Andy's intervention on defence

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0:37Hello, welcome to Coffeehouse. I'm James Heal.

0:40Noa Hoffman: And I'm Nail Hoffman. And today we're going to be talking about defence. What will West Streeting mean for the MOD? We'll also be discussing social care and Andy Burnham's plans to fundamentally reform the system, which has been ignored for a long time. And finally, first, let me take a selfie. We'll be talking about the rise of the influencer industrial complex. Yes, there's an outbreak of a disease in Westminster. It's influenza. And before we get going now, I should point out we have a new addition to our wall of fame or shame. We do. It's Andy Burnham. It seems the intern has failed on their quest to find a frame that fits the other two leaders we've got up there.

1:15But they perhaps, just like with his vision, Andy Burnham will eventually fill out the frame and adorn our wall proudly up there. But this comes, of course, now at the time when we're getting to see not just the domestic side of Andy Burnham, but the foreign policy too. We've got Wladimir Zelensky in town, almost like this sort of semi-constitutional rite of passage for all new British prime ministers. And also defence bending is coming back. Tell us more as an issue.

1:36Noa Hoffman: That's right, James. So on Thursday, Andy Burnham is going to make his first big intervention on defence. He's sort of been putting off speaking too thoroughly about foreign affairs and defence for as long as possible because he wants to be known as a very domestic-focused prime minister, a cost-of-living government, as he described his style of government to the cabinet. But on Thursday, we're going to hear more about a drive for British procurement within defence. We haven't got any sort of figures flying around yet and not really much detail beyond that. But Andy Burnham is continuing the theme we saw under Keir Starmer of trying to put defence at the heart of economic growth in as much as he's spoken about economic growth, which is limited, and buying British.

2:23Noa Hoffman: And this idea of, you know, focusing on British firms, British jobs throughout military procurement. And of course, this all links back to defence funding. And at the moment, we have a very sizable gap between what has been promised by Keir Starmer and the funding for it, where it's coming from. And that's not to mention the fact that what Keir Starmer promised isn't actually the full amount that the top brass within the military has asked for. So, James, I was wondering how you think Andy Burnham plays this now. How does he justify spending less than what was originally asked for and where on earth does he find even the money that Starmer promised but hadn't funded?

3:08So this was one of the most striking things that Adam Burnham said on his first week in number 10, standing outside the suggesting Britain was going to honour its international commitments. It's worth talking about, of course, when we talk about the kind of defence targets, we're currently at 2.6 % of GDP. Lots of people talk about 3%, it's in 3 % by 2030. But of course, that's not the NATO target. The NATO target is 3.5%. And how do we get there? It's just that 3 % is seen as kind of the most accessible way to do that. So Britain has a long way to go. We've obviously got to get the 4.7 billion that was missing from the defence investment plan.

3:34If we want to hit 3.5%, I think that's about 25 billion in real terms increase every year. There's a huge amount of spending to find from somewhere more than the education budget for England.

3:44Noa Hoffman: And Burnham won't even commit to 3%. As we saw from the Laura Koonsberg interview, and this is what was quite interesting, short defence secretary was treating, newly appointed. He was out on the airwaves yesterday suggesting that he would resign if he doesn't get sufficient amounts. That's now been slightly walked back by some of his aides suggesting he won't go out to resign imminently, which would make it twice in about two months. But actually talking about sort of the need to kind of champion that agenda. And I think that there's a number of different things here what Burnham's trying to do.

4:09One of which is talking about re-industrialisation, trying to sort of say, look, we have a defence base that will bring growth back to areas in the north of England. Like you've Baron Furness, you've obviously got the submarine base there, very important with AUKUS. And the second point, what he's trying to do is to say that, you know, there's actually a number of ways we can get people to work through this. You think perhaps it could be something from the American model, whereby often American military bases kind of serve the role that welfare does. It almost sort of basically being in some ways an economic loss maker in order to kind of keep the local community going, keep people in jobs, paid work, which you feel a sense of pride in rather than being on benefits.

4:42That could be something he looks at. Overall, though, you're right, Noah, he has got a really difficult challenge right now. The Treasury is famously sceptical about defence spending. They view every pound that goes on munitions as a pound almost wasted. And so I think that it's going to be difficult to have those kind of arguments. Obviously, it helps in John Healy. He's got a chancellor who said he wants to hit 3 % and was very much disappointed by his time was failing to commit on that. But it does look like he's going to have to find the money from somewhere. We don't know quite nowhere yet.

