Keir Starmer | The Prime Minister

0:00This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for.

0:38You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook. Hello and welcome to Jimmy's Jobs of the Future. Getting a call from Number 10 a few weeks ago was slightly unexpected. Could you be in the Midlands for 9am on Monday morning to interview the Prime Minister? I asked for a rough location, knowing full well that they wouldn't be able to give me a precise one for security reasons, but I still had to work out if this was even feasible.

1:20We haven't had a car for the last three months, so logistically it could prove to be a bit challenging. Suddenly, I was back in my old world, those surreal moments in Downing Street, when someone from the operations and events team would burst in with something along the lines of, Jimmy, we need a business that employs lots of people, lots of apprentices, lots of high-vis jackets, ideally in the life sciences sector, and it can only be in one of these three constituencies. Could you find one, please? Oh, and you can't tell them who's coming. That would usually lead to a string of increasingly bizarre phone calls with CEOs late on a Friday night, assessing whether they had the right factory requirements for a potential high-profile visit on the Monday morning.

2:05Perhaps AI could have saved me an entire weekend in the modern world. As it turned out, the weekend after that particular phone call was the one where US launched airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Frankly, Jobs of the Future and the AI revolution felt a little less urgent. But the following week, the team at Number 10 came back, emphatic that the PM still wanted to do the podcast. It all started to feel a bit more real, and it was definitely a bit of a vibe shift. We'd even joked with Peter Kyle that he should help us pitch the Prime Minister. And here they were, doing the pitching. And then last week, the call came again.

2:43The PM had been listening to the podcast. I had made a mental note to update our influential listeners section on the media deck that we provide partners at that point I knew it was going to be a case of when not if we were doing the podcast we want to continue to grow this show I know every podcaster bangs on about it but please do subscribe it really does help us grow the show continue to improve it and get bigger and bigger guests without further ado here's the Prime Minister Sukiya Starmer This episode is brought to you by BGF. More about them later in the show. Hello. Hello, Prime Minister.

3:22Good to see you. I'm very well, thanks. How are you? Very good. So this used to be my favourite room to have meetings in when I was here. Because you were here, weren't you? Yeah, I was. And so to be able to have this room, say like Gorbachev and Thatcher sort of thawed the Cold War in this room, they would sort of love the history of it. It would sort of, it would make a, I always used to tell myself it made a big difference in those international investment decisions. so you left when in 20 i left in 2019 we're about to have our first child so i was like i'm gonna go uh and i went off to study at stanford for a bit and then in march 2020 the pandemic happened and my wife went back to work uh in the nhs uh and i became a stay-at-home dad so gone from down to diapers well it was i mean it was but it was i was it was a five-month-old so i couldn't really do anything with her five months old but do you feel that spending that time with her in the early months has made a big difference yes because massively with our son i was just i was i'd been appointed director of public prosecutions but i hadn't taken up a post but i was having to wind down my practice okay so i actually spent in that case it was july august september october november so four months had loads of time with him and i'm absolutely convinced it's created a really good relationship.

4:43Brilliant. Right. Thierry Henry or Ian Wright? Thierry Henry is my favourite Arsenal player. Absolutely fantastic. Gary Lineker or Alan Shearer? That's difficult. I think I'm going to go for Lineker because what he did with Gascoigne. Remember when Gascoigne got the yellow and knew he wasn't going to play in the final and the tears nearly started and Lineker played his full part in pulling Gaz around? in that particular game. So I'm going to give that one. It's a hard one because they're both great players. But I'm going to give that one to Lineker. Who'd be most likely to win The Apprentice? Or go furthest, perhaps?

5:21Oh, well, again, I'm tempted to say all of them. But the business secretary surely has to have the edge on that. I'd hope he's got the edge on that. I think Henry Lerner would do quite well. I think Lord Sugar met his match. That would make good TV. Favourite Arsenal manager? Oh, got to go for Wenger. Oh, sorry. A transformative, incredible man. I got to know him subsequently. And his interest in the sport and not just how he changed it, but how he still wants to change it is quite incredible. Favourite car that you've ever had? Favourite car that I've ever had? The first thing I'd say is I don't really drive anymore because we have to have a police protection team.

6:13I mean, I'd have to go for my first car. It was my favourite car, even though it was a pretty cheap Morris Minor, so not the most glamorous. But I'll tell you what's my favourite. It was my Freedom Pass. It was my ability to get around on my own across the towns of Surrey and Kent. So my favourite because it gave me freedom. but as I say probably not the most glamorous. Favourite beer? Oh an IPA, an ale, Tim Taylor or something like that. And final question, what's most surprised you about the job one year in? What's kind of, I know it'll be a little while before you're on the summer recess etc.

