Starmer's Fightback and Future Leadership

This is the Guardian Streeks of Northern Ireland need to return the cal Everyone with influence needs to do all in their power Thugs off our streets People are rightly sickened by the horrific attack. on Monday night in North Belfast. There were some very, very bad actors doing bad things, but the vast majority of those people who were out on the streets were not far right, We're not extremists, just really scared about what's going on in their communities. I'm Kern Stacey, and I'm Jessica Elgar You're listening to Politics Wekay. For the Gardian Just as we finish recording this week's regular episode of Politics Weekly, the Defense Secretary John Heley announced he was resigning from cabinet over military spending plans. You can hear me talk to my colleague Nosine Igbal about that on our sister podcast todayoday in Focus the latest This episode covers the violence in Belfast and here's from people on the doorstep in Makefield. Jess, thanks for joining us. Pleasure. We're here in Guardian headquarters, but over in Northern Ireland we've seen a second night of violence and rioting last night After the stabbing of a man in Belfast on Monday, last night, as readers of the Guardian would have seen on the front page this morning, police actually used water cannon on protesters in County Antrim Again, we had cars set on fire, riot vans attacked We know that British police been flown into hell The footage is absolutely extraordinary, isn't it? it feels strange to be watching that from so far away realising what's going on and what consequences it could have for the rest of the country Yeah, and you know, talking to colleagues who've been over there covering it, Roryie Carool and Hannah Alfman and correspondents who've been on the ground there. The things that they've seen have been incredibly disturbing you people patrolling up and down streets, looking into windows to perhaps see whether peopleople from ethnic minorities are living in the houses. Hannah wrote a very sort of terrifying part of her story where she describes seeing a woman at the window of a house and then protestors trying to break in and people call them to come back because there are two small girls living in the house. It's truly horrifying you know hearing how people are being targeted in their homes by these rioters. Yeah, there that was an extraordinary piece. Hannah has done some brilliant on the ground reporting and we will put some links in the show notes so that listeners can read some of her pieces. but There was one where she described the scene where rioters had turned up And some people were trying to record them on their phones. And the rioters actually dragged one person out because he was trying to use his phone And they said basically stopped doing that and he said, You're hurting me, I can't breathe. And you know, you could just feel the tension in that moment. but The importance of video footage of everything that's gone on over the last few days has been really striking to me. and it's very interesting that the rioters have realized this too. know that their actions can be described in as much detail as you want imp press coverage But without the video of them doing exactly what they've been doing, it just doesn't quite have the power of that original video we saw of the man being attacked. Yeah, and we've seen so much of that powerful video and there's know other witness testimony from the ground of people saying that you they had their phonone searched by other rioters to kind of go through it and Anyone who's reporting them there, I've got huge admiration for there bravery of going into that because it seems like an incredibly tense and dangerous situation Well, look, I mean, it feels a little bit like politics, maybe their country, certainly Northern Ireland are on edge at the moment. and in moments like that, We in Westminster, but I think the country as well turned to the Prime Minister and just see they have to say and what direction they are giving the country at this moment. Ker Starmer did release a statement on Wednesday morning. He said the scenes in Belfast last night were shocking and completely unacceptable There is no justification for the violence and disorder that we saw threatening our communities nor for those who encouraged it online or elsewhere It is clear that people were targeted last night because of their background and I will not tolerate it. Those responsible will feel the full force of the law Jessie iss worth talking about what's been powerful about his response to some of these incidents and let's maybe include the Henry Novak case in this as well and what hasn't worked you and I were both watching Ques a week or so ago when he stood up and he really went for Nigel Farage over his response to the Henry Novak case. Eing familyam have asked us not to respond. in the way that the leader of Reform has responded. They've asked us not to. They have lost their son in the most appalling circumstance. They make a simple plea of us as human beings Please not exploit that. And that felt like a real moment. This statement, however, I think, has come in for possibly some valid criticism and it's particularly his use of the word background there. What did you make that? Yeah, I think it's very striking that he doesn't refer to people's race because people clearly are being targeted because of their race, E every report on the ground observed that When you read background suggests and perhaps this is not the intention behind the statement that they're being targeted because of their immigration status. Whereas in fact, I think that we can see clearly that that's not the case because no one has got any idea about the immigration status of the people who are being targeted And so I can see why that statement comes in even though it seems like a very direct statement about zero tolerance, I can see why the choice of that phrase has come in for some criticism. And while