HOT TAKE: Is it over for Starmer?

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1:06Ed Balls: We'll be right back.

1:33Ed Balls: hello and welcome to this special edition of political currency with george osborne and me ed balls now we are live on youtube um doing this uh extra special podcast and then if you are a regular listener you'll be getting it on your normal platform very shortly now we normally do our podcast every Thursday evening but we felt that the political events of the weekend, Keir Starmer's political speech in Downing Street this morning, his make or break moment was so significant that it justified us doing something extra special and that's what we're doing today. Yeah no it's great to be live on YouTube and covering the weekend's events.

2:18I was actually at a nice wedding thinking, I've been through all these leadership crises in my life, and thank God I'm not having to deal with things this weekend as they were having to in Downing Street. When we did the podcast on Thursday, we were talking about what the results might look like. We recorded the podcast with people still voting. I mean, I have to say the results were basically what people expected, weren't they? They were a very heavy defeat for Labour, a pretty bad night for the Conservatives. Reform did very well and the Greens did pretty well. So that's, it was one of those, as we were saying, it's one of those things where people, you know, had talked about the results in advance, but as I think you were saying, Ed, it's not until you actually feel them and you actually see all those friends of yours or local supporters of yours losing their seats, be it in the Scottish Parliament or in some local council in the Welsh Senate, that the kind of reality hits.

3:15Anyway, reality definitely hit the leg body on Friday, didn't it? Friday afternoon.

3:19Ed Balls: I was an MP in Wakefield for 10 years and Labour MPs in Wakefield, which has been Labour run for ever, went from 43 when polling opened last Thursday. Labour councillors, you should say. Labour councillors. The MPs are going to follow. 43 councillors to one councillor. Complete wipeout. Barnsley, Sunderland, but then in Haringey and in Hackney, the Greens advancing, Wales, the end of Labour for a long time. So the emotional spasm of that loss was as we predicted. And I think you said on our podcast that the issue immediately would go to a timetable for Keir Starmer leaving and whether that would allow Andy Burnham into the contest.

4:05Ed Balls: And then Friday morning's Times, a PM urged by Miliband to set timetable for leaving. This was apparently a conversation Ed Miliband had had with Keir Starmer a couple of weeks ago where he said to him, you need to set a timetable. So that framed the weekend and you had people like Lou Haig, the sacked cabinet minister, coming out and saying, I think Ed Miliband is right. We need to set a timetable. So that did frame the weekend. Yeah. I mean, I thought it would all, we'd maybe jump into the end of our conversation, but I think a lot of it is going to be around Andy Burnham's potential return to Parliament.

4:43But as you said also on that podcast on Thursday, there'll be a Downing Street plan. We didn't know what it was. But the problem with these plans is you're not at all in control of events, or you're only partially in control, I should say, and that something might happen and that someone out of the blue will appear. You forecast it might be one of these junior ministers, like a junior defense minister. And that is indeed what happened, didn't it, over the weekend. There was a Starmer plan with the appointment of Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman to sort of advisor roles and setting out a longer term vision.

5:19But things were thrown off course by a combination of Catherine West, who's a London Labour MP, has been a Foreign Office Minister, but was fired. She came out and said, she'll stand if no one else does. Josh Simons, who had been a very close ally of KSTAM, actually worked in and around 10 Downing Street as a minister, but he had had to resign in the last couple of months over his own kind of scandal. And he came out and said Stam had to go. And Angela Rayner put out a big statement. So if you looked at the kind of weekend's events, if you were sitting in number 10 thinking, well, it was always going to be difficult, wasn't it?

6:00We had these heavy losses. We knew it was going to be tough. Would they think our plan basically held or did it go awry?

6:07Ed Balls: Well, I think the problem was it was always a very risky plan anyway, even before Al Cairns became Catherine West. And she issued that if no one else is brave enough, I'm going to challenge Keir Starmer. Al Cairns was the junior minister you thought might do that. Who I speculated might do it. But I think, first of all, Keir Starmer goes out Friday morning with a statement where he says, I take full responsibility, but then doesn't really seem to say anything about why Labour has lost other than the fact that we aren't doing more about what Keir Starmer wants to do. So that felt a little bit tinny in.

