathing letter about his capacity to lead. Keir Starmer is determined to stay on. And I bump into people, you know, not wholly in our world saying, why the hell does he want to stay on? And there's no doubt part of it is prime ministers always decide it's in the national interest for them to make the sacrifice of carrying on. But they also love it, don't they? I mean, we we all follow closely. Uh Blair, after years being determined to stay on, uh, when Gordon Brown wanted him out, then there was uh a Cameron went of his own accord, but then well he didn't lost a referendum, but then you know, Theresa May was going through hell but carried on. Do you remember when she lost those votes on her deal? Yeah. And went back into the cocooned atmosphere of number ten and just said call in the leader of the DUP and carried on as if nothing was happening. Took about nearly a hundred resignations from from the front bench for Boris to go. Boris, do you there was that vivid image of him and Guito Harry in number ten trying to pick a government and realiz ing they'd r literally run out of people and couldn't do it. And and but they boy do they hang on in there. I th I think though by by definition you have to be very competitive to get the job. It's not there there aren't many people in history who've who've had it you know forced upon them reluctantly the office of Prime Minister. They have fought to get it and then determined because as I'm uh bored listeners before saying they every prime minister, every prime minister becomes obsessed with legacy, as in how will they be remembered by history for all sorts of complicated reasons, and also by length of tenure, and how that then that's part of the legacy thing. How do how do they measure up against their pre- against their pre decessors. Because there is it is I mean nothing in in in in life really delivers immortality, but compared to journalism or just about any other walk of life, there's a ch there's a chance if you're Prime Minister that in a hundred years' time people will still be writing and talking about you. So that this drive to get there really matters to them. And I think there's some I think it's not as widely understood by the public as it should be about Starmer that for all of his his failings and maybe it's the flip side of his stubbornness, he's a very, very competitive individual. He's very driven. And will be at the moment, unless he's resigned by the time uh listeners are listening to this, will be absolutely determined to stay on. Yeah. stuff prime ministers aren't they to get you know as you sort of suggested it to want to be prime minister to stay there to put up with the outra you know one of the things I noticed from the um you know the doorstepping I've been doing during the campaign is the ugly vitriol towards Takirstama is of a kind I've not noticed before in politics. And I don't fully understand it, but it's off the scale and very few people could cope with it. And those that can cope with it, like him, they don''t theyre not going to give it up. Having been through the ordeal and been through so many sacrifices, they don't walk away from a job like that because they've already suffered so much to stay there. And obviously he's deeply hurt by the way voters perceive him. He knows about it, and MPs have told him about it. But Miranda, it reminds me of the Woody Allen joke at the start of Annie Hall, where he talks about two people in a restaurant, and one says the food here is terrible, and the other says yes, and the portions are so small . Because Prime Ministers go around saying, well, this is unfair, this is terrible, haven't slept for forty-eight hours, I won a landslide, I'm doing all this work, and people hate me, and yet they want to stay on and cling on. I only Harold Wilson has resigned voluntarily in a way that was planned, at an age incidentally younger than when Keir Starmer became Prime Minister. So in that sense, although a lot of I think weird things are happening now, freakishly weird, um not with echoes of Johnson or May, him trying to cling on is a recognizable feature of these crises, isn't it? It's extremely recognizable. And I was thinking earlier in the week of uh when Theresa May was just still there and still there and still there as she lost all the votes and as the plan collapsed around her and all the rest of it. And uh do you remember Matt Chorley and his red box newsletter? He was one of the first with a daily newsletter. He would just every day have Theresa May clings on, comma, inevitably, full stop. And it feels a bit like this, and that could go on for some time. We don't yet know as we're recording. But it is it is it is a phenomenon and I completely agree with what you've all said about the psychology of it. I think I was going to reach for a different food joke actually since you've raised the Woody Allen It is it is a great movie. But I I was thinking also, you know, in terms of the speech that he made, this so called make or break speech on Monday and you know I'm sure we'll g get back to whether he ever could have made a speech that would have worked uh you know with Labour MPs or whether he was being set up to fail in a sense with that speech. But uh you know the, problem with all these resets, and this has been true of the entire Stormer Premiership, is it's like the other joke about food, which is you don't like these ham and eggs? Have some more ham and eggs, you know, and and what is the reset? What is the fresh offering? What is the way to turn it around? And even if you sort of look at the people waiting in the wings desperate to take over from Keir Starmer, with it who wouldn't have a mandate from the public either, so they'd have an even tougher task, arguably, to prove themselves. What are they offering other than more of the sort of slightly wishy washy um you know, plateful. That starmmer star ism has has has you know offered us I mean, clearly he's offered us a very tepid plateful. So at least perhaps some of these other people would would have a good hot plate of whatever this food is that the electorate don't like. But the fundamentals are the electorate doesn't like the agenda of this government. And and can it, you know, can it change? Can he change it and can somebody else