that is going on on the ground, the political debate over here has kind of turned to something else which is about immigration and specifically about the common travel area that exists between Northern Ireland and the Republic. and this is an incredibly complicated sensitive situation. but the reason it's come up is because this suspect arrived in Northern Ireland from Dublin having flown in originally from France. Now There are some people who are calling this a loophole that basically because there isn't a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic peopleeople can cross it reasonably easily. We've had the shhadow Home Secretary Chris Philps saying that there needs to now be a review of border security measures in Northern Ireland. He's called it a back door and a loophole. Meanwhile, the homeome Office last night released a whole set of statistics about the number of people crossing that border and what they're doing to try and tackle it It feels like the attention of both main parties has gone to that Although having said that, Kemmy Baadenock had an interesting response this morning. Yeahes, she was on LBC and she said, I don't think that the common travel area is a problem because it's been working fine for a hundred years If you step back a bit, you know, all of us who have covered Brexit over that period and we're coming up to the tenth anniversary. The idea that it could be called a loophole when you've spent a decade talking about a hard border in Ireland is truly extraordinary bare face stuff from some politicians And you know, as Kemy Bennoock said, it's existed for a hundred years. and Henry Benn, the Northern Ireland Seretary also saying No one's going to leap into doing anything about the common travel area But that I think makes it all the more extraordinary that we saw some of this briefing coming out of the home offffice suggesting that it was a loophole and that it was the Achilles heel of the immigration system. That's right. I mean if you're going to start unpicking the agreement between Northern Ireland and the Republic in that way, you're going to create a hell of a lot of other problems Another interesting aspect of this is our colleague, Lisa Carrool was flagging this morning when we saw her is that in the Republic, about ninety percent of asylum seekers there have come from Northern Ireland, have come from the rest of Britain This works both ways and if it's going to be tackled If it is a problem to be tackled, it's going to there's going to be problems on both sides One thing I think that the government will start to talk about, especially next week is the social media response because we've seen a lot of this being inflamed, especially on X, where Elon Musk is isn't tweeting a lot about violence over in the UK. Obviously Tommy Robinson has been agitating We are going to get, we think next week, although this might get pushed back. details of the government's plans for social media ban for under sixteenths. Now One thing I'm told that they might do in that is to say that certain platforms, platforms like YouTube, for example, have to give priority to reputable news sources such as the BBC and ITV which would be very interesting. and you know, let's see if this works But I know that there are people in government who think that they have not done anywhere near enough They to crack down on social media companies that they think are deliberately inciting violence, but be to promote news sources that might actually be able to undercut some of those narratives. Yeah, and this debate has been going on you know within government since the twenty twenty four riots just after Kia Stara became Prime Minister. And in the aftermath of those riots where Elon Musk, the owner of X was clearly whipping up some of those tensions, talking about civil wars. There There were a lot of senior people in government, including very close allies of the Prime Minister, who wanted to make a show of the government coming offX, who wanted to pull departments off it.. They didn't do it in the end. And not only have they not done it, but they still use it as their primary platform for making announcements. You know, We've just read out a statement from the Prime Mister which you posted on X And I'm told that one of the people who's the most cautious about making a statement about X or tampering with social media algorithisms is the Prime Minister himself. There seems to be something about it being urged to and advised by lots of people around him to do something about this. There's something and maybe it's his background as a human rights lawyer, you know he's a big advocate for kind of free speech in his previous job know maybe there's something about that that makes him personally feel uneasy. Having said that, like you, I'm hearing from people in government that this is probably the direction of travel that you end up doing things to adapt those algorithms so that more reputable news sources, hopefully like the Guardian are put in people's feeds more prominently than you know kind of far right fringe. videos or podcasts or tweets. And I should probably put a disclaimer here. The Guardian is not on X but I am and I think you are I still use it Yeah. And we have talked about this kind of personally within our team about whether we stay there. What I would say is The audience is still bigger onx. generally I feel that being on platforms and speaking to audiences you might not necessarily reach is better than coming off although I do fully understand the arguments that things are now so bey on the pale that you shouldn't be on there. but we are on there. So we should say that if there's any sense of hypocrisy from us. It might be worth just talking about reform very briefly here. Nigel Farraj came out of hibernation. yesterday. He did kind of surprisingly so. Yeah after fifty days of press conference. Usually he does one every week. Yeah, and takes questions from everyone, right? And if we were