‘Intensely unpopular’: Was Keir Starmer doomed from the start?

0:02Sky News, the full story first.

0:13I'm worried that we've got into political short-termism. Why couldn't we just ridden out those awful polls? I mean, he would hate the fact I even said that of him. Men cannot stand for the leadership next time because if men stand for the leadership next time we'll have another. Are you going to have an all women's list for the next Labour League? You can't do that. I think, well. Hello and welcome to Electoral Dysfunction with me Beth Rigby. And me Harriet Harman. And it's only Harriet today. It's just the two of us. And we're missing Ruth. I'm having to watch myself because, I mean obviously you, I try and keep on track because I absolutely fear your disapproval, Beth.

0:58But honestly, Ruth is a single-handed, one-woman bullshit detector. So I always have to watch my steps. I'll probably be totally out of control on this discussion. Totally out of control. You just go for it. There's no Ruth to hold you in check. It's just the two of us because you've joined me, Harriet, for a very special interview where we're going to talk about Keir Starmer's premiership, what went wrong. So this is a special treat for me, at least. I don't know if it's a treat for you, but it's just you and me on the pod today. And of course, Ruth will be back with us next week. So Ruth fans, which we all are, don't despair.

1:37And if you want more of us, including a bonus episode every week, you can subscribe to Sky News Insider. The details will be in the show notes as usual. OK, right, let's get on with it, shall we? We're recording this on the eve of the handover of power from Keir Starmer to Andy Burnham. And we're also here around the time of the anniversary of the Labour landslide of July 2024. 2024. And if I take you back to that night of July the 4th, when the exit poll landed and Labour was not only going to win the election, but Keir Starmer was knocking on the size of majority not seen since the record breaking days of Tony Blair.

2:25And I said to you, Harriet Harman, in two years time, the Labour Party will kick Keir Starmer out of office. You'd have laughed in my face, wouldn't you? Well, it is quite shocking, really, how quickly it's unraveled. And one of the things that really does concern me is the intense unpopularity that Keir gathered. I mean, when he was elected, he wasn't personally hugely popular. But once he became prime minister, very quickly, his poll ratings with the public absolutely plunged. And I'm sort of fearing that there's a massive problem with incumbency turbocharged by social media. And I think it took him by surprise.

3:09It won't take Andy Burnham by surprise. He'll have seen what happened to Keir Starmer and know that the kind of vibes matter absolutely hugely. And I think that Keir Starmer felt he'd won the election. He could just get on with being a good prime minister and govern. But that's not enough today. You've got to be doing the vibes and sort of re-winning your popularity all over again in the face of massive hostility. It was a massive landslide, one on quite small margins in many, many seats because the Labour campaign team, led them by Morgan McSweeney, who went on to become the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, had so cleverly organised this election to really try to turn out and mobilise a Labour vote in marginal seats.

3:58So there were lots of seats where Labour just got across the line, but it was a very low share of the vote to win such a big majority. But you are right, like the popularity, the plummeting of Starmer's popularity, I think, took everyone by surprise. what do you put that down to is it hostility on social media there's been lots of talk about disinformation spread about Keir Starmer you know there's talk about the fact that it's coming from hostile states wanting to undermine our prime minister undermine our democracy but equally it was also a Labour government that made a series of quite controversial decisions early on that they had not signposted in the general election, such as the winter fuel allowance cut, such as the national insurance hike.

4:50Do you think it was a combination of both things, a more hostile social media environment combined with decision making that made him so unpopular? Well, asides from the good things he did, which he can look back and feel proud of, like cutting the NHS, waiting this, more investment in defence, the economy starting to be stabilised. Aside from that, mistakes were made, like the Winter Fuel Alliance, which came out of nowhere. Nobody was consulted in the Parliamentary Labour Party, arguably, because the principle of starting to means test the Winter Fuel Alliance was generally accepted. If he could have discussed it with the PLP.