6:56Not a lot has surprised me in the sense I think I know what was going to get thrown at me. I suppose the thing that's most different to the job I did before leader of the opposition is the the depth of the information in relation to security and intelligence the sort of stuff which in the end is reserved for prime ministers yeah I mean actually to be fair to the previous conservative prime ministers pretty all of them were as open as they could be with me as leader of the opposition but there's only so much you can share so that would be my sort of serious answer to the question I suppose the more trivial is the surprise how hard it is to get a cat flap into the number 10 number 11 flat um we've got one cat that we brought with us jojo another one a kitten that we had to buy in order to persuade my daughter who's 14 to move in we've got a siberian kitten white with blue eyes but um out of the flat there's a sort of bomb proof door into the garden so cat flat was a bit of a non-starter so we had to go to quite an elaborate contract.

8:01Did they go on with Larry? They've never met Larry and long may that remain the case because I'm not quite sure how that would go and that isn't the, that's not the news story we're looking for. What was your first job? What was the first thing you did for money? The very first job, not very glamorous. It was picking up stones in the local farm field. So there was a farmer just about two miles from where we lived, just down the road from Tandridge we were in Hurst Green near Oxted and this farmer offered me an hourly rate to pick up the particularly big stones in the field that he wanted to plow later that year so that was my first job.

8:43What was your hourly rate? I can't remember it was it was I honestly can't remember but it was measured in pence not pounds it was hard work. What did it teach you? It taught me the significance of small things like that to farming what a difference it could make um it got me into into the farm and to talk with farmer and um all the other things that he was doing on that particular farm and also it taught me about the love that um those that work on the land have for the land and the care actually and attention that they give to it um so and i think you really get that if you grow up in a rural area in any event because the outdoors is everything really.

9:26When Peter Kyle came on podcast last week, he said that, he said you've got to speak to Keir Starmer about, he gets really animated about AI and its opportunities, etc. I've got to tell you, Keir is, the Prime Minister is, he really gets this. Yeah, yeah, no, Matt has told me how much. He really, really gets this. And it's a shame more people don't see him when he's really animated and, you know. He said that he thinks we'll have AGI by the time of the next election? Is that something you agree with? I think AGI is going to be pretty amazing. And I'm a massive AI fan. So I think your posture on AI matters.

10:04I think it will be transformative. I think it brings massive opportunities. Yes, some risks as well, which have to be managed. But I think there's a posture, if you like, on AI. Do you lean in and see the opportunities and be prepared to take them? Or do you sort of lean out and think about the risks? and I lean in to the opportunity. On AGI, that's quite ambitious from Peter, but he's an ambitious man. I do think it'll be quicker than we think. I mean, I think on AI, one of the lessons to myself is the potential is huge. It will be transformative. It's going to happen anyway. We are in an incredibly good position because we're amongst the top three in the world.

10:50we've got brilliant companies and facilities here already and we therefore are in a good place in this race towards AI and it is going to be a race and I want us to be not only in that race but winning the race on AI and so we'll put a lot into it and the potential for the delivery of services is huge look at the public look at the health service what could be done the potential for delivering government itself. I mean, we've just developed a tool within government to deal with housing and planning, which can bring in all the materials into one place and allow our decision to be made much more quickly.

11:33These are examples of how government can be transformed as well as the outside business. What do you think about the potential impact on employment and jobs there, right? Because it's my worry that we might have a sort of, we're going to have a de-industrialisation, but it's going to be very different this time. It's not going to be as noisy. It's not going to be as evocative. You were obviously in Leeds in the 1980s, seeing that kind of the minor strikes, etc. How can we prepare to make sure that doesn't happen again? Well, we discussed this last week, which is if there's to be a transition, then we need to be able to manage that transition fairly, which didn't happen in the past.

12:11I think there's great potential for jobs to change. I was really struck. There was a social worker here in Downing Street, not the next room, but the room beyond that. She was talking. I said to her, are you using AI? She said, yes, I am. I'm using it to collate all of my notes, all of the materials that I need. That allows me more time of my own on the one-to-one human professional engagement that I need. So for her, AI made her more human. Yeah. and changed her job but for the better so yes i think it will be a real transition but we need to see what better jobs come as a result of that transition but we do need to get our arms around it as a government because um in the minor strike is a classic example of a bad transition which has still left our country scarred if you overlay um you know very many of the challenges that we face you can see that in the different communities across the country we must never let that happen again.