5:08And the Labour Party, of course, famously, very much love spending the money, but actually saving it elsewhere will be a challenge. I'd also point out that this comes at a time when the UK will be increasingly internationalised. We take over the G20 presidency from November, we'll be running the G7 as well. And so I think it's going to be a lot of pressure on us to kind of stand up and deliver. And at a time when I think expectations are being sort of re-evalued and first impressions really count, both in terms of the public's eyes and in the Americans, we will need to find a way to pay for this because I think lots of people in Donald Trump and the world are saying, hang on, who are all these guys?

5:38a new Defence Secretary and, of course, a new Foreign Secretary as well, Ed Miliband, who has been giving us some indication about his foreign policy views as well.

5:45Noa Hoffman: Indeed. And now Streeting has tied his career to the mast of getting that funding through. He said in an interview with Times Radio that he would actually resign as Defence Secretary if it isn't adequately funded. One of his so-called allies followed up on that comment by saying it wasn't in any way a threat. But we do now have that statement that we can hold him to should the money fall short, which, you know, government does have a track record of talking big on issues like defence, but when push comes to shove and when they hear the voices of the Labour-backed benches, they don't always deliver.

6:18Completely, and I was watching an old episode of Question Time last night, I think it was from 1985, with Alan Clarke when he was the, I think he was at that point, junior minister, and he was asked to talk about the government's decision to not buy British in terms of a procurement scheme, and he went against the government line. And Sue Lawley said, will anyone here defend the government, given that the government minister is unwilling to do so? So the point being is that buying British has been a longstanding route for decades. And of course, the fundamental tension is what happens when you have kind of upfront costs are higher for the British approach.

6:45But you might get second order benefits, which is, OK, fine, you pay 10 billion more upfront, but you might be supporting a local base. You think about things such as infrastructure projects like Bomadeer, which has been a big thing. You think about defence spending like Barrow and Finesse, all these different things. You've got to think about the communities and votes, of course. And famously, when it comes to defence procurement, defence cuts, it often depends on kind of where the most electorally salient and marginal constituencies.

7:08Noa Hoffman: And carrying on the big spending pledge trend that Andy Burnham triggered on day one of his premiership on Wednesday, we are expecting a speech on social care. This is a huge issue that a lot of prime ministers have had a go at only to then row back from for various reasons, but namely that funding it is very expensive. And as past administrations have found, you know, trying to pay for it through tax rises has never really succeeded or gone down well with either the public or opposition parties. Now, Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrat, has come out and said he will support Andy Burnham on social care, even if it involves using up a lot of political capital.

7:55Noa Hoffman: I would read that as big tax rises. I don't know about you. In order to get this over the line. James, where have past prime ministers gone wrong with social care? And is there a chance that Andy Burnham can get it right? Or is this, you know, such an expensive pledge that it's difficult to see how he could fund it without a huge tax change that he doesn't have a mandate for? I think it's just a fundamentally knotty and difficult issue, which is why so many prime ministers have put it off. They've talked a good game in the past, but no one's been able to deliver on this for sort of 20 years or so.

8:30And I think that the thing you need to be prepared for with social care is that it is one of those issues that everyone talks a good game on. Everyone pretends it's non-political, but it's actually intensely politically partisan. and the Labour Party will need to use all its box of tricks, will need to do all its kind of mystique and sleight of hands in order to try and sell this, in my view, which is that it's going to leave some people worse off if they pay a different kind of model, but it's how you sell that to the electorate. And the most skilled politicians are those that can kind of get policies through, which have some losers as well as winners.

8:59And I think Burnham will need all his kind of political craftsmanship if he is to get this through. So you see, for instance, him talking about next over the weekend to Ed Davey, we need to work together, social care. I can see a world in which the Lib Dems and the Labour could come together for a deal in social care. I struggle to see a world in which Labour and the Conservatives come together on social care because it's such an intensely political issue. And Andy Burnham's career is itself a demonstration of this. He, of course, was the healthcare secretary in 2009 and proposed getting maybe rid of the existing system of social care and having a kind of levy on inheritance tax when you die on the state.

9:30That was swiftly labelled by the Conservatives a death tax. 2017, of course, you then see Theresa May. We had the so-called dementia tax. Boris Johnson promised to go game in 2019. Keir Starmer did the same in 2024. They didn't deliver. And that is because it is one of those things which everyone thinks is in some ways quite boring, worthy, but actually it really reveals a fundamental difference in how people approach questions around individual finances. Should the state care or should individuals get to keep something of their cells and hand it on to their children? These are the kind of really difficult political issues.