5:32He might have got the cutoff point right. And it might have been something that he could have introduced and could have been a popular measure. And, you know, one would hope that the reason why he became so incredibly unpopular was just to do with his mistakes. But I worry that it's actually more than that. People say, oh, is the reason why we've had so many prime ministers over recent years that this country has become ungovernable? I don't think the country is ungovernable, but I think it's harder to govern. And I think that Keir Starmer, and perhaps with justification thought, I've been elected, I've got a big majority, they're all Labour MPs, I can just get on with it and I will be judged at the end of the five years.

6:17That is not the situation anymore. And those members of Parliament, there's like 403 Labour members of parliament. There's only 120 paid ministerial posts. So all of those who are not in the 120 paid ministerial posts, the question is, what are you going to ensure that they can do so that they feel part of the project? They've got to feel a shared sense of purpose. And I think that he thought that having got them elected, that he would be entitled to their loyalty. but actually that's not how it worked out. So Andy Burnham will know that he's got to work really hard on the vibe with the public, that he's also got to ensure the active support of the MPs beyond those who he's appointed as ministers.

7:08But the other thing is that the public don't yet know Andy Burnham. At the moment, he's prime minister without their having voted for him and without actually anybody in the Labour Party being able to vote for him. So he's got to introduce himself so that they get to know him and he's got to win their backing and support. Harriet, when we did the Hay Festival earlier this year, we were asked this question on the panel. I've thought about it a lot since, about whether or not the country is becoming ungovernable. I took us back to the 1970s when there was an external oil shock, it caused recession, it caused hyperinflation and it caused massive economic difficulties.

7:48And we began to churn through leaders, and I think we had maybe four in just under a decade. And now we're here, we are, and we've got seven in a decade, seven prime ministers. And if you look at that, you've got the financial shock of 2008 leading into austerity, then have the Brexit shock to the economy, then the COVID pandemic, and then you have war in Ukraine, and then you have Trump White House and the Iran war. I mean... And then you've got the populism and the divisiveness of Faraj and reform as well. Do you think that external shocks are also what did for Starmer and that actually when people, a bit of time passes and they look back on his administration, some of the failings in a way were beyond his control?

8:40I've thought a lot like you have about that question. And I always say, no, the country is not ungovernable. But I wonder whether it's just because I fear so much. I mean, what it would mean if I answered yes, then that is a terrible thing to contemplate. So in a way, I'm hoping by saying it's not ungovernable, I'm manifesting that Andy will be able to govern. But I think certainly governing is incredibly, incredibly hard. but Andy will be forewarned and that means that he hopefully will not make the mistakes, but it's this biting, searing unpopularity, which is way disproportionate to the mistakes that he did that are really worrying me more.

9:30I mean, was part of it about Keir Starmer saying he was one thing and then behaving in a different way? And the reason I say that is, on the one hand, he said to the country, we're going to have a decade of renewal, we're going to bring change. And then their lives didn't improve that much. And actually, when he got in, he went, everything's much, much worse than we thought it was. And it's going to be really painful. So there was a pre-election message and a post-election message that would have been quite disappointing for voters. He then had the freebies scandal from September to October, where it emerged that he and his wife, Lady Victoria, and a number of senior cabinet ministers had received lots of gifts.

10:18They'd been given freebies by Lord Ali, a big donor. There were the glasses. There were nearly£20 ,000 of work clothes. Now, Morgan McSweeney, his former chief of staff, has subsequently said, look, when a prime minister or a leader is campaigning in an election, they actually need to have a wardrobe and you need campaign clothes, etc., etc. You're shaking your head. But the reason I'm bringing this up is Keir Starmer said he was going to govern differently. He said he wasn't going to have his nose in the trough, if you like. I mean, he would hate the fact I even said that of him. But the impression it left for the voter was this guy said he was different.

11:00And yet he's taking all these freebies from rich people. Also on the tax, he said, we're not going to lift income tax. national insurance, VAT on working people. And in fairness, they haven't lifted those taxes, but they did take the winter fuel allowance from pensioners and they did put a£25 billion levy on businesses on national insurance. So they did lift national insurance, just not for workers. Do you think that that was part of the reason that the public really fell out of love with him so quickly? Because they thought, oh, it's just another one saying one thing to win and then behaving in another way?