6:45Ed Balls: I think the reaction to that wasn't great on Friday, but he's fighting on. You then have this rather surprise appointment of Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman. You know, the 2009 team reunited as Keir Starmer's new advisors for global finance and for women and girls. Harriet Harman was already doing that job anyway. I have to say, look, I think getting Gordon Brown's advice on global finance is totally the right thing to do. but appointing both of them on the same morning having a video of the two of them with Keir Starmer in Downing Street saying this is you know the relaunch this is the future plan I mean I think there was quite a lot of people thinking how's that going to help us in Sunderland and how's that going to help us in in Barnsley that is not to detract in any way for the contribution they could make and then Keir Starmer has done an interview for The Observer where the headline becomes, I'll go on for 10 years, in an echo of Margaret Thatcher on and on and on, Tony Blair, I'll do 10 more years.

7:46Ed Balls: I'm not sure that's quite the sort of contrite, humble, reflective mode that his advisors would have been looking for in that interview, which means by the time you get to this morning, they've decided to do a speech, a political speech. Now, he was doing a speech on Wednesday anyway, in the King's speech. Why have another speech on a Monday morning, which after that weekend, and this was kind of inevitable, becomes the make or break moment. I mean, all these MPs, Catherine West saying, well, unless his speech really persuades me, I'm going to lead the charge for a leadership change. And so they put unbelievable expectations on that speech, which, you know, even a skilled speechmaker would have found hard to pass.

8:31Ed Balls: and this is Keir Starmer. That is not his number one skill set making that sort of inspirational, reflective, humble, policy-rich speech anyway. So I'm not sure who thought this strategy was a good idea. I don't know if it got derailed or if it was just always a bit doomed. Yeah, let's get on to the speech in a minute, but just to sort of pick over the response. So, you know, the appointment of Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman, I mean, I thought it was a sort of rather cheesy wedding video talking about going to weddings. There was this video of them in the kind of Downing Street garden. Rachel Reeves makes an appearance.

9:10I mean, and you actually just alluded to the fact that Harriet Harman was being appointed to a job she's already been appointed to a year ago. Can I just ask? I mean, obviously, you've been very close to Gordon for decades, and I'm the opposite of close to Gordon. Why would he accept something like that? I mean, he was actually the master at creating non-jobs and then persuading dupes to fool them. I remember a lovely Labour MP. I mean, I genuinely mean this. It was very nice to me, Barry Gardner, accepting a job as forestry envoy, even though he was the MP for Brent in London, where there were like no trees at all.

9:48And I thought, my God, people will fall for anything. And then Gordon Brown, who I have a lot of respect for and was a very ferocious opponent, why would he go you know is it because he's just loyal to labor and he's being asked to step up and he does or he can't seriously think he's gonna be like you know britain's international finance

10:09Ed Balls: advisor look uh in reshuffles um when you've got loads and loads of jobs changing um sometimes things go wrong i've talked before about how um gordon brown almost appointed a veganist farming minister once and that was um that was arrested at the very last minute but in this case they clearly decided that deliberately this was the optics they wanted i think if you are gordon brown or harriet harman um the labor party's in big trouble the country is in a state the prime minister is under massive pressure and he asks you a former leader both of them have been leader of the labor party um in at different times for help and ask you to serve it's really hard to say no i mean saying no would be a massive story whether gordon brown knew that harriet harman had also been approached until he got to Downing Street that day, or vice versa.

10:56Ed Balls: I don't know. But it's hard to say no. There's a history. I mean, I think they get on with each other, don't they? You know better than me. But when they were actually in government and Gordon Brown was Chancellor and she was Welfare Secretary at the beginning of the Blair administration, she felt kind of outmaneuvered or pushed out, didn't she? There was huge problems with Frank Field at the time. No, I think Gordon and Harriet, look, she was definitely upset about the role Peter Mandelson assumed in 2009. That was kind of a fraught moment. But the two of them have always been close. I think it's more, I mean, if you're Gordon Brown, I think Gordon Brown has been an advisor to very many prime ministers over the last few years on global finance, whether they asked for it or not.