13:14What do you think your kids' generation might do for jobs? I think they're more likely to do the human-facing jobs. There will be huge jobs in tech and innovation. But there are many jobs. You know, your social workers, probation is another example where AI is being used to arrange the material, but you can't get away from the human element at the end of it. So jobs will, you know there are certain jobs which will always involve the human element and then of course there will be a huge number of jobs in each of the sectors but you know look at what we're doing on things like clean power and getting the next generation of jobs here in relation to what we're going to need to transition to clean power by 2030 and then everything that follows from that so there will be new generations of jobs and there'll be plenty of jobs that are done at the moment that are still needed for a very very long time to come what our children what our actual children will do I don't know my my 17 year old hasn't got a clue what he actually wants to do other than he's made it pretty clear he doesn't want to go into politics and he doesn't want to be a lawyer so you can see the influence that I've had uh on him so he's got two red lines they're both things I've done with my life this episode is brought to you by BGF the UK and Ireland's most active growth capital investor.

14:33Over the next five years BGF will invest an additional three billion into both growth stage businesses across all sectors and early stage companies in life sciences and deep tech. It builds on the four and a half billion it has already invested since 2011 and at least 300 million of that is earmarked for female founders to support a more diverse entrepreneurial economy. BGF is a true regional investor backing businesses from Exeter to Edinburgh, from Birmingham to Belfast with the ambition and potential to scale beyond where they currently are. Plus BGF invests as a minority shareholder so it works as a junior partner in growth where you the founder stay in control.

15:18But it's more than just capital. bgf offers hands-on value creation support and its proprietary platform scale gives ceos and leadership teams access to peer-to-peer networking new commercial opportunities and a dynamic calendar of exclusive events discover how bgf is helping bold businesses grow stronger scale faster and go further at bgf.co.uk what's the uh give us an insight into the job of pia and what have you done today? Today I have done many things but I've just been with the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Petr, who is my friend. I've met him in a number of meetings and we've just agreed on a number of bilateral issues but most importantly we have just signed off for MOU between our two countries which covers a lot of economic issues, a lot of defence and security issues and within which we will develop the joint work we're doing on SMR reactors which involves Rolls-Royce as a key partner and so that is a really important piece of evidence for me or another piece of evidence that what we can achieve internationally with our relations with other countries can be translated into good secure well-paid jobs in this country obviously in this particular case a model of its kind perhaps for agreements with other countries and a real push forward but that's the sort of meeting with a concrete outcome that I think makes a massive difference.

17:01And how does that relate because sometimes people look at these sort of bilateral meetings and these grand state rooms and see the flags and so on and they think well that doesn't necessarily relate to me but how does it? Oh well let me take that on because we do get this challenge which is how does that international work really help us domestically the example I'd give today is obviously Czech Republic and the UK working together on small modular reactors huge investment into Rolls-Royce which will be well-paid jobs but spin back to last week we had the state visit of President Macron at the end of which we signed a returns agreement for those that have come across the channel in small boats, which will help us break the model of the gangs that are running that vile trade.

17:50Again, going from the international stage right back to an issue that matters hugely to the voters here. So translating that, one other example I'll give you, which is very important to me, is the deal I was able to do with President Trump, the trade deal, had a direct impact on JLR. I went up to Solihull to JLR. They sell into the North American market. Fantastic. Jaguar, Land Rover, iconic British firm and business. But they were under real threat with the tariffs by reducing the tariffs because the agreement we made, 44 ,000 jobs are more secure now than they would otherwise have been. That's all the jobs in the supply market.

18:34So whether it's the deal this afternoon, which is small modular reactors, whether it's the returns agreement last week with the French, or the deal with the US, each of them translates directly into something that matters back here at home. And I think that's really important. It doesn't work if you don't invest in the personal relations with other leaders. And you've got a big announcement on electric vehicles coming tomorrow as well. Yeah, this is a big announcement to incentivise the purchase of electric vehicles. we are leading the way on electric vehicles there's a transformation going on we will move through to electric vehicles and this incentivizes it by bringing a big knockoff on the price so people can afford electric vehicles big boost for manufacturing and creating conditions if you like of stability and certainty in the market which our car manufacturers want we're really good at car manufacturing but we just need to put that support in your son will be turning 17 soon we'll hear He's just turned 17 and he came down the stairs the day before his 17th birthday with a big smile on his face, waving his provisional driving license at me.

19:47Will he get an electric car? Well, we will probably almost inevitably be getting an electric car at some stage. It'll have to be very small to start with. He's got different ideas about how big he wants it. But I grew up in Surrey, in the Surrey-Kemp border, so rural. And I remember just how important having your first car is. Because for me, that was the passport to freedom in terms of being able to get around. But he's now going through that. But his first driving lesson is in just over a week now. So we shall all look in. Like Keir Starmer talks about the freedom of getting a car, I am looking forward to finally getting one after a few months of not having one.

