'Lame duck' Starmer defends his legacy as Burnham shuns PMQs

0:07The UK is being held hostage by lame duck Keir Starmer. Meanwhile, the real Prime Minister is missing in action. Andy Burnham evades PMQ and won't let us know what he's going to do about the government's shoddy defence plan. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Camilla Tominey.

0:35Tim, this podcast is going out at 5pm. What else is happening today? Spectator Garden Party. And what else is happening today? England are playing Ivory, Euro, Guay, Panama. It's three letters. Oh. If I start singing in 1980s, fruit juice drink. OK, right. It's the DRC. Yes, it is. Right. And it kicks off when? Umbungo in the Congo. It is, yeah. It's the Umbungo song for anyone born, I suppose, before 1985? Yeah. I don't know if you could get away with that now. No, I don't. I don't know what time it is. It's at five, so we are simultaneously going out with the football. Can I suggest that people listening and watching this just double screen it?

1:26and then you can have fun listening to political insight while hopefully watching England be victorious. Because do you know what happens if we lose today? What happens if we lose today? We lose the cup. What? We have to hand the cup back to... What are you talking about? I assume it's like in school football, we have a cup somewhere in a glass case. This isn't the World Cup final, Tim. We're out of the group stage. I was going to say, DRC has done very well. This is now, we're now in the knockout stage Right So if we lose today But you need to collect points It's like green shield stamps Well, you needed to collect points in the group stage Now you just need to win your match to get through to the next stage Right And obviously we're going to quarters, semis and the actual final Okay?

2:12Okay You're across it But with Germany now out Oh, hello, yeah, go on I know that because our new owner Yes Spoke to us yesterday Yes We were bought yesterday, weren't we, by actual Springer and we heard from Matthias Doffner, who is our new big boss, and we heard from our new CEO. And it's all changed here at The Telegraph, but in a very positive fashion. Oh, we're very excited about it. I'm surprised Nigel Farage didn't put a bid in. Yes, that's right. Because I feel like he's got the money. He's got some money, apparently from Gold Bullion. Now, I appreciate my other employer, GB News, does quite a few gold adverts.

2:44I'm not sure if there's a correlation there. Should I put myself forward? I could sell gold and emasticated trousers. Well, it's gold and platinum hips for GB News, isn't it? Yes, it is. I'm a fan of GB News ads. I know you are. People are, our customers are always surprised at the money they can get for their old gold and bits of jewellery. I know. And the thing is... And then there's a shot of a woman going, how much? That's right. Is that all? I tell you what, when I think of Tim Stanley, I think of a lot of gold jewellery. I think of medallions. I think of signet rings. Yes. I think of how you look at home in Kent.

3:19I also love the ad of the fat people who've lost weight. Yes. Hiya. She always opens it that way. And there's one man who says something like, I lost weight to spend more time with my family. What were you doing when you were fat? Just spending a hell of a lot of time eating, I think is the answer to that question. Look, we'll get onto the Farage bashing in just a minute because PMQs wouldn't be the same without a little go at the reform leader. And we will get into the to and fro between Starmer and Bade knock over the defence spending plan. There was a funny kind of thread. there was a long-running joke against the Liberal Democrats throughout the entirety of PMQs, which I personally really enjoyed, and so did most of the parliamentarians, and it was about how the new hospital in Frimley Park is being built on the site of a golf course.

4:07He's urged his constituents to oppose it because, quote, this is his quote, if the hospital goes ahead, there will be no golf course. So Labour building new hospitals, he's standing up for golf courses. I can't think of anything more Lib Dem. Yes, it was the funniest thing the Prime Minister ever said and Kemi Badenock picked up on it. Thank you, Mr Speaker. And can I associate myself and this side of the house with the Prime Minister's comments about Venezuela and also about the Lib Dems? And later on, ever the clown, Ed Davey got in on the joke too. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I not associate myself with the Prime Minister's comments about my party?

