Aberdeen South and Energy Policy

Labour have won the crucial by election in Makerfield and they have won it big. Nearly twenty five thousand votes for Andy Burnham fifty five percent of all ballots cast. These are normally words that would delight the leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister Kierstammer, but it was in effect Andy Burnham's application to the Labour Party to oust Kirstarmer and put him into Downing Street instead. So does this thump ing victory won in an area where reform battered labour in the local elections in May spell the end of the Starmer Premiership? How has it come to this and what happens next? Also, what does the big win for the Tories in Aberdeen South against the SNB mean for the UK and the Scottish Government's policies on energy? It was quite a night in British politics. This episode is brought to you by Fuse Energy. 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This episode is brought to you by Nord VPN. Now we both travel an extraordinary amount with work and in our line of business it's hard to fully switch off. Because news and politics tend not to take a summer recess. But keeping up with Westminster, when abroad means constantly logging in to all manner of dodgy, airport and cafe wi fi networks. Don't we know about it? That's the problem. Leaves personal data completely vulnerable to hackers. And that's where NordVPN comes in. It encrypts your connection, keeps your data private wherever you are. And the big thing is being able to switch virtual location back to the UK. It means you can access all your usual Absent content and not miss out on anything while you're away. Plus it automatically connects to the nearest server so you aren't stuck with sluggish internet. It really is the ultimate travel tool, even for those who actually try to relax on holiday. To get the best discount of your NordVPN plan, go to nordvn dot com slash politics. The link is in the episode description. I sold my car in Carbona last night. Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong. So what's the problem? That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes as smoothly. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood is this table wood? I think it's laminate. Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch. Sell your car today on Car vana. Pick up these Maya apply. Welcome to The Rest of Politics with me Rory Stewart. And me Alistair Campbell. So Rory, Andy Burnham has one and he has one big . Amazing . So just to put it in context, this is the by election in Makerfield and this was prime reform territory. So two thirds of voters in this constituency had voted for Bre xit. And in the local elections very recently, just a few weeks ago , labour were twenty points behind reform . So reform could have won this seat comfortably . But Andy Burnham has won this with a twenty point lead. He's increased his party vote share by ten . And this is right against the national trend. So as you , I'm sure are going to get onto, Abdeen South, as you mentioned, is now labelled went down nineteen points and it went down eighteen points in our barrels, but it went ten points up in this constituency with Andy Burnham . And basically wipes out Greens, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives. The Greens, Lib Dems got about one percent, Conservatives got about two percent, and even restoring reform together wouldn't have been enough to beat him . So it's looking very, very strong. There are some caveats around the corner but pretty strong back over to you. Yeah, I think a lot of the when you talk about the two Scottish by elections which were caused by former Westminster Rempees winning seats in the Hollywood Parliament in the recent Scottish elections. I think a lot of tactical voting going on there and a lot of tactical voting to stop reform in Makerfield. But listen, I was talking to people in the campaign last night and even late on they were they were very confident Andy Bern am was going to win, but they were worried that a win might be tainted if restore votes, the far far right party ate in to reform the just right, very right wing populist party, and that became a deciding factor. But it wasn't needed because as you say, fifty five percent of the vote meant that didn't get near . I mean checking a few historical footload story, you've got to go back to the time when I was one year old , Torrington, nineteen fifty eight, Mark Bonham Carter won for the Liberals for a bigger differential turnout from a general election to a by election. What does a differential turnout mean, sorry? The increase in the vote in a by election as opposed to the parliamentary election. It's normally lower in a by election. This is considerably higher. So he's driven out people who didn't vote last time around. And then to go back for arrising the actual numbers for a by election candidate standing for the party of government going up on this scale, you've got to go back to Labour, Kevin McNamara, Hull , nineteen sixty six , a year more remembered for football rather than politics. The two