9:58And I think, I don't know what your sense is, Labour, but in the Labour ranks, it does seem that some people want them to address this and think it's the right thing to do, but others are a bit nervous as well about it.

10:06Noa Hoffman: I mean, look, Labour MPs fundamentally want to spend, spend, spend. They are not shy or against the idea of raising taxes in order to spend. And that is just the ideological makeup of the Labour Party. But interestingly, Kemi Baden-Ock has come out and said, yes, I accept social care as a big issue. Yes, I understand it needs to be tackled. But you will not receive any Conservative report if this is funded through either more borrowing or tax rises. I think we can expect reform to have a similar position there too. So we will still see this tension between the idea of inheritance and how fair inheritance taxes are versus, of course, the issue of social care.

10:47Noa Hoffman: Now a health think tank has priced Andy Burnham's social care idea, having it free at the point of use in the same way that we see with the NHS, as around£18.5 billion a year. That is a lot of money. And that is before we even think about defence, as we were talking about before. If we think of all the cost of living interventions he's made and he wants to make more in the future. And then, of course, he's promised the biggest council house building programme since the Second World War. All of this is going to cost so much money, James. And yet, Andy Burnham's ruled out an early general election.

11:20I think two points. First of all, on the talk big, you know, lots of big things, but how do you sort of get there? And a lot of what he announced last week were quite much smaller cost of living, immediate quick win measures. So I think there's an interesting question there. Is that a disconnect or is that a way of simply building up trust in order to bank that political capital and then spend it on these bigger issues? The other thing I'd say is that I think we've had a really interesting kind of revelation about the difference in the opinion in terms of Burnham's team. Hayden Munro, his new political secretary, author of The Times on Friday was that he texted members of the team and said, my only goal, my main goal is getting Labour re-elected.

11:55That is very different to what a member of Burnham's team told the BBC, which is that Andy wants to run towards some of these difficult problems, embrace it, and you think, hang on a sec, is this kind of the brave warrior trying to take on any massive task that has eluded previous governments, or is this a guy ruthlessly cynical, only trying to maximise his vote? I suspect the answer lies somewhere in between. I think Andy Burnham would probably like to have a few big things to bank, to kind of say, look, we've actually done X, Y, Z. We've had this big majority reward us. Because I think that then leads into the question of, hang on a sec, if a big parliamentary majority doesn't give you success, why should we reward you that time?

12:27Different questions about deliverism, et cetera. So I think that social care is something he cares passionate about. Obviously, he gave that time interview a tweet about his father suffering from dementia. He obviously has talked about it for many, many years. He's passionate about social care, quite a worthy thing, potentially leads back to his Catholic background in the Northwest. But it's going to be very difficult to find a plan that pleases everyone. and I think keeping the Labour Party together on this one will certainly be a challenge.

12:49Noa Hoffman: And speaking of popularity, we've had a really interesting poll out today from More in Common, which shows that for the first time in around 15 months, reform are no longer the most popular party in the country. We now actually have a burn and bounce. Don't know how long it will last, but there is a burn and bounce. Labour are now polling at 28 % with reform on 24, the Conservatives on 22, the Lib Dems on 12 and the Greens plummeting back to where they used to be before Zach Polanski gave them a bit of a bounce on 8%. Should we read into this poll too much? What do you make of it? I think we would need a bit more time, but it's certainly all indicators point that Burnham has led to an uptick in Labour fortunes.

13:30Interesting that the progressive vote seems to be much more coalescing around him, the Greens going down. I remember speaking to one Labour MP who said that as soon as Keir Starmer goes, the Green vote will start to dip because he's no longer seen as the challenge. And also, interestingly, Andy Burnham is much more willing to kind of embrace the Greens. He's got Ed Miliband there in the Foreign Office now talking about a Green agenda. He doesn't go for the same political attacks that Keir Starmer did. There isn't as much baggage, of course, as Keir Starmer when he did the LBC interview talking about Israel potentially have the right to cut off supplies to Gaza.