going to give him you know, even some credit, you and I have both been at these press conferences. they can go on for hours because he takes a question from everyone in the room, even magazine writers in the room who've just come there to observe the atmosphere and get quite surprised when they're called for a question. And that has been his tactic as a bit of a kind of Tumpy and flood the zone constantly being there, constantly saying more being available. He hasn't done that pretty much since the Guardian Broke the story about his five million pound donation. Yeah. So he's obviously feeling under pressure about that donation and it was interesting he didn't get asked about that from those who were allowed to ask questions at his press conference. in Makerfield on Wednesday, I should say the Guardian was not allowed to ask a question. and we should also say that Nigel Farage denies any wrongdoing regarding donation of five million pounds But as well as being under pressure from that, I think he's also trying to find his way a little bit with the violence that we've seen in Northern Ireland and the unrest we saw after the Henry Novak case After that Henry Novak case, as I was mentioning earlier, his response was to say that he felt pure cold rage and the Prime Mister and others accused him of inciting violence at that point Yesterday at his press conference talking about the Northern Ireland rioting, he said There is Absolutely no doubt in my mind that this man should not have been in this country. It is just as simple as that He entered the country illegally. And is it any surprise? in Belfast and elsewhere are scared. By the way, there's no evidence they enter the country legally, but there we go. He says that that does not justify what happened in Belfast last night, but then I thought's really interesting, he said, the vast majority of those people who were out on the streets in Belfast last night were not far right, We were not extremists, We're just people really scared about what's going on in their communities and about the lack of government action. A little bit there in that final sentence or two, struck me of Donald Trump calling fire right Aists good people on both sides. The interesting thing here is it used to be the case that he really knew where the line was between his supporters, his party and the far right Whether it's the rise of Rore or Tommy Robinson gaining a bigger audience on X He seems to be blurring those lines a bit. I think that that's right. And you can also see that not just from Farage's comments, but the comments of Zia Yusef using words which would have been even a few years ago would you would not have heard come from mainstream politicians, like calling other politicians traitors to the country It just shows I think how far the discourse has gone And as he say herean like he's feeling pressure to the right. He's feeling pressure from Rupert Lowes Rore who I was in Makerfield on Monday, We'll talk a little bit about that later. but you know he's got a big presence there in that Makerfield by election, maybe looking at ten to fifteen percent of the vote if you drive around, you know, there's a lot of restore posters and he's feeling that pressure to be the kind of anti establishment outrider on the right. think that that's pushing him towards the kind of language which blurs the lines that he has previously worked very hard to maintain. Well, that's a good moment to pause for a minute because when we come back, we're going to hear more about your day in Makefield earlier this week Hello, I'm Max Ruston the World Cup is back and F footbot Weekly is going daily. If you want award winning soccer coverage from a podcast that's been over analyzing the game for more than twenty years and still hasn't run out of opinions or just repeats the same ones over and over again, this is where you'll find it. We'll be producing thirty three daily episodes across the tournament, breaking down all the action, the results and of course the drama. Can the US make it out of the group stage and into the spotlight on the biggest stage? World Cup daily, listen, wherever you get your podcasts or watch full episodes on YouTube Welcome back. Jess, as we were saying before the break, we're now one week away from the Makerfield B election, a by election that could decide the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom You were there on Monday going out on the doorstep with labour activists in particular at the risk of asking the most cliched question in political journalism What was the mood like? The mood in the sort of Labour HQ, which is in this old Labour club in Ashton area of the constituency. It's like seeing the balance of power tip in real time in like a pub garden. It's very, very strange. There are all these MPs there were about twenty, maybe more than that over the course of the day, MPs coming to campaign. They're all kind of queuing round the block to sign in to do their hours for Andy Burnham F calling out MPs to ministers, there's people who are very sort of keia loyalists, kind of looking at their shoes in the background while people crowd around trying to get the attention of Louise Hig, who is running the campaign for Andy Burnham. So you can just see how it's the centre of gravity it feels like in British politics has shifted away from Westminster, Its in Wigan now. It's a quite extraordinary p watch it. In a pub garden in Wigan. Yeah, that is amazing Well you spoke to a few people on the doorstep, but also MPs as they were going around. Let's hear some of that now. We're going to start with the veteran left wing MP Andy MacDonald. Do think Andy is relatable. He understands what's going on in people's lives? So It's imperative we win it and that we have a complete reset for our party in our movement When you speak to people today, They sort of understand the national implications of something like this. so they understand that He's coming not just to kind of represent