11:37Well, I don't think they were ever really in love with him before the election. But I think that before the election, he promised change and change was on the podium every time he made a speech and on the front page of the manifesto. And then when he got into government, he said, yes, there is going to be change. Things are going to get worse. It's going to be really painful. And I think it was an excess of wanting to warn people and not giving people false hope. But the trouble is, it wasn't that he didn't give them false hope. He gave them no hope at all. And people were thinking, but where's the change I voted for?

12:12As far as being a different sort of politician, I think it was regarded as one of his strengths, that he wasn't a political lifer. He'd not spent his life in politics. He'd spent his life in public service, in the law, as the director of public prosecutions. And therefore, it was regarded as an asset for him. But the trouble is, you do need to be really good at politics to be prime minister. So what had been regarded as an asset for him turned into a downside. And when it came to the economy, there was those promises in the manifesto that we won't put up national insurance, corporation tax, VAT, or the basic or the higher rate of tax.

12:59And at the time, a lot of people said, don't do that. That is a straitjacket. You won't be able to deliver the change that you've promised elsewhere in your manifesto if you've promised not to raise the money that you'll need in order to stabilise the finances and put public services back into a good position. And what people said was the Tories were unre-electable in 2024. And therefore, he didn't need to make that promise. He could have made fiscal stability the big promise. So he arrived in office with that straitjacket, which then meant if he was going to put money into public services like he did massively into the NHS, then he was going to have to find the money from somewhere.

13:46And he did it in a way which dampened the economy by raising national insurance on employers' national insurance. So there was that. But the other point was the issue you mentioned about him being seen as Mr. Clean compared to the conservative sleaze. I think there is a difficulty about that. Everybody who gets up and goes to work every day, they think, well, I've paid for my own glasses. I've bought my own suit. I have to be smart when I go out to work, they'll think, I don't take gifts from people. So I think the difficulty is that once you've taken those gifts and declaring them was the issue as well, then how do you justify it?

14:34You can't justify it by saying, I needed the suits. Because on an MP's salary, on a leader of the opposition's salary, on a prime minister's salary, you can buy your own suits and your glasses. And therefore, it kind of gave the impression, which as you say, he would be absolutely horrified about, is that he was somehow on the take. And actually, if you look at the way he's led his life, he is not wanted. He isn't that person, is he? He's never wanted to hang out with the super rich and be surrounded by, you know, wealth. And he's not lived his life like that. So So unfortunately, it was a mistake which cast him in a really bad light, which in a way was unjustified.

15:21But, you know, it was him that took those gifts. But I think the other thing that really made things difficult for him, this is my theory of the unvanquished opposition. If he'd have only had Kemi Badenok and the Tories to worry about, it would have been fine. He could have made his mistakes and then got over them and got on with it. But he was facing an unvanquished opposition, which was the opposition of Reform and Nigel Farage. And they were always being held up against him. They were insurgent. They were becoming more popular. They were on the up. And it was that that he couldn't match. Andy Burnham takes over when it looks as though Nigel Farage and Reform might have peaked.

16:06Nigel Farage is in a lot of trouble because of having taken this£5 million and Andy therefore will not face an insurgent reform and he's already beaten them in Makerfield. We've touched on a few things there. Number one, a party machine that was so anxious about not winning the general election that they didn't really level with the public about what they might need to do in office in order to pay for public services. And of course, if we'd have had a modicum of growth, they wouldn't have needed to raise those taxes. But because external events, Trump's tariffs, all sorts of things, dampen the economy, that meant that straitjacket really mattered.

16:50I mean, yes. So they have a straitjacket and then they have external shocks of a Trump administration. They make a series of policy decisions which are deeply unpopular. And then he appoints Peter Mandelson to be ambassador to the US. And you just talked about a prime minister. Who you are, right, is the person that he isn't drawn to the rich. He doesn't live in those circles. He doesn't want to go and hang out on people's islands or in their villas in Tuscany. He's not that guy. but he brings back into government someone who is that guy and has such a long tail of difficulties for previous prime ministers.