4:50Tim will get on to Ed Davies quite typical attack on reform and then the subsequent attack on Nigel Farage personally in a moment. But the to and fro over defence, it was predictable she was going to do that because overnight it's emerged that there's a five billion pound black hole in this plan that hasn't been accounted for. So Kemi wanted to make it very clear that for all of the bluster and the boasting of the Prime Minister when he unveiled this plan yesterday, actually it appears to be full of holes and, importantly, military top brass do not support it. Let me tell him what Lord Richard Dannett, the former head of the army, said yesterday.

5:29He said the Prime Minister had chosen the cheap option and called the plan woefully inadequate. Let me tell him what General Sir Richard Barron, one of the authors of his own strategic defence review, said yesterday, we are simply not going to be ready to defend this country properly. That's what they're saying. The reason that he is in this mess is because he was too weak to cut welfare when he had the chance. Since the Prime Minister took office, Poland has increased their funding to 4.8%. Germany has increased theirs to 3.7%. This year, Russia will spend 10 % of GDP on defence. Meanwhile, Britain is spending it all on welfare.

6:12Even the limited plan that he has announced has completely unravelled because he hasn't found the money to pay for it. It is£5 billion short. Three weeks ago, Mr Speaker, three weeks ago, the Defence Secretary resigned, saying, I am being forced to make decisions that would increase the risk to personnel on operations and could make the country less safe. Since that letter, the Prime Minister has only increased spending by 0.01%. We can count, the generals can count, the Kremlin can count. His plan doesn't add up. How can the Prime Minister possibly stand there and say that this is enough? But the Prime Minister was able to reply, I'm sorry, but the Tories do not have a leg to stand on when it comes to defence.

7:02All people who know what's in the plan and welcome it, contrast that, Mr Speaker, with their record in government because they hollowed out the armed forces. Their record is cutting defence spending. My record is raising it to£300 billion and rising. Their record is cutting frigates by a quarter, cutting mine hunters by a half and leaving 47 of 49 defence programmes delayed or over budget. My record is the biggest boost to defence investment since the 1980s. Their record is missing army recruitment targets every year for 14 years. We've given our armed force the biggest pay rise for 20 years and increased defence funding by£15 billion a year.

7:44That's a record I'm proud to stand on. And actually, Tim, he was very effective in his closing remarks, summing up why the Conservatives were basically being hypocrites about this whole issue. And I actually thought he spoke very powerfully. there is an extent to which he is a bit demob happy and just pushing the boundaries of his own comfort zone. When I became Prime Minister two years ago, this country spent£54 billion a year on defence. Because of decisions we've taken, that will rise to£80 billion a year by 2029. That is a real terms increase of 27%, transforming our armed forces. And we're not going to take any lectures from the party opposite.

8:25They cut defence spending. They hollowed out the armed forces. That's what their defence secretary admitted. That's what they did. They don't like it. They won't defend their record, Mr Speaker, because they can't. They won't apologise for it, because they have to admit what we all know is a total failure. They just try to pretend the 14 years they're in power never really happened. We're in power. We've record investment in defence and security. I'm proud of this Labour government, and any Labour prime minister would stand behind this plan. But Badenock cleverly pushed it forward to what does Andy Burnham think?

9:01We all know that he is leaving this mess to his successor, so can he confirm that the member for Makerfield has agreed to fund the shortfall? Notably, that was a question that he refused to answer, and of course he can't answer it. Everyone in the press lobby is signed to ask, where is the member for Makerfield? Yeah, was he there today? No, he wasn't. Oh, that's strange. I presume he's in Manchester where he's announced he's going to set up his own number 10 so he doesn't even have to leave his front room to run the country. But we always used to complain that MPs don't spend enough time in their own constituency.

9:34But in this case, it'd be quite nice to see him in Parliament for a little while. But it is becoming odd. There is no earthly reason why the future prime minister cannot attend PMQs. He might judge that it's embarrassing for the prime minister. And of course, the Tories and reform would point at him and jeer. So, OK, maybe it's a question of discretion. Nonetheless, it points to the strange vacuum in British leadership right now. Yes. For example, there was a question at the end by Alex Davis-Jones. She used to be a minister. She resigned over Starmer. She resigned. She's wearing a very nice sort of parakeet yellow dress.