13:57So I think that there's a new slate. Right now, a lot of the Greens are sort of willing to come back and try a new Labour leader. We'll see how long that lasts. There's also a potential, we've seen some evidence to suggest lots of tactical voting. The left is better at that than the right. And I think right now reform had a really bad three, four months or so. I remember once in Milbank, the sort of, someone told me the refrain is constantly, the only people that can stop us are ourselves. And they certainly seem to have had a good try of that in recent months, given some of the headlines.

14:20Noa Hoffman: Indeed, one thing I have noticed with reform, though, is ever since Nigel Farage retreated back to his comfort zone of campaigning as the sort of outsider outside of Westminster, he does seem a bit more relaxed. I mean, when we were in the midst of the five million pound donation and questions around it and even I know the posh George saga continues um there are new stories about that every day and he gets quite tetchy when those topics come up but when you look at reforms campaign videos from Clacton he does seem a lot more relaxed and sort of at peace and happy in his you know favorite zone which is being out with his supporters and being the sort of outsider against the so-called establishment.

15:06Yeah. And I think that this is the challenge, I think, for all the parties. Do they retreat into their comfort zone? I remember once as a boy, there was this game called Don't Miss the Boat, basically, where you basically have to get all your different components into boats. But every time someone gets onto a boat, they all move around. And so that means that you've got the sort of complication of everyone's places changing. It's a bit like a chessboard where you've got four players. And I think that that's very much what's happened here. Burnham has reset the political chessboard. Farage is now out of it, trying to sort of in Clacton, trying to read the political tea weeps, work out how he's going to strike.

15:36There isn't that much to go on right now. He's only been in a week. I think he would need a bit more time if he was to go for an early election, which the opposition parties say they're getting ready for. We wait to see. But right now, you're right, Farage is kind of sort of going back to his constituency, arguably the most right-wing constituency in mainland Britain, and waiting to see kind of how serious Burnham is. He's making these big speeches. We wait to see how much scrutiny he's going to have. We hear later in this month, we're going to have a sort of tour around the country. We'll see how Burnham handles all of that.

16:04But I think that it's something which right now maybe validates the decision to have an influencer game, which you've been writing and talking a lot about. Yes.

16:11Noa Hoffman: Well, let's talk about Andy Burnham's comms strategy, because there's this idea going around that he's sort of the first post-literate prime minister, despite the fact that he has a degree in English literature from Cambridge. And what's meant by that is that he's communicating through vertical video, through the likes of TikTok, through the likes of Instagram, rather than your traditional op-ed or, you know, your speeches, so to speak. He's been really harnessing the influencer industry as a means to communicate with the public. Now, this did not start under Burnham. His team have been great at utilising the platforms.

16:52Noa Hoffman: But really, this push to incorporate influencers into communications began kind of with Rishi, but really accelerated under Keir Starmer. Now, if you speak to Labour advisors and staff, what they say is that you have your departmental social media channels. So for instance, the Department of Education channel, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. When they put out videos of their primaries, so of their secretaries of state announcing policy, no one cares, no one watches, it's so boring. So what they do is they find people who already have a big platform and have a voice that can often be financial influencers for instance if it's going to be a treasury announcement or so-called mum fluences if it's going to be an education announcement and they put the secretary of state with the influencer who owns the channel they have a little chinwag and that way all of the eyeballs on the influencers channel and all the analytics that the influencer benefits from the government benefits from as well, because no one's going to watch it on the boring Department for Education channel.

17:54Noa Hoffman: But when your favourite mumfluencer is posting what was then Bridget Phillipson in the future is likely to be Lucy Powell, for instance, and the same goes with all the others, they get more reach. To be honest, this strategy does work. I mean, it will, it remains to be seen for how long the public is interested in their politicians sort of coming and encroaching on their favourite influences channel to try and bang on about policy. But what do you make of this strategy? I think it can be done lightly. I think the great thing about the challenge of politics is always to make your politics, which is inherently political, ideological, to make that seem as common sense as possible, accessible as possible.

18:30We've seen flashbacks in the past of this. David Cameron, famously for Red Nose Day, had One Direction gathering around him on the steps of Downing Street. There's always been kind of popular entertainment mixed with politics. You think Margaret Thatcher going to the Coronation Street in the late 1980s. Tony Blair doing headers with the late Kevin Keegan. These are all kind of popular culture mixing. I think there's a way to do it artfully. The question is twofold, one of which is when does that stop becoming a kind of artfully done popular thing which the influencers themselves want to do? And second of all, at what point does that seem to be kind of seen as a drag on the kind of business of government?