change it? Well I well we might come on to the possible other options, although that's quite a risky thing to do as it is either slow moving and nothing happens or fast moving. But before we get to that, let 's focus in on a couple of elements of Keir Starmer and his uh phalanx. I mean it does seem to me that the choreography of recent days it's unbelievably bad. Um believably Yeah. And and and what what is that about him ? He can't I, think , metaphorically read a room, if you know what I mean. You know the some people have it instinctively, some people learn it through decades in politics. Um now he hasn't been in politics for decades and and that shows. But i i in character terms I think in in some ways the defining period of his career was being director of public prosecutions. And that's that's still really who he is in this highly charged political situation. Ha Harman and Brown, Steve, how are they seen in the Labour Party now? They were willed out as I think the first move of the Prime Minister to keep his job. And, you know, I have I didn't like the way that because they are older and experienced people sort of thought they were past it. I think that's one of the wrong attitudes we have in politics. We need a balance of youth and experience. But how are they perceived as assets in the Labour Party now, in your opinion? Do they still count? Well was there some wisdom in what he was doing? I I well you see, I th I can tell the thinking, I'm just guessing. And it's very clunky again, sort of in character with his leadership style. My guess is he was thinking, right, we chose Peter Mandelson for Washington. This has triggered the crisis that's erupting around me now. I will show I'm close to Peter Mandelson's biggest internal foe, Gordon Brown, who is absolutely out for Peter Mandelson at the moment. And and so I think he thought it would work symbolically, uh Gordon Brown and Harriet Harmon are kind of revered figures. But you know, I've been obsessed with this theme. You've got to, as a prime minister, show constantly that you own the future, that you have a sense of constant mission and momentum going forward . And bringing in in the immediate aftermath of catastrophe to revered seventy five year olds does not address that task of So maybe by saying it was going to carry on for a decade he was hoping to win in the future. But he hasn't got a director of communications sending you know out of scam if he was saying don't say that. Don't say that. And if you've said it, let's check what the headline's gonna be and we'll try and get it changed. None of that happens, you know, and and this seems superficial and in some ways it is, but choreography of politic With saying you're gonna go on and on when everyone's wondering whether you should even be let to continue for a matter of weeks. Seems to be absolutely bonkers because it sounds like something that everyone then wants to prevent happening. So you've set them a challenge. It's a nightmare because if you give any hint that you're thinking of giving up, then you're finished. And so you have to sort of convey this going on and on, but then you say you have a director of communications making sure that is not the headline. Um as it could be gone within a week. But there was something as uh uh as I understand it, knowing a bit about the background on persp specific ally on the Gordon Brown appointment, but it's quite a technical appointment in that it's the reason that he's been given the job is that because the Prime Minister is searching desperately for a solution to this defence funding problem. Right? So you will have seen various pieces by friends of Gordon Brown in recent weeks floating the idea of European wide defence bonds, which would allow principally France and the UK, but also others, to borrow with certain tax domestic tax advantages as well. Now where did this idea this has been circulating in the Labour Ether for Yeah. He gave an interview on the programme about a year ago when he specifically made this proposal. And has developed the the the points since and has been canvassing the ideas and and so this has been built so they they have this massive you know twenty five to thirty billion shortfall on defense. Now if you're a critic of Gordon Brown, you just say, well, uh he's just g he's good at uh uh extra borrowing and disguising debts. So yeah surprise, surprise he's come up with an uh with y with yet more borrowing. Actually I'm less cynical about it than that, and I do think I do think he's got a point when he says that this is a Europe wide crisis emergency and it requires big po financial crisis era thinking. Whether or not you agree with Brown's analysis of the financial crisis, I don't. It is it 's interesting that he can still think in a in a big and bold way. So that's what it was, yeah, as I understand it about. It's global financial ambassador or envoy or whatever, but it's it's really the subtext is what he's present Yeah, you're right. From having these two in, and that was I think um evidently a misreading, judging by how Labour MPs responded. Um but you're right, these things are layered, and there was a policy agenda there. Um such is the antagonism to Labour at the moment. I don't know, maybe it's just the algorith ms that feed my social media. But all I got was um Mrs. Duffy stuff, um you know, that bigoted woman, and about um Gordon Brown selling off the gold incredibly cheaply. And I'm afraid in a social media and I think that's been pushed, I know reform were pushing that stuff a lot. And it is one of the new dynamics of politics is that a lot of p I I think we're at a where we're at fifty fifty now. Probably even more social media than mainstream media. But now it is if you have a really diligent social media operation as a political party, you can almost flood the room with stories. And I know that's what the right, the anti Bra bo staff were doing over the weekend is they decided he sold the gold at a cheap rate and Mrs. Duffy and it was all over my um my feeds. But but but also that's very short-sighted in terms of what the country needs in terms of defence, isn't it? Because if any of these parties who all are now no I know, but I'm just observing that if indeed Gordon Brown, because of his sort of