17:28I mean, how damaging for Keir Starmer already on the ropes were the Mandelson revelations last September when those Epstein files from the Department of Justice in the US dropped, revealing the extent of Mandelson's relationship with Epstein, which was far more shocking really in terms of the communication that they had between each other. I mean, Mandelson's now under an investigation for misconduct in public office over whether or not he leaked information to Epstein, not in this administration, but back in the financial crisis under Gordon Brown. Mandelson denies wrongdoing, but he is under investigation.

18:13Was that the thing that did for Starmer, do you think? Was that the beginning of the end or was it the welfare votes and the rebellion that was the beginning of the end? It was all around the same time, wasn't it? July were the welfare rebellion and then September the Mandelson revelations. I mean, it was just an unforced error of enormous proportions. And as you say, it's not as if he even hung out with Peter Mandelson. He wasn't a friend of his. He didn't go on Derry Pascos yachts with Peter Mandelson. He didn't hang out with the globally super wealthy. And there seemed to be a sort of collective insider madness that somehow regarded when there was other good options for the US ambassador, not least Karen Pierce, who was actually well regarded by Trump and who was at the time the current US ambassador.

19:16So there were other options. What sort of madness was it for them to think that they could appoint somebody who'd twice been sacked and who was known to have had close relationships with Exxon? And, you know, that's something obviously Keir Starmer so badly regrets. Well, he said, didn't he, in that interview I did with him, he said, no one beats myself up more about that decision than I do, which tells you everything really about how grave he realised it had been for his premiership. But having said that, we've gone through all the things that led up to what must be for him a bitter ejection from office when he would have wanted not two years, but at least five years.

20:01is that I think in a way, possibly we might see him actually improve his public standing as quickly as his public standing fell. When he's no longer incumbent, he's no longer the prime minister that everybody's got to blame for all the problems in their life. Perhaps there'll be a reassessment and people will look at the good things that he did on the economy, on public services, on our international standing, on Britain's position in the world. And perhaps quite quickly, he might be rehabilitated. We've gone through all the things that went so badly wrong for him. And I cannot emphasise as well that welfare vote.

20:45When the government were trying to find£5 billion in savings from the welfare bill, they alighted on the personal independent payment plans. These are for people with disabilities. They're actually designed to help people, give them support so that they can carry on working and get into work. They tried to find five billion of savings and this created a massive rebellion on the benches. And I remember the timing of this rebellion because it was the summer of 2025. We were actually at NATO with the prime minister. I mean, it says it all, doesn't it? And we were coming back for these votes. And I remember interviewing him saying, you're not going to take your party with you.

21:30How can you command the country if you cannot command your benches? How can you have authority if you can't have the support of your party? How can you have the support of the country? and I really don't think he understood at that point how grave the situation was for him and I think losing in the end they had to pull the reforms didn't they and then they had to announce a review and it was an utter humiliation for a prime minister that he had so misread his parliamentary party there was frustration because he was so focused on NATO and Trump and trade deals and all these difficulties he was having on the international stage, that maybe he had taken his eye off the ball on domestic affairs.

22:16But that really was, I think, for me, that was the beginning of the end when he lost command of the party. And I think what people say is that he was being told, even though he was in NATO concentrating on very good work on foreign affairs, He was being told by the whips, by everybody, you're not going to get this through. But I think that he had the feeling, well, I've been elected as the prime minister. We need to find these savings. These are Labour MPs. I'm their leader. I think, and also because I don't think there's ever been a case where a prime minister has not even been able to get a second reading of a bill.

22:59It was a political catastrophe. And what it did is, is it said, you do not have the confidence of the parliamentary Labour Party. And without the confidence of the parliamentary Labour Party, you cannot govern the country. So that was the moment at which if Keir Starmer said, I'm going to do X, everybody would then say, but is the PLP going to let you do that? Does the PLP agree with you on this? No, you're not going to be able to do this because the PLP won't let you. And at that point, his authority as prime minister, I think, was fatally undermined. And when you add to that his deep unpopularity and the rise of reform in the country, the rise of reform, I think that Labour MPs just thought, we can't leave it and change our leader just before the next election.