11:38Ed Balls: And so, and for him, it kind of makes sense. But was it the right optics for the two of them to be presented in that way? I mean, look, it was interesting. It's very backward looking. It looks, doesn't it? I mean, we're getting out these two Labour warhorses, these two veterans of previous Labour administrations, you know, both retired. But they would have felt, if that's what Keir Starmer's asking... Yeah, sure. Okay, yes. So why did Keir Starmer ask them? Why did he ask? To show he's got support, right? To show, you know, if you're coming to take me on, you're also taking on the Gordon Browns and Harry Harmers.

12:14You're taking on the aristocracy of the Labour Party.

12:16Ed Balls: I mean, I don't know. nor do I know why he thought I wanted to be Prime Minister for 10 more years was the right line to give the Observer when people were wondering whether they wanted him to be Prime Minister for 10 more minutes. I mean, you know, it's kind of the history of people saying on and on and on. Boris Johnson did it after the 2022 local elections, and that didn't do very well either. So that, but I think the big thing is... You just screwed up. They're presuming you just screwed up the interview, right? You may have screwed up, but what... I mean, Prime Minister... do the speech why would you set that massive test for yourself this morning in that way 10 a.m on national television I mean it's such a I still understand it just one before we get on to the speech Josh Simons I thought of all well sorry Catherine West no one's ever heard of her with the greatest respect to Catherine West I mean she seems a very sensible intelligent person and all that but not a big figure in British politics um and you know didn't make a much of a splash as minister i mean no one saw this coming that it was going to be her was it that she obviously was seems to have been very upset that locally the greens she's an mp in east london that the greens were doing well um what um i mean there has to be because a lot of this is about do you have the guts to actually say publicly what you're thinking privately you know at least she had the guts to get up and say well i'm if none of you big beasts are standing i'll stand and the first and the first reaction was she must have been put up to it and the people who want Andy Burnham back people like Louise Haig or people echoing Ed Miliband saying we need Andy Burnham to be allowed back into parliament to have a contest Angela Rayner said that in her statement last night they would see Catherine West as saying she was going to trigger a contest now as you know a stop Burnham move was she put up to it by West Streeting of course West Streeting says publicly I'm not challenging Keir Starmer, but I've told Keir Starmer I'm preparing my leadership challenge for when the moment comes.

14:20Ed Balls: But I don't think there's any evidence that Catherine West was anybody's stooge. She wasn't somebody else's stalking horse. I think she genuinely decided enough was enough and somebody had to speak out. I think you're right that the Haringey politics was very personal for her. She may have been annoyed about being sacked as a foreign office minister after the blue last september i think it was more she decided something must be done and um you know if you are a politician who doesn't feel as though you've been listened to sometimes you use your voice i think that's what she decided to do she's shaking things up here's a piece of advice to kind of junior ministers middle ranking people in politics she's probably booked herself a job at some point back in the government is someone's government you know if you're putting together either Keir Starmer in a year or two might go, well, part of my kind of reconciliation thing will be bringing her back in.

15:15But if he's not survived, anyone who's putting together an administration will say, well, we better give Catherine West a job. So there's a bit, you know, a bit of courage pays off politics sometimes.

15:24Ed Balls: And in the same category, the junior whip, Jade Bottrell, who is a Wakefield member of parliament, only been in parliament for a couple of years, just part of seeing her councillors wiped out. She's asked by number 10 to do the opening speech to introduce Keir Starmer, in that moment has more public national profile than she's probably ever had. And as Dan Hodges tweeted on X straight after, that was a better three minutes speech from James Bottrell on the challenges Labour face and anything we've seen from Keir Starmer in the last two years. And so again, there are moments where you take your opportunity and I thought she took that very well.

16:05so um just in passing josh simons he was it felt that felt very personal didn't it i mean for those that we won't we don't have time to the whole history of this but he ran labor together which was the organization with morgan mcsweeney that was behind we feel what most people reported kia starmer's leadership campaign and so on he you know he had to resign over a scandal involving labor together and and kind of putting people onto the tail of journalists but didn't you think that That was somewhat surprising. He wasn't on my card of someone who was going to come out all guns blazing.