10:09She's the MP for Pontypris. There we go. And she asked about, could you commit to an inquiry into the Epstein scandal? And notably, the prime minister didn't. Well, he didn't because he can't. He can't make these commitments. Now, when it comes to the defence spending, the reason why, part of the reason why this is so controversial is the opposition is being expected to hold to account a government that will be gone in three weeks. Yes, a government that can't hold itself to account right now. So that government has made commitments for a future government that are not actually yet spent. So this is where the five billion comes into.

10:48What the government has done is it has said we will spend 15 billion, but of that 5 billion is 5 billion that someone in the future will have to find. Now, the Prime Minister's defence to that is we identified 22 billion pounds worth of fiscal headroom in the last budget that allows us to do that. There used to be a black hole, didn't it? Well, a black hole has become fiscal headroom. Yes. But having said all that, and I wish Baden-Ock had perhaps tried to interrogate this point, I've got a feeling that they've already spent that£22 billion worth of headroom. I'm sure several times over. 22 times, actually, Tim.

11:24But while they are promising future spending that they've not yet committed and explained where it will come from, from a future prime minister whose opinions are about all of this, we don't really know. No. They're also trying to get defence to commit to£11 billion worth of savings. Yes. Now, that will come from some stuff that in a way you should save, such as old weapons system you're no longer going to keep. Other stuff will come from things which are very controversial, like MOD housing for soldiers. Anyone where that was going to be in their constituency, anyone who gets a letter from a veteran, that's going to become very controversial.

12:03But the point is, it is true the government wants to be able to say, this is the largest uptick in spending since the Cold War. and overall we're spending close to£300 billion on defence. But if it's being found from uncommitted future spending and if it's being found from savings in other areas, then I think one could legitimately ask, have you, Keir Starmer, as your legacy, really handed over that pot of committed money to Andy Burnham? And on top of that, in order to fund it, they've also made savings from other departments which are controversial within government. So immediately after PMQs, Hamish Faulkner was standing up to talk about Israel.

12:44He's the Foreign Office Minister. Foreign Office Minister. Well, there is a road in his constituency that's been desperate for an upgrade for a very long time. And he's annoyed that it looks like some of these savings will be coming from the road budget. Yes. So this is what Ben Houchen was talking about yesterday, about winners and losers. Yes. And how the next prime minister, unlike a civic mayor, who frankly can just dole out cash that comes from central government, And everyone's a winner. Yes. This is the difficult choices he's going to have to make. And Badenock is very much positioning herself as the party of warfare versus welfare.

13:19And I sort of saw kind of into the future at today's PMQs, because even somebody stopped me on the tube today on the way here, loves the podcast, obviously loves the Daily Tea. That was good to hear. A couple of people came up to me at Marlebone Station and said the same. And they said, how do you think PMQs is going to play out between Badenock and Burnham? and they made the point that if Burnham plays Mr Nice Guy, it's going to be quite difficult perhaps for the opposition leader to handle. So what's she going to do? Turn his niceness against him, say that he's being too kind and therefore won't scrap welfare and will lean into a socialist agenda that only suits the left and start making about shirkers and workers.

13:58But then of course she then turns into the nasty party again. So the dynamics of it are all quite difficult. It's almost easier for her to deal with Starmer because of his propensity to mansplain, sound pretty annoying and follow the process. She's faced with some eyelash-fluttering maverick who starts telling jokes in the house. I mean, listen, she can do dry humour. She isn't, you know, we're not kind of stitching up our sides and remembering Jasper Carrot when she's at the bloody dispatch box. So I think it's going to be a little bit tricky, but I just feel that that's now going to be the fault line.