20:32I am beyond excited and a little nervous to be taking the delivery of my first ever electric vehicle from the Octopus Energy team who are long term backers of this podcast. I'll be updating you over the coming months of how the literal and metaphorical journey of an electric vehicle is going to go. if you are interested in getting a heat pump solar panels or an electric vehicle do check out the octopus energy website they've got lots of different ways now that you can kind of electrify your home and of course you can drop us a line at jimmy at octopus dot energy if you're already with them and already doing it i would love to hear how it's going as well let us know in the comments below brilliant and we've got this for you as well oh that's got a few this is what it did on AI earlier.

21:21It's got a few... A bit of a ton of AI? Yeah, it's got a few Easter eggs in there, as the kids call it. Orange juice, because I know you like the animals. Oh, God, yeah, yeah. That's brilliant. And then Lost Pandas, Donkeys. Oh, that is fantastic. And then Morris Minor in the background as well. That really goes to what we've just done as well. And the Arsenal logo. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the flute as well. And the AI Opportunities Action Plan. Yeah. Oh, there's the flute, yeah. But it was amazing. I just added some... Oh, that's brilliant. Thank you very much. Half an hour earlier. Did you use AI for that?

21:50Yeah, I just used AI and just put in. So I'd read the Baldwin book over the weekend and was like, what are the interesting sort of bits that we can kind of put in, et cetera. Great stuff. Yeah, brilliant. Is it weird being back in here? It is a bit. I hope you found that interesting. I'm going to spend the second half now talking a little bit about what goes into making a podcast like this, what Keir Starmer said, and some reflections particularly on AI, and what it says about the new media order that's being developed. If you heard our episode with Tony Blair at the end of last year, you'll know that I've reflected on this before.

22:24The research that I like to put in ahead of a major interview and how I want to try and understand who I'm going to be interviewing almost better than they do. The way I like to think of it is almost like an actor getting a brief and we have to build an entire character about them. Now, obviously, the main thing that happens with this is you go to primary sources, speeches that they've given. you look at biographies that have been written about them but of course one of the big changes since that we did the Blair interview is how much AI is now involved in the process and how much deep research is also used on all of this oh and we also now like to make little AI cartoons of them as well that have all these different things that sum them up and present them with it at the end but at the core of an interview like this it's always about the people I'm fascinated by people that go into public service what drives them what shapes them why they choose to do it what toughens them up along the way I've always admired the resilience it takes to be at the top of politics and it's fascinating getting to understand their back stories and the things that matter to them along the way that make up the politician that we see presented to us and also you have to think about it from their angle why does the PM want to come on the show?

23:44What does he want to get out of it? Well there are 100 ,000 subscribers across all the platforms now, many of whom lean centre-right and are interested in entrepreneurship and business. It's not his natural audience but it's a growing one so he'll want to reach out to those people and of course the reach on social will be many millions more. There's also the Trump factor. Trump's impact on the podcasting world has changed the media playbook and the number 10 team clearly see the opportunity to try and experiment though by 2029 when Starmer will be running for re-election Trump will no longer be US president although he may not have quite left the world stage.

24:24Starmer and Trump are very different in lots of ways but perhaps most starkly is the language. Starmer as a former lawyer chooses his words with deliberate precision both written and spoken. It's clear that the freewheeling nature of podcasting and creators will play a major role in shaping the national conversation. In the UK, we are still behind the US in a lot of this stuff. We've got a few handful of podcasting Goliaths, but not much of a German middle stand of them. We're missing the equivalents of the Aston Villas, Everton's, Derby Counties, the big clubs that should be challenging for Europe.

25:06So when I was prepping for this interview, I was talking to the AI about various strategies that we could try and employ to make the most of it. Came back with something slightly surprising. It said, I was half parky, half punk. I asked it to clarify what it meant by that. And it said, I've got just about enough Michael Parkinson in me to be trusted by the establishment, but enough edge to cause trouble when needed. I wasn't really sure whether I should be flattered or mildly insulted but it certainly did provoke a few thoughts and I do think there's a kind of grain of truth in where it's coming from after all I've worked at the Institute of Directors 10 Downing Street and for the king on his awards for enterprise I've always tried to use those platforms and institutions to connect them with new ideas in the next part of our economy the new economy as it were in that sense I do think I sat at quite a unique position.