16:37Ed Balls: And also such a emphatic, angry piece he wrote in the Times. Now, again, his constituency in the North West, heavy blows for Labour there. I have a feeling that Catherine West will have made more friends than Josh Simons in the way she went about taking her stand over the weekend. And, you know, if you've been knocked back and had to resign as a minister, you probably have to work your passage with, you know, arguably a little bit more humility than Josh Simon's. That would certainly have been the view in number 10, but maybe not only in number 10. So let's go. You know, you said so much there, Ed, without actually saying it.

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18:42Let's pass forward to the speech this morning, which I listened to live, like lots of political aficionados. Not sure many people in the country were listening live. But so come on, let's start with the big picture. You know, did it do the job? What did you think of the speech? Let's start with the, sorry, not did it do the job? We'll come on to that, because the job was to keep him in office. What did you think of the speech?

19:05Ed Balls: Well, the speech and then also the journalist's question and answers afterwards, which were also very revealing, because unlike the speech, the journalist asked him the difficult questions. And compared to most press conferences, I mean, he really made no attempt to answer any of the questions in the Q &A afterwards. I think if you came down from Mars and you listened to that speech without understanding the depth of recent British political history. You might have thought emotional, passionate, powerful story about his parents and his brother and sister, some bold sounding policy, a determination to shake things up.

19:44Ed Balls: And if you've been in British politics for the last five years, observing it closely, you would think that was a reheated version of pretty much every speech Keir Starmer has given for the last five years, the same stories, the same language, without anything really new. And sort of saying, you know, after two years of being Prime Minister, the status quo is not good enough. There'll be lots of people thinking, yeah, but aren't you the status quo, Prime Minister? So I'm not, I don't think it landed. And as I say, I don't think it was ever going to. I mean, what was the big policy announcement in the speech?

20:23Ed Balls: Well, he's going to put Britain at the heart of Europe. Was that the policy announcement? Because he's not going to rejoin the customs union or the single market or say anything about the manifesto. When there is a negotiation coming up in the next few months about the next stages of Britain's relationship, the one thing it's not going to do is put Britain back at the heart of Europe. He's going to re-nationalise British steel, but it's been essentially controlled and subsidised by the British taxpayer for a year already and that feels like a reflection of reality rather than anything new and there's going to be some stuff about youth apprenticeships it didn't feel as though in policy there was anything new it didn't feel as though there was any proper facing up to the things which have really gone wrong and the extent to which Keir Starmer has made mistakes in fact if you listen to the speech you probably think he got all the judgments right it's just that nobody's understanding quite how effective these judgments have been so I didn't think it landed and I fear it was never going to land at this political point yeah I think you're right that it was well having set the challenge it was an incredibly hard challenge to me uh I think you know I think in terms of delivery um you know it was well delivered he was passionate he you know he turned up the you know he turned up the kind of volume on the passion that's right um you know shirt sleeves rolled up tie off and so on um and we heard the story again about his you know family and the like but uh before we get to the policies i mean there's still this fundamental thing lacking from the starmer premiership which is a an analysis of what is happening in the world and what therefore a progressive center-left response should be there was nothing about the insecurity of the world, the threat from Russia, the disruption of AI, the poor productivity challenges facing Western democracy.

22:21I mean, there's so much to say, and then you can debate what the policy answers should be, whether they should be broadly center-left or broadly center-right, or nationalist or populist or whatever. But he's still not making any kind of big argument. And if you don't make the big argument, inevitably people then say, well, what? OK, let's turn to the policies. You can get away with, in fact, if you make a big argument, sometimes then the argument is sufficiently strong that people say, OK, well, the policy will follow. But if all your speech ultimately consists of is a set of policy announcements, which is how it was built and set up.

23:01Remember, incrementalism was not enough, was the briefing overnight. Right. You know, the response, you know, the response required to the world's challenges is greater than we anticipated just a couple of years ago. Then you get to these three things, as you say, I thought they were very odd. I mean, the renationalization of British steel, as you say, it's already in public hands, essentially. And we spent 400 million quid on it. And I can see it's obviously like, oh, I'm assuming it's a kind of appeal to the unions and the left. but it's extremely hard to present you know taking control of the steel industry as a sort of future looking announcement then you get the european announcement well sorry let's do the apprenticeship i mean that's just a non-announcement about some youth you know offer ill-defined and then you get the european announcement you cannot be at the heart of europe if you're not going to rejoin the eu or join the single market or join the customs union i mean it makes a non that phrase is a nonsense i think it's originally a john major phrase actually a long time ago but and even then it was challenged because he wasn't going to join the euro but you know you can't say that and then and then pull off uh you know making a commitment to do something bold to take on the brexiteers to say you know take on your own manifesto red lines i i thought that was in some ways the

24:19Ed Balls: oldest part of the speech but of course it goes to the the question of authenticity and when you say i'm taking on the risks or you know i'm clear about what we need to do it's really hard to be to persuade people that you're really clear on what's going to be done if you also in the last year done a whole series of jarring u-turns before each of which you were clear about what needed to be done before you then did a u-turn and did the opposite so i think i mean look you are right it was a list. And you are also right that there was very little analysis. To the extent there is a piece of analysis, this is the bit of the speech, you know, the underlying argument, which I think I most recoil from and feel isn't authentic.

25:05Ed Balls: Because there's been a debate over the weekend, reform did well, and the Greens did well. The Greens did well to the left, reform are doing well to the right. Both of them are essentially anti-politics outside agitators. The system's failed, politics has failed, you know, we're going to break it up, vote for us if you want change against this failing status quo. What Keir Starmer authentically has to do is say, no, I believe in politics, I believe in government, I've been the director of public prosecutions, I've been a public servant. I believe politics can and is making a difference. And let me tell you why.

25:47Ed Balls: You don't beat the Greens by trying to be more left. You don't beat reform by trying to be more right. You beat both of them by saying their empty populism isn't going to work. Here is my alternative. And instead, I've said this in this podcast a few times in the last few years, He retreats into this sort of politics is failing. Westminster is broken. I'm going to stand up for you against this failing politics. He plays the populist card when he actually ought to be railing against destructive populism. And it makes it much harder for him to be the guy who's going to take on reform and Greens as the prime minister over the next two years by saying, no, forget their snake oil.

26:29Ed Balls: I'm the guy who can lead succeeding government and succeeding politics. He's got to make the case for politics. He can't run as an anti-politics candidate, not as prime minister. He's the prime minister. He's Sir Keir Starmer. Sir Keir Starmer. The clue's in the name. What about, and look, I think both the left and the right, both the Greens and reform, are saying they're going to shield you from the world in different ways. The Greens, don't worry about making a living. will get the very rich to pay for you and the reform by saying we'll just turn back the clock. But we're recording this and we're doing it live in the immediate aftermath of the speech.

27:11And we have had a couple of responses. Very interesting one from Catherine West. And I don't think, as I say, anyone would be predicting a week ago that we'd be talking so much about her. She has it's been presented that she's withdrawn her leadership challenge. You know, remember what she said over the weekend is, I'll put my name forward for the leadership unless a big beast does. She seems to have changed that to, he's got to go. So she wasn't persuaded by the speech. But I want an orderly transition and him gone by the autumn. And I'm going around collecting signatures. Now, I don't think there's any kind of Labour Party constitutional mechanism to kind of, you can have a constitutional mechanism to get rid of the Prime Minister right now.

27:55There's no constitutional mechanism to say, you know, we should have an orderly transition in the autumn. that obviously will have huge force if she can get a large number of MPs signed up or enough to say, well, there are now 81 MPs who want Stammer to go, which is what's required to trigger a contest at some point. So she's done that. And I guess one of the reasons she might be doing that is because one problem with challenging now is that it's not in the interests of Andy Burnham's supporters that the contest happens now because he's not in Parliament. And he does seem like the front runner now i mean you know i thought angela rayner's statement over the weekend she's a manchester mp was essentially she you know she said various things about workers rights and the like but she was kind of backing burnham because the most pointed thing she said was andy burnham should be let into parliament so now on that i would say watch this space because i'm

28:53Ed Balls: not totally sure i mean look on good morning britain today um i put exactly the point you dismayed to kevin mcguire to jillian keegan this is angela rayner coming behind andy burnham but i'm not sure if that is right i think that was angela rayner signaling inclusive inclusivity right and um and and has ended up slightly by mistake sounding like she's pulling back herself and backing burnham um but i do think there's a deeper point there which is it's really hard to um to see how this issue gets resolved if andy burnham is denied a chance so i think that that you were right about the Burnham timetable.

29:30Ed Balls: I think that the let's have a quick leadership election to stop Andy Burnham doesn't feel as though that's going to be a runner. So that they - Well, just pause on that for a moment. You're saying because fundamentally the result would be regarded as in some ways illegitimate because Andy Burnham, who's clearly one of the top candidates, has been unable to enter the contest. And the danger would be that the problem is not solved and then recurs in six or nine months after. So there is one view, which is clearly that Keir Starmer uncompromising from his speech this morning on and on and on. I'm going nowhere.

30:00Ed Balls: I will fight the contest. But what Catherine... He was quite pointed. He was also quite pointed about saying... Very pointed. Andy Burnham-Triss in Manchester, shouldn't he? And Peter Kyle on the broadcasters this morning was saying he must keep his promises and stay in Manchester. He chose to go. That's where he should stay. I think Catherine West, she turned herself into Graham Brady, the former head of the 1922 committee. She doesn't think she's going to be the Prime Minister. She had a problem, which is that there were people who wanted to support Andy Burnham, who over the weekend had to say that they didn't agree with the Catherine West plan because she was going to stop Andy Burnham having her chance by saying, no, I'm now collecting signatures for a contest in September that allows her to unite and say the streeting or whoever it is, groups and all saying, but actually Catherine is right to ask for a timetable.

30:55Ed Balls: And in that moment it becomes much more 2006 when Tony Blair was under pressure after difficult local elections and he's trying to say look reasonably you know I'm gonna have a stable orderly transition but after resisting and sounding he did an interview in the Times if you remember with the great professor Phil Webster where he says that you know I'm gonna go on and on and on I'll fight the next election and that is the moment where people say no hang on that's not on and within days Tony Blair in order not to be thrown out immediately announces a timetable for him to go the following summer and it feels as though we are in a similar point in in this quite how you know does Catherine West get the numbers I don't know if she will um herself I mean she's doing this in a rather polite way than Tom Watson and an angry people who'd lost their seats did in um 2006.

31:50Ed Balls: Does it take... A little vignette for the last few days was Tom Watson saying that was all a huge mistake and he regrets it. But anyway, maybe we'll come back on our main podcast to discuss that. But it might be. It takes another intervention from who knows where in the coming days to say, look, we need the timetable. But is it tenable for Keir Starmer to shrug this off, say, I go on and on and on he's now got a king's speech on wednesday which is another test for his authority in parliament those king's speech or you know they always underwhelm i mean in my experience every they're built up as a big day and they're full of pageantry but they're very you know government spends a huge amount of time saying they're the big relaunch but i've never seen a king's or queen's speech used successfully that way can i give you another thing to look out for you know we were talking about Catherine West having lost her job as a government minister last September but there's quite a lot of government ministers who are in their jobs or people doing kind of envoy jobs or you know kind of trade support for this who also will be worried about what's going on I saw on X Amiata Fanbouleh who is a MHCLG minister um housing and local government to people who aren't on the super inside like you she um she was she was um i actually have a pass for that department because as co-chair of the holocaust foundation with eric pickles and she retweeted angela rayner's challenge to kia starmer now what does number 10 do are they going to allow junior ministers to do that to to start to express concern or do they you know they can't fire it you definitely don't want to be losing votes at the moment every every person you fire is a vote lost well if they allow it to happen many other people will and if they don't allow it to happen and um and someone has made an example of and kia starmer's operation in the early months quite like making example of taking the whip away from from people then that is the kind of moment which can suddenly trigger the um the crisis and cause a lot of anger.