14:31We discussed this earlier in the week. The Burnham versus Badenock is going to be about high tax versus low tax, high spend versus low spend, austerity he will claim, they will claim efficiency and in general socialism versus capitalism. That's how it's going to break down. There is a Teflon quality to Andy Burnham, but there isn't a Teflon quality to our country, which has several major problems that require painful decisions to fix. I mean, you've identified a key one. They overspend on welfare and they underspend on defence. so he's going to have to make choices that will end up annoying someone when you're a regional mayor as ben houchin was explaining you either spend the money or if you're not given the money you protest about not having the money yes can't do that when you're prime minister what's he going to do is he going to appear on the cameras and say he's angry with himself for failing to invest i know this you just reminded me of something i was at that u.s embassy 250th anniversary party last night.

15:27Right. That's at the American Revolution. Yes, indeed. And it's a wonderful event at Winfield House, which is in Regent's Park. It's gorgeous. They bring out all of these kind of, everything that the Americans make from kind of Hershey bars to Coca-Cola to Jack Daniels to Five Guys is all there. There's stalls and you can go mad. And I was hobnobbing with various different people, cravingly looking for stories because that's how I rock. Had a poke bowl and a pink lemonade and left. But the point is, I did speak to a former, very senior Tory. A poker ball and a pink lemonade. I know. That's the modern night out, isn't it?

16:02Isn't it just? It's actually fun spongery on a new level. But anyway, you know I'm on a special diet and all that nonsense. But the point is, I spoke to a very senior former cabinet minister, OK, on the Tory side. And I said, well, you were there. You were in opposition when Tony Blair was in government. What, do you remember of Andy Burnham? and he said unless he's had his head changed he is unable to decide anything ever he's totally indecisive and I thought god this is reminding me of somebody else that once was a metropolitan mayor who is great on rhetoric and popular in the pub and can come out with some good speeches Boris Johnson but quite difficult to pin down on anything yes yeah yeah yeah tricky Burnham also is is investing heavily in nice, but much of the country has turned nasty.

16:55Yes. A point that was raised by Ed Davey. There is a question every week about how evil reform are. It usually comes from Ed Davey. It's tedious. It's done purely so that he can have a TikTok clip of him slagging off reform. And here it is. Mr Speaker, I have another concern I think the Prime Minister will share. The rising tide of racist violence and hate that we're seeing in our country. And the way is being incited and normalised, including, I'm afraid, by some members of this house. I was talking to a British friend of Indian ancestry who told me how reform activists came to her door and said that if they get into power, she and her family will have their passports seized and their citizenship revoked.

17:51Does the primist agree that racism has no place in our country? And will he join me in condemning anyone who is stoking it? Having said that, Keir Starmer also doesn't mind having a pop at Nigel Farage, and he did that in response to a question by Farage's colleague, Lee Anderson. He likes to ask questions. He should be asking some questions of the leader of his party sitting next to him. He received£5 million from a crypto billionaire and then privately lobbied the Bank of England on digital currencies. So did their leader carry out lobbying paid? Why did he keep his£5 million gift secret? And I'm happy with their leader earning£20 ,000 an hour flogging gold bullion.

18:37They need to ask questions across their benches, but they never do. Although Farage has been slightly lesser spotted, notwithstanding his rare appearance in the chamber today. And writing for The Telegraph. Thank you very much, Nigel. Indeed, so thank you very much. Excellent piece. Always take your copy. Reform demands election if Burnham raises taxes to fund defence. Now, this is quite a good political strategy because so far all of the Burnham briefings have been he's going to stick with the manifesto and famously the manifesto said it wouldn't raise personal taxes, so income tax, VAT or employee national insurance.

19:12we can have a row about whether they broke that with the employer national insurance hike. Of course they did. But they say they haven't. So he's saying if he honours that manifesto, then he has the mandate because he's just inherited the manifesto from the previous prime minister and he'll carry it forward and therefore we don't need a general election. Barrage is saying, but hang on a minute, if you put up those taxes, then you've breached your own manifesto pledge and therefore we need to take this to the country. Point is, that's an interesting strategy from reform, isn't it? because I'm not sure they're ready for a general election.

19:43I think the only party that might be is Labour. So he wants a general election now, even though they're going backwards in the polls. And at the moment, as far as the current figures are, where are we here? YouGov, we've got reform on 25%, Labour and Tories on 20%, the rest, whatever. All that's going to happen if we have a general election now is a super hung parliament, right? Yeah. Though it's almost worth having just to find out who Reform's defence spokesman would be. Yes, that's true. They haven't got one yet. Well, coming up, we discuss some new polling on Andy Burnham and if all this talk of the North has backfired down south.

20:16And also, what are the real challenges facing this country?

20:31There's also some YouGov polling that suggests that all this focus on the North, by which he means Manchester, might have backfired because only 23 % of Britons expect Burnham to govern in the interests of the whole country. 27 % believe he will be governing mainly in the interests of regions like the North. Conservative reform voters, unsurprisingly, are least likely to think Burnham will govern in the interests of the whole country. Northerners say he would govern in the interests of the whole country by 32 % to 13%, but they probably think the whole country is the North. And Southerners expect him to favour the North by 36 % to 18%.

21:07That's so funny. So Burnham is actually creating a north-south divide in the interests of devolution. What is happening? We've also got some polling suggesting that those who voted for Labour in 2024 no longer want to do so. 41 % of 2024 Labour voters will still back the party, so they've lost half of their franchise. More men than women back reform. OK, that's not particularly surprising. Of those who own their home outright, 31 % would vote reform and 25 % would vote for the Conservatives. Oh, Lord, alive, Tim. Here it is. 39 % of 18 to 24-year-olds back the Greens, as do 33 % of 25 to 29-year-olds, proving that youth and naivety is so dangerous in a democracy, isn't it?

21:54There was a time when the young voted Conservative. Yes. You know, you've got to make the argument to young people and right now the pitch is all aimed at old people. It's all about triple locks and winter fuel payments. Well, the other reason why they want to vote for the Greens, of course, is that Zach Polanski would like to tax the rich more. And you know where that's going to get them, Tim, by the way, all this wishful thinking about taxing the rich. Well, it's just going to cause rich people to leave this country. And apparently, according to UBS, the average Britain's wealth has fallen by more than a fifth over the last five years.

22:25Isn't that wonderful? So of the 37 countries it's surveyed, typical wealth has fallen by around£28 ,500 since 2020. after accounting for inflation. It's left the median adult with assets of just over 95 ,500 last year, making the British a touch richer than the French, but poorer than the Dutch and the Italians. But that's, you know, I mean, that's huge, isn't it? This is the real challenge facing the next prime minister. It's not, do people in Manchester feel government is closer to them? No, it's... It's that across the entire country, people's wealth has fallen as a consequence of COVID, Ukraine and inflation.

23:07That's right. Keir Starmer said, I'm very proud that I'm going to be leaving the country in a better place. You're not going to be leaving our finances in a better state, personal or public. And perhaps he cannot be blamed for those, he likes to say, horrible headwinds. No, it's just an excuse. And he can't be blamed for that. But of course, he needs to come up with the policies that ameliorate that. But also you have to do something more than just constantly reorganise your government. You need to come up with things which are going to grow the economy. And improve the lot of the British public.

23:40Now, I'm not sure that is the best. I think it's a lot to do with Israel, actually. Well, it's probably got a lot to do with Israel. I think on campuses, Gaza really is the preeminent issue. Also, it might have things to do with support for non-binary and goodness knows what else, right? Yeah. Legislating pink hair and piercings. everyone else assume the Green Party is motivated by ecological issues. I mean, this is what the evidence from focus groups is if you put the Green Party to people, they do just think, oh, that's a nice party that wants to clean up the rivers and things like that. So there still is that misunderstanding going on.

24:12They want to clear up one river to the sea. Yeah. Very clever. And everything in between. But quite frankly, all of these polls right now are irrelevant until we get a new prime minister until we see something of him so that we can then judge what we really think of him. And while watching this PMQs, it occurred to me, I feel like I'm handcuffed to Keir Starmer at the moment. What a thought. In a small lift. Right. While eating pickled onion crisps. Oh my goodness. There's a real sense of discomfort at being stuck with this man because Starmer has given himself this four-week period in which he gets to say goodbye.

24:51As I wrote, his political death is lasting longer than Madame Butterfly on the stage. That's right. My theory is he's hoping that England win the football in that period, so he leaves behind this legacy. And failing that, I don't know if Cruft is in this period, but if some English terrier could win a category there, so he's got that to claim, that would be good. So he's given himself four weeks. But also, once those are up, it then tips into the summer holiday because MPs get a very long summer holiday, like other children, which starts to look like a presidential style transition period. We don't normally do this.

25:26No, we don't need it. Now, the only reason why we might justify it, a bit like we were saying earlier, Andy Burnham avoiding PMQs and indeed the commons, we might justify it by saying, well, it's special because there's an incumbent PM and people are going to point at him and laugh. with Burnham we can justify this transition phase because he's not been an MP for nine years yes and so he's got to be trained up in that it's like a t-level test yeah that's right he's got to be trained up in that period which just reminds us how unusual and how much of a gamble yes this is on the part of labor yes it is I just can't think of an occasion except in the past where like Alec Douglas Hume comes from the Lords or something when we have just said, we'll bring someone in to do it and we'll have to train them up.

26:13That's right. So in the meantime, we're stuck with Starmer and watching PMQs where he's unable to give definitive answers to questions. He's unable to make pledges. He's setting spending projections that he's not actually paying for. You realise that for these four weeks, we are chained to a lame duck government. Dead duck. A dead duck government. Yeah. What's the point of that? I don't know. And as someone who has to cover it, I can tell you, it gives you a certain sense of despair because we all emotionally... Well, when Burnham won Makerfield, I was delighted. There was a sense of emotional release, not because he won, but because something was happening in politics again.

26:55There was movement. We knew what our future would look like. Because remember, we'd had weeks and weeks of people resigning and protesting. And then suddenly everything stops. and we the country and we as a society, and I do believe Britain is a traumatised country after Covid and Ukraine, racism, Brexit, all the things that have happened to us. We're a traumatised country. Makes it. Makes it. And I do think that for the Labour Party to do this to us, to hold us hostage while it pauses for many weeks, months in fact, to figure out how to run the government that it currently already occupies. But it already came.

27:34But hang on a minute. Is cruel to the public. I just want Burnham to be prime minister right now so that I can ask him questions, because he'll then have to take questions at a press conference. And I can actually find out where my country is going to be in September, because I don't know. But can I make a couple of observations? First of all, this isn't going to change because Keir Starmer will follow the process at all costs. Second of all, I love this idea that you're going to get any greater clarity with Andy Burnham than you have with Keir Starmer. Two men whose ideology is literally built on sand, shifting sand.

28:11Third of all, I love this optimism that you think anything's going to change. I don't think it's going to change. This guy's coming down from Manchester. Like, as we've discussed, he's not the next messiah. I'm surprised he hasn't announced some kind of Forrest Gump style walk from Canal Street to Downing Street, like giving people high fives on the M6 and beyond. I mean, honestly, this is absolutely. He's going to come running in like sports aid, isn't he? Exactly. With giant banners hanging over him saying, welcome to London, Andy. To the strains of some Oasis song in a bucket hat and inappropriately tiny shorts.

28:46I'm not saying things are going to change. My point is simply, I would like to talk to the person in charge. I'm stuck right now talking to a flunky in consumer relations, customer services. You're basically being told you can't even come in. We can't do this. And I'm shouting down the phone, I want to speak to your line manager. This is my point, is we cannot psychologically move on because Keir Starmer has decided randomly, even though the next prime minister has already been elected by Makerfield and no one's running against him, he has decided, I'm going to sit here for four weeks and have four more of these PMQs, at which he performs woefully and can't say anything of any interest.

29:29All right, I'm going to cheer you up now, because you want to see leadership? Let's go watch Harry Kane. And we will be back, hopefully with good news from the football and from the world of politics, 5pm tomorrow.

29:48Thank you.