Is Andy Burnham about to become Prime Minister?

18:29Lewis Goodall:And so you bring him into the tent and that would put Burnham in a difficult position and might buy Starmer a bit more time, particularly if this by-election. I mean, look, if they move the... Where are we now? Mid-May? I mean, presumably this could come late June or early July. Maybe they could push it a bit further, get close to the recess as possible, stop pesky MPs from plotting. As you say, it's in the government's gift. So, you know, that is all possible. I think that, you know, Starmer is now in this position where he's basically going to have, and again, this is something else totally weird, right?

18:57Lewis Goodall:He's basically going to have the two main forces for this by-election, Labour and Reform, in their own way, both campaigning, that a vote for them is a vote to get rid of Keir Starmer. and it just so happens and what's weird about that is that one of those parties is Keir Starmer's own party because it's clear both how Burnham and Reform will attack the contours of their campaign Burnham will not say it explicitly but everyone will know and this is what is completely unique about it he's basically running as a sort of counter-insurgency force from within the Labour Party to depose the incumbent Labour Prime Minister so he has a sort of anti-system kind of feel And reform, likewise, will have a sort of insurgency feel because they will say these games the Labour Party is playing, these games they're playing with you, you know, trying to sort of fix elections, have an MP resign and then come along and parachute this red prince in to be prime minister.

19:52Just tell it, just, you know, give them the V sign and tell them that you're not interested.

19:56Lewis Goodall:But, you know, so in their own way, they'll both be playing kind of slightly populist, anti-system politics, all in their own way against Keir Starmer.

20:04Jon Sopel:And also just think of the other parties in this by-election. By-election C, a lot of tactical voting. If you want to just screw with the Labour government and the Labour Party, you're going to vote reform because you're going to think that is the best way of stopping the return of Andy Burnham and creating maximum chaos in the Labour Party. We'll be back after the break with your questions.

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21:09Good morning, news agents. Name's Brayden from Minnesota, and I'm a listener since your AmeriCast days. My question is this. Does the fact that Starmer can't or won't criticize Trump prevent him from tying Farage to MAGA? I know Trump's unpopular in the UK, so wouldn't that be an effective attack? Thank you.

21:30Jon Sopel:So our first question... AmeriWatt? AmeriWatt? Never listened to that. What? AmeriCast. It was a very trailblazing podcast that led to a lot of great things. So, great that our first question on British politics and what's happening comes from Minnesota.

21:45Lewis Goodall:Well, I like to think it just sort of mirrors where we've been, that we've managed to get a big uptick in listeners. So that is one of the reasons for some time I have been pitching that live show in Honolulu. Yeah, exactly. We've got to get those Hawaii listeners up.

22:00Jon Sopel:We're doing very badly very badly in Waikiki we'll definitely go there um look I think that actually Starmer is trying to put some distance between himself and Trump not out of a deliberate strategy but because of the way that the pieces have fallen uh as a result of kind of Donald Trump's war of choice with Iran and Britain not being part of it so I think he is sort of putting distance between himself and Donald Trump. But the interesting thing is, I don't know how closely you've been following it, Braden, but it sometimes feels as though Nigel Farage is trying to put distance between himself and Donald Trump, as if he suddenly recognises as well that being tied to Donald Trump is not doing Farage or reform any favours.

22:48Lewis Goodall:Yeah, I noticed the other day that, I can't remember whether it was Farage or someone, maybe it was Jenrick, sort of saying that, you You know, Farage had not spoken to Trump for months. You know, this is something Farage used to boast constantly about, not just his relationship with Trump, but his relationship with all of the kind of wider Trump network. I've known him for years. I've been going out for years, all this sort of stuff. You know, and you very seldom hear him say anything about that anymore. And that's because they know. They know. I mean, and it actually adverts to why, one of the reasons our country is not America and is not screwed or polarised in the same way.

23:20Lewis Goodall:You know, even among reformed voters, Donald Trump is very unpopular. even among reform voters. So they know that. And so there is a political mistake in clinging too close for him. I mean, just sort of slightly linking back to our previous discussion, I think one of the, assuming there were to be an Andy Burnham premiership or indeed anybody were to come in to replace Keir Starmer, obviously for the next couple of years, they would be dealing with Donald Trump. And it would be genuinely fascinating. And I don't know what the answer would be here as to how they would choose to try and deal with that relationship.

23:54Lewis Goodall:Because obviously we know how Starmer began that relationship, which was to try and be as close as possible to Trump, try and cultivate him, try and be, that disgusting phrase, a Trump whisperer. Obviously that fell apart. How a Burnham or someone else came along, how they decided to strike that balance and that relationship, I think, would be a really fascinating sort of part of that, sort of part two of a Labour government.

24:16Jon Sopel:Let's come to this question from Wim in Horsham, who's 74 years old. I can't help but recall the last time Labour tore itself apart, namely in the 1980s with the SDP split, militant tendency, Ben versus Healy, etc. That was after Labour lost the 1979 election to Thatcher. The stresses in the party were there before that, though. However, Labour remained disciplined while in government with a very small majority. Why is it that Starmer has a huge majority and yet has so much party in discipline? And is it because of the huge majority that there is such indiscipline? I think it's a really interesting question because I think that actually, if you look at the battles that are going on today, they're not as ideological as they were at the end of the 1970s, early 80s.

