Starmer on the brink: How long can the PM survive?

0:02The Telegraph.

0:30Get it? Join the 15 ,000 companies using Vanta to prove trust. Go to Vanta.com slash com. Being outside is good for us. It's that simple. And trails make it easy for us to walk, bike, and be active outside in our own backyards. On the trail, we see people moving, connecting with their communities, making the places where they live great. For 40 years, Rails to Trails Conservancy has led the way, Creating trails across the country, making it safer and easier for everyone to get outside.

1:00Camilla: They want you to get involved. Find your trail and start your journey today at railstotrails.org slash iHeart and follow at Rails to Trails on social.

1:14Camilla: The Prime Minister is once again on the brink over the Peter Mandelson saga and the public are rightly asking, is Keir Starmer a crook or a fool? Either way, he must go. The doctrine of ministerial responsibility means the buck stops with him, whether he knew or not. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tominy. And me, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

1:50Camilla: Jacob, we're going to have an emergency daily tea today. We had planned to take a breather from broadcasting. I was going to write the column. You're in Somerset in front of the most spectacular pair of curtains I've ever seen. Yes, absolutely. Well, here we both are back again. I thought you'd done with me yesterday and would be back to the great Stanley in future. But here we are. I suppose I'm Dr Livingstone. Indeed. And I'm in the process of defrosting my freezer, which is that's all of the parts of it. That's the freezer door open there, which is why I've angled this suspiciously over here.

2:25Camilla: But the point is, we are back together because I think the Prime Minister is in real trouble now with the revelation that the Foreign Office knew that Peter Mandelson had failed the vetting. The Prime Minister is in trouble, whatever the truth is. He's adopting this, not me, gov, I didn't know. and that could well be true. I mean, the trouble for Keir Starmer right now, he's either a crook or a fool. There isn't any other option because either he did know that Mandelson had failed the vetting and misled the House knowingly and has lied to the public or he didn't know, has been hoodwinked by the Foreign Office and others and therefore is not in control either of his office or indeed the country.

3:14Camilla: That's the problem, isn't it? That's absolutely right. it's the knave or a fool accusation, and he can't win, and it doesn't matter. In this country, there are only two important constitutional doctrines about the executive. One is the concept of collective responsibility, that the government must speak with one voice, and therefore, whether it's the junior minister for agriculture or the prime minister, whatever they say is the position of the government, and if they don't like it, they must resign. Principle one. Principle two, its counterpart, is ministerial responsibility. A minister is responsible for whatever goes on in his department, whether he knows about it or not.

3:57And this isn't just theory. This has practical effect. The most famous example, 1954, Critchell Down, Sir Thomas Dugdale resigned as agriculture minister because the ministry had mucked up and had essentially defrauded some people over a land transaction. He knew nothing about it. He wasn't informed about it. But when the inquiry discovered his department had failed, he went. The same principle applies to Lord Carrington in 1982 and more recently to Amber Rudd. Amber Rudd gave evidence to a House of Commons select committee in good faith on information given to her by civil servants that was wrong.

4:38So the Prime Minister must go on the grounds of ministerial responsibility, as Miss David Lammy, both of them share in this responsibility. And it's quite improper, quite improper in our constitution that they have allowed a civil servant to be blamed for this. And I also think that Yvette Cooper's position must be questioned because she sent a fundamentally dishonest letter to the House of Commons, to the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. And that is also pretty serious. That was deeply misleading in terms of the vetting of Mandelson and the failure of the developed vetting. So I don't think it matters whether he's a neighbour or a fool.

5:19His position is one that he cannot constitutionally carry on to hold, and he must therefore go.

5:26Camilla: Okay, so to summarise the latest events, we have Ollie Robbins, who was in charge of the Foreign Office at the time, having fallen on his sword. Last night, there was confusion as to whether he'd resigned or been sacked. Obviously, he isn't the first official to take the blame. We've also had the resignations of Morgan McSweeney. Okay, the head of communications, Matthew Doyle, had left office before, but he's been linked to the Mandelson saga because he may have been involved in the appointment because they were personal friends. so that has happened we're going to get on in a minute to the political fallout and the political reaction and how many people are now calling for the prime minister's scalp we'll also further discuss that issue funny enough the prime minister is a former lawyer and there is of course a very well-known legal phrase which is recklessness is not a defense in some cases you cannot claim ignorance and excuse yourself you have to as you have just pointed out with those previous examples the most recent being Amber Rudd, take vicarious responsibility for your department's actions.

6:30Camilla: But I think it's probably a good idea, Jacob, just to bring everyone up to speed with the timeline on this, because it is a complicated story. Let's just briefly go through the timeline. So it's in December 2024 that Mandelson is announced as the British ambassador to the US. It does cause some consternation in political and journalistic circles, because this is a man who was once nicknamed the Dark Lord and the Prince of Darkness. In the February of 2025, so a few months later, Mandelson tells a journalist to F off when asked about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Around the same time, by the way, the Telegraph had written a piece saying, this is the extent of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and I was a co-author on it.

7:15Camilla: So back at the very beginning, we knew the relationship he had with Epstein, and indeed with regimes associated with his role as the head of global council, a sort of lobbying organisation who had clients linked to China and Russia. Fast forward to the end of February last year, Mandelson is credited for a successful visit by Starmer to the White House. Donald Trump likes him. You pick it up, Jacob, September the 9th, 2025. Well, that's when we get the first of many tranches of Epstein files showing that Mandelson thought he was his best pal in this awful birthday album. And there's that embarrassing shot photograph, but not the most embarrassing one, that comes later, of Mandelson in a bathrobe.

8:01Following this, the Prime Minister said that he had full confidence in Peter Mandelson and then it gets worse. And so September the 11th, he's sacked. So on the 10th, Primus has confidence in him. On the 11th, he's got to go because of the additional information that comes out. And Starmer at this point starts saying Mandelson lied to him. Now, I think this is really important and hasn't been looked at enough, because if Mandelson failed developed vetting, that may well be because actually he told the vetters the truth, and that therefore Mandelson didn't lie, set out his position perfectly clearly, and that the only person who has lied is Starmer.

8:47Because when Starmer says he was lied to by Mandelson, we don't now seem to be able to find any conversation that Starmer had with Mandelson. So where did these lies come from? He implied it must have been in the vetting. But if the vetting didn't clear him, what lies has Mandelson told?

9:05Camilla: Well, this is a very crucial question because when the tranche of the Epstein files come out, so let's go to January of this year, we then get the revelations about Epstein having apparently paid Mandelson£10 ,000 for his husband to take an osteopathy course. There's also suggestions that Epstein gave Mandelson a further£55 ,000 between 2003 and 2004. We then get the infamous picture of Mandelson in his pants. We get the revelation, which later becomes crucial, that he was trying very hard while he was business secretary to change government policy on bankers' bonuses at the request of Epstein.

9:47Camilla: We know that he then shared market-sensitive information. That's while he's working in Gordon Brown's cabinet. We're all facing a global financial crisis. Labour are meant to be representing the poor, but instead it appears as if Mandelson is helping the rich to fill their boots. We then fast forward to February the 3rd. The Met Police launched an investigation into these allegations. Mandelson is investigated for alleged misconduct in public office. Sir Keir Starmer then turns on Mandelson saying he's let the country down and promises full cooperation with the police. Mandelson then steps down as a member of the House of Lords.

10:24Camilla: Now the next two days Jacob, February the 4th and February the 5th of this year are absolutely crucial. This is where we find the so-called smoking gun of what Starmer claims to have known. Let's first of all listen to an exchange with Kemi Badenock at PMQs on February the 4th. Mr Speaker, as the House would expect, we went through a process. There was a due diligence exercise and then there was security vetting by the security services. What was not known was the depth, the sheer depth and extent of the relationship. He lied about that to everyone for years. A new information was published in September showing the relationship was materially different to what we'd been led to believe.

11:25When the new information came to light, I sacked him. But we did go through a due diligence exercise. The points... The points that are being put to me were dealt with within that exercise.

11:38Camilla: Then let's listen to Starmer responding to questions about this the following day, February 5th, during a press conference in Hastings. There was a due diligence exercise that culminated in questions being asked. because I wanted to know the answer to certain issues. That's why those questions were asked. The answer to those questions were not truthful. There was then, I should add, security vetting carried out independently by the security services, which is an intensive exercise that gave him clearance for the role. You have to go through that before you take up the post. It seems to me that Sir Keir Starmer has misled Parliament.

12:22Now, to go back to our earlier question, was this knowingly or unknowingly, let's put that to one side for a moment, because the ministerial code says that if a minister misleads parliament unknowingly, the record must be corrected as soon as possible. When I was leader of the House, quite often there would be little footnotes in Hansard, where a minister had made a tiny slip, you know, got a figure wrong, put a decimal point in the wrong place, and that would be in Hansard as soon as the minister knew the mistake had been made. usually the next day. Starmer knows on Tuesday night of this week that he misled Parliament.

13:01He's at the dispatch box on Wednesday for Prime Minister's questions, and he doesn't correct the record. So whether he knew or not, whether he was lied to or not, he failed to follow the ministerial code in correcting the record as soon as possible. And he could have made a statement to the House at any time up until it's rising on Thursday. The Speaker will always make time for a prime ministerial statement, or indeed any ministerial statement, even if it were to interrupt business. So he can't say, well, after the time for statements had passed and they were on to other business, it was too late.

13:38He could have done it up until the rise of the House. But there's one other fascinating piece of information. It's come out this morning from David Maddox, who I'm sure you know.

13:48Camilla: Yes. And like me, like and admire. Former press journalist. He's now at the eye, I believe. Absolutely. I mean, I had lots of dealings with him over Brexit, think very highly of him. He asked Downing Street in September of last year about whether or not Mandelson had failed his vetting. He had heard that Mandelson had failed because of China rather than because of Epstein. He asks the Downing Street press office, And the press office says everything was done properly. Now, what this means is that we now know that Downing Street was made aware of concerns that Mandelson had failed his betting. And I know how this works, that if your press advisor, when you're in government, gets an inquiry that you think is a bit close to the nail, your press advisor asks somebody more senior, a special advisor or possibly even the minister himself.

14:47It seems to me inconceivable that the press officer concerned on hearing this extraordinary suggestion that Mandleton had failed his vetting didn't take it to other people within Downing Street and therefore ultimately to the Prime Minister because they must have known at that point how damaging this would have been. Therefore, this has been sat on by people in Downing Street for seven months.

15:13Camilla: Let's just explain the vetting. I was speaking to a senior civil servant yesterday to help to write the splash of the Telegraph once this Guardian story, let's credit the Guardian, the Guardian are the ones who came out with the scoop, landed late yesterday afternoon. And the way vetting works is the UK security vetting agency is sort of controlled by the cabinet office. It gives it some funding. And basically different government departments sponsor vetting of people that they want to appoint. So in this case, it's the foreign office who is the sponsor. The vetting agency goes and does its vetting and it can give three different responses.

15:53Camilla: Response number one, a green light. We have no issues. Good to a point. Response number two, red flag. We have concerns. We do not recommend. End. Response number three, amber warning. We have concerns. You might want to think about this very carefully, but we are going to devolve the decision-making to you, i.e. the Foreign Office. Now, at this point, we don't know whether it was red or amber. It's kind of academic, really, because concerns were raised. I understood it very slightly differently. That is to say that the amber was saying cleared, but we recommend that so-and-so isn't involved in this particular area of business.

16:36And that red is we do not recommend, but the department can ultimately decide.

16:41Camilla: Right. Okay. Whatever happened, it's sort of irrelevant because it brings us back to this central point. And I agree with what you're saying about press inquiries. The whole vetting situation has always been slightly kind of, well, A, it's opaque because when we got the documentation, we got the documentation, didn't we? We got after the Humboldt address, we had this release of documents relating to the appointment. And it's a critical point you make about what discussion did Starmer actually personally have with Mandelson? Because when you look at the paperwork that was submitted to the prime minister, the gap where he should have put in his own comments was left quite conspicuously blank.

17:22Camilla: So the implication was always that this was devolved to Morgan McSweeney, his former chief of staff, who stood down shortly after the Hastings press conference. But we then come back to the central point that is the prime minister in enough control to have been across these issues? Was it wise for him, did it show good judgment to have allowed the appointment, to have allowed others to decide the appointment, to not know about the failed vetting, to have been... I mean, the senior civil servant I spoke to last night said, it is absolutely extraordinary that he was allowed to go off and say what he has been saying for the last six months, while others within government knew the truth.

18:13You could say the same about Partygate, that the Prime Minister then, Boris Johnson, said things to the House of Commons in good faith about cake that others in government knew weren't true, including some quite senior civil servants. And that is a problem within government, that the civil service doesn't seem to be working properly. However, this fundamental point of ministerial responsibility means that the Prime Minister can't get out of culpability. He's in charge. He's the boss. It's his system. And as Cake brought down Boris Johnson, say this much more serious scandal, this much greater dishonesty and level of incompetence really ought to bring down Keir Starmer.

18:56Camilla: Now, we do have more documents to come, Jacob, because the Intelligence and Security Committee of MPs expects to shortly receive a copy of all the vetting documentation, which will be excited to pour over if it's made public. The ISC is responsible for examining all of the Mandelson files before deciding how much can be made publicly available. Now, this goes back to the Mandelson files. The police is concerned that releasing too much information might jeopardize their own investigation into Mandelson. You've then got redacted paperwork that obviously politicians, the public, and everyone is clamoring to be unredacted.

19:33Camilla: So we have the full story. The Cabinet Office can take the decision on that in conjunction with the police. But does further paperwork matter or do we already know enough? I think we already know enough, but I think the full terms of the Humble Address should be fulfilled. Parliament outranks the police. I don't give two hoots for the Metropolitan Police's concerns over this. They have no business interfering with the parliamentary process. It's not their level. It's above their pay grade, to use that awful cliche. So I don't care what they think. Parliament has demanded these documents. It's a humble address to the king.

20:07The king's government should fulfil the wish of the House of Commons without hesitation, deviation or repetition. And it really ought to get on with it. And I think the government's been very slow. And rumours that it's tried to hide things just add to the sense that this is a government you cannot trust.

20:23Camilla: Well, the other problem is that Keir Starmer is now in hiding because he's disappeared off to France for some another unnecessary global summit, never hear Keir. The guy can't bear to be in the UK for more than several hours before jetting off. OK, Jacob, he did do a poll clip this morning, again, kind of issuing the denial that we've now grown well used to. I was not told that he had failed security vetting. No minister was told that he'd failed security vetting. Number 10 wasn't told that it failed security vetting. That is completely unacceptable. That is why I intend to go to Parliament and set out all of the relevant facts, say Parliament has full transparency and full accountability.

21:08It is totally unacceptable that the Prime Minister making an appointment is not told that security vetting has been failed. Totally unacceptable. I think it's outrageous. I mean, it's deeply shocking that the Prime Minister behaves in this way and blames junior people. There's failure to take responsibility. He is the boss. He's got to take responsibility. He's saying he's angry with other people. Come on, the country has a right to be angry with him.

21:36Camilla: Yes. Also, there is that famous clip from a speech of yesteryear where he decries people who blame the staff. Indeed. And clearly that's come back to haunt him. And as you said earlier, the failure to tell the Commons on Wednesday when he had the opportunity at PMQs, what he had learned on Tuesday, and the fact that we're now in recess means that the first available opportunity for the Prime Minister to face parliamentary scrutiny is Monday. So coming up next, Jacob, can you take us through with your intense knowledge of Ersk in May, what might happen on Monday? We're going to discuss the opposition politicians agitating for him to resign.

22:19Camilla: And I think you and I need to discuss whether he actually will.

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23:42Well, what should happen on Monday? what will happen will be a statement from the Prime Minister followed by questions. Historically, you'd be more likely to have a debate on an issue of this kind, opened by the Prime Minister. But in recent years, it's tended to be done by statement. And the Prime Minister will be kept in the chamber, I would think, for at least a couple of hours asking questions. The leader of the opposition has the first go. And usually a statement is 10 minutes and the reply is 10 minutes. Then you go back and forth between either side of the House. The leader of the Lib Dems will get, I think, three minutes to respond to what has been said.

24:21Very often, these events don't go the way the opposition might like. But I think the opposition will have plenty of time to prepare. And the ground for the Prime Minister is so extremely weak. But what is really going to determine whether he resigns or not, is whether he maintains the support of his backbenches and through the backbenches, his cabinet. I think this is now very unlikely that you get a number of Labour MPs saying publicly that they don't think he can survive. He's facing disastrous local elections, which will now be worse. If you were thinking of voting Labour in Wales yesterday, and you now think they're a bunch of incompetent crooks, you may stay at home.

25:02Ditto Scotland, ditto English local elections. So if you're a Labour councillor this weekend, you will be saying to your Labour MP, you've got to get rid of him. He is a disaster and you've got to get rid of him now. So the weekend's important in that context because MPs will be in their constituencies. In an odd way, he'd been better off getting to Parliament quickly because MPs will now be hearing in their surgeries, in their meet and greets, in their campaigning. And Graham Stringer was saying this about his own campaigning at the moment, that Keir Starmer is stunningly unpopular, loathed on the doorstep.

25:39And MPs coming back to Westminster on Monday with that in their minds won't be standing up to ask the standard backbench question after the statement of Prime Minister, will you tell me why you've handled this matter so brilliantly and with such verve and finache, will they? They'll be sitting on their hands on the Labour benches. It'd be really interesting to see how many Labour backbenchers support the Prime Minister on Monday. And goodness, I would be fascinated to be eavesdropping on the Whips conversations this weekend. They will be ringing around Labour MPs. Every Whip has a flock of a number of MPs who the individual Whip looks after.

26:19And over the weekend, they will speak to every member of that flock. And they will be reporting that back to the Chief who will report to the Prime Minister. And he may well be reporting that the overwhelming majority of MPs think his time is up.

26:33Camilla: Of course your Conservative colleagues are trying to make political capital out of this. Who can blame them? Kemi Badenock's due to give a press conference a little later after we've recorded this podcast, but let's hear her speaking this morning on Radio 4's Today programme. It is completely preposterous for us to believe that when the Prime Minister said on the floor of the House when I asked him, the full due process was followed, that officials who knew that was not the case would not have told him. He knew. It is preposterous for us to believe that on 5 February, him giving a press conference saying that Mandelson was cleared by the security services, nobody told him that actually this was not the case.

27:13Camilla: It is completely preposterous that the Prime Minister, the former chief prosecutor of this country, did not ask basic questions, did not ask to look at the security vetting himself. He must have done. It is also completely preposterous. that for us to believe that civil servants would have cleared a political appointee who had failed security vetting. Mandelson was not a Mandarin. He was a Labour Party grandee appointed to be our most senior diplomatic ambassador. It is also unbelievable, I'm afraid, for us to believe that these documents did not go to Parliament by accident. We had requested all of the documents relating to the appointment and this was not there.

27:55Camilla: We would not have found out for this if not for The Guardian. So I'm afraid the story does not stack up. The Prime Minister is taking us for fools. Of course, Nigel Farage has also been filling his boots, Jacob. This was him speaking to LBC and Nick Ferrari. The Prime Minister cannot stand up and say that Mandelson passed security vetting and now claim later he wasn't told. That's not incompetence. Even Keir Starmer is not that incompetent. It is outright blatant dishonesty. Last minute or so together, do you think Sir Keir Stumble will be gone by the party conference season, Mr Farage? Oh, he won't last that long, Nick.

28:31Goodness gracious me. He'll be gone. He'll be gone by the middle of summer.

28:35Camilla: And Sir Ed Davey, who ordinarily finds it difficult to extract his head from the Prime Minister's backside, but was able to get some breathing space today in order to condemn him. I think the evidence suggests that he misled the Commons and misled the public. That's against all the rules, and that's why we've called for him to go. and I think that if he doesn't go, we're going to have to take some action in Parliament. It's hard to believe he was inadvertent and that he didn't know. I think it just stretches credibility. But even if that is a true story, it shows that there was total negligence and incompetence right at the top of his government and he didn't take this decision seriously enough.

29:20This was a massive decision. It was a political decision. It's clear that the Foreign Office were not in favour of it, and he overruled it. And let's remember, the Prime Minister held the Conservatives to account when he was leader of the opposition, when Boris Johnson was clearly lying over Party 8, and Akhir Starmer called for all the accountability and indeed for Boris Johnson to go. He was right on that, and we agree with him. But I'm afraid now he has to take his own medicine. I'm afraid all the evidence suggests he's going to have to go. Wise political leaders don't lightly call for the resignation of their political opponents.

30:01Because being a politician is difficult. Being a prime minister is difficult. Starmer was pretty cavalier about calling for resignations. But Kemi hasn't been, Nigel hasn't been, and Ed Davey hasn't been in relation to Labour. He was quite foolish in relation to Conservatives. Wise politicians have a very high bar for calling for other politicians to resign.

30:21Camilla: Yes, good point. Well made. Also, Jacob, that takes us to, is it all hollow and empty rhetoric if you've got a prime minister digging his heels in, blaming everyone else, refusing to take responsibility? I mean, he can come under intense pressure to resign, but really, his hand can only be forced by a vote of no confidence, potentially, in the House of Commons. The thing on Keir Starmer's side is those who want to replace him aren't ready. We've got Angela Rayner still having her tax affairs investigated. We've got Andy Burnham stuck without a seat, still mayor of Greater Manchester, having been blocked from a chicken run.

31:09Camilla: We've got Ed Miliband, who everyone thinks secretly wants to be prime minister, but won't admit it and is equally getting hammered in the reputational stakes because we're in the midst of an energy crisis and he keeps on doubling down on net zero. And by the way, the bacon sandwich eating two kitchen dweller hasn't had a great record when it comes to Labour leadership. Who else have we got? Bridget Philipson. Well, she's being hammered because she won't come out with trans guidance because she's trying to keep the lefties happy, even though this week marks the first anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling.

31:43Camilla: John Healy, well, he's looked weak in the face of the US and Israeli action in the Middle East. I mean, am I missing anyone? There's no one there right now to replace this guy. There's always someone. And he's so hopeless that it wouldn't be difficult to be marginally more competent than Sakhir Starmer and marginally more honest than can secure Starmer. That's part of the problem. He became leader and prime minister by pretending he was a straight sort of guy, to misquote Tony Blair. And he's turned out not to be. He's turned out not to be able to tell the truth. He's turned out to have a default protection mechanism of lying and blaming other people.

32:24And therefore, nobody can trust him anymore. And he's therefore no longer fit to be prime minister. Angela Rayner, well, at least in her way, she admits that she is not perfect and we know what we would be getting. Ed Miliband, intelligent man, I think he's completely wrong, but at least he's got some brains. Bridget Phillipson clearly positioning herself by sucking up to the trans lobby. They're all waiting in the wings.

32:52Camilla: We haven't mentioned streeting, I've just remembered, Jacob. Although somebody was telling me yesterday the trouble with streeting is that he doesn't have a kind of Rainer-esque caucus of support in the commons. People are a bit confused about what he stands for. And of course, he's got a tiny majority in Ilford North because he was nearly forced out by a Gaza independent. So he himself might have to have a chicken run. Otherwise, he faces losing his seat while he's prime minister. He does. In 2015, he had a tiny majority over the Tories and it looked as if he would lose to the Tories. And now it's to the Palestinian mob.

33:27So he's always had quite a tight fight in that seat. He's too right wing. They won't have him and they won't have Shabana Mahmood. That's why you need to look at the ones who are attacking left to try and sweep up that support. But I'd have thought it's between Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband, and that the option of waiting until after the elections, the local elections, which seem to be the plan, has now gone. And I think everyone knows what they need to know about Angela Rayner's tax affairs. I think they're pretty suspect. If you're on the left of the Labour Party, you probably think it's a right wing coup against her.

34:00Ed Miliband, we all know his views on the environment. They have their following on the left of the Labour Party. So the things that to us as Telegraph readers are black marks to the Labour Party are gold stars.

34:14Camilla: Yes. And I think it's interesting what you've just then said about, I mean, obviously this whole, the grownups are back in charge. I'm going to bring an end to the chaos and confusion, I'm going to lead a government of service, all now looks faintly ridiculous. But I think the bigger problem for the Prime Minister is that he has always positioned himself as a man of decency and integrity. So say when it comes to the fall of Boris Johnson, people thought he was a liar anyway, it was baked in. And actually, he was almost unseated, okay, you could argue by party gate lies, but a degree basically of sort of bungling incompetence that led to him losing the faith of his cabinet.

34:57Camilla: And then Rishi Sunak resigns and he actually can't govern because everything collapses around him. So far, we've not witnessed that sort of level of disloyalty from his own cabinet, right? Nobody has resigned because they're all positioning themselves. I mean, can I just say that there is something wholly irresponsible about Labour running this to their timetable while the country burns, while Labour times this for their own internal party reasons and lets a dead man walking continue to not run the country. How is that in any way responsible governance? It really isn't. You're so right. It's absolutely desperate because we're facing a financial crisis, guilts reaching levels they haven't seen in decades.

35:44So the government finds it hard to fund itself. We're facing a security crisis without significant armed forces or armed force preparation to be ready to meet it. Really serious issues facing the nation. And we have a leader who can't tell the truth, doesn't know what the truth is, and is too incompetent to find out the truth. And this is absolutely hopeless and very damaging, very high risk for the country.

36:09Camilla: What about the notion of Kemi Bade not trying to table a no-confidence? I had lunch with one of your Conservative colleagues yesterday. He was saying that he would advise the opposition leader to table one at least once a year. Do you understand the mechanics of that? Is there some method in that madness? Well, normally, if the leader of the opposition asks in the usual way for a vote of no-confidence, it would be given pretty speedily by the government, just by convention. There's no obligation to, but by convention. So if she asked for one now, she'd probably get it on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

36:44They were coming very close to the prorogation, so it makes it a little bit more difficult, as the government has to finish off tidying up business before the prorogation. Is it a wise thing to do? The risk is that you unite the Labour Party by making them all vote in the same division lobby, that they just don't want a general election, do they? If you're a Labour MP and you're sitting a majority of 15 ,000 or under, 20 ,000 or under, you look at the polls and you think you're losing your seat. So the last thing you want is a general election. So I think a vote of no confidence risks uniting the Labour Party in the division lobbies behind Keir Starmer.

37:24And if you're united in the division lobbies, that helps unite you as a party. So I'm not sure I would go for that tactic at the moment.

37:33Camilla: We already had a situation where the last time that Starmer was on the brink, he manages to give the best speech of his life apparently behind closed doors to the Parliamentary Labour Party in their equivalent of a meeting of the 1922 Committee for the Tories. And he manages to rally support. But I think for the reasons you've just stated and this how close the locals are now and how many Labour MPs, particularly in the Red Wall, are going to be getting very itchy feet, whether he's going to be able to pull off another miracle. Goodness me. So what's I mean, I know you're not a betting man, Jacob.

38:11Camilla: How do you think it is? Let me ask you a series of questions and you can say what you think. Will Starmer still be prime minister by Monday? Um, that's, I mean, we're even asking that question shows how tenuous his hold on power is. I don't know is the honest answer. I think probably, well, he will technically, because even if he were to resign, he would remain prime minister for a Labour leadership election to take place. So yes, he will still be prime minister on Monday, but it's possible he's offered his resignation by then. Right. What is the likelihood in percentage that he hasn't resigned after the local elections?

38:50I think it's very low. My guess will be, as we were discussing briefly before, is that the whip's ring round will lead to enormous hostility. And the chief whip will go into Downing Street on Monday morning and say, Prime Minister, you have no support left in the parliamentary party. Do you want to go of your own accord? Or do you want to face a leadership challenge? Because one is coming now within weeks, I would have thought, if not day, and wouldn't it be better? Previously, the argument's been it's better to be stable and have the same leader for the local elections. Wouldn't it be better now and improve Labour chances at the local elections if we say we're getting rid of the dodo, he's failed, he is stuffed and taxidermied and put in a museum and he's out and it's going to be somebody new and that that will help keep a few Labour councillors in early May.

39:47Camilla: And indeed, on that note, who's your money on for our next Prime Minister if the Labour keep power? Well, they won't go for a general election, so they will keep power. I think it's between Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband. I thought it was going to be Miliband. I now think the left of the Labour Party don't care about Rayner's tax affairs and that therefore she is marginally more likely. But I think those are the two we should be watching. Jacob what a week it's been together It's been great fun My goodness Politics never stops It never stops I'll let you get back to your Somerset sausage rolls I'm going to continue my freezer defrosting process Along with writing a column I have written a column about this I would like to flag it It'll be on the Telegraph website a little later Talking about this whole issue around What this has really exposed Is that the Prime Minister is definitively a man in office, but not in power right now.

40:48Well, I look forward to reading that tomorrow, when otherwise I'm going off to Hereford for the first of my shows of Rees-Mogg Unbuttoned in Hereford. So I think the tickets are sold out, but if there are any left, people can come along.

41:03Camilla: You've never, as far as I know, been unbuttoned. Until I'm on the stage, I'll have to wait and see. No, it's not that type of show, don't worry. Sounds intriguing. Jacob, I look forward to seeing you again very soon. Have a good weekend. Thank you so much, and you. The Daily Tea will be back with Tim. I'll be back reunited with Tim on Monday at 5pm, presumably with no shortage of things to discuss.

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