Burnham's Socially Conservative Shift and Farage

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 Tuesday, june the ninth. Defense Secretary John Heley will today say that he's going to use national security to force more defense equipment to be built in Britain. As he argues this afternoon that Britain can still make the big calls it needs to defend itself in future But after a messy tense lead up to the defefense investment plan, Does even he really believe that My name is Sam Coates of Sky News. And I'm Anne McKlvoy from Politico, International pressure on Britain to step up On Deence is growing President Zelenskyy used an interview in the Guardian to push the UK to raise its own spending levels Britain is on the cusp of taking part in a joint mind sweeping exercise in the Straits of Hormuz even before a ceasefire The NATO summit in Turkey, which Donald Trump may or may not attend, is just a month away. But a firm plan to raise UK spending and what to spend it on remains onlear. Yeah, it's just been so messy this defeence investment plan. rememinder podcast listeners will know this, but it was meant Jube last year. in the autumn still hasn't emerged. It could come in some form on Thursday, possibly in a cutdown version, but even that subject to eleventh hour wrangling. umntld it has to go to the presses at twelve today if it's to make that Thursday deadline. But what I am keep I keep being told is that there is deep unhappiness within the various services of what's likely to come The thing I was picking up last night An is that amongst some senior military figures, there's a bit of an information blackout. about what this defense investment plan will actually amount to told some of the individual service chiefs don't actually know the numbers in it, even though, as I say, it could be about to go to print So that's the context.. Now, we remember at Christmas time, the MOD said that there was a twenty eight billion pound black hole in the defense budget But the compromise that's been arrived at seems to be somewhere in the region of thirteen point five to fifteen billion pounds and And the thing is that's over a four year time horizon. So if you're gonna split that down by year, that's a three to four billion pound a year boost, which when you look at it in the overall scale of White Hall and defence spending isn't a huge amount about amount. I am told Defense Secretary John Heeeley has been deeply unhappy about it and number ten in recent days, although his team would deny that We'll be able to judge for ourselves when he appears before the GMB Union confference later today And you've got sources all over this industry and this brive. What have you heard about what's going on right now between the MOD and the Treasury number ten in recent days. Well, I think there has been I kind of reversse past the parcel suamit. each One of these entities and some of the players within them, and if you take the chiefs of the serervices, the MOD slash John Healley, is not quite the same thing, obviously because he's the political face of a massive defense bureaucracy. And then you've got number ten. in each case, I think everyone else thinks someone else should have been getting on with it earlier John Healey is often said in the MOD that you should have maybe got a grip on that department a bit earlier in his tenure. but that said, he's been incredibly active and proactive on the international stage, and I think he and his supporters would say, he's been doing what a defeense seecretary should do, which is going out there, batting for Britain, creating those alliances. And there does seem to be a bit of a darkening of the mood between group and number ten, and I think particularly a tendency that some have ascribeed to the Prime Minister say, why didn't you tell me about this earlier? You should have brought me solutions earlier. The next group of critics would be those who say, well, true enough, fact maybe all true, and that's a classic to and fro with number ten. But John Healley is a loyalist, he's a man of the party. He's been in the treasury in previous jobs. Was he so kind of deeply embroiled in this machinery of state that he didn't bang the table, which is another way you could go about it, right one described for me one of the chiefs called the Ben Wallace model. You just make yourself so inconvenient that the question of raising spending comes onto the table a bit earlier. You get the character of the Defense seecretary playing into this quite strongly. Well today, he wants to be on the front foot with this announcement that it's all going to be good for UK PLC, whatever happens in the investment plan. Yeah. One of the other problems we've got the Defense investment plan is you've got prrint over the water syndrome. Look, it's plain both to the MOD establishment and to our NATO allies and global partners that we are quite possibly on the custom of a change of Prime Minister. the question is kind of what does Andy Burnham think and want. And I just think this idea that, for instance U number ten, number eleven are going to be able to raid the capital budgets of somebody like Ed Milliband who is fiercely protective of his interests and his department, that you can take money away from him to give it to defence. Well you do just wonder how long that would survive a sort of Andy Burnnam government. So you know there's an uncertainty about whether or not all of this is real. So unsurprisingly I'm told, our international allies are kind of going to Whitehall going, well, we need a bit of a readout about what happens next as well as what's happening now because we don't understand what's going on in in the UK And there's another