Makeerfield, but he wants he wants to get to number ten. He wants to change the Labour Party. want to you know that their frustrations with the Labour Party. he's trying to say, I understand those frustrations so I dont want to change you as much as you do Yeah, there is that common purpose. But it's that People fed up. with how their lives have gone backwards in many instances. And I think He shares that analysis, but also understands how Whitehall or Westminster fails. And he's come to Greater Manchester as mayor and he's made things work So that knowledge and experience is going to be invaluable if he returns to Parliament and obviously he Sts for leadership and gets it There will be a seismic change in how we go about our business. And Have you ever seen a campaign like in all your years in Parliament? Have you ever seen aamp you know I've never seen the amount of MPs who come to campaign, you know, the amount of the map of engagement there is as well, in you know, can we see that the sign is absolutely everywhere in this constituency. Yeah, that is unusual. I mean I came in a by election and I was blessed that colleagues came from far and wide not on this scale. There's been a real willingness, you know, from you know, from various segments of the party. It's not just all, you know, you know predictable. It's actually a broad sweep of people who are coming. And that is I've never seen anything quite like that Yeah, you ye, I mean, I've seen you can see in all the photos of all the MPs that there's people who you know, came out for, you know declared for Wres or they're all lots of them are here minis serving ministers. all feels quite surre in many ways. That's a bit strange for ministers to be saying in the one hand they're going to be here they're going to be doing it. and they've got to do it. They've got to go out on the media and say and talk the talk But it's all a bit awkward to say the very least to say that yeah and I'm loyal member of Kest Aers at cabinet. Admirably honest from handy McDon there. I'll just say there's so many strange facets of this by election One thing that I noticed was there's a story in the Fancial Times today really interesting that during a hustings Andy Burnham committed to support for Waspie womomen. Now we don't know exactly what level of support he's talking about, but that's obviously potentially quite a major fiscal commitment don't know if the FT happened to be at those hustings. I noticed it got written up from London. I think there's a chance that labour people from within that meeting maybe brief that story out. I certainly know that labour people were texting that story round last night, supporters of K Stama, trying to get it attention. So you actually have a situation where some people in the party are already before the by election happens, actively briefing itst their own candidate. Yeah, and I think that that's one of the things which is going to be very difficult over the course of the next few months, depending on who becomes you know if Ander Ben becomes Prime Minister, if there's a leadership contest or not, the one thing that no one can avoid is the party is deeply split. And there are people who feel as aggrieved as those people who want change from the top who feel aggrieved on behalf of Kistama. certainly those MPs who feel that veryery, very strongly. Cabinet ministers feel that very strongly. Especially there are people who, you know, don't have a lot of love for Andy Burnham in the Labour Party. They see him as you know someone who's stuck by Corbyn lots of people to represent for him about that, someone who left during the very hard years of the Labour Party and went to the Mayeralty in Greater Manchester, and someone who did not necessarily work for that twenty twenty four victory now coming in to kind of reap the rewards of that victory. Lots of Andy Burnham supporters would tell that narrative very very differently, but if you don't like Andy Burnham, you know those are the kind of grievances that people cling on to And so bringing the party back together when people are already very actively briefing against each other and briefing against the man who could be the next prime Minister, within a matter of months bode well for partarty unity. Yeah. well That's fascinating and we're to talk in a little bit about the fightback that K Stara seems to be mounting from Westminster. But just stay with Makerfield for a moment, you talked to quite a few undersided voters. these These are people who could hold their the keys to the constituency, right? What are they say? Well, so at the moment, the Labour Party has had so many activists come up that they're knocking on each door, they're going on their fifth round of knocking on the doors, which means that there are every single door in the everyvery single door will be five times by this weekend. So you don't have to poll thisstent No they know to everybody. So the data is good actually and apparently the data in Gordon Denton was not that good So they think they know exactly where these undecided voters are. They were about seventeen percent when I went up, although people tell me now that's narrowed quite a lot. So And the aim is to get Andy Burnham in front of as many of those people as possible at their doorstep. so they know where they are and they want him to meet them, essentially. The narrative often is they've voted labour in twenty twenty four, they've voted reform only a few weeks ago in those local council elections, and could they be tempted back to labour by Andy Burnham? And you know that's the ask Roughly ten thousand people o trying to swing Okay, so let's listen to what they said. No, it's actually Andy Burnham. Just for the simple fact of for Manchester and the Manchester City Centre and what he does for them is absolutely brilliant. I just love all his policies and he just looks after the people. That's the thing he doesn't over excel. Do you get whatid Yeah ye overpomise