23:56We literally have to have a new prime minister now. Let's go back to that welfare rebellion was about a year ago now. And you had Louise Haig, who is effectively the chief operating officer in all intents and purposes of the Andy Burnham operation. She admitted on Nick Robinson's Political Thinking podcast, they did a live show in Sheffield where she is an MP. And she said that Andy did have a plan and they'd been working on it for a year. They'd been planning for this for a year. How did you feel when you heard that? Well, I think you also said, and I listened to that interview, that Andy Burnham had stood for leader of the party twice.

24:44And although he'd gone off to be mayor of Manchester, everybody knew he wanted to be prime minister. And I would say one thing about Lou Haig is that she was so badly treated by Keir Starmer. Keir Starmer gives a free pass to Peter Mandelson, who so didn't deserve it. And yet he put insinuations and cast aspersions on Lou Haig, which really did undermine her reputation. And she did not deserve it when she was doing a really good job as transport secretary. And I think you've got to treat people fairly or people just feel, you know, they don't feel any loyalty. I think people's predisposition is always to support the leader and they want things to succeed.

25:36But if the leader behaves really badly to people, it just corrodes people's trust. And I think he behaved really badly to them. Yeah, let's cut to the chase on this because there are a few threads there. It's like, in terms of personnel, he churned through people around him at a shocking rate. And he smashed their reputation at the same time. Look at Sue Gray, the various directors of communication. A former chief of staff. They were chucked out and their reputation was also rolled in the mud at the same time. But I think that people will look back, not least on the fact that when he took over leadership of the Labour Party.

26:14The party had just suffered his worst defeat. It was full of anti-Semitism and Corbynism. And he made it a party which people could trust to put back into government as an alternative to the Tories. But that factional street fighting, which Morgan McSweeney was key in, was very important in getting the party sorted out, but it wasn't the skills that were needed for leading the country.

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27:40Back to the pod.

27:46Let's kind of cut him a bit of slack here and talk about some of the things that actually he probably isn't being recognised for right at this moment. But people might look back after some time has passed and be more appreciative of things Keir Starmer did do as prime minister. Because if I was sitting here with Keir Starmer now, I know for a fact that he would say that he's very proud of his record. He would talk about support for Ukraine. He would talk about Britain standing on the world stage. He would talk about the coalition of the willing, where he's helped convene European leaders with President Macron to strengthen NATO and support Ukraine.

28:28I think he would talk about his defence investment plan and trying to put more money into defence spending. I think he would talk about that billions of extra funding into the NHS to help cut waiting lists. I think he would talk about the fact that despite heavy criticism, slowly, slowly the government is beginning to make some progress on the small boat crisis with numbers beginning to drop. and they are beginning to fix the asylum system. I think he would talk about, as Rachel Reeves has talked about, stabilising the economy. I think he would talk about the two-child benefit cap, even though it wasn't in the manifesto and even though it wasn't something in the early months they intended to do.

29:14I think he will now say that it's one of the proudest things he's done. I think he'd talk about the social media ban for under-16s. I think only this week he's finally passing the Hillsborough law So he'll be proud of that I mean there is another world where if you were going to be more benign You know if I was going to put on a Keir Starmer supporter hat There's an argument there isn't there That actually he did do some good stuff And there is an argument from some of his supporters That he's been forced out of office too soon Well, all of those things that you said are absolutely true. What an irony, though, about the Hillsborough law, because I'm sure it was incredibly important to Keir Starmer.

29:59This law, which is a duty of candour, that if you're public officials, you cannot lie about the public in relation to things that terrible tragedies that have happened. So he felt very deeply that it was important that the law was changed. But what an irony it is that that was Keir Starmer's law. when the person who'd really campaigned for that, when it was not fashionable at all, a passionate campaign, because he was from the North West, was Andy Burnham. So there they are, united over the Hillsborough law. But I think that he ought to be proud of the legacy that he bequeaths Andy Burnham and not hold it to himself, this is what I've done, but this is what I've given you, Andy Burnham.

30:47I've given you 403 Labour MPs to support you. I've given you an economy which is more stabilised. I've given you a country which is more respected on the world stage. And if he can think in those terms, then I think he can be proud of what he's done. But he would be more than human if he didn't feel a real sort of resentment and bitterness of how has it come to this that when it came to the two year anniversary only of him being prime minister, he already knew he was out. Okay, Harriet, do you think he's been kicked out of office too early? I wouldn't have wanted a change of prime minister because I don't want us to get into political short-termism.