thing that will unnerve people and This is one of those things will probably be denied but remain sufficiently known in Whitehall and Westminster to be factored into calculations, which is, you know, for better or worse, even though John Heane's had a bumpy time with Kiss arm recently, he's one of those cabinet ministers not thought to have a good relationship with Andy Bernam The two names I keep hearing. John Healley and Evete Cooper, who are not necessarily going to end up being Andy Burnham favorites. you know, Andy Burnham stood against Evette Cooper in that twenty fifteen leadership contest, some people don't think that the relationship ever recovered from that. and there's just apparently something about the chemistry or lack of it between the Fense Secretary and the Metr Mayor of Manchester that doesn't quite work out. So injects a new layer of uncertainty into the proceedings, whether or not we get the defefense Investment plan. on Thursday. It's strange that John Healley shouldn't get on well with Andy Burnham because Andy Burnham started his career on tank World magazine. You knowateful awful lot about tanks. I've had occasion to discuss this with Andy Burnham in the past. So maybe can this podcast Offer you know dead beers all round, they can sit and discuss tanks and APCs together. Maybe this is the route. Before quickly seguue onto a music magazine and from there to special advisor to Tessa Jal, there's some facts for you in return. I was gonna say that is like an extra five points on University Challenge on Andy Burnham stududies Hey will give something of a crowd pleasing speech today at the GMB promising more jobs and more work for British companies. Now he'll be telling the trade unions through them the wider labour movement that there are going to be many more national security exemptions for defence Contracts are low one would have thought quite a lot of those have been put in place in the last three to four years anyway. I think what it really means, Sam is more capabilities promised to be built in Britain and that would, of course, be good, as he puts it for members jobs I'm catching a whiff of British jobs for British workers as Gordon Brown once put it And John Healley will say that in large defense contracts There will be requirements for subcontracts to be placed with UK based companies or guarantee competition so that the UK is not O. which I think is actually when you look at it as a a sort of codicil that just means you have the right to compete. It doesn't mean you've got the right to get it But that's me reading the small print there. I think the aim is for this to look like a win win for the UK, but it must be said the defence industry does have some doubts and reservations on this because it's fair enough politically to try to link defense investment to concrete outcomes and to jobs, but at the same time, youre trying to say that you're going to do more in the UK on very complex projects where you need lot of input, lots of parts the supply chain can be very difficult. and it's slowing down anyway because of the fraught global situation and the reservations about getting things from China that we maybe once have gone ahead with Yeah, I think it sounds easier than it is to deliver unless you slow down some of the projects that you've just promised So to speak with the other side of your mouth to speed up. would you make of it? Yeah, I was reading a Chassolam House paper overnight. That Chassam House paper also basically sets a test for the defefense investment plan? you know, arere we going to continue pretending we can defend the whole world or are we going to focus on defending the UK and the highigh North? So you, does it make the big choice here or not but really it's about investment and what kit we're going to purchase. and that's the nuts and bolts. And that's why so much of industry has been waiting on this paper. And there's quite a warning actually from the German French very ill fated fighter jet program called FCAS, which has just been officially scrapped in about the last day or so. And one of there is a potential competitor, a conglomerate in which Britain is involved together with Japan and Italy and then there's another competitor which is it's actually you based on the old Sab, you know, like as in those very nice Swedish cars where they've gone into into fighter jet programs that attempting to compete for Sweden. One of the things that Sound that' said to have gone wrong with FCS, but there' also a bit of a worry about these sort of multi national projects is that they basically give too much weight to international prestige to domestic economic growth, to how many jobs they could get for their country. And somewhere along the line, the project just goes badly wrong because it's not focused. O simply the success of what is supposed to come out of the other end for defense and security purposes. So there's just a little bit of a warning going on there, I would say. That's interesting, not least because it's a warning about the role of the state when it comes to the market, which actually has application arguably elsewhere like here in Manchester where that seems to be the blueprint for the I'm coming to you from the twenty second forum of the skyscrapers of Central Manchester the B elections in nine days time. It's a Tuesday. So I've got the weekly UGv Sky Times phasing tention, Reform UK on top on twenty five percent. That's down too So the Novaker fair has not given them a lift, if anything. a slight pairing back or bit within the margin of error Tys in Labour tide on nineteen Lib end's on twelve and Green's on forty down one. So Dorian and Labor is kind of holding up there. interesting, particularly given the levels of labour turmil. Reform' certainly bit down there, aren't there? It could be the impact of Rupert Le's restore That is the talk of reform circles at the moment, how much that competitive party is affecting them. Certainly no bounce there from the novak killing fallout and Nigel Farage positioning himself on that. And both consonservatives and Labour edging up a tat on their previous tullies. alough I see they keep saying even Stehven's telly in this this polling. So neeither doing very well, but both on around the same totals you are up in Manchesters, you say, what are you picking up? Right, I've spent almost thirty six hours. in Manchester, not in the large part in Makerfield, but looking across ranging across greater Manchester where antibol has been met for the last nine years, all sorts of conversations with people who've worked with him and for him. I'm very struck. by the sort of the vibe is that the by election for labor seems more or less in hand. They're not complacent More or less it's on track and I'm not getting very many red warning signals Nobody in Labor circles who I'm talking to seems to have much of a clearer idea what happens at ten o'clock on june eighteenth onwards. Andy Burner's reputation will be set by what happens in the hours after that victory, if it is a victory What doess he say about Kiz Dara and a challenge? Does he stay in Manchester or go to London How does he respond to the fact he's just created a mayalty vacancy publicly ask for talks with the PM thoughts of Chatter about that at the moment, but does he or doesn't he? and when and how? Does he do so? Perhaps not unsurprisingly, we don't know the answers to those questions But what is unnerving, some people is that theyd be sure Who's drawing up the answers to that question? Who is the team? Who's running the team? Who will is the chief of staff be Because you know, people are skeptical that it'll be one of the MPs who's running the by election and by all accounts that you know they're running the by election well. But MPs typically aren't chief of staff because they've got other jobs You know, it's might end up in cabinet. The campaign insists to me, Sue Greay isn't involved. She's friends with Andy Burnham but doesn't have any kind of formal planning role,though I think she's been making tools to whitehaul U And here's one of the sort of slightly bigger problems here with Andy Burnham. There aren't many long marches, political specifically political long marches. He doesn't have an extensive circle of allies who know him well to draw on beyond his long term aid, Kevin Lee U and, you know, this suggests Andy Burnham iss going to have to put to put together a team while the plane's in the air, but consisting of people he doesn't know terribly well and it's all a little bit opaque And to that's the thing I think that I'm picking up at the moment, who is going to help Andy Burnham deal with the much trickier things from o'cock on june eighteenth. And that's an opportunity, isn't it for Kia Stara if you're one of the please stay K groupings while you're seizing on every bit of uncertainty as Burnham makes his moves and there are lots of stories around today about Downing Street's efforts in this regard, including my politico colleague Dan Bloom, who has heard that junior ministers around the cabinet table have clear been in touch with the Prime mininister or he's been reaching out to them to say that he will fight for their jobs, which is another way of putting it, right? because there are certainly some people who will be fearing getting shufftled out in the event the marcher of Berham whether that has any real result in the long term the short term now in terms of retaining KS Tarama remains to be seen. But I think what stands out here is that the Pime Minister us to know that he is serious about attempting to stay. And that just adds another level of problem, doesn't it? Vandy Byham. How does he handle that Now I know that Burnham is going to be doing an event today on neighborhood policing. And one of the things that I think we're beginning to see there is that shift Berham obviously knows a lot about poling a lot about Manchester, but there's a bit more of emphasizing at least the way I'm seeing it is the kind of slightly more socially conservative, almost blue labourish rebranding away from the old soft left as possibly Red warall friendly or possibly because he knows at some point he may be having to talk to the whole country and not just those factions to the left of Kir Starmer who wanted to have him in office. So I don't know if that's something you're observing on the ground there, Sam. Completely. He gave an interview to BBC of Banchester yesterday where he was talking about broken Britain. He was talking about, you know the issue of small boats suggesting that the country isn't functioning properly That's the kind of language that we get from reform often, you know, he was arguing that fewer asylum seekers should be housed in deprived areas and making the point local authorities are often just not consulted at all about where asylum seekers are placed and you know, he's already said he's going to sort of look again at the system of contracts here. But one phrase absolutely left off the page of the transcript where he said I do agree with Farage. you know, what we've got to get back is a sense of order I agree with Farage, right. They've got it He's saying thingsings are broken. I agree with Farraage It's I think actually it's a sign of his confidence that he's feels able to go there on certain issues. I suspect there will be some discomfort in Labour circles at him choosing to do that.