34:08Ed Balls: So, you know, I feel as though I'm in the same position as last Thursday, Friday, which is that it's bad for Keir Starmer after these results. It's not easy to see the path. I'm still not sure that you're going to see the West Streeting challenge. Some people say he should go this afternoon. I'd be very surprised if he does that. But things will happen a la Catherine West in the coming maybe days which forced this pace. And as we saw in 2006, once that rolls, as we saw with Boris Johnson in 2022, once that rolls, suddenly time can become very telegraphed. Did Keir Starmer's speech today do enough to stall that?

34:56No, I think you're right. So I think as people digest the speech, they'll conclude it wasn't good enough and there wasn't anything new. and the policy substance was lacking. This Andy Burnham timetable, I think, is where things will go. The challenge will be, will the NEC, which Starmer used to control, allow him to stand in a by-election? I have to say for Andy Burnham, that by-election is incredibly tricky and risky. So Andy himself, who you and I both know pretty well, he's got to make a huge decision in his life, which is I am going to risk everything in a by-election. And, you know, in a by-election, reform will stand in exactly the areas, kind of area where, because the kind of seat he'll stand in will be a sort of safe Labour seat, Graham Stringer's seat maybe in Manchester.

35:50And it's exactly the kind of place where reform have just cleaned up.

35:55Ed Balls: And although he will try to do it, I bet you as, you know, I lead the challenge from outside Westminster in this. The trouble is, if that's how he succeeds and the outsider, storming the barricades, gets in and becomes the prime minister, suddenly he'll be, as with Keir Starmer, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, governing, having come in by that route suddenly becomes very, very, very tricky. Hold on, Ed, but we know, Andy, I think you're going to have a load of problems when you're prime minister, Andy, will be, yeah, OK, I'm happy to cross that bridge when I get to it. But winning that by-election is going to be hugely difficult.

36:34And if he does win it, in some ways, he'll prove he's the winner. Which leads me to the second point.

36:40Ed Balls: And other candidates, they may say, but if he fights and loses and somebody else wins instead, you know, don't write off Wes Streeting. But isn't this the question precisely to Wes and others, which is, if you let this all be Andy Burnham's thing, it all depends on whether he wins his by-election. Because if he wins his by-election, he'll say, I can win where Labour couldn't win before. and if you and say it's not in your hands if you want the crown you got to go for it and uh sitting around waiting for Andy Burnham to make his mind up it feels to me like someone who doesn't ultimately have what it takes to go and grab the crown and so whether you're West Streeting or any of the other you know potential candidates now's the moment it's like put up a why wait for Andy Burnham why wait for the NEC to why hand the decision over to someone else and who knows what's going to happen in the world.

37:30God knows what's going to happen next week in the world. And suddenly Keir Starmer's position could stabilize and so on. So if you want it and you're not Andy Burnham, you need to go for it.

37:38Ed Balls: And there'll be all these people thinking, you know, David Cameron, where did he come from? John Major, where did he come from? I mean, who, once it's in play and the big beasts are in, who knows you come see the middle? Right. Very interesting. And not installing the phone lines around at your residence. No. we got them from last time and the time before. No need to get the BT engineers in. Okay. Listen, I hope you've enjoyed this live YouTube podcast, if that's the right word for something, live on YouTube. And certainly you're going to be able to hear it later as well on your normal podcast channels.

38:20And we're going to be back on Thursday with our regular Political Currency podcast, talking about all these issues. gosh no who knows what's going to have happened over the next couple of days we've also got our

38:31Ed Balls: newsletter if you are a gold or kitchen cabinet subscriber you get um ad free if you're gold but if you're a kitchen cabinet member you also get a newsletter every um couple of weeks news history culture um voice notes photos and um plus also a mug and a members only chance so uh if you want to sign up and get our podcast every week um ad free gold but if you want to get the full camoodle join our kitchen cabinet. And we can't promise there won't be some more emergency podcasts and the like over the next few months. But in the meantime, we'll be back on Thursday with our regular show. See you then.

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