things you're saying there is that apart from the actual results, the two norms in a by election are usually or sometimes fewer people turn out than turn out for a general election . us Andually by elections, there's a tendency to vote against the party of government. It's often a crotest vote. So if you were just running it normally , you would have looked at three things. You would have said, well, it's a by election, probably anti government, probably lower turnout, and then you would have looked at the local elections in May and you would have said Labour was trading twenty points per high reform. And remember, of course, in the background is this by election Gordon and Dent, which they didn't let Andy Burnham run in and which Labour lost . And you know, there were a lot of people at time saying, well, there's nothing to say that if he had run, if the NC had allowed him to run, he really would have won. I think the evidence, I would suggest, points to the idea that he probably would have won big there to backov you. Yeah, so I think the exam question that is keeping quite a lot of labour people awake at night is who can stop reform and the stat of all the different stats we can look at that they will be looking at most closely is this one twenty three percent swing from reform to labour since May in the seats that reform took from labour in those local elections. And as you say, Andy Byrne more than doubling Labour's share of the vote. And this seat, by the way, I'm indebted to Peter Kellner for this. I'd forgotten this, but this seat was the sixth had the sixth highest reform vote in the last general election . So I guess what MP's are seeing and thinking about this morning is this that there is a way to stop reform. I've always felt that there is to , but they're thinking Andy Bernan may be essential to that way . So the pressure on Kierstam is huge . There's no doubt about that. You know, numbers matter in politics. Polls come and go, but these are real numbers and the truth is Andy Burnham has done better than he expected . So then we ask what happens now and the truth is nobody knows. I've talked to a lot of people, I've talked to a lot of the key people as late as Wednesday, Kierstalmer was gathering in MPs and telling them whatever the result, if there is a challenge, I'm going to fight it. His one public response so far is a social media post. We're recording this in the morning of after the by election, is a social media post saying voters chose Labour's campaign of hope and optimism over division and hate. But of course, if you've been to Makerfield, you might see that at all the billboards at all the posters they're around there it doesn't say labour it says Andy all depends now what these key figures decide to do. I don't believe Andy Burnham wants to make that challenge but he will make clear if they do have a conversation that he's got the numbers if that is needed. And the truth is, you know this in politics, MPs can be very herd like , those numbers are likely to be growing. I don't think he'll do I very much doubt we'll see him much over the media other than maybe going for a run or having a pint or whatever he might do because he'll be waiting to see what unfolds the same as everybody else. So a key to this Kirestarmer's react ion, key also West Streeting's reaction, but I think to some extent I suspect this takes Wes Streeting pretty much out of the game. And if I had to put my life on it, I think Andy Burnham is should be there by conference. Okay. And conference is October, right? It's late September. Last week, September. Yeah. So really big news. I mean, that's a new prime minister for the UK, something that again will puzzle the world because Kisama won a really big majority, looked like he could sit there for five years and you know Britain's going through prime ministers that are kind of dulge an Italian rate at the moment. But I think the logic of this and obviously MPs can behave in very illogical ways and labour MPs can behave in illogical ways like anyone else. But if I keep coming back to two drums that I've been banging, the first is Keir Star mer cannot win the next election. The guy for his many merits, there are many things that are, you know, likeable about Kirstarmer . He's just no good as a prime minister. He's not a winning phenomenon. His net popularity is terrible. He can't make a speech . He doesn't have any clear definition. I can't find anyone in any meeting I go to can tell me what his economic policy is, what his growth policy is what he stands for. So my analogy has always been, look , with Kir ma, it's a losing proposition. The ship's heading into the iceberg. Now getting off and getting on the lifeboats may not work. Andy Burner may not work, but there's no serious alternatives to staying with Stalman. The second thing I think we've been saying is that if Burnham wins well and he's won really well here , it's answered the number one big question in politics, which is can you take on reform? And what I love about it to sound like a bit of an Andy Burnham fanboy for a moment, is that he's not