you know, international reputation from the global financial crisis and all the rest of it, is able able to square this circle that's currently holding up the defence investment plan , you know, then that's actually in the interest of any party who wants to be involved in governing the UK because nobody quite knows how to fund the necessary increase in defence spending, right? So it it I I I do worry about some of this uh stuff where it's such an extreme contrast between the immediate party political advantage of slagging off everything and everybody and actually the real long term challenges which anybody taking responsibility is gonna have to look for solutions to Miranda. The reality is when you're in the midst of a leadership crisis that has gone out of control everything is smothered until it's resolved, and that that's the reality. But he's always a very powered on economics, right, in Downing Street. So that's a kind of long running deficit as well as the other. And there's another there's another problem um or or interesting twist to the story, which is that uh of course there's no love lost or hasn't been for some time between Rachel Reeves and Gordon Brown. So if you want to put put someone into the treasury's orbit or universe, uh when the Treasury is blocking the defence investment plan and uh and being a little slow um on this stuff, then Gordon Brown seems an ideal person. Plus the Treasury, but the Treasury is also trying to develop its own defence investment plan, which is another kind of long, boring, complicated story. But w my question about Starmer though is, Steve, is that right so if that was Tony Blair who'd made that appointment, well he probably wouldn't have done it the sa the Saturday straight after a local elections thrashing. But if it was a Blair style figure who'd done it, you'd been have been confident that he that he knew what he was doing. What we've just described is what we that that's our interpretation of the water. We have to interpret it, yeah. Precisely but is he act this is the impr the impression he gives of someone who's not very political is that is so so lacking in ruthlessness. No, he's not lacking in ruthlessness. I mean he is utterly ruthless. Is he? Uh oh look at look at the victims. I think it's part of the issue now. He has sacked so many people and targeted so many people, albeit under the instruction perhaps of more than a lot of interrupt very briefly, it's Catherine West. She was a development minister. She was sacked, I think in the middle of Papua New Guinea or something, somewhere. And she did not even have they didn't even tell her whether she would be funded to come home. They had to be a question is a bit more meta than that. Maybe I've been too postmodern about it. Is he aware of that? I just he seems almost blissfully unaware. He seems even kind of baffled when people are annoyed that they've been fired. Well that's I want to come onto that because in our very first episode in twenty twenty four during the election, we raised the question then when, j when he he he, under instruction from the McSweeney lot , tried to block Diane Abbott. Yeah. Condemned even by the Times newspaper for blocking this person who would be then the mother of the house, etcetera. We we speculated about what would happen when he was in trouble. And I think that is another issue now. But before that I just want to look at we'll take a break and then come back look at what I think is there are echoes with other crises involving Johnson May. Sunak was under pressure to go, let's not forget. But there's one freakish element to this contest. Not contest yet, it might be by the time you're listening to this. And that's what I want to explore you next . Some days it feels like your to-do list just won't quit. When life gets hectic, let Halfords take something off your plate. We're here when you need us. With trusted experts ready to help you tick off MOTs, servicing, tire fitting and more. See your cars ready for whatever's ahead. So why put it off? Get in touch or drop in today. Book online at halfers.com or give your local Halfers Garage a call and we'll sort it. So you can keep moving with confidence. Okay, welcome back to not another one. We've sort of agreed that for a Prime Minister to cling on, we've seen it many times. But what is completely without President Miranda is the person , the so-called soft left are coalescing around, including Angela Rayner, Andy Burnham, who is the only one with really good poll ratings, is not in the House of Commons. So how the heck, and this is what is causing some of the chaos. How do you choreograph a sequence where he gets back into the commons to fight a leadership contest? And I think you know the the chaos is partly because they hoped the potential candidates like West Reating that they would force Starmer to announce that cabinet he's pulling out. That hasn't happened. But the ultimate chaos is this: you know, th a lot of people want Andy Burnham and he can't stand at the moment. No, but they're sort of trying to design uh a timeline backwards, aren't they? With then another gr b bunch of people trying to make sure the timeline is much more contracted, making it impossible for Burnham to beat I think it's fair to say that all of the w other would be rivals know that they wouldn't be able to beat Andy Burnham should it go to a vote of the membership. So there are those who would prefer it all to happen much much more quickly. But the problem with Andy Burnham trying to find a seat now is we're looking at the map as of last Thursday that is completely transformed, particularly in the north of England, where one has to presume that Vernon would seek to stand in a by-election. So all this speculation about who might stand down on kind of inverted commas gift him their seat. I mean, now looks really, really risky. I mean St. Helens, right, which is one of the places that's been speculated about for some weeks. If you look at what happened in St. Helens on Thursday night, reformed it absolutely brilliantly and the Labour Party were routed. So it the whole thing is has become has become much more complicated even since February and the NEC's decision to He's seen as an outsider, that he's not been in a vertical commerce