26:00I understand how number 10 operates. I understand the job of a prime minister. Let me say something about Keir Starmer from the outset. He's not someone that I know personally. His world has been human rights, the law, justice. Mine has been business, wealth creation and skills. So it's not really a great surprise that we haven't found ourselves in many of the same rooms before but I always start from a place of respect for those who go into public service and are trying to do that job and the many trade-offs that come with it. Diana often springs to mind as somebody else who I doubt we'd agree on one percent of stuff if that but I can still recognize that being a black woman elected to parliament in 1983 was a huge and significant moment for both her and the country.

26:52I think Starmer too has been a bit miscast, seen as a London lawyer enjoying champagne but his early years were far more regional and provincial than many people assume. Yes we know the meme about his dad being a toolmaker but less known is how disabled his mother was. She was told that she'd never have children and went on to have four. That alone is a remarkable story. The Tom Baldwin biography offers a few interesting insights about him. One that struck me was how uncomfortable and how unnatural Keir Starmer finds it to talk about his parents now that he's in his 60s. Also, he grew up in a house that didn't have a television for years.

27:34And even when they got one, they weren't allowed to watch that much. Football became an escape. something he could do in the playground at break times when he hadn't seen the show that everyone was talking about the night before. It's little details like that that give you a really interesting insight and portrait of the person you're about to interview. We even had a quick fire question about who would play you in a Netflix series but we decided we'd probably drop that one in the end. Now when it comes to preparing the questions this is obviously the most important bit so you want to start off with solid foundations that's why i was curious how starmer had earned his first few pounds or his first few pence it turned out for anyone the moment that you trade time for money is formative i'd read he'd worked for his dad during a gap year but coming from such a working class background i expected there may well have been some earlier gigs some saturday jobs along the way that hadn't been made public before the answer about farming surprised me we knew time of the pm would be short during my time at number 10 i don't remember many interviews going over 20 minutes and i was chatting to david cameron's former press secretary and he said he only remembered one interview breaking the 30 minute mark and that was test match special with aggers and yes of course i was asked to include a couple of questions on current announcements around smrs and electric vehicles but my main goal that i wanted to get into was artificial intelligence.

29:02Peter Kyle had told us on this show just the previous week how passionate the Prime Minister is about it and a few of his senior advisors have said the same to me as well. He's really leaned into it. So I wanted to know if he agreed with what Peter Kyle said and what he sees coming because of course if we really are going to have AGI by the next election that is going to be a transformational impact on our economy and I don't think many people in Westminster or beyond have frankly got to grips yet with what a seismic change that that could mean for our economy this time and of course we wanted to do a few quick fires see what they're like when they're not on the podium ask a few different things that could be get into in different ways like who would win the apprentice that's always interesting because there's a few different ways that they could go about that there's one topic that I really wanted to explore but didn't have time.

29:55How do we build a culture of enterprise? I've spoken before about how policy changes from the national living wage to the increase in NICs to increased employment law have all had cumulative impacts on small and growing businesses being done at the same time. It just makes it very difficult for them to hire more people. Particularly when combined at the same time you've got serious headwinds layered on top of that when it comes to tariffs and the accelerating AI transition. It just makes it really difficult for businesses to hire. So I wanted to ask, how do we really build the appetite to hire?

30:31How do we grow? Not just through policy, but in terms of culture as well. To his credit, Starmer's brought in several entrepreneurs into key positions across his government. Matt Clifford has been his AI advisor. Alex DePledge going in to advise Rachel Reeves. James Timpson become the prisons minister. All former guests on the show. When it comes to AI, most people will benefit eventually from the transition. as they do with all technological revolutions but it will be brutal for some. This time it might not be the factory workers and the coal miners that we spoke about in the interview with Keir Starmer it may well be the middle classes and I don't think we've started preparing for that properly yet.

31:10I don't think anyone has anywhere around the world but I think it could be a seismic change in the way that our economies are structured. And to that end we're at the beginning of a new media order as well. Ten years ago, this interview would not have been possible. Five years ago, it would have seemed a ridiculous long shot. But last year, podcasting and YouTube interviews helped decide the world's biggest election. Now you've got the Prime Minister listening to podcasts in the car. The world is changing fast, where people are getting their news from is shifting dramatically, as is the trust and authenticity of these shows.

31:47It's not just about who gets interviewed it's about how the lines between journalist interviewer creator and citizen they are all rapidly blurring jimmy's jobs of the future is not even five years old i could not have imagined how far it will come in that time and where it will go over the next five years but i really do hope you subscribe stick around for the ride it helps us get bigger and bigger guests and we will endeavor to bring you interesting conversations about the future of our economy through the prism of jobs You matched on Hinge. You're vibing. Then her energy completely changes. What do you do?

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