31:42Often it's talked about that the problem for the economy is economic short-termism. I'm worried that we've got into political short-termism. Why couldn't we just ridden out those awful polls, hoping that, you know, planning for things to get better, you know, doing very badly in midterm elections, albeit wiped out Labour in councils across England. And it wiped out our representation in Scotland and Wales, which is not an insignificant thing, but it wasn't an election for the government. Couldn't we have ridden it out? And because of all of those things, I was definitely pushing for the, we should all be in trying to ensure that Starmer succeeds rather than working out who's to replace him.

32:31But that was not the majority feeling of the parliamentary Labour Party. And when Andy Burnham won so handsomely in Makerfield, that crystallised it. And there was no way back for Keir Starmer after that. Keir Starmer looked like the man who loses support amongst the countries supposed to be governing, whereas Andy Burnham offered the prospect of Labour winning support. Because Andy Burnham hasn't been prime minister and had to make a series of difficult decisions that pisses people off yet. I know it's a terrible thing to say, but let's hope that it was Starmer's characteristics, qualities and mistakes that led to his downfall rather than something toxic in our country, which will not let people be an incumbent without dragging them down.

33:21I hope that Andy Burnham will prove that if actually he can manage it. As Keir Starmer steps down, do you think he has some right to claim that if Andy Burnham wins the next election, that's partly down to his leadership as well as Burnham's? Oh, 100%. You do? Absolutely 100%. And I hope that he will have that mindset. It's very, very hard to govern. You've got hundreds of difficult decisions to be making, people pulling you in all different directions. It is very hard, especially as the external circumstances are, as you identified a minute or so ago. We've kind of gone through, I hate we've kind of reflected fairly on Keir Starmer as well.

34:08We talked about his failings, but we also did try to acknowledge where he thinks he succeeded and he deserves some credit. But when you look at what happened to him, how he ran his premiership, the fact that actually, I mean, I cannot imagine how painful it must be for a prime minister to get turfed out after two years when you wanted a decade of national renewal and you've worked your arse off, to be honest, to get into a position to become prime minister, to just have to kind of hand it over to someone who won a by-election, who hasn't gone through the hard yards of getting the Labour Party ready to govern again, to getting it back off its knees, to going through those hard years as leader of the opposition.

34:57What lessons do you think Andy Burnham should take from the fate that has befallen Keir Starmer? That you have got to win and keep the support of your party in Parliament. You can't have stability in government if you've got instability in parliament. Andy Burnham would absolutely know that. That you've got to communicate effectively with the public. There is such a level of mistrust and loathing of government and politicians that every single day he wakes up, he's got to be thinking, how can I be reminding the people that I understand what's going on in their lives, that I want to take things forward for them, that I've got their backs.

35:45He's going to be doing that every single day. So I think those are the lessons that he will have learned from Keir Starmer's downfall. But at the end of the day, politics is tough. I can't remember who it was who said all political careers end in failure. Keir Starmer is being called a failure now because he's been turfed out of office only two years into his prime ministership. Keir Starmer is now a former prime minister, is not a prime minister, but a former prime minister is still a very big beast. He can actually do some good things in public life now. I don't know whether he knows what they are yet, but he can work out.

36:27He can, with his values and his principles and his intelligence and his commitment, he can do some good things for this country now, even though he's no longer prime minister, which is what he really wanted to be. And I just want to say as well, because I spend my life following a prime minister. It can be Boris Johnson, it might be Rishi Sunak, David Cameron, Theresa May, Liz Truss, Keir Starmer. My job is to follow a prime minister around. And when you watch it up close, it is an incredible privilege. Yes, the job is incredibly hard, but you walk onto a plane, there are teams of people ready to drop everything, ready to lay their lives down.

37:09I mean, you know, they literally give their lives over. You have power. You have political power. You have huge power. You have the power to set the direction of the country, to decide who gets taxed, who doesn't, to decide the future of young children in terms of how you want to invest in education or the health service. I mean, it is an incredible privilege. And I think sometimes, because we always talk about how hard politics is, and by God it is, that you forget that it must be the correct... That's why I don't feel sorry for people who are in office and then lose it. I think they've had a great privilege.