contaminated by power. Who, in a governing c party, can claim that same sort of appeal, quite a good communicator and not contaminated by Westminster, Andy Burnham. Now I think I'm not giving away secrets. Tim, uh you like Andy Burnham, don't you? I I do. I think Ian and I have opposite views of um Andy Burnham without wanting to put words into Ian's mouth. But I've worked we've I've we've worked with him quite a bit at the Centre for Social Justice, he's taken risks. And actually there was the exit poll from Gorton and Denton or Denton and Gorton always get them muddled up in my senior moments. But the exit poll I think they had showed that he would have won that seat by 20 points. You know, um even though the Greens did win it in the end. I think people underestimate, overestimate how difficult it will be for him to win a seat. I think he will win a seat. It's just a question of whether the timetable that Labour puts out um allows. Yeah. I agree with that. And then once he's elected Labour Prime Minister, I will of course be vicious towards him. No, but th the thing is though, I'm I'm sure that's right that he would have won Gorton and Denton. But since that green victory there in that by election, you've you've then had what my my colleague in the North of England, Jen Williams, calls the halo effect from that green win. Yeah you know, and they've been able to build on it. So I just think that the electoral calculus has changed quite a lot. I mean you know, he has he has certain qualities. When he was sort of seen on Tuesday of this week to be hot footing it to London, presumably to show that he is the man to meet the m meet this moment. You know, people were tweeting out Caesar crossing the Rubicon and you know, Lennon arriving in the Finland station to a crowd of supporters and all the rest of it. So this sort of sense of history Faisal Islam was my favourite one. He said, Houston, we have a problem. Right . There's nowhere based borders to sit. but you know what I mean. So that sense of history and meeting the moment, it's clever. It's psychologically clever from the Burnham camp because it lends the whole thing a kind of momentum and a sense of inevitability. We should let Ian help because Ian is the big Burnham skeptic. Well no before you I'd put something to you, uh Ian, maybe to reinforce it. I yeah I I think Burnham if if they're going to go through the trauma of getting rid of a Prime Minister and it's going to clearly have to be, as we record anyway, an act of regicide because as we've discussed, Guirstarmer's determined to stay. If you're going to go through that trauma, you might as well somehow or other get on the ballot the person that appears to be most popular with the electorate. I mean why go through all of this? Yeah totally. But here is one day. Well it'll undermine any successor as well. Totally if they haven't put Burnham on the ballot paper, the net the successor will still face the Burnham problem. Exactly. So he's one way or another they've got to get him here. But here and and I hope they do. But here's if if all this happens, um uh now here's the problem for him though, isn't it, uh Ian. Whatever you think of him personally, you won't have a vote in this. So that at this point doesn't matter. Unless you have a secret Labour membership. Political judgment of mine. Not for about thirty years. By elections these days can be pretty feverish, like they used to be about twenty or thirty years ago. You will all be too young to remember there was this BBC guy Vincent Hannah. Oh I remember very well. He used to cover bio lectures for Newsnight and it was showbits. I mean it really was, without trivialising the whole thing. He turned them into huge events bigger than they really were. Now, the Andy Burnham by-election, multiply that by a hundred. Yes. Um people like uh Beth Rigby uh uh who gets excited if Kir Summer says good morning and she'll say, but Prime Minister it's overcast. What do you mean? Are you going to resign for saying good morning? Uh imag ine the Burnham by election. Be a zoo, yeah. And in a way, that's his dangerous it was a bit like you do you remember the Portillo period when lots of people thought he was gonna be the next leader. He had a birthday party where Thatcher says, We see the future and and it was too frenzied . And he was built up too much. And that it seems to me is the is the risk for Andy Burnham. There could be a hysteria around him that in the end harms him. Yeah, I say this as someone and I say this as a Burnham admirer who and I hope he gets into this contest if there is one. You're conjuring up the life of Brian, aren't you? People following him with gourds. But he won't turn round and say I'm not the messiah, that's the thing. But not just those people say the entire media will be in this constituency for three weeks. But I but he needs to be tested. I mean you were saying, you know, that's the problem for him, but I you know, as a as a as a taxpayer and as a citizen, I would like to seeing the these remarkable claims made for for Andy Burnham, I'd just like to see him tested a bit more. I mean I d I don't have an opposite view from Tim in that I mean Burnham the Burnham that I encountered must be nearly twenty years ago or when he was in the cabinet under Gordon Brown And um Antonio Blair, I think. Yeah, in that p in that period was a Blairite and then a Brownite and then he's been all manner of things under the sun. So maybe you could say that's to his credit, that he that he he adapts. I question he's obviously he is obviously someone who's public spirited, who is dedicated to public service, that's a good thing. And he's also been around for a long time, which I think is increasingly uh is going to be a strength in politics. I mean we've got we've got to get back to people having longer careers and learning and trying and failing and then reinventing themselves. However , just my basic concern is what is there really what's what's there? And I I d I me meanan this is there's and maybe we don't have time to get into this. I mean but the to me, this we're recording this on the Tuesday afternoon. I feel deeply depressed about the um I don't feel excited about this as a story or as a you know as a former recovering journalist. I feel really depressed about what's happening to our to our politics. And to our country. This is a guy who's you know there are lots of criticisms we can make of of Keir Starmer and analyse his personality flaws but he was elected less than two years ago with an absolutely stonking majority. If he falls or if he's fallen by the time listeners are listening to this . And we go into a Labour leadership contest. That will be a seventh Prime Minister in ten years? Don't come on to that quite yet, because I want to explore that as a theme at the very end. Just on Burnham. This is my kind of reading of him, and it might prove to be complet ely wrong and romanticised, but I get the impression that when he left Westminster to become mayor of Greater Manchester, admittedly , a much easier task by Miles than being Prime Minister, which is the nightmarish challenging job in politics. I think he discovered genuinely uh it was possible to have new ideas away from that stifling Westminster context, which he has explored and implemented, and will return with some of those ideas. Um and you know, th th they are interesting. The sort of th th he he's integrated the transport system. He's worked very closely with business leaders in Manchester. Greater Manchester is booming. Jeremy Clarkson's a Burnham fan on that basis. So I just think he's learnt a lot leaving Westminster for a bit and running something somewhere else. Much, much easier than West than number 10. But I think he's interesting. Now whether he ever gets back, we will have to wait and see , but let's let's take a a break and then explore two other themes why Kissomer is in the degree of trouble he is, and Ian's theme about w what seems to be happening to every prime minister uh since Cameron, who's been in trouble within a very short period of time . Okay, welcome back. There are plenty of areas we could explore about why Kiss ama is in trouble. But I do want to go back to our very first episodes we were talking earlier, because it does seem you know, I'm we're not all prophets. Yes we are. And it does seem quite friendly. Well there's some tape that Miranda uncovered of us talking about the stability of um the new Labour government. So we're not we're definitely not profits. But we did say on the very first episode there was a lot of stuff going around then at the beginning of the election. Uh Starmer's team were blocking certain candidates. They had already blocked a mayor in the northeast of England from ever standing because he was at a on a panel on an at an ar ts festival with Ken Loach. They tried to expel Neil Lawson who was once an ardent Blairite you know and and we all agreed actually and and uh you know, Diane Abbott is not probably uh any of our uh direct politics, we all agreed all of that, that when Kirstama was in difficulty, he could turn around and find himself to be pretty friendless. And it seems to me one of the issues has been that that style of brutal leadership, which apparently was going to lead to him being so authoritative and in control of his parliamentary Labour Party like no Yeah, I d I mean I r returned return to that point I made earlier about the extent to which I'm just fascinated by the extent to which he's aware of what he's doing and what's going on around him. I mean he this is this is a politician who did an extraordinarily risky thing in appointing Peter Mandelson, but we know didn't have a conversation with him. And that doesn't seem to have been because he was trying to, you know, not have his fingerprints on the appointment or anything. It just doesn't really seem to have occurred to him. He just doesn't he doesn't operate in the way I mean I'm not su j suggesting you need to be um Lyndon Johnson to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, but you should have some sort of excitement or sense of uh you know of of you know human psychology and and and and and trying to shape and shape events and you know sort of bend the arc of history. He just seems to be very competitive, driven, public servant of a particular of a particular kind, bureaucratic, not particularly imaginative . And this is what this what what this is what worries me about this process. All of that was observable and known long before he became Prime Minister. But he got this is a m this is a media colle,ctive media failing. He got so little scrutiny in the run up to the election that uh he kind of walked he you know, he almost sort of walked in unimpeded. Because we'd all decided for obvious reasons. The Tories had to go and then it was and it was Labour's turn. And the result is we're now about to go through this process again. But I think it's as much on us as voters and well us as journalists, but um it was all observable and none of this is really a surprise. Is this a surprise to the hundred Labour MPs who are calling on him to go or members of the media who have suddenly discovered uh his personality flaws? I don't think I don't think it is. Yeah, I'm I'm not surprised by any of it actually. Um he became leader during that funny COVID election, didn't he? Do you remember? I wonder if that had some part to it. People weren't meeting him after the event. You know, sometimes the most important conversations you have with people aren't the formal sort of debate. None of that took place 'cause the whole election for the Labour leader was taken place under COVID mm conditions. I wonder if that was a contributory possible. But also also the psychology of the people in Labour who wanted to wrest it back from the control of the Corbynit es was this idea of ruthlessly retaking control . And uh, you know, it it has felt to your point, Steve, as if they've been re fighting that war far too much internally And there needed to be much deeper thinking. So Well, they had no plans in all sorts of areas. And I know I know personally, I'm sure we all do, if you talk to experts in various policy areas, they have been very confused at the lack of contact. They have been very, very bewildered and dismayed at not being asked to help make the plans and then not being called in, you know, even for advice on implementation. And that has been a running theme throughout. But I think just in terms of party management, which is a fundamental demand of leadership, whether you're in Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition, or indeed Nigel Farage wanting to be Prime Minister. Well he's certainly been scrutinised if we won't say Well yeah, but but in terms of how he he will have huge challenges uh for Arch uh in managing his party in the build up to the election at the top level with Jenric and others and much lower down. It's hugely challenging. And Starmer did face this huge task. They were slaughtered in twenty nineteen. He also faced an advantage. Corbyn and MacDonald resigned the day after the elec election. The electorate defe ated Corbyn and McDonald. They didn't have to spend five years of energy bashing them around very much more, but that's where so much of the energy went. Instead of thinking deeply, is there anything we could learn from that Corbyn era? And there is one thing I think, which is the energy of momentum and so on, which has now gone to the Greens. And I'm told got the Green vote out on election day. They've all gone over there. None of that. Let's just kill the lot. Then we'll go for the soft left. And this is superfici al thinking and party management. And so now they turn around and to their bewilderment the the soft left are coalescing around someone else. Did any of ose Did any of you hear the um early hours conversation between John MacDonald and um David Lamy on Radio Ford. No, but I've read about it. Just a reminders. Well it was extraordinary 'cause these things aren't meant to happen, are they? People do not put deputy prime ministers next to leading critics in radio studios. And by an accident of timing, I talked to Nick Robinson about this I ' wascause hanging around New Broadcasting House that night and I talked to to Nick and I said, How did that happen? And he just said, John Macdonald stayed too long, you know, not uninvited, but he just you know, election timings um go wrong and in what David Lamy and of course John L John a scheduled um sit down and said John Macdonald and i I was trying to get to sleep and I couldn't sleep but it was extraordinary because they were ref ighting all the sort of labour battles and at one point I think David Lamy said, You know, y uh y we you lost in twenty nineteen big time and the the the attention you could hear and it was all more special in a way 'cause it was radio. And um they haven't gone away, the Corbinistas, have they? That that the left of the Labour Party, you say that they didn't need to defeat them, or maybe I misinterpret you, but they still are there and I think they will say this is Labour's problem really, isn't it, fundamental problem, is do they attack um right to deal with the reform challenge or they whole do they attack left 'cause their whole left flank has disappeared? Well they they've've certainly got a challenge now with the Greens, but I think the space was created partly by the way they have managed uh uh people like uh Corbyn MacDonald and what they represented and therefore there's been, you know, all this space for Polansky to wallow in. And while a lot of people Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean the other the other the other problem that Labour has is that uh if if they're really going to change prime ministers right now, then they're gonna be doing so against the a really troubling economic backdrop. I mean it would make far more sense to remove uh Keir Starmer if that's what they what they want to do next year. Once you've been through the worst of an inflation shock and the Hormuz uh street shock or whatever whatever is coming our way in the next three in the next three, four months, imagine a new Prime Minister moving in to what's effectively what could be a could be a bond market crisis, you look at the numbers, market th those and markets are clearly already v all already very concerned. So the timing seems kind of off. Which just makes you think about why why don't you know, if they're going to change leaders now then Burnham could just stand in next year's leadership contest. Well I know I think you're right, but it's so interesting because that's in a sense it's this kind of mirror image of the kind of ruthlessness that we've been critiquing in Starmer is that maybe all these backbenches are overdoing their slightly hot headed ruthlessness at the wrong moment. Yeah. You know I'm I guess is not a guess actually. I think that you know, so that many have publicly said he should go, but not a majority, and I sense that they agree with you. That they think I mean, I think there's a consensus, Kis except for Keir Starmer perhaps. That he won't fight the next section, yeah. But when there's still Can I can I can I push back on what I think uh Ian has said in particular perhaps Miranda as well, is there is that expression, was it the um Chicago chief of staff to Barack Obama said never miss a crisis, never let the crisis go to waste. And we could be on the edge of a crisis. And actually I'm sure I'm sure this isn't part of the thought process, it's more more accidental. But I wouldn't put it past Kirstarmer to waste a cr isis. You know, he would potentially not take the big decisions that the country needs during a crisis. So we having him over the next few months, he may sort of manage it in a sort of administratively comp etent way that is possible. But actually would he take some of the big steps that Britain needs to on how the public sector is designed and configured? I th I would actually think that West Streeting and um Andy Burnham are much more capable of taking big decisions in that context. So interesting. You mentioned Ian that you were uh depressed about what this tells us about the state of our politics. So let's finally explore that . So since 2016, Theresa May, uh triumphant win in a leadership contest, gone, uh, against her will, uh tears in outside number ten as she left. Uh Johnson in next, gone uh against his will, uh uh having won a general election, which Theresa May sort of didn't when she called one. Uh who came now? Although of course Liz Trust, gone within a month. Rishi Sunak within six months, people were saying maybe um there would be a challenge. You spoke to potential challenges, Tim, to you at the time. And now Starmer, a landslide victory in the summer of twenty twenty-four, uh clinging by his fingernails to the job. What's in your view going on? I think it is uh explained by the fact that we live in a uh an era of the politics of diversion. Just come back from Scotland where I was there um well on holiday but also you know did a bit of broadcasts and stuff and talking to lots of people about what had just what had just happened. And of course inevitably well the nationalists actually went went backwards and lost ten percent of the of their share of the vote and lost uh you know number of MSPs, but still it's an achievement, John Swinney becoming first minister. But it instantly switched into the nationalist switched into demands for a second independence referendum. Now in Scotland's case, what I think this is about and what I said on the BBC the other night is that because because the the big problems in devolution terms education, health, the economy, are so difficult and require a lot of hard thinking and difficult trade-offs. The nationalist response is to say, right, we can't fit we can't fix that even over 20 years. Until we get independence, so you you create this divers ion, constant diversion which is the constitution. And I think something similar is happening in in England. That the challenges that we're faced with as a country are so large in terms of public spend ing, the need for uh you know for changes to public sector, trade the the trade-offs that that are required, whatever your view is on energy, if you think that it is you we have to go to net zero as fast as possible. If like me you think a different you take a different view. Both positions require enormous enormous trade-offs, plus the world is more dangerous. Meanwhile, technology is essentially eating politics and making it more and more difficult to do to do politics. So I think it comes down to to us ourselves, the voters, ultimately, and the the politicians are responding responding to that and improvising and sort of doing the best that they can imperfectly. And I think it's because we are creating a series of diversions from actually tackling problems which are very, very difficult. I think that's a brilliant summary of where we are. But Miranda, you know, as I've said before on this podcast, in the nineteen seventies the question at one election was who governs Britain? And the whole running theme of commentators on left and right was is Britain ungovernable in the 70s? So this isn't a new theme. And perhaps it has been also that those elected as Prime Minister were not rem otely qualified for the Titanic demands of that job. I mean, Boris Johnson, if someone had told me he was going to be Prime Minister when I used to do Radio 4 programmes with him, I'd have thought they'd have been on some weird drug, you know. Uh he was a a celebrity journalist. Becomes prime minister during COVID and Brexit. I mean and What about Donald Trump becoming US President? Well that that's it's not just a problem in Britain, but quote in terms of or do you think it is, as Ian summarised ? The challenges now are just almost gonna trigger disillusionment with voters and as Tim was saying about hatred . Whoever's there. Right, so the vitriol and the personal sort of animus towards individual leaders I think is actually something really quite serious. And built in and built well yes, but I think there needs to be a fight back against against the tech world actually. I think there needs to be a sort of confrontation between those who are interested in democracy functioning pro properly and people making a lot of money out of algorithms which prevent it happening. And I think we just have to be much, much tougher on that. Uh I did an interview with Steve Kahn last week 'cause of his ten years as London Mayor and he's actually made a speech in Cambridge at the sort of tech institute there saying we need to absolutely threaten severe regulation if they won't adjust their algorithms because it's disrupting our democracy and I think he's right and I think that the political class need to be braver on that because it's polluting the entire con versation, making it toxic. And that is part of the calibre problem as well. I mean you probably have the same thing, you know, friends, neighbours, people on the bus, whenever they come and have a chat about politics, they say why is it that they're all so poor poor, this this generation? You know, why can't we have the prime ministers of the past? What's gone wrong with a caliber? And part of it may be because the job is too difficult, but I don't believe that Britain is ungovernable. And I actually find that whole narrative quite irritating because it tends to pop up when people have been booted out of Downing Street, either as a civil servant or a policy aide or a director of communications or a political aid or whatever it is. And it means they failed. And it's very convenient. I don't believe Britain's ungovernable at all. But there are serious challenges and I think we do have a calibre problem in terms of who's going into politic s and part of it is because you are exposed seven days a week to this insane level of of personal attack and personal threat and it's not even safe to be an MP now, as we know. You know, two MPs murdered. So it's true it's a phenomenally difficult time to be taking over. And I have been thinking, you know, would whoever comes in, if Starmer does, you know, go in the next few weeks or months, would the next person suffer from sort of sun ak syndrome and impatience just builds and builds quite quickly and then it's sort of okay, well let's dump them as well. And nobody's going to want want want to be that that person. But also I think there is a structural problem in politics in terms of who's actually you know putting themselves forward. I do think that's the thing. None of us are putting ourselves forward. Countries in enough trouble Can I disagree with you so much on the tech giants thing and we perhaps should devote a special episode for this in the future? But in Jeff Phillips' um resignation letter she talks about initiatives she's been trying to raise with the Prime Minister for a year which is basically I think I if I've understood it correctly I only re read the letter once but is basically the ability for children to take pictures of themsel ves and send them to others and then be subject to blackmail or embarrassment or whatever. And she said she's been raising this with the Prime Minister for a year and has got absolutely nowhere. And um I do think there is and this is true of my party as well, I think reform have been too cowardly of taking on the tech giants on for example the online safety bill. There is this big agenda for someone to take on the tech giants, not just on what you talk about, Miranda, with um politics, but just generally. Why has Kirstarmer been so reluctant to engage with Jess Phillips on that? And I think there's a pattern that probably needs an awful lot more examination. I don't disagree with that. It may become the agenda uh in in in terms of the the US president uh presidential election in twenty twenty-eight. It may be that that's where the Democrats go and pitch them pitch themselves as the sort of anti-big tech party. But we'll see. Of course big tech will be giving lots of money to the Democrats and try to get it. it's not it's not straightforward. But just something you said there about Jess Phillips made me reflect there because I was criticizing the hundred or so um Labour MPs who've called on Starmer to to resign. But they are obviously on a day-to-day basis, they all have their own stories like that, and ministers do as well. I was really taken aback going to um I may have mentioned it a few months ago, going to the House of Lords for a meeting about something and having one of those afternoons where you run into as, you're tryinging to leave the build, you run into about 20 people you know from previous political lives and ex-cabinet ministers and that sort of thing. They happen to be mainly Labour people . And I was just taken aback by how this was not the far left, the sort of mainstream Labour, just how they're vitriolic, not on a personal basis, but just the despairing they were about how difficult it was for their more senior senior people actually serving in government who they obviously talked to a lot to get anything done, to see him, to somehow break through the log jam. Just the way that he you know we're all familiar with the stories about the Attorney General being one of the few people that can actually get into the flat and the way that the sort of process is the the way that the process is run, which is a function of his personality. So while I'm I'm while I'm critical and I don't think removing him will change very much and I think as a country we've got to stop doing this , I do I do acknowledge and recognise that there are there are are there good and decent people uh you know in the Labour Party who have who just really are in despair having experienced this for the last couple of years. It's genuine. It's not it is not that it's not that they're they're taking this decision in a flippant or offhand uh you know they're not seeking excitement. I think they're pretty depressed by it. Do you think he's done Steve to ask you the direct question? Uh yeah, yeah. Yeah. I I and I I I'll I'll say a bit more, but it I'm the only reason I'm hesitant is because by the time this comes out he could be done or might not be done. Uh but yeah, it's it it's you cannot carry on for much longer when you've got all these now pretty damning quotes in public from uh Labour MPs. Uh the only issue is how long? And I don't want to speculate because it could be very quick and this podcast is going out or it could be uh st still quite some time. It depends, this is where this podcast could deb d date, if West reeting stats. If he doesn't, he Keir Starmer will carry on. We know that's the only thing we know. He wants to carry on. Uh if Westreating uh stands and then others do, I suspect it's over quickly. Um but uh for the long term you cannot recover from uh uh an onslaught of this on this scale. So much again I should say to listeners and people that you know we're fully aware those elections had all kinds of consequences , I mean one of which we need to explore, Scotland and Wales. Scotland now, the SNP, by the end of this parliament, would have ruled for nearly a quarter of a century . Staggering. George Robertson's famous quote, whatever else you think about devolution, it will kill the kill off the SNP. Kill the now running Wales. Yeah, I think this whole thing has been arranged so I couldn't spend this podcast talking about reforms game. Except I must ask you . I brought it up actually. You did but the sopholog ists were very interesting. You can have a peerage, Miranda now. Okay, I'm not if I were Nigel Farage Tim, I would be slightly worried that uh in the most propitious set of elections for an outsider party, its total vote fell compared with a year ago. So I think there are some sort of questions about whether reform has peaked, uh whether the novelty is wearing off. And poor Tim, as as a we should tell listeners as the podcast comes to an end and Steve puts this out there without that being time for Tim to respond, his mouth is opening and closing like a fish out of water. Well there isn't really a a quick response. I think we gained the number of seats that we wanted to and the advances in the North were much greater than we hoped for. The Tories aren't knocked out quite as badly as we would hope. Um I think the percentage of the vote I think is hard to because when you have like the SNP still won on ten percent less of the vote, when you have multi party politics going back in percentages, it's it's harder to understand. We have plenty of challenges, that's absolutely true. And Nigel doesn't quite have the knockout win I think he wanted. But overall when you have such a volatile political environment to win fifteen hundred seats, to win fourteen councils, for your principal opponent still to go back five hundred seats, the Tories. Um, I think Nigel Farage won't be I think it's definitely a two thirds glassful result for us. And so whatever you might say. So we have got a lot to explore because say we've only I hope you understand why we have focused on the drama being played out in the government at the moment. But there were other things arising from those results which are really interesting. Right. But uh it's a fast moving day and we've all got to move fast. So thank you all very much for