done it in the way that some of the people advising the Conservative Party would have said is the only way of reform beating . He's done it with a pretty decent straightforward campaign. He hasn't done any crazy. I mean, there's lots of temptations. If you're taking on reform in a constituent way, imagine the pressure on you to think, well, I can just, you know, I can sound a little bit more right wing and radical. I can steal a little bit of reform's language here. I can surprise people because I can count on my labour vote and I can bring over reform by he hasn't done that. It was a pretty sunny, I mean sorry, on the ground it felt very nasty, but the way Burnham's conducted himself has been pragmatic, progressive, laid back , and he's won big. And I think that's the recipe for British polit ics. I think what Starmer got wrong was that he lost that sense of being a happy warrior. He lost the sense of being able to communicate well, having a sense of hope, and that actually Morgan McSweeney was the kind of worst of all worlds if what he was doing is saying the way to beat reform is to uncertain issues you sound like a kind of mini reform without being able to sound the more optimistic notes back over here. Yeah. I mean, I guess look, Kirstarmer will have a lot of deep thinking to do in the next few days and will doubtless be talking to all sorts of people. And he'll probably be feeling very, very angry and he can be angry he can get very angry here. And the thing is that he's probably thinking I led the Labour Party to a landslide victory when they told us that we were finished and they said that we could never do it and I did it. The economy actually was beginning to pick up a bit until Donald Trump did his stupid bloody war in Iran . Reform have made their numbers rise on the back of small boats and immigration. And actually we've done some pretty tough things and we're getting the numbers going the right way. The National Health Service and numbers going the right way. There's lots that he can point to. The trouble is, as you say, when you're out and about and I'm the same as you are, I'm always talking to people about what they think . And even people who have often benefited from labor government policy changes aren't even necessarily aware that they've happened. And that is a sort of political communications issue. The other reason he'll be feeling angry , but this works both ways. And I think because obviously a lot depends now on how these two deal with each other . The fact is there is an ex to no trust between them and that is a problem and that's a political failure. I remember quite a long time ago being up in Manchester . I mean after Kirstan became leader, but before he became prime minister, I remember seeing Annie Burnham and him saying, well , the way these guys operate, if unless you're a hundred percent echo everything they say, you get stuff through the press, blah, blah blah. Kears talk to Keirstarma's people and they'll say Bloody Andy Burnham is impossible to deal with. Anything you do, he trims a little bit this way, trims a little bit that way. But the truth is that trust has broken down. Now, I think it is possible , you know, we talked about this and I think I got it wrong about the Gordon and Denton thing when I actually thought I could see why Kierstama was getting the national executive to block Andy Bernard from standing . I think it's possible that back then he might have been able to say Andy, you show you can win, win, come in and I'll give you a big job in the cabinet and then let's see how things go . I'm afraid I think the process around then is the reason why Keirstamer apparently now having said to Andy Burnham, why do you come into the cabinet if you get into the and back into Parliament? Andy Burnham is making clear no. And in his acceptance speech , he had this line, you know, we'll get no second chance . Now that's a deliberate way to accept you can't change your Prime Minister every five minutes like the Tories did, but he's basically saying I am your second chance . So this really hard brutal politics now. He's going to arrive in Parliament on Monday , is going to take his seat . Does Kirstarmer sit in parliament for that? Does he kind of, you know, smile happily ? And of course he's not bound to set a timetable for his departure, but that is basically what Andy Burnham and those who are supporting were going to be asking for. Two things that I was thinking when he were talking as you say, he blew it by refusing to let him run in Gordon and Denton. I mean, again, it's a classic sign of the sort of McSweeney mindset going wrong. I suppose the cliche there is kind of mafia cliche. If you're going to strike at the king , right, you must kill him . So if you've tried to exclude and destroy Andy Burnham and stop him coming in once and you've failed, you can't then hope to control him when he comes in the second time. I think the other thing is that all those stories about anger sound absolutely identical to Joe Biden. I mean almost phrase by phrase what she said there, you know, number one, you know, I was the guy that beat Donald Trump and I'm not going to give credit for the fact that I brought the Democrats in . Number two, the only reason this thing is going wrong is because of these Maga guys. Number three , you know, they're they're getting support because of immigration, but I'm doing stuff on immigration. You know, I've I'm almost identical to Republicans on immigration . All that is understandable , but the reason it sounds like Joe Biden is it's the anger of somebody who is trying to cling on when the party and the country knows they can't win the next election and they need to be got rid of . And their anger is that people aren't being grateful towards them. But that's not legitimate in a football manager or a CEO or a prime minister , right? You're not there for the gratitude. You're there to win . And you can't win . And like Biden , the longer this dude clings on , the worse because once you've lost it, there's no point being a sort of lame duck prime minister or president. How do you feel looking in on it with the with the notion that they could replace Ki Stammer as a labour leader and therefore asime Pisr Minter without any contest at all. I believe in contests. I mean, I think that's one of the things that went wrong with Kamala Harris. She never got a chance to really show whether she could beat it. The country never really felt there was any contest . I think Theresa May coming in with a coronation was awkward . If you remember with that run after Boris Johnson fell out, Andrew Leadson fell out and she basically just came through . I'm less worried than you are by the sider of people knocking bits off each other. I think it can be quite healthy. Let's make counter examples. So when I was running against in that leadership in twenty nineteen, of course every,body in the Conservative Party was saying, could you leadership candidates stop attacking each other? This is very bad for our brand. Everybody hates us attacking each other . But the reality is that Boris Johnson came out of a pretty brutal campaign where we were all knocking bits off each other and one big . And I think people sort of understand that that can happen. So let me jump in there, then Russell if you were sitting in a room with Kier Starman now and you were his best friend. Would you be saying to him he should stand in that contest, even if he thinks he might lose? And if you were Streeting's best friend, would you be saying to him, look, Andy cannot come in and just have a coron ation. At least somebody like you has to stand and offer a different vision for the Labour Party. Would you advise him to do it? I think the laser probably makes more sense because if the story is that Kirstarmer can't make it, making him go through a painful campaign pretending to run when nobody believes he should be prime minister doesn't make sense. I think we're streeting story is a good one because presumably that's what your friend Tony Blair would like to see. I mean, I guess that's what his letter was about. There is another story that Labour needs to get its head around and I think Andy Burn needs to answer, which is there a radically different economic policy that a centre left party could pursue . Could they have a different energy policy? Could they have a different tax policy? Could they have a different innovation policy? What calls is he going to make on tech , non doms , energy , foreign policy, all this sort of stuff that that Blair thing was trying to stir up. So I don't I don't like the idea that somebody and I also think that there's nothing for Burnham to be afraid of. He's on a winning streak. I'd take the risk if I was him because it looks sort of slightly pathetic to just be crowned. And I'd certainly if I was Burnham be saying bring it on . I'd love to have the debate. I don't want to be crowned. I'd like people to run against me. I don't think that's where he is. I think he thinks that I think his view is probably that in a way this contest that he 's just won and the scale of the win is more significant for the country than a debate internal debate that could tear the party apart and get people to say crazy things because they're appealing to a different sort of electorate. So it's a kind of risk. It is a risk both ways. And also what's interesting when you were going through all the sort of policy on this policy on that, will he change this? Will he change that? I know a couple of times the Conservatives got away with resisting the pressure of saying, look, if you change your prime minister, you have to have a general election. We shouldn't underestimate the pressure that there will be and with a with a media that is going to be the mass if Andy Bernard and just plays Gizma, the massive hostility of most of the right wing media to Kirstarma translates automatically. The sort of Russian propaganda etc operations that have been running and of which we've learnt more in recent times, they're going to transfer . So he's got to have in him. He's obviously got confidence. I agree with you about the nature of his campaign. I'd have been very tempted running that campaign to have taken all sorts of lumps off reform , really tried to have made Farage and crypto and all that stuff really tried to get in there and he resisted all that . But I think in getting democratic legitimacy on the back of one by election of sixty thousand voters, whatever it is is I think it's a stretch. But if I again, if I had to put my life on it and we're living in such unpredictable volatile times, but my money at the moment probably would be if he is going to be Prime Minister in the next few months on a coronation. My son Roy's just sent me a thing Betfair has him ninety four percent to be the next prime minister . That means Roy that you don't want to don't do a Camela Harris style bet on that one, please. Just don't do it. You mentioned there the other thing that I think is really significant out of this violation and which won't I don't think get the maybe the debate that it should . I've been saying to you for some time that I think we are through peak reform . And I know that's counter intuitive because they keep coming top in the polls . But I think reform have a ceiling . And I think some of this stuff, I think the money stuff has damaged Verage. I think the Russia stuff does damage Farage. I actually think that the Generic , Bravaman , Zahawi, these Tory Retreads coming over and suddenly being the big figures in reform . And as if we're so stupid to hear John Generick talk about immigration when he was the immigration minister responsible for some of the disasters that he dad says are disasters . And an interesting thing, we have James Cleverley on leading this week. I noticed him he last night posted a couple of council by elections in Essex , which reform won in the local elections, they've had by elections presumably because the candidates have thought I didn't expect to win I don't want to do it. And they've now lost and they've gone back to the Conservatives . So I think this is really bad for reform. Farage will do his usual thing. I bet he goes to ground for a bit. He'll hope all the focus is on De Burnham rather than him. So let's take a break and then we come back. We'll talk about this election in Aberdeen South, very, very interesting. Tories beating the SNP, and also we'll maybe focus on some of the challenges that Andy Bernan would face if he does replace Gustarma. Absolutely looking forward to talking about it after the break . Hi, this is Garalinica from Goldhangers. The rest is football. This episode is brought to you by wise. It's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate, the fee and what might be hidden away in the small print. Whether you're living abroad, paying someone overseas or just trying to manage your money across borders, you want a fair exchange rate and easy transfer and no surprises along the way. Wise keeps things simple. Wise is a smart way to move the currencies you need around the globe. It works in more than one hundred and sixty countries and with over forty currencies, most transfers arrive instantly. 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Lily dot com so good so good new markdowns up to seventy percent off are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Stock up and say big on shoes, tops, dresses, accessories and more, must have for summer. Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack . Welcome back to the Rest of Politics with me Roy Stewart. And me Alice Campbell and we're talking on this Friday morning after three by elections, two in Scotland, one in the northwest of England, which may be a step on the road to a change of occupant of Downing Street. But Rory, Scotland was interesting too. Yeah, so one story that you could have got looking at the election we just saw in Makerfield is that the Tories were wiped out. They got barely two percent of the vote They lost their deposit. I mean, the Greens and Lip Dems too. I'd love to know how many of them voted for how many people who voted for those three parties in the general election and voted for Randy Burnham. I bet some did. There was a loss of Tories going over to Andy Burnham, which of course for somebody like me who actually believes there's a huge constituency for quite gentle progressive, thoughtful politics in the centre ground, Andy Bham's hugely cheering. And I think the Tories should be really worried. I think this is where Bernam may prove that he can attract in a way that Starmer couldn't a loss of the centre right voters over if the Tories continue to try to chase chase the reform on the right. So you might have looked at that election and you could actually say this is the death knell for the Conservatives. This is the moment at which they become like Francois Orland's Socialist Party in France or this is the moment where the Canadian Ceronsvatives are wiped out because it's so bad. And then as you say, up in Aberdeen South, astonishingly , the Conservatives just won a seat against the SMP turning around the general election results and Kemi Baynock's net popular ity rating is going up . And again, there's going to be a huge debate within the Conservative Party. Some people will say it doesn't matter what her net popularity rating is, look what happened in Makerfield. She got no votes. And of course, many people say it doesn't really matter for Scottish Conservatives Other people will try to spin it as a positive result, but it's partly about energy too. I noticed and I'm going to push back on this because we keep having this conversation. But our mutual hero, Janis Garstore , the wonderful Norwegian leader , has just come out saying he wants to drill in the Arctic . And he's quite rightly said, listen, this is completely crazy. We're talking about energy security . We can't rely on Russian gas. We've realized because of straightafor moves, we can't rely on necessary on Middle Eastern gas. We don't want to be completely in hockey to Donald Trump's gas and we need gas. Desperately need gas because in most countries, unless you're lucky enough to have huge amounts of hydro , you need gas to back up your renewables . So we need to drill for sovereign reasons , not price reasons. This is what's so irritating about this discussion with Eb Milliban. It's not about the gas price, it's about sovereignty. It's about having your own supply . And I think that's basically the argument that's been run in Aberdeen South successfully by the Conservatives against S and P. And with labour collapsing? Yeah , and again, probably, I think tactical voting there as well. The labour vote did collapse, but I suspect a lot of labour in Scotland Labour always wanted to kick the SNP as hard as they can. So I suspect there will have been tactical voting there as well. I think the tactical voting issue is probably going to be and this may be is a consequ ence of this five six party politics that we're now in , that people are motivated often as much as if not more by who do I not want to win as who I want to win. There's no doubt Nigel Farage has his following, but he has a lot of people who cannot even begin to stomach the idea that he might actually become Prime Minister and I think that's a very powerful motivation to vote Andy Burden even if you're a Tory. And then I think there was a bit of that in Scotland. But listen, there's no doubt Douglas Lumsden, the Conservative candidate and Kemi Bader went up there a few times as well . They were fighting on a kind of oil and gas , you know, we've taken enough damage to the oil and gas industry campaign . Labour were never going to win this. This has always been Tori SNP battleground , but it will make, I think, both UK and Scottish Government understand that the politicization of this debate is, you know, has the potential to be a problem. We should say, by the way, to our listeners, we're doing something a bit different on question time next week. Be Rcauseoy and I have been arguing a lot about energy policy recently , we're going to have on for a special question time a wonderful guy by the name of Dan Jurgensen. He's Danish but he's the European Commission Energy Commissioner. He knows the energy world inside out. So we're going to be looking for your questions over the weekend and then doing that next week. But yeah, no, listen, there's no doubt big focus today will be on Andy Bernam and Makerfield, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if Kemi Badnock, if she isn't already, is on a flight to Aberdeen to try to get the focus the focus on that. And then the other one in our Broth was an SNP SNP hold. Is it the case that actually both Reform and the SMP have basically been damaged by scandal and money? I mean that part of the story here is that the fallout of this raordinary revelations around Peter Morell, the former CEO of the SMP and husband of Nicholas Sturgeon about him stealing party funds and spending it on his own cars and watches and coffee machines and things damaged them? Or is that not the story in Aberdeen South? Listen, I don't know. I didn't go there, but I saw one of the SNP leaders being asked that and he was very very dis, missive. I think they felt that this was more the SNP. I think there is a bit of an aftershock to the fact that amid all this scandal, the SNP won the Scottish election so comprehensively. As you and I have often said after not being that good as a government of Scotland and Scotland's public services . So I don't know is the answer, but I do think the kind of chipping away at farraage with a media that doesn't really focus on these scandals in the way that it would if it was a labour politician or in Scotland an SNP politician. I think it is chipping away . I actually think the Russia thing is beginning to trouble people about Farage. And you know, the fact that they don't they didn't even come out and condemn the Russians involvement in the attacks on Kierstarma. Kemi Badeng did What you said earlier by the way about Morgan McSweeney L,abour Strategy, Burnham V and Starma Visa V reform , I wonder if this isn't the moment where Kemmy Badenk also has to understand or face up to the idea that actually for her to think that it's all about competing on the Farage Rupert Low Space is not the way to build a bigger base than she now has. So we'll see on that. Roy, one other interesting observation which I think you'd be particularly interested in . So we're in Paris at the moment because we're about to go and do an interview with Gabriel Zukmann, the tax guy , but I was just thinking Chirac , Sarcosi , Holland all were mayors before going on to be president. Eduard Philippe is currently a mayor and he may be the guy who's the sort of main contender against the Rassemble National and Scheinbaum in Mexico and Renzi in Italy, I just wonder if there's another important thing here is that the mayor or the mayor elected mayors that, you know, we brought in , that has become a new independent power base outside of the Westminster world that if you're big and bold and ruthless, which clearly Andy Burnham has showed him self to be , then that's a different route into the top. I thought I think that's quite interesting. Absolutely. And of course, the first person to spot this in British politics was Boris Johnson, because what he discovered by being mayor is that he could show that he could and Andy Burnham does this too, you can choose when to be loyal and when to be disloyal towards your party because in the end you're putting your own city first and that allows you to basically uniquely in your party layout a completely independent platform . You are also able to get things done or come across more as a CEO in a world in which everybody feels that ministers are totally paralyzed by process and law and nobody's sure who's in charge , you can be out on the ground. And I think that when politics is driven by lack of trust . Your best route is probably being a because you are actually out on the ground endlessly meeting people, interacting with them on the street , they're seeing you face to face . And you can be non political. I think that's the final thing. I mean, the genius of Boris Johnson and his better incarnation as the Mayor of London before he became this catastrophic prime minister was that he often was quite non political and quite liberal and quite funny. And Andy Burnham is really interesting. He is all about getting away from the Westminster Games. He's been extremely sort of non tribal . And I think people really respond to that. So I'm really cheered up by the Andy Burnhenomena. And the question is, is he going to be able to hold on to what he's found? He's a much, much better man than he was a member of the Westminster Parliament. And the question is, has that changed him permanently or is he going to revert back and be sucked back into the Westminster Game? Or can he keep some of that confidence and energy? Yeah And what will Lindsey Hoyle say if he turns up in Parliament with a black vest or that could be I think are the rules still that you have to wear a shirt tie, right? Yeah, you do. Absolutely . I think that the other couple of points on Andy maybe to end on and also I've just been somebody's just sent me Nigel Farage's reaction. I'll give you that in a minute. It's interesting, are you there saying and he's very non tribal and etc , et cetera, a non divisive but in a way , those people who feel very, very loyal to Kierstalberg are going to be sitting there thinking how can you say that? He's exploited divisiveness and tribalism to, you know, get where he is. Explain that to me, explain it to me, because I suppose I'm talking as a non labour tribal member . I'm not picking up with him a sort of particular nastiness towards Tory voters . I remember when we were interviewing Kirstama, Richard Reeves, Bridget Phillipson before the election, I got a real sense that these were people who were very very uncomfortable with Tories. Whereas when I interviewed Andy Burnham, I didn't feel that at all. I felt he was good humoured, he was quite sort of broad minded. He was able to so why does why does he seem tribal within the party when he doesn't seem tribal outside the party? Well, no, it's not that he's tribal, but he's you can't say he's not divisive wed hold . His whole strategy at the moment is to find a way to get rid of the Prime Minister , which the Labour Party does not do historically. Let's just say he does come in and let's say he does become Prime Minister . As you say, he'll want to make a mark. He'll have to he'll have to work out the balance between I am change , but not pushing it so far that people say, well, hold on a minute. That's not in Labour's manifesto. You need your own mandate. And the other thing he'll do to signal change is to make cabinet changes. He would do that. Now, that creates enemies. That creates division. That creates I think it's fine. I think he has to be changed. You were right about that was Rishi Sunak, that the stupidest thing for Rishi Sunak was not to distance himself enough. And again, my least favorite politician, Boris Johnson, managed to do that. He came in and he became absolute change, and he just lean intoed that. Totally redid his cabinet. People like me walked out in disgust and horror . He took the party in a radically different direction, and he did it successfully. Now, it turned out that he was defeated by his own lack of focus, lack of morality, lack of clarity . But what he did prove is that want change and Andy Burnham needs to have change. And the worst thing that Andy Burnham could possibly do is you know keep Rachel Reeves as Chancellor, keep Bridget Phillipson an education . I think if he was bold and this will be really difficult for him, but I think it would be very interesting to move Ed Milliband to another really serious, great office of state position maybe out of energy would signal something interesting. Well, Ed , I don't have any doubt at all, that Edward would like to be Chancellor of the Echxequer'.s There no doubt about that at all . But the reaction to that would be environment. But the other thing and talking about chance of the Exchequer of course, don't forget, you know, if there's going to be a budget in the autumn. There's not going to be an economic miracle between now and the autumn. It's going to be pretty tough added to which some of the process is already underway. There's already kind of some of the preparation for that. So look, it is going to be really, really fascinating. It's all depending in the next bit on Kirstahmer's actual reaction. I don't just mean a post . I mean what he's actually thinking and actually planning and thinking he might do and then the others. And of course M Ps and ministers are going to be chattering away to each other all over the weekend . Final one for me, I just sort of worried about the starmer reaction point because if it's inevitable, you know, let's say your Rory's right and there's a close to a hundred percent chance that Annie Burnham's next prime minister, then presumably ideally Starmel would be gracious and cheerful and supportive. There's nothing to be gained by him being grumpy, bitter, angry and chippy about the whole thing. I mean, it may and it be inevitable given his personality and the situation, but it's not really in his interest, Labour's interest or the country's interest for him to approach it like that. But he may think that he would be better . He may think that. I'm sure Joe Biden thought that he'd be a better president than Camel Harrison. Well, that's why maybe that illustrates your point. And of course, we now have a situation where neither of them are. My point is look, look, you've been in politics. You know this. Don't never rule out the kind of the something different to most people inside the politician that makes them not always see things in a way that a conventional wisdom might be forming to see them. And that's just why I think we're still in kind of nobody quite knows what happens next territory . What is beyond doubt is Andy Burnham has taken a big bowl risk and also that the other thing to remember don't forget there's now by election for the Manchester Meralty. Andy Burnham who will be enjoying his triumph today what, he can't do is then be held responsible for something terrible. I don't think he will. If Labor get their act together on the back of this, I think Labour should be able to find the right candidate and to hold that. But not a given, far from a given. Let me just tell you, I said before we go, Rory and we go and talk to Gabrielle Zukmann. Should we be doing it French or English? Which you prefer? You're definitely going to do it in French house. I know youm not' sure I've not . So Nigel Farage has said he's disappointed. Well, that's good news. And he's urged some of his supporters who've defected to restore to think again. See, that's him acknowledging that tactical folks keep around. This was a speech written assuming that the only reason he didn't win was because of restore. And of course the great thing is that even if they'd combined their votes, they wouldn't have beaten. I think that's true. Yes. So he goes on. What really happened here was it was vote burnham get Kirstarmer out which of course was our campaign message late leading up to the locals on may seventh, so we would slightly get this very French hoisted with our own petard . As for the reform votes share, well, I thought we'd get eighteen thousand votes we got just size of sixteen, so I'm disappointed, no question about that . So they are. I think that's good that he's disappointed because I think deep down , maybe he knows that there is a way to beat reform and he's just taken a bit of a beating. And don't forget they lost in Karefilly to Plyde. They lost in Gordon and Denton to the Greens and now they've lost to labour. So it underlines that point I made earlier. There is a very large body of opinion that thinks the idea of Nigel Farage being Prime Minister is truly horrific and we have to try to stop it. Well, very good luck. I think To Andy Burnham is my view at the moment and because whatever my views are on British politics, I would much rather we had Andy Burnham as Prime Minister than Nigel Farage or Rupert Lowe . And I think a lot is riding on this. Can he be the Mark Carney? Can he be the figure of the center who brings people together? Stands for democracy, stands for compromise, stands for persuasion against these increasingly disturbing and brutal