37:47But we're now on our God knows how many next male leader of the Labour Party. And, you know, I wish with my whole heart Andy Burnham all the success that he can possibly have on behalf of this country and the Labour Party. But we've got to have a woman next time. And I've worked out that the only way we'll have a woman leader of the Labour Party next time is if we start a conversation now where we say that actually men cannot stand for the leadership next time because if men stand for the leadership next time, we'll have another... Are you going to have an all-women's list for the next Labour League?

38:28You can't do that. Well, I think that we need to start the discussion about male ambition and male allyship is that male ambition should not be to lead themselves. Male ambition ought to be to support a woman to lead. What is going on here though? Because actually... So basically, because otherwise... The Conservative Party are much better... having women as leaders than the Labour Party. Yeah, I think, you know, that is for a whole range of reasons. But I think what we need to do is for women's ambition to be encouraged and male ambition to be the next leader of the Labour Party to be discouraged.

39:09Do you think the next leader after Andy Burnham, whoever that may be, has to be a woman then? Oh, I absolutely think so. And I think I'm going to be asking any really excellent young man MP, you know, rising star in the Labour Party, I'll be wanting to encourage and support them, but I'll be saying to them, are you going to support a woman next time? Or are you going to put yourself in front and put a woman behind you? Because for every man who stands for leader and gets to be a leader, he has pushed a woman behind him he's pushed her into second place behind him so you know let's hope and he is you know a leader for many many many years and that he's able to make much more of a success of it than Keir Starmer was but we've got to start the discussion now about how we stop the discrimination that there is in the Labour Party which means that whilst the Tories have managed to have many women leaders, let alone a woman prime minister.

40:16Yeah, they've had two female prime ministers. No, they've had three female... I forgot Liz Truss. Thatcher, May... They've had three... And they've now got a woman leader of the opposition. And they've got a woman leader of the opposition. Is it just a bunch of misogynists in the Labour Party? We've just got to fix it. I'm beyond analysing the reasons for it. There are many and varies, But I'm not interested in the reasons for it anymore. I'm interested now in actually sorting it. Final question for Andy Burnham. What do you think are one or two things he needs to do in the first 100 days to really kind of stamp his authority on the country, but also genuinely show people that he will be the change candidate that he tried to sell to the, well, sold very successfully, actually, to the constituents in Makerfield?

41:04Well, I think he'll need to hit the ground running. And I think he's got to make some changes which show that the way he's going to do government is different. People think that politics has failed. So he's got to demonstrate with some machinery of government changes and some different ways of doing politics that there is real institutional change in the way that he's going to be prime minister. OK, well, it is going to be fascinating to see what this new incarnation of the Labour administration is under Andy Burnham. And it was fascinating to chew over Keir Starmer and his legacy. And let's see where he does land, Harry, in a few months time, because this is a man with a serious work rate.

41:50I think that's fair to say. He never stops working. so for him to go from a thousand miles an hour as prime minister where everyone wants a bit of you to kind of stop in I can't imagine what that must be like but I do think that we will see him reinvent himself again he had a whole career in the law didn't he before he became a politician in his mid-50s he became prime minister and the leader of the Labour Party you know both things in less than a decade of entry in politics, which is quite something. But thank you, Harriet, for talking to me about him. All that Keir Starmer's got to do is reinvent himself and all that Andy Burnham's got to do is reinvent the role of Prime Minister.

42:35Just some small tasks there for those two gents. Easy. Well, look, that's what we thought. We'd love to hear what you think about what went wrong for Keir Starmer and also what do you want to see from Andy Burnham? The burner phone is still in action. That's 07934 200 444 or email us at electoral dysfunction at sky.uk. And if you're one of our insiders, you can also post on the brand new members forum. There is a link in the show notes as usual. And we will be back on Tuesday for our subscriber episode. And if you'd like to access that, you can find details in the show notes. so thanks for listening harriet thank you for our tete-a-tete oh i've loved i enjoyed that i enjoyed that and uh it's goodbye from us for now goodbye goodbye