19:02It's like, okay, you can do the popular stuff, fine, everyone liked all the click stuff, but is that deterring or detracting and taking away from what Annie Benham's trying to do in terms of the hard, meaty substance on these big questions we've discussed, such a social care attack. Right now, you know, it's the early days. I think they're trying new, interesting stuff. He's clearly light years ahead of Burnham when it comes to being a good communicator. He's up to speed. Sorry, oh gosh, yeah, Salma. Forgotten him already, taken him down. And so he's clearly much better than that. I think we should also reflect the fact that it's going to be, you know, this is not recess.

19:35And I think that, I imagine the Speaker will give a right rollicking to Andy Burnham when he comes back, given all the announcements that have taken place. But it would seem sensible. I think, of course, this is happening around the world as well. Different examples. I mean, it didn't work for Kamala Harris in 2024, but it has in other places as well.

19:50Noa Hoffman: Yeah, for the likes of Trump, for instance. I think what's particularly interesting about this iteration of mixing pop culture and politics is that it's almost like the government wants this to be their main channel of communication. So rather than having the sort of smorgasbord of your traditional newspaper interviews and going on the BBC and doing the Sunday shows, that in a way is almost becoming secondary to social channels, which is becoming the sort of primary means of communication, even more so than, you know, your traditional government press release that goes out to journalists and then is in the papers the next day or online a few hours later.

20:29I think two things, one of which is, firstly, I think the press releases, I mean, how many times have we seen the same press release? Quite. The banning of smartphones, for instance, in schools. So I think maybe there's a new way of actually selling the old message, but in a new and engaging format. Again, I question how much that actually represents a break with 40 years, as Burnham is saying, but we shall see. Second point is, yeah, I mean, they're not just Labour is not in isolation on this. I think one of reform's responses to what's been happening over the past few months has been to kind of turn their back on elements, the conservative press, Tory press, if you want to call it that, traditional press, and very much work to build up their own channels.

21:00You see the Substance launching, you see their own podcast, you see all the things on Twitter, you see their own studio. I mean, it's sometimes said that the Tory party, you know, the Tory press functioned as the party in the press. This is reform as the press. This is the party as the press. And I think that's what they're doing with their Milbank studio. And, you know, I think that the BBC is a real battleground. BBC obviously has sort of three quarters of the market share on broadcast. Otherwise, it's, you know, they don't really care that much about traditional press, which I think is an opening for the Tories.

21:27And I think suggests we're going to see more and more of this rise of the so-called influence industrial complex over the coming months.

21:32Noa Hoffman: Yeah. And interestingly, as you said, the Tories were kind of the furthest behind getting into social media and harnessing the sort of influencer complex, so to speak. But now you do see them leaning into it and you see accounts like CCHQ Press on X, you know, quote tweeting someone from Labour or Reform and using language like, are you OK, bro? And really sort of stooping to that level. But that is what is getting the attention at the moment. And we live in an attention economy. That's how communications is working right now. As you said, where this goes and how far it's taken and how much time and taxpayer money it takes up.

22:12Noa Hoffman: because bear in mind, you know, we are paying you and I and the audience for the social media content of not the influencers, but of the politicians particular accounts with our taxes. So for instance, Number 10 North, they've advertised a whole load of jobs for social media content creators to be in-house at Number 10 North. I should have had the exact amount up, but it's, you know, into the millions. And what's quite funny, and I do want to point this out because it's been forgotten in the discourse, is that when Labour first got into government under Keir Starmer, not long after the July 2024 general election, Darren Jones went on to Newsnight to lament that the Tories were spending hundreds of millions of pounds on civil servant social media creators.

23:03Noa Hoffman: Now, of course, if you fast forward just a few weeks, maybe months from those comments where he was really having a dig at the Tories for their social media spend. Of course, Labour is doing the exact same thing, which is quite interesting. But with that being said, you can't ignore social media channels these days. That's where the audiences are. And the government does have a sort of responsibility to communicate policy to the public. And if that's where the public is, they have to follow them. Well, as Noah says, it is an attention economy. So I appreciate you tuning into Coffeehouse and giving us your attention today.

23:34Thank you for watching and see us same time next week.

23:48So

24:01ever notice how every new AI tool asks you to explain your business to it all over again? Google Workspace with Gemini skips that. You get Google's AI built right into the premium versions of Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and more. No new tools, no extra logins. Just one subscription that gives you personalized AI right inside your actual workflow. Make work less work. Try Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini.