Political Fix: Makerfield or bust: Burnham goes for broke

0:00Jen Williams: Hey guys, it's Mark. Next week, there's a local election in the UK that could be the most consequential in recent British political history. Voters in Makerfield, just outside Manchester, head to the polls to choose a new member of Parliament. Among the candidates is former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham. He's widely seen as a potential challenger to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Labour's future leader. Burnham is the bookmaker's favorite, but there's a catch. A strong challenge from Reform UK, the insurgent party that continues to disrupt British politics. If Burnham wins, attention would be on what his return to Westminster would mean.

0:36Jen Williams: But if Reform pulls off an upset, it would send shockwaves through the political establishment. In this episode of the FT's Political Fix podcast, Lucy Fisher and her panel look beyond the headlines. and they ask, what's really driving voters in Makerfield, and how could the result shape the future of British politics? Enjoy.

0:57Jim Pickard: I just want somebody fresh, somebody new, somebody from here, somebody who gets it. A flavour there of what voters are saying in Makerfield. We need somebody with a backbone. With all people in, they're supposed to do what they say they're going to do. None of them have so far. Welcome to Political Fix from the Financial Times with me, Lucy Fisher. Now we are recording this in a pub in Makerfield where I've been on the ground for two days now trying to take the political temperature ahead of the by-election next week. It is shaping up to be potentially the most historic by-election in British history.

1:31Jim Pickard: It could change the course of the country if Labour candidate Andy Burnham wins and successfully challenges Sir Keir Starmer as we know he's planning to do for the premiership. And we're just sitting down to record as John Healy, the Defence Secretary, has sensationally resigned in protest over the financial settlement for Britain's military. So, so much to discuss here with Jennifer Williams, the FT's Northern England correspondent. Hi, Jen. Hi, Lucy. And Jim Pickard, the FT's Deputy Political Editor. Hi, Jim. Hey, Lucy. So, to set the scene first, I should say we are in the Buckshead pub in Abram in the Makerfield constituency.

2:10Jim Pickard: so big shout out and thanks to Chris the landlord for letting us record here especially as there is a bingo game going on behind us that you might hear um we're having a bit of lunch Jen you've fallen prey to stereotype you're eating I am doing the Andy Burnham special I'm having chips and gravy

2:26Jen Williams: that's a reference to Andy Burnham being asked what his favorite biscuit was yes can you remember his reply it was chips and gravy and you you think also a pint of beer I think he also had just to just to max the northern cliche okay but you're on the orange juice yeah what are you

2:40Jim Pickard: having lise um i have um i've already had some fish fingers in the pub but i have procured for your deletation jim what i'm told is a wig and pie it is a mint steak party pie inside a soft white bap known locally i'm told by galloway bakery as a bam so it's um it's a bomb sorry a bomb wig and kebab a wig and kebab i've been corrected forgive me the the regional variations on bread rolls in this country are kind of pretty pretty spectacular i think around here it's bomb okay so it's it's it's bread around pastry jim i don't eat meat but you've got to take a bite in

3:16Jen Williams: the name of it looks amazing i've had a mcdonald's but i but i'm gonna enjoy that on the train home

3:22Jim Pickard: great um so let's kick off with discussing what we've heard so far on the campaign trail um jen we've just come up you know this week but you've been covering this ever since the by-election was called and obviously you know the area well from your years reporting around here give us a sense of what you've picked up from voters on the ground i think there's the things that you would expect to come through in it and have come through for a long time especially in a constituency like this where you know immigration and cost of living are at the top of people's lists on the doorstep and that's what comes through when you go out and talk to people i also think that there's kind of been a shift of the mood where at one point there was kind of degree of apathy around politics i do think that that has started to turn into a degree of anger and it's directed in different in different directions but a lot of it is directed at kirstheimer um and then i think there are things that are more specific to this campaign including things that have arisen like during it like for example the two-tier policing stuff a kind of a sort of pronounced uh gender dynamic to this which i'm sure we'll probably come on to and there is also this kind of question about who is the most kind of of us who is the most kind of man of the people of the place and essentially Andy Burnham and Reform are both trying to persuade people that they are that guy yeah well that's something I really picked up at a Hustings event hosted by the Manchester Evening News your old place Jen on Wednesday where Burnham was really trying to walk this tightrope wasn't he in saying that he's a local man he made clear his children had gone to the college where the event was being hosted he made clear that he you know wouldn't forget where he came from if he got elected and was trying to tailor his messaging both locally to the community here but also really picking up on themes that have national resonance so here's a flavor of how bernan was really trying to bring that home with

5:15Jen Williams: the voters on wednesday whenever i have represented people i've got it to the best of my ability and It's always been this place where my heart is. You know, I look at the Hillsborough families in the eye and I represented them when I was in the cabinet and I would represent this constituency in the same way. The more power you've got to help people, the more this constituency would become the most powerful in the land.

5:36Jim Pickard: And then here's Robert Kenyon, the reform candidate, trying to make a similar point that he is the local man who is not trying to, as he would put it, use this constituency as a stepping stone for higher office. If you want a local approachable MP that you can contact, who plans on abstinence here and being out and about in the streets, I'll be going to the same gyms, the same pubs, the same schools, walking the same streets, going to the same supermarkets as all you lot. I can relate to you a lot more than somebody at the opposite end of the country. Jim, what have you been picking up since arriving in the sea?

6:10Jen Williams: Now, I've been up here this morning in the rain chatting to a fair number of people. I've probably spoken to 15 or 20 local people in Makerfield. And what I found very interesting is that I got more Labour and Burnham supporters. Lucy, I will come back to you, but I think you got more Reform and Restore voters. This is why we have pollsters, because they can talk to 1 ,000 people in a way that we can't on our trip up from London. But I agree with what you said, Jen, which is that there seemed to me a bit of a gender difference with the women sounding on balance, a little bit more Labour-y. and the men who were more open with how they were going to vote were talking more in a kind of reform way.

6:47Jen Williams: And there was one thing that I noticed that really came through, which was that Andy Burnham, when he was in his hustings, was using this line about how reform wants to make British politics more like Trump's America. Two people on the streets this morning spontaneously said that to me and I thought, well, that's one attack line from Burnham that does seem to be getting through to voters.

7:07Jim Pickard: Interestingly, though, Jim, Persis, our producer, and I were at a reform press conference on Wednesday afternoon in which Robert Kenyon, the candidate, was only allowed to speak for just about two minutes before Nigel Farage seized the limelight and spoke for at least half an hour. And we actually saw a lot of women there supporting reform and interested in reform at this press conference in a car park. They seemed to be completely unfazed by comments he made online in which he suggested that women can't drive or referee football matches. I think it was some very vicious comments about abortion, claiming that women use it as a secondary form of birth control so they can sleep around.

7:50Jim Pickard: And also some highly sexualised comments that he endorsed about Carol Vorderman. But there were a lot of women in the audience there, and we talked to some afterwards. And they felt, interestingly, that all the attention that was being brought to Robert Kenyon's past comments on social media was a cynical ploy by other parties, notably Labour and other critics of Kenyon. They thought it was completely irrelevant what someone had said on social media a decade ago before they had got any interest in going into politics. And in particular, a lot of voters we've spoken to on the ground have brought up with a sense of chagrin, a leaflet that's come through their door with comments from Carol Vorderman trying to draw attention to that controversy over Robert Kenyon's comments.

8:38Jim Pickard: And they really don't like that. I've got to say it doesn't massively surprise me because it's kind of got the air of somebody coming in from outside and telling you what you should or shouldn't be angry about. So I'm sort of not hugely surprised by that. I think, I mean, there is a gender divide from what we can see in the polling and from what Canvases are sort of picking up on the doorstep. whether it's necessarily any more pronounced between Labour and reform than it is nationally it may be sort of roughly in line with it but I think what Labour have identified is is something that they can pounce on in terms of his past remarks.

9:14I think you could see from the looks on those women's faces in the Question Time audience when Robert Kenyon was sort of pushed on what he had said previously and kind of didn't really make a very good fist of defending himself You know, those clips have been clipped up and sent around social media and amplified and amplified and amplified over the last week or so. It's interesting.

9:36Jim Pickard: I noticed at the Hustings, Robert Kenyon was at pains to say that he and reform totally back women's rights. He said that women's rights would be safest under reform than any other party. And then you could tell he was sort of reaching for a single right of women to name. And he said, like pregnancy. And honestly, there was a titter that ran through the audience. I think you're going to protect women's rights to pregnancy, are you? And I think in a sense, maybe that unvarnished nature is something that's a little bit appealing next to the glossiness of Andy Burnham, who's obviously a much more eloquent practice performer.

10:12Jim Pickard: And I was interested to see them sat next to each other at the Hustings and the different reception that they got. I think what's quite interesting, I think, about Andy Burnham and the risks that he's now going to be taking, I suppose, is that as mayor he has thrived off this idea that he's got outsider status so he has built his brand around the idea that he's gone up against the initially particularly against the conservative government but he's maintained that brand while Labour have been in power right and and people have responded to that I think it's a large part of his popularity one of the things I've noticed and this is more probably from online comments than it is necessarily from talking to people in the street but I suspect it it may be true in the street as well is that there may just be a little bit of a risk that that outsider status is just beginning to wear off a little bit because you know how do you maintain that in a circumstance like this when you are clearly the polished politician with the money well say with the money but certainly with the machine behind you right that becomes harder again to maintain if

11:12Jen Williams: you then go into number 10 so one thing i picked up talking to people in makerfield this morning was that even the ones who were voting reform don't mind andy burnham i guess reflecting the fact that he hasn't had to take any responsibility for national government decisions over the last decade and the people who are inclined to vote Labour do think they call him things like good he's a good fella he's a great guy you know he's likable but even among them there was some cynicism about whether he can change Britain and do a better job than Keir Starmer nobody seems to like Keir Starmer actively but there are a couple of people who said to me we do think it's really hard running the country being prime minister we don't think his armor is abysmal we don't think he's got any charisma but we think it's a really difficult job and we don't see andy burnham as much as we like him suddenly making everything gravy to use the northern expression i think trust is just so low in all politics right i mean i've sat in on focus groups of people who are probably going to vote reform but if you ask them do you think idyll farage would completely change the country they're really not very sure they're just kind of thinking well i don't know there was There's a lady we spoke to in the corner here in the pub who said that, you know, she hated lay-throated, she hated Keir Starmer, was going to vote Nigel Farage in reform.

12:22Jen Williams: And I said, do you think Britain will get better? And she said, I have no idea. No idea. But if he fails, then we can go back and try the original tea, but we just need to shape things up.

12:31Jim Pickard: And Jen, you're interested in housing as a theme that really plays into that argument about who's the real local candidate. So there's a particular court case which has just been heard this week, which is bad timing for Andy Burnham. and it's something that reform has immediately kind of weaponised against him, and you can completely see why. The context for it is that when Andy Burnham, just before Andy Burnham became mayor in 2017, Greater Manchester had agreed a pot of money with the Treasury, and it was used partly to help build the skyscrapers that you can see in the city centre now, and it was lent out to various developers to build those as part of the efforts to regenerate the city centre.

13:15Andy Burnham had promised to make that fund all about social housing if he got into office and then sort of generally speaking kind of didn't and has then subsequently been sued by a developer that didn't get access to that money who argues that it was lent unlawfully in various accusations around interest rates that case has come back to court this week and whether or not it's won or lost what it has done is an airing for this idea that reform is able to pick up on as an attack line that Andy Burnham has been lining the pockets of private developers in Manchester City Centre so the optics of that are not ideal if you're trying to argue that you have a kind of insurgent man of the people status and the timing certainly isn't.

14:00Jen Williams: I did ask a couple of people this morning what they thought about Nigel Farage taking five million pounds as a gift from a crypto billionaire based in Thailand and the gist was they're all kind of at it you know everyone takes money yeah no one is computing that this is an unfathomably large quantity of money to receive unusual british politics i have had it come up in a negative way actually but only for one or two people yeah yeah but i think what's interesting about it is that people have noticed it like they are aware of it it's just that but he's also not done many press conferences recently i think if and when nigel frosh starts doing regular televised press conferences of the sort he has been doing if he does then i imagine you know people might

14:41Jim Pickard: see more of it on tv i was struck that one of the reform ads locally has shown andy burnham sort of jetting off to amman to meet luxury property developers at an annual conference enjoying this jolly as well so they uh they're trying to get that to stick and you can see why they would because you know andy's campaign slogan is literally for us right like that is where this is being fought. I was very interested. We know that by-elections normally see lower turnout than usual. So people who normally vote in general elections don't manage to get to the polls, don't know what's happening or aren't as interested in by-elections.

15:16Jim Pickard: We spoke to on Wednesday, actually a handful of voters who didn't vote in 2024, but are now going to vote next Thursday for reform. And I think that's interesting. It shows to me that there is a level of engagement and enthusiasm that Reform have managed to engender, at least in some of their supporters, to get them to come out of the House, which I thought was interesting.

15:38Jen Williams: And the local election results were really bad for Labour, weren't they? Just to remind our listeners, didn't they basically lose, Jen, 19 out of 20 wars? Well, I mean, it was basically a wipeout for Labour in the borough of Wigan, which is where we are. I also think, you know, one of Reform's tricks has absolutely been to turn a bunch of people out who don't normally vote. And this has taken Labour unawares in a lot of places, actually, over the last couple of years. You know, there have been instances where Labour have been pretty confident of their own data. It's as good as it can possibly be.

16:11But they haven't been able to find those people who actually have come out of nowhere who don't normally vote. And they've gone out and voted before.

16:17Jim Pickard: Well, I must say, all the polling suggests that Andy Burnham is going to sweep it next week. The bookies think Andy Burnham is on track to win. but I must speak as I find and I would say that we've driven to every part of the constituency whether it's Abram, Hindley, Oral, Ashton, Winstanley and to my mind at least the roads we've been down we've seen quite a lot more reform placards than we have Labour but that's not necessarily you know indicative of the of the result but let's just hear a very brief montage of a few of the voices we've spoken to on the ground. Labour Party have been at Wigan Council for 40 years and things have got worse and worse and worse.

17:01What difference is Burnham going to make now?

17:03Jen Williams: Andy's very good at speaking, I'd say, and he's done a lot for young people around here as well. He's the only politician I think has done something for me, personally.

17:16Jim Pickard: There should be less money in the welfare

17:17Jen Williams: and more money in people's pockets. they're actually doing some work. I think I speak for most of the people in this country and we say anyone that comes over here legally and intends to work and contribute like the rest of us is more than welcome. I think it's just everything that's going on with immigration.

17:35Jim Pickard: As soon as you mention reform, oh, I'm not racist. I, you know, never have been and I never will be. I voted for reform last time, but since reading lots of information, I've gone against them now and I'll be voting for a restore this time. Persis and I, I think, have been struck by the number of people who are voting either reform or restore, which has also been quite striking to see. I was going to ask you, Lucy,

18:00Jen Williams: and there's a whole 20 restore campaigners in the same pub as us, 20 yards away. What have you found talking to the people who are planning to vote for Rupert Lowe's party?

18:08Jim Pickard: Well, interestingly, we spoke to one chap in his 60s who'd just retired, had run a bakery that had been in his family for three generations, and he said to us that immigration, illegal immigration is out of control. Other people we spoke to in Hindley said that they had met the local restore candidate and she had come across really well. We spoke to a woman who said she had voted for reform at the last election but would be voting for a restore next week after being more convinced of their policies after reading about them online.

18:40Jen Williams: And the point is that reform have outflanked the Tory party from the right by pledging to be tough on immigration and now they are saying Restore eat their lunch from the right as well. And it's conceivable that that could split the difference to help Andy through, right?

18:53Jim Pickard: The thing I'd just add on Restore as well is, you know, I did challenge people about whether they viewed Restore as far right as extremist. And they were at pains to say, you know, I'm not racist. I don't believe they're racist. It's legal immigration that's got out of control. I think that is at odds with their policies, which are hardline nativist. But it's interesting how they're being read by some of their supporters. And I think also it's the other side of that gender question as well, right? I was chatting to a reform voter when I was out talking to people here last week. He said exactly what you were saying.

19:21You know, I were worried about keeping girls safe from what these gangs are doing, even if there aren't any local gangs necessarily. There was a salience to the issue, right? So the gender issue also plays into that.

19:33Jim Pickard: Jim, I've also been struck by how much Belfast is playing out here. People have brought up unprompted the word beheading, obviously referring to the heinous scenes we saw in Belfast in recent days and some of the violent disorder that's erupted since then. People talking a lot about stabbings that are taking place throughout the country, them feeling scared. Have you picked that up and people you've been speaking to?

19:58Jen Williams: So, I mean, it's a very fraught backdrop on the national picture that this by-election is taking place with all that in the news every day. And the crime that occurred in Belfast was obviously completely horrific, and this poor guy losing his eye and all the rest of it. But equally upsetting is the subsequent carnage we saw with people's cars being burnt out, homes being burnt out, the local police having to evacuate a two-year-old child from a house because this kid wasn't safe. And all of that anger is a legitimate response to a horrific crime, but it is being stoked by people like Elon Musk, thousands of miles away and far right agitators online, wanting this fury in a way that when a white person murders another white person, they are not quite so exercised.

20:49Jen Williams: and how on earth the Westminster establishment deals with that sense of grievance and sense of anger. They don't seem to have worked out how to counter it. And it feels like a very responsive way that they're dealing with it, just lurching from one riot to another, basically.

21:06Jim Pickard: And Jen, I mean, the word pogrom has been used about some of the activity we've seen in Northern Ireland with people, I think nurses, non-white nurses being stopped trying to enter a hospital where they're on their way to work and ask for their nationality with some being allowed in and some not. I mean, that is a shocking kind of scene we've not seen in this country for a very long time. We saw it in the riots in Middlesbrough in 2024. There was footage of men stopping cars in the street during those riots and asking, checking whether people were white or not. Like, it was a really, really dark thread that kind of runs through all of this.

21:40What was quite interesting when I was talking to people here last week to see what they thought about Nigel Farage's intervention on the Henry Novak murder and whether or not they thought that that was appropriate and whether it had gone too far.

21:52Jen Williams: Which is the Southampton different one, isn't it? Yeah, and Nigel Farage had intervened and essentially made a speech immediately and was then accused of sort of stoking tensions and exploiting it when the family had not wanted that to happen and had been very explicit about it. Even among people who didn't necessarily think that he had done the right thing, The idea of two-tier policing was one that really seems to be very kind of within the consciousness of people that I was talking to. So I think that is a real view which is out there.

22:30Jim Pickard: Let's turn to talk about Andy Burnham at the Hustings. He did make this comment about having stuck by the Hillsborough families when in opposition and then when he went into power, doing right by them. He said he would do the same for the WASPy women, this cohort of women born in the 1950s who claim that they were improperly informed about changes to the state pension age and therefore they have lost out in terms of their pension. They are claiming thousands of pounds each in compensation. Collectively, the government thinks that any compensation could run up to 10.5 billion. Starmer has been absolutely clear and rejecting claims for compensation, although the government has apologised for the way that episode played out.

23:15Jim Pickard: Burnham this week said that he'd stick by them and that he was, you know, open to recompense for them.

23:21Jen Williams: But he used the word some recompense, didn't he?

23:24Jim Pickard: He did. His spokesperson then said that he was open to considering compensation before 24 hours later, rowing back on that and ruling out financial compensation and instead saying perhaps early access to concessionary travel, which he's introduced in Greater Manchester, for example, to the cohort or other sorts of schemes might be suitable. Rye smiles here.

23:46Jen Williams: I think he can't help himself from... One characteristic of Andy Burnham that you can see throughout 20 years of him as a cabinet minister, a shadow minister who carried on serving under Jeremy Corbyn and then as mayor is he likes to be liked. and if there's a really tough, difficult decision that he's made where he's allowed himself to become unpopular over the years, I can't think what it is and maybe that's unfair and I'm open to hearing candidates for that. But I think when confronted with people wanting money because something bad has happened, I think his first instinct is to say, well, I'll listen to that.

24:21Jen Williams: So the one I noticed last week was when, I think on the Newsnight interview again, he sort of implied that the the nix rise that occurred in the 2024 budget raising 20 billion pounds national insurance that is um he sort of implied that's something that he would like to look at if he ever becomes prime minister he didn't promise to reverse it but he's getting people's hopes up in a way that if he ever does become prime minister gets in there realizes there's basically no money is he going to let down a lot of these people whose hopes he's been inflating in recent days. I think student loans have come up a couple of times as well.

24:56What's he saying on student loans? Well, he hasn't gone quite as far as the WASP thing, but he sort of indicated that, you know, people struggling in the current student loan system, which is the government is under pressure to reform, have been treated abominably unfairly by the Westminster government and it's awful and, you know, he supports young people, which then, as you say, Jim, sort of starts to raise expectations and then that has to be walked back. And it's kind of like all you're doing is, like, storing up storing up storing up for things that people even if you can come back at later and say like i never said i would be x you are sending out signals which then people raise expectations and then you end up having to deal with all about later but he may also think well kia starmer came

25:34Jen Williams: in in 2020 with this list of 10 really left-wing concrete pledges that he was going to do

25:43Jen Williams: so maybe he thinks if kia starmer can destroy 10 firm pledges then he he can make half a dozen very very vague suggestions of help i honestly don't think it's that thought i mean i like totally but i just don't think it's that thought through i think he says things almost in the

25:57Jim Pickard: moment sometimes and then lives to regret it but i would say it has sparked a big backlash in the labor party his waspy comments with people saying exactly what you um remarked jim you know he can't say no to anyone um another uh labor mp messaged me to say oh i see andy burnham has lost the plot again and Keir Starmer ally said this is precisely the version of the Labour Party that Keir Starmer slayed to become Prime Minister trying to sort of basically liken Burnham's economic prospectus to that of Jeremy Corbyn and in fact a compensation package for the Waspie women totaling almost 60 billion pounds have been promised by Corbyn at the 2019 election so I'm not surprised to see a backlash from the Labour Party and being the Financial Times we're also very carefully tracking what the bond markets are saying about this and guilt investors are also pretty downbeat on the prospect of a burn in premiership for this precise reason yeah but

26:53Jen Williams: the only thing i would say is that if you compare even his partial promises he's made and his sort of whiff of more nationalization which again is not a concrete promise at all i think it the way it compares to the actual corbyn agenda from 2019 is incredibly thin grill if you are an actual left winger and if you listen to andy burnham and you hear him say i want to end 40 years of neoliberalism i mean that is going to massively get up the hopes of left-wing people left-wing voters and nothing he is promising is anything like as radical as most of the corbyn mcdonald agenda from 2019 you also get into starmer territory don't you where you end up actually pleasing nobody you know oh hell yeah absolutely you know mps on the left of labor i spoke to

27:35Jim Pickard: rebecca long bailey who's chair of the all-party parliamentary group on state pension inequality she really praised Burnham for coming out with his WASP signal of a spending commitment. And now he's had to walk it back. I'm sure she won't be terribly impressed. Let's talk a little bit about the Starmer fight back that started this week. Seems to have met the massive hurdle of his defence secretary resigning. But there'd been this sense last week that we talked about on the pod that the fight had gone out of Downing Street. The mood was really bleak and grim. him. Starmer had tried at the beginning this week, Jim, to call in the junior ministers, stiffen their resolve, look them in the eye and make clear that if there is a contest, he isn't going to roll over.

28:19Jim Pickard: There isn't going to be some smooth transition. He will fight.

28:22Jen Williams: Yeah. So I don't think there's a dichotomy between these two things. I think the people around him have lost the fight and plenty of people in Downing Street and senior ministers think he's done for. But he himself, as far as I know, is this incredibly competitive person who looks at Andy Burnham and thinks, you know, I was a shadow junior minister under you 10 years ago and didn't think you were that great. Winning Greater Manchester and possibly Makerfield is sort of like, Keir Starmer loves football analogies. He would say that as being like a lower division. Andy's a star player in a lower division, but has he really proved himself in the Premier League in the way that Keir Starmer is at least in the Premier League?

29:03Jen Williams: And I think he wants to take on this upstart and get in the ring with him and have a proper fight. So I don't think he's lost the confidence, but we've seen from past prime ministers, I don't think Boris Johnson lost faith in Boris Johnson. It was everyone else who pulled the rug. So yes, Keir Starmer had in junior ministers and whips and some bad carriers on Monday. And the message I'm told from people in the room that he conveyed was, you know, I'm not perfect, but I am getting better in the job. You're getting better in the job. But if we pull the rug from under me, you might not even have a job, let alone the opportunity for us to improve and work together.

29:37Jen Williams: Um, ultimately, we're still in a holding pattern. He is obviously privately praying that Andy Burnham messes up in Maker Fiat and either loses or only wins by a narrow amount. You can see a scenario where Andy Burnham wins by a couple of thousand and then the people around him suddenly sort of gulp and say, well, is this really the sense of momentum? Um, but no, Stam is in a bit of a holding pattern like the rest of us.

29:59Jim Pickard: I don't know I slightly think a win's a win that's the them's the breaks in politics if he wins by one vote he's still beating the the competitors I think my guess is it's a little bit like the reverse of the emotional reaction after the May the 7th election right where everybody knew what was going to happen on May the 7th it was no secret for a long run up beforehand but nothing could prepare you for the emotional impact of how terrible that was and then everything just went on fire. and I wonder whether the emotional impact of actually having somebody demonstrate that they can be reform might be something that then kind of concentrates minds and actually sort of eases his route I completely agree with you though Jim that like you know it's really personal between Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham like really really personal so like he is not going to make way for Andy Burnham unless it unless it just becomes impossible and he absolutely has to and can I ask you what is the source of that i've actually i've sourness i've written something which probably will have run by the time uh we go out uh that sort of traces a little bit of the history of this i think it probably goes back to um andy burnham not initially agreeing to back him in 2020 for the leadership um although he did in the end um and then subsequently andy kept sort of making these interventions that just kind of kept making kia starmer's life difficult right from 200 miles away so when Keir tried to sack Angela Rayner in May 2021 and made a mess of it and Angela ended up having a promotion off the back of it in the middle of all of that Andy Burnham kind of came out and when I don't just I don't support what he's doing here I don't think that was forgotten I think a series of party conferences in which Andy Burnham comes along and sort of has a little circus around the edge and comes out and sort of needles him and says things that are disloyal and then afterwards goes away and sort of says like well I don't understand why anybody thinks that i'm being disloyal i think you know the uh you know these things built up there was a joke that kirstarmer told about him a couple of years ago um number 10 christmas drinks that i think went down very badly here um and and that has kind of continued is this the joke about the

32:08Jen Williams: bar or is it another joke the joke about football can you remember it it was something so it was to do with i think you lot had had some kind of lobby world cup league thing going on and andy had come hires and kissed armor in it and he said oh it's a brilliant result for andy um his boyhood team of argentina managed to win but having said that his boyhood team of france lost and his boyhood teams of morocca and croatia both drew but he doesn't know his way to westminster anyway or something like that which is a bit like the joke a blairite at brown eye walk into a bar exactly and says hi andy which is essentially what i've the thing that i've written about what these jokes kind of tell you i think if we're going to be absolutely fair here at the same time i was watching it from up here and down in london pierre starmer's people were issuing vicious briefings against andy burnham at the same time right so the the sue gray briefly mended those bridges and then sue gray went away and i think we continued as we were and we think sue gray may be helping and we think sue gray is bad but but the other thing is 2015 2016 which i totally forgotten andy burnham shadow home Secretary Starmer and his team worked really closely together.

33:17Jen Williams: So it was a year or two during the Corbyn years where the two of them worked together and for whatever reason came away not bezies. I think it's two hugely capacitive men in two power bases at the other ends of the country sizing each other up and Keir Starmer knowing damn well that Andy Byrne wants his job.

33:36Jim Pickard: Yeah. Shall we talk now about John Healy and his bombshell resignation on Thursday? Jen, I thought it was devastating, his letter to the Prime Minister, in which he accused the Prime Minister of being unable, unable to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend itself, and accusing the Treasury of being unwilling. So basically saying Starmer's too weak and Rachel Reeves is too obstinate to commit the money needed to keep the UK safe. Healy revealed that on Monday, it was the first time in this months long process that he got the final settlement figure for the defence investment plan, which he'd hoped would be 18 billion.

34:21Jim Pickard: It was right down at 13.5 billion. And he was basically bounced with that figure just ahead of Starmer wanting to announce it later this week. And he's made clear, laid down the gauntlet for Starmer, saying that the headmark date for spending 3 % of GDP on defence must be 2030. you know significantly earlier than when starmer has given a vague ambition of wanting to reach that stage which he said is in the next parliament which could basically be as late as 2034 i have a

34:52Jen Williams: question for you which is because you know the healy mod defense much better than i did you you'd be at the forefront of reporting on this whole defense investment plan do you think this is entirely healy believes passionately in this argument that we need to remilitarize and you know the threat from Russia or is there an element of personal ambition and and Burnham coming back and politics you know because we become cynical when we do this job what do you what do you think is actually happening here?

35:16Jim Pickard: I think it's a really good question so I wrote a profile of Healy which I started work on speaking to people weeks ago about six weeks ago when we were first talking about you know if Starmer's faltering administration collapsed you know who might the party look to as a potential compromise candidate, aside from the bigger characters like Angela Rayner or West Streeting, who were already in Parliament. And John Healy's name was being, you know, passed around. That was definitely picked up by, you know, some on his team, some of his supporters that, you know, he could potentially be in line as a future British Prime Minister.

35:52So, look,

35:53Jim Pickard: I don't think we can rule out the sense that, you know, he has had an eye on his future fortunes. But, you know, knowing Healy well covering the defence beat, I would say, you know, I think everything I'm hearing from those around him and who know him well and have spoken to him and other parties in this extraordinarily agonised process, which has dragged on for more than six months, that, you know, he just thinks the number, the money being offered cannot match up with, you know, the promise, the plan to modernise and strengthen the armed forces. And I think it's also worth pointing out quite an interesting element of the row is that when Healy won an initial uplift for defence spending last year, he managed to get that promise over the line from Starmer by saying to him, look, if we do this early in the parliament and bank the win, I promise I won't do what defence secretaries always do, which is come back with the begging bowl.

36:47Jim Pickard: And yet he's had to do exactly that within months. his argument has been that in fact Starmer's gone ahead and committed the UK to all sorts of other military initiatives including the UK taking a leading role in post-peace deal international forces in Ukraine in the Strait of Hormuz the UK's just taken up a leading role in a new mission for NATO in the Arctic, at the same time the threat picture's rising so we're seeing increased Russian malign activity that the Navy and others are having to respond to So the demands on defence are going up. So Healy said, you know, when the facts change, you have to respond to that.

37:24Jen Williams: And your profile dropped literally five hours before he quit. So perfect timing by someone on the news desk got it right. Quick update for post-resignation. This is, I mean, this is pretty nightmarish, isn't it, for Keir Starman? Because I think I'm right in saying like this is as much as we're talking about him wanting to fight on, there also seems to be a kind of legacy vibe currently coming out of number 10. and this was sort of supposed to be some kind of set piece part of that right so it's about you know this is not ideal for that so let's fast forward ahead to next week let's imagine if

37:58Jim Pickard: reform loses the polls and the bookies think they're going to uh i wondered whether that will mean especially after losing gorton and denton by election earlier this year a second loss will that mean them losing momentum as a party and i put that question to farage when he was in Makerfield on Wednesday. Lucy Fisher, Financial Times. Mr Farage, thank you. Firstly, I wanted to ask you, reform lost the Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this year. If the party loses next week, are you concerned that it might be losing momentum?

38:29Jen Williams: Are we losing momentum? This is not a pantomime.

38:37Jen Williams: Oh, they're all behind me, don't worry.

38:42Jen Williams: Have you seen the opinion polls?

38:45Jim Pickard: Jim, do you think that it could signal that reformers losing momentum if they lose the race next week?

38:52Jen Williams: The reason I'm hesitating is because I think it's easy to forget just how well they did in the local elections. you know for them to do so well in wales and scotland for them to massacre labor and the tories across england i think that is still bigger than the two by-elections and i think it's very easy to write off nigel farage and it's very easy to do the old advice about financial investment which is a past performance is no guide to the future i think we've got it so ingrained in our heads that the tories and labor take turns governing britain i think some of us are not able to make the mental leap of well hang on they are actually 10 points ahead or eight points ahead or whatever it is in the polls and therefore they are still big and tough and so if we imagine next thursday

39:36Jim Pickard: that burnham wins um what do we think might happen then it seems to me from what i'm picking up there's a bit of a split in his camp about whether he should go all guns blazing to challenge starma immediately and capitalize on his own momentum or else to delay things and allow himself his team whoever they may be, to try and get their plans for government in better shape before any contest, before entering Downing Street. And I was struck that one cabinet minister said to me, look, you know, as soon as he's in post, it will be, you know, an immediate path into the next budget. It's a very difficult and important budget, which itself is a glide path to the spending review.

40:15Jim Pickard: He'll be very keen not to make an early mistake. So he might actually want more time before entering Downing Street. I think any allies of Burnham who are currently in government are going to be particularly acutely aware of the list of problems that they're already dealing with, plus the difficulty of trying to get a budget through, right? Equally, you know, I've certainly come across several people, as I think you have, Jim, who's around Burnham, who think he just needs to move quickly. Equally, you know, I spoke to somebody last night who just basically said, look, there isn't really a plan for what happens when he gets back down there.

40:48it is essentially there will have to be a contest of some kind potentially if case dharma won't move but does that just mean that they rely on some random stalking horse to come along and trigger that to happen like as katherine west attempted to do a few weeks ago i think my reading of it is that the answer is as is quite often the case actually with things around andy bernand during this campaign it's not clear the the logic i was picking up from some of his mp's of course this

41:17Jen Williams: was at the moment he has this energy it's an insurgent energy it's an energy of coming from the north in order to knock down Keir Starmer if you win by a couple of percentage points or whatever it is and you come down to London and then you twiddle your thumbs and you think about the pros and cons of standing against Keir Starmer your sense of momentum and insurgent energy just vaporizes into thin air and to me that's very compelling I suppose the other points we haven't made a you need a day or two to talk about makerfield and do some speeches and you know prove that you do care about your new constituency but you can get that done in a few days there are people out there who are saying he needs to focus on greater manchester because one of the conditions of the nec allowing him to stand in makerfield was that he did have to get involved in helping with the greater manchester campaign the problem with that is that if labour loses in greater manchester then once again that removes your kind of sense of urgency and direction and it's no coincidence that there's a lot of sir kia starmas friends and allies putting around this theory that surely andy needs to do the greater manchester uh by election that he provoked that he caused before he goes on to anything bigger it's starmas allies who are particularly putting around that theory yeah and also i think you know there would be some potency to the argument if the greater manchester mayor election was lost that andy burnham had just thrown manchesterism under the bus for his own personal furtherment right and i'm sure yeah i'm sure that's why the star people want him to stick around and lose it yeah and then lose momentum yeah

42:53Jim Pickard: so we've just got time left for political fix stock picks jen who are you buying or selling i'm gonna sell lucy powell the deputy leader of the party because i'm told by multiple sources that at the beginning of Andy Burnham's campaign, she had been essentially running a show and relations cooled, let's say, and it ended up being run by Louise Hay, which is not to say that Lucy Powell wouldn't have some kind of role, obviously, in an Andy Burnham administration, and she's clearly deputy leader, but it doesn't really show the power currently with her within the Andy camp. Jim?

43:34Jen Williams: I'm going to sell Andy Burnham. you might have heard of him I also sold him a month ago thinking that he might lose in Makerfield and now obviously it looks like he's going to win I still think he's worth selling because this is the most popular he's probably ever going to be because he's had a decade of being able to blame central government for everything whilst taking credit for the local decisions he makes and if and when you become Prime Minister which is quite likely at the moment he's going to have to confront a horrendous set of public finances which also did for rishi sunak and is about to probably do for kirstama and without loads of money to lavish on stuff it's really hard to stay popular and on top of an already difficult set of public finances we have the impact of iran on those public finances which means that tax rises likely in the autumn budget so i just have this vision of prime minister andy burnham coming in and being all charming and then pulling up taxes and everyone's shouting at Lucy, who are you buying or selling?

44:32Jim Pickard: Do you know what? I'm going to buy the former Defence Secretary, John Healy. I think, you know, ultimately this will be viewed as an honourable resignation. Him quitting because he couldn't get the funding settlement, he thinks, is the bare minimum required to overhaul the military and ensure, you know, it's as strong as it can be to act as a deterrent and prevent conflict. and in resigning in this way I think he's also kept his leverage high in a sense that any future plan for the military for example if Burnham wins and becomes Prime Minister you know Healy's verdict on any future plan will be a litmus test now it will be a hurdle over which future Prime Ministers have to jump Well that's all we've got time for Jen, Jim, thanks for joining Thanks Lucy

45:17Jen Williams: Thanks Lucy

45:18Jim Pickard: We can now relax and enjoy a pint Yes, sometimes And that's it for this episode of the FT's Political Fix. Don't forget to subscribe to the show. Plus, please do leave a review or a star rating. It really helps spread the word. Political Fix was presented by me, Lucy Fisher, and produced by Persis Love. Manuela Saragossa is the executive producer. Original music and sound engineering by Breen Turner. The broadcast engineer is John Super. Our global head of audio is Flo Phillips. We'll be back with you next week in the studio for a by-election results special. See you then.

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