anything. What he gives he gives and that's it. whereas Kerami he overpromises and then backs down Be he wants to win votes. This guy wins votes because of who he is. He's just a nice guy. He's a lovely guy. Thank you so much. No that's nice. Yeah. I've been a labour manan most of my lives. totally disillusion with what we've got here. We need someone inspirational to come along. What do you think of Andy Burden? Well, I think it's a lightweight personally. I do honest say. It's tried three times. and the fact that it's using Makerfield as a stepping stone, quite frankly, to try and get into Westminster. Do do you think about otting reform Well, I think reform, the majority of stuff they've been saying these last few years when Fage when they all started to be on up is what the majority of people were thinking. It sounded like what you were saying to the campuser who was here, you were kind of prepared to give Andy Berham a hearing and you haven't know. It No. I know Andy Burnham is far too left It isn't Ki Astara, it's is pololicies and Rachel Reeves, they've done them. they've had fourteen years to prepare for this and they' in two years This country has gone even worse Do you feel disillusioned generally with everyone? I do, but I'll tell you who I do admire Kemmy Badenock. And it's not because she's conservative, I like her as she's come in, she's come from a foreign country, worked a way up. and I think people don't Look at her because she's past conservative. What do you feel about this this constituency being sort of in the national spotlight. Do you think it's good for it or do you think it know? I think in one way, the only beneficial thing that it has is the fact that it's raised how much we've had labour in Wigon and St. Helens's for Oh, probably thirty odd years. with've no health centre. Andy Burnham is not going to correct that because we had Josh Simmons. he's done nothing for it. He'll get to Westminster and if you go into Wiggan and you're go into St. Helens's, the derelict now That's absolutely fascinating. real mix of views there. That first person that you spoke to, the person who said that Starmer over prromises and then U delivers, but Andy's, you know, a real person and essentially you'll vote for him because of who he is. That's exactly why his supporters think that he has to become Pime Minister because There's not many other politicians that get that said about them by anybody. It's so interesting when you see, the way they're doing the labour campaign out there. I was there when the managers of the campaign centre were sort of giving their briefing to the activists, you go in, you say, I'm from Andy Burnham's campaign.. You don't say I'm from the Labour Party. Everything has stickers that say Andy on it or I mean some of it is they're giving out souvenir beer mats with Andy's face on it they's say bwed round here. It's almost a bit too on the nose. I say wait, wait, do you have one? I do. Yeah. not too on the nose. You can see the MP's kind of shoving the head, you know, those little souvenirs. We've got a bit of a collection of some of those in our room in Parliament or lots of graveyard of leadership campaigns past But yes, it is extreme centered around Andy Berner's personality. And you know what? I think that there is another quite interesting thing about the way that they're running the campaign. There is no anti reform stuff It is not an attack led campaign. It is very much a kind of Andy Burnham is the person to bring about change whichich is very different to the way that Labour have been running elections since that twenty twenty four general election. Could it work with anyone else other than Andy Burnham where you sort of disregard the reform attack lines? I don't know, but it'll be interesting to see whether that works better. Jess, you talk about the people running the campaign. let's hear from One of the two campaign managers, Louise Hig, you were talking to her about exactly how they've been running their campaign The numbers of activists that we've had through the door have been almost impossible to manage. The field team have been absolutely exceptional. On Saturday alone, we had about four hundred fifty activists here and by about three o'clock in the afternoon, we knocked half the constituency. I think Quion timeim was a really defining moment in the campaign When we were knocking that evenings, like nearly everyone was like, Oh yeah, I'm watchingQion Te tonight. It'd fascinating to see what their viewing figures are because I feel like that was the first time I'd watched it in about ten years as well. First time Louise Hag had watched it in about ten years, she made her name on it. I was gonna to say she's made her name by being on it. I would say that's a really interesting thing From a media point of view, as well, because it proves that legacy media can still unite people in a way that very little else can Anyway, while you were out in Makefield, our colleague Pippa Kira and I were in Westminster and then as you've come back you as well, have been trying to pick up on the signs of a Kirstarmer fight backack because the Prime Minister is not going to take this potential defeat lying down Again, just really interesting listening to what people have said. We wrote a piece about it Link to that in the show notes as well Just give me a sense of what you're picking up from the Kstama looyalists and what their theory for how their man can stay in power is. Yeah, I mean been talking over the past couple of days, as you have as well, Kiran and Pippetu to some of the sort of closest friends of the Prime Mister,, rather than necessarily the most senior ministers, but people who he sort of trusts and are his confidants, it feels very clear that he is determined to fight any leadership contest one. person described him as hell bent on doing so this feeling that he himself has won this massive majority, that he went through all of those years as Labour leader in opposition He's not just going to surrender it now to Andy Berner and a man who he has like long term animosity with. they have not a good relationship over the years, people around Kirst Starmer and I think the Prime Minis himself has always felt that Andy Beron pops up at a time when things are hard for K Starmer to kind of remind everyone of his presence and to make things know, arguably worse for him by flirting with the idea of the leadership himself So you know, for anyone, but particularly not for Andy Burnham, I think there is a feeling that he D aroundy Burnham to challenge him to get those eighty one names and he would be prepared to fight even a three month leadership contest I mean, that does seem extraordinary. One of the things that people are pointing out who are close to K arara is that there was a Ugov poll doneum of Labour members, which showed roughly that about sixty percent of Labour members would vote for Andy Burnham in any leadership contest and forty percent Kir Stara. Now they say that's only a ten point swing that they need. But that is still a ten point swing. There's quite a lot they would need to do to convince people to back Banido rather than Andy Benner. Yes. and of course, what you might have, you know, at the moment of that leadership campaign is that you have sort of senior members of Kiest Stamma's cabinet on that day to back his opponent. I find it very difficult how you maintain political momentum and come back from those kind of figures and win under those circumstances. Yeah, well let's just imagine, for example, and this is not going on any particular information, Let's imagine that people like Ed Millerand, maybe even Shabana Mahmud couple of other people quit rom the cabinet, are we really thinking that the Prime Minister then manages to stay in position rather than having to say, well, I better step down now. That just seems like quite an extraordinary scenario to paint Yeah. and you know, people have been positing last night, you know how he might be able to win over the Labour members. they talk about that campaign between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith which was actually a little bit closer than people remember it being. It was about sixty forty as well.. But a lot of the Labour members who might not have voted for Jeremy Corbyn in that first round of the leadership were just resentful of Owen Smith and the NP who didn't like Jeremy Corbn for sparking this leadership, especially in the aftermath of Brexit, which they thought was the bigger picture. They felt that the party was turning inwards was fighting itself when there was a huge, bigger picture going on And people around Kiaarmer want to remind Labour members of how they felt then, though Kirara was on the opposite side of that of that leadership contest. know and saying why are we focusing inwards? We've got a big majority, one that we never thought that we would get. We've got three years left of government, we've got huge things going on in the world. know they will say that things are beginning to turn around with the ecomy, although of the effects of this Iran will be and how that might change too. But that will be their argument and they have seen Labour members be convinced by that argument before. Well, someome people when we do this podcast criticise us on social media for referring to anonymous sources and people that they can't possibly track down and interrogate. But look, it's not just anonymous allies of the are saying this. I've been speaking to one of his closest allies, Steve Reid, the Housing Secretary And he said this on the record. No, we're less than two years from the last general election. one by a landslide by a man who is one of only four leaders that have ever won a majority at a general election for the Labour Party in history And I think the guy needs to be given the chance to complete the job he was elected to do and I know that is his What do you make of the candidate saying halfway through a by election that he would fight a leadership contest if he makes it down to Westmou? Is that a helpful thing to do week or so out from a by election? What it was caveatted. It was if there was a challenge and there isn't one I think Anne is a great dark guy. He's done amazing things in Manchester. We all need to work together because we were elected as the Labour partarty, not to ape what we saw the Tories do, when they fought each other rather than fought for the country. we were elected to bring stability and deliver the change that was outlined in our manifesto and that's what we're focused on doing You know Kst Amor as well, as I said earlier, what kind of mindset do you think the Prime Minister is in right now? It feels very turbulent down here You know, I don't have to guess how he feels I know how he feels because we speak to each other and he is determined to deliver the change that he was elected deliver I want to see him see that job through, and I want to see the Labour Party come together behind Ker. Of course, all this talk of a fight back, I should say, has been completely upended by the resignation of the Defence Secretary, John Healy. So we'll see how that plays out in the next couple of days And before we go, we should say there is a full list of the candidates in that Makefield B election on our podcast page. Well, look that's all from us for today. Thank you very much for listening. And if you haven't already, please like and follow Politics weeekly to make sure you keep getting our episodes in your feed But before you go, I just wanted to tell you that the Guardian's Award winning football weeekly podcast is turning into World Cup daily Join Max Rushton, Barry Glen Denning and the team as they discuss every big match and every big moment every day of the World Cup. Listen now wherever you get this podcast or watch on YouTube This episode was produced by Sam Grreay, music L for Cutier executive producer is MazZ Ep Tahj Bye bye. Bye is the guardian?