Cabinet tensions and potential leadership transition

How does a banana trigger a CIA backed coup Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order What do LED lights say about the future of humanity I'mt Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow Hello good morning and welcome. It's Wedesday juneber seventeenth. Hostilities are about to begin. No, not the three by elections, where the polls open tomorrow morning, but politics goes on pause at nine PM tonight for England versus Croatia. Despite politics and football feeling like they're so closely intertwined, unfortunately, no British ministers are due at England's opening match in Dallas and that's in stark contrast with Scotland's winning opening match against Haiti in Boston which was attended by the Scottish First Minister John Swweeninney How K Stalbermus wish he was stateside over the next couple of days rather than facing the prospect of his own side giving him the red card. Maybe as soon as Friday. My name is Sam Coates of Sky News. And I'm Anne McKlboy from Politico, and that's as much as Sam Coatates has ever said about football on this podcast Breaking an earlier pledge, I think this alth an order that even some cases has noticed the footballs on It's the other three contests, the three grudge matches that we're going to focus on in the next twenty minutes the most consequential by election of this Parliament taking place in Makerfield in Greater Manchester, of course, where fully n one five percent of the UK population could determine the identity of our next prrime minister. But it's not the only constituency going to the polls tomorrow, two other by elections taking place in Scotland following the resignations of Stephen Flynn and Stephen Gethin's two SNP politicians Leaving Westminster for Hollyroood. So the people of Aberdeen South and our Broth and Brdy Ferry just northeast of Dundee, well they both go to the polls as well. We'll have full coverage of all three by election results and of course the fallout from what happened to the Labour Party on Friday morning. but Clackon a little bit of housekeeping because it's a bit of a change. We're not actually going to do an episode tomorrow A We Anne. Once the polls are open, which they would be at the point our podcast is released, there are very strict rules of what I can say. And if this podcast can't talk about the future of the Prime Minister We thought we might give ourselves a little bit of a l in before the games begin. The future of the Prime Minister, Samanan, get a lie in, both important topics, but we will be back on Friday right and early to do a podcast about the results of Maker feellds and what lies beyond. So for now, a quick primer on the three by election seats before touching on some of the biggest developments overnight And before you ask, the names of all of the candidates for the by elections we're going to be talking about are in a link to the show notes. Sve some facts and stats for by election nerds. We're grateful to Sky Isila Glister and our analysts, Rob Ford and Michael Thrasashher for what you're about to receive. The basics of Make afield well known, it was triggered by the resignvation of Labour's Joshs Symondons. He won it in the twenty twenty four general election Its a reminder, his majority was five thousand three hundred and ninety nine. Makerfield was Labour's one hundred and fifty second four hundred and eleven most marginal seats by percentage majority Now it's Reform's twenty ninth target seat question really in the Mgfie Bar election is can reform do it? They would need a swing of six point seven percentage points to gain that seat Reformers only won oneon by election before. That was of course in Runcorn last year, where it won the seat by six votes. There's no direct president to elect someone who might take over as prrime Mister. in short order. But if we go back to nineteen sixty three, Sam the by election took place then in Kinos and West Persia to enable Alec Douglas Hume to join the Cons after he became imeister. So previously he was the Earl of Hum. He'd sat in the House of Lords as a hereditary peer since nineteen fifty one, but he wanted to lead his government from the commons and he duly did that by election went according to plan. Such a great vignette, and it does speak to the kind of curious ways in which our unwritten constitutions. works, that b election was we're told completely uneventful. My goodness, how Labourm must wish that was the case at the moment. Let's also look at the two Scottish bialections, which as we were saying slightly over eclipsed by what's going on the south of the border. But they're really important in the Scottish context, particularly this one, the first of the two that we'll talk about was triggered by the departure of Stephen Flynn. Now a well known figure in Westminster, the SMP Westminster leader. He was appointed he's already been appointed on arrival in Holy Rs to John Swweeninney's cabinet as economic seecretary and his tip for E Greater Things His seat, he won in twenty twenty four with three thousand seven hundred and fifty eight votes. So not the hugest of margins. It's the sixth out of nine SMP safe seats by percentage majority and this one is being bitterly contested. The Aersseen South constituency is actually part of some of the most affluent suburbs in Scotland. Some of the old oil and gas jobs are there and and it has seen a boom over recent decades, but now perhaps not quite so much and has been at the place visited several times by Tory leader Kemy Baedenoock, who's got high hopes for that part of the country, that seat for her party. In fact, actually the area was Tory for seventy years until the mid eighties and again, in twenty seventeen for a couple of years. So the party is hoping that their focus on oil and gas pays off actually it's the pieace in the FT this morning, calling that by election a referendum on oil and gas. Interestingly, the Tories are having to campaign against labor and oil and gas and their stance on that because the SMP have actually switched their position recently, even though the SMP are the ones that they need to win the seat from So the stats. It's the Tory's ninetieth target seat, needing a swing of four point two percentage points in order to win it. Labour Leag is actually less than that a swing of four point one percent percentage points, but few think that Kirst Starmer's party is in with much of a joice chance. The wild card, however, is reform. They have been running a ll Scot drill campaign and so there might be a risk that they could split the vote on the right. The second by election in Scotland is to replace Stephen Gethenss in our Brth and Bghton Ferry of the SNP. So that's a seat created in the twenty twenty four boundary change process from parts ofland Dundy Etern Angus constituencies and he held on by just eight hundred and fifty nine votes, nearly a twenty percentage point swing from the SNP to labour. So On paper, it does look like this is a very promising target for the Labour Party. It's its fifteenth target seat and it needs a swing of just one percentage point alow these days for labour getting anywhere near a good swing is a lot harder than it was. It will be interesting, w' it Sam to see if these by elections in Scotland show a measurable impact of the messy travails of the SNP, the trial of Nicolas Sturgeon's ex husband and party CEO, Peter Murrell very much in the spotlight But this has previously been an SMP strongholder and with Labor struggling for popularity, the constituency should really be expected to return to form in this by election, anything other than comfortable win for the Ns would come as a bit of a shock. So actually it's three really quite exciting races for Thursday night into Friday and through the day on Friday. I'll be up all night on sky from about one AM, I think with the results and going all the way through the day, but we'll have our special podcast out at about eight AM on Friday morning. I was talking by the way to campaign figures in Makerfield last night, you think that we should get an indication of what's happening there from the kind of early vote returns at about one AM from their from the labour voting samples got we will We will see we just don't know what it's all going to look like on Friday. It's actually going to be quite an exciting day, big day in British politics. One AM, our favourite time for results to start to come through because it makes the day so nice and long Thates there self self pity trademark of this end of the podcast. Yesterday, Kir Starmer reiterating he would try to stay in office. That's his firm intention. He was giving interviews to broadcasters this morning from G seven and We're expecting him to say the same again. Notably Angela Rayna has been a bit quiet and falter in this campaignam, but she didn't endorse Starmer to carry on overnight, saying that the views of the public on the Prime Minister that to be taken into account, she didn't need to highlight that they are rather challenging from largely negative She said it's not too late for the Labour Party to deliver change She wasn't going to be direct, but she said, you that it's hard to escape the feeling that the public has towards Kia. So it would interesting if she goes further after an Andy Burnham win. It sounded like she had more to say. Yeah, I do wonder, given she's got an eye on a cabinet see if Andy Burnham wins and if he becomes Prime Minister, whether or not she could actually give Kiss Da quite a big push. maybe on Friday or Saturday in order to maybe get in Andy Burnham's good books because there is just this job of unstitching Kirstarmer from Damming Street, given that he appears in the first instance to be relatively determined to fight. Something Kiirstar's actually now using the machinery of government to make it atively harder for his potential successor Yesterday he and the President of the European Commission met in Evian at the G seven in France and named a date for the EU summit, a date in the future, which, frankly, I think most of us would say, was one on which we do not know who would be the Prime Minister, but that didn't seem to trouble Kir Stahmer. And do you want to just explain what happened and whether or not this is evidence what some in Team Burnham think is a scorched earth policy by the PM. Yes, the long march to a UK EU reset summit took a step forward, july twenty second now inked as the date. And that was confirmed at a meeting, as you say, Sam in Eian between the PM and Ursla voner Lyen the EU Commission President, it's been such a tentative process that I was told, Starmer didn't even really know that there would be a firm day offer from VDL as he walked into the room. The question of what is in this deal is still a tussle we were discussing on the podcast only last week, Sound that there's been an attempt on the EU side to keep a deal for EU students on paying home fees so called home fees are the same rate as UK students in the university sector for any students under this scheme. That's very, very difficult for the UK to agree to the university sector up in arms about it. So there's still a big question about whether that will be either formally dropped or just nuanced in some way to give the EU side something to make this deal work The youth mobility arrangements are at the partart of it My sense is that that demand from the UK side for a hard cap on those numbers to avoid charges that it's immigration by the back door We're too much over the line, and I think that's why the Prime Minister could put out an exp post talking about together we will tackle the cost of living boost jobs and create opportunities for young people because they don't think that would be now being put out in a social post unless the lines around that are pretty much agreed. However, I was talking to my very well informed colleagues about this in the office late last night, the details on steel tariffs haven't actually featured much in the communications about the road to this reset They could still determine the outcome because there is a big tug of war over quota systems being planned by the EU cutting tariff free imports from non EU countries like the UK, pretty much by a half and retaliatory measures on the UK side, which we've got the EU worked up that we are setting quotas at low levels. So it's still interesting what needs to be conceded to get this deal to work Crucially, though, it is happening and the summit is going ahead And whoever is in post, I think's probably less important to his Prime Minister, it is going to go ahead. I do detect inside Whitehall, there are some bits where they just see this as a pincer movement on Andy Burnham and they're skeptical that we could get as much as we otherwise would do given the domestic chaos. I think there's a bigger point There comes a moment where the Prime Minister, if he you know, if people sense that he's using some of the leaders of state to try and cling on in the face of termmil that's almost certainly going to oust him. if that starts being actively bad for the UK, Could Antonio Romeo step in? There was that really interesting piece by the Institute for Government yesterday talking about the need for sensible transitions if we're to have a change of Prime Minister. There's also just been a sort of unwritten rule of the civil service that You know, that at moments where politicians are sort of particularly slugging it out, they step in to sort of protect the furniture from the damage that could be done I'm Everything looked a little bit stuck. I was very struck yesterday and I got an invite to a sort of cabinet minister briefing. Suddenly there was going to be wine there while everyone was doing it. And it all had a tiny bit of a farewell feel to the invitation Sad, I couldn't go. But there is just this sense that You know, a few people might be saying a little bit of their goodbyes this week. What would you say the mood was like in Cabinet? The shifting sandans of Makerfield are keeping the cabinet on the edge of their seats in terms of their career development plans. We've been hearing, for instance, that Shavana Mahood, that her team are very keen to say that she would rather stay in her brief as home secretary than move anywhere else. The foreign Secretary, V Cooper, also in very active mode at the moment. People who are supporting her pointing out that we've had an awful lot of foreign secretaries. I think it's about nine in ten years and so she is making the point that that is undermining continuity in the UK's ability to pursue relationships on the international stage and oddly enough, she wants to be the continuity candidate and stay in her job. What about Ed Milliband? I'm fascinated by this because there are stories around Sam that the relationship has pretty much broken down with the Prime Mister. Do you buy that? Absolutely. I mean, I think it's close to being non existent. Edmin Abance told Kissed Amour he should go. Everybody knows that you know, Ed Milliban and, you know, his team are helping Andy Burnham There there were rumourors at the weekend that Kirama could Sack, Edmiband even before the by elections There is a belief amongst some that you, if Kir Stahmer needs to shove out the door, then he could resign from his post at some point Friday, Saturday, Sunday to make clear that the Stahmer operation is just no longer viable, people say looking at Shibal Mammid as well in that in that context if Kistara decides to absolutely cling on there'll be consequences. So I just think that the chance that it gets ugly some of the longest turn backackers of Kirar are peeling away from him in the cabinet does feel like the sort of threat if Kiss Aa doesn't do the decent thing. Your point and that Andy Burnham could just have to leave the summit to Kir Stara. Well, if it's on july twenty second, that's after the breakup of Parliament. So we would have a transition of power outside of the parliamentary term. which would be quite extraordinary and I'm not going how that would all work. But anyway, that's why we have a permanent civil service. They can deal with conundrums like that We just have to deal with conundrums like the fact that there's so much to pack into twenty minutes every day and I have just heard the alarm go off.