25:02Jon Sopel:Then it was about campaign for nuclear disarmament, whether you are a unilateralist or a multilateralist. It was this kind of the CLPD, the campaign for Labour Party democracy, which was all about giving power to the ordinary voters in Labour Party and how they should control the party and mandate MPs. and MPs should face deselections if they don't do. And it was all about kind of... Leaving the EC unilaterally without a referendum. Exactly. All of those things. And so it was a real ideological split between the kind of Roy Jenkins, David Irons, Shirley Williams, etc. And the left of the party, which, you know, Tony Benn was the flag waiver for that.

25:39Jon Sopel:And it just doesn't feel now that it's because there's a major ideological split in the Labour Party that people are trying to get rid of Keir Starmer. They're trying to get rid of Keir Starmer because they think he's useless. I mean, that sounds really unkind way of putting it, but they just look at the way, you know, you look at Jess Phillips' resignation letter or others or Wes Streetings, and it's not about kind of the direction of travel. It's just about the incrementalism. It's about the lack of decision-making. It's about the lack of communication of a clear strategy. Yeah, and I'll just repeat that I'm very struck by the fact that from across the factions, you talk to people privately in the Labour Party and their analysis and diagnosis and description of Starmer is remarkably similar and uniform, which it is basically almost about his capability of doing the job and the idea that he is too loyally, too passive, insufficiently political, inadequate political instincts, all of these things and communication and it is as much as anything instrumental rather than ideological and that is a sort of just something that's shared across.

26:44That's not to say he doesn't have virtues, of course he does, but generally people just don't think he's up to it. I'd add one other thing as well, or two things. One that's a bit smaller about Starmer and one slightly bigger thing. One of the reasons I think that Starmer has struggled to impose his authority on the PLP is because so few of them believe that they really won their seats as a result of him. You know, big landslide prime ministers, Thatcher, Blair, even Johnson. You know, when the chips were down, they and the whips would go to the MPs and go, you know you only hear because of Blair, the prime minister, don't you?

27:15Or Margaret or whatever. You know, you won on their coattails. There was never, ever a sense of Starmer's coattails. There was a sense that basically anybody who is a reasonably decent leader would have won the 2024 election. And actually quite a few of them often think that they kind of won maybe slightly in spite of Starmer, not because of him. So that inability to rely on your own personal authority, I think, is part of the reason. I think the other reason which is not to do with Starmer is I think, look, compared to the 80s, we are living in far more fractious times and we are living in a period where the two-party system appears to be breaking down, which is creating chaos.

27:50I mean, if you think about the 80s, think about the number of seats on both sides. What you had, although it was very ideological, it was volatile, the politics was volatile, but what you did have was basically a class-based politics, which basically led to two-party and a bit system where at least, I mean, at least a third of the MPs on either side, two thirds of the MPs on either side could be reasonably assured they'd keep their seats no matter what for the rest of their lives. Those figures we were just talking about there, those big who are fighting those battles with Michael Foote or whether it was, I mean, Tony Baird, not a good example because he did lose his seat.

28:24But, you know, all of these sorts of people, generally speaking, you could, they were in seats, they had long parliamentary careers, they could get 30, 40 years in parliament. And it led to a sense of certain amount of stability. They weren't skittish about every crisis which came along. Look at the Labour MPs elected in 2024. Huge majority, but a shallow one. So many of them had small, modest majorities. What is a safe seat these days for either Labour or Tory? There isn't one. And I think that sense of panic, of MPs constantly fearing they're about to lose their seats, of new challenges, introduces churn and instability all of the time, which makes it harder to manage parliamentary parties.

29:02And Andy Burnham will struggle with that as well. It won't be as easy as it used to be even for him.

29:08Jon Sopel:Also, I think the other thing about MPs today is that, you know, previously going back 30 whatever years when I first went to Westminster, the only way that a local MP would get any publicity is if their local radio station or their local newspaper would decide to write a little something about what they had just, the question they had just asked in transport questions or whatever about the bypass that might or might not happen. Now they've got their own Twitter accounts. They've got their own Instagram pages. They've got their own. They're their own brands. And so they feel that they've got to be promoting themselves and they're not dependent on the party to promote them.

29:43Jon Sopel:And I think that that is another thing that has changed. But it leads to another good question from Anil Patel in London. It follows on from just exactly what we've been talking about. I'd like to ask why Keir Starmer wanted to be prime minister in the first place, given he lacks any sense of purpose or mission. Why did he enter politics? It's a really interesting question and a really good question, because, of course, he didn't enter. Unusually for prime ministers these days, he didn't enter politics until pretty late in life. You know, he was in his 50s when he was first elected in 2015, having had obviously a very successful legal career.

30:19It is said, in fact, he said it himself, that Keir Starmer, when he went into Parliament, Ed Miliband, of course, was instrumental in persuading Keir Starmer to stand for Parliament, basically sort of fixed a very safe seat in North London. And, you know, Starmer has said since that, you know, had Miliband won that election, people forget now, a lot of people thought he would win that election, that he'd hoped and sort of anticipated he would be attorney general in that government, a position that clearly for all sorts of reasons would have suited him. Circumstances evolved over time. And I think that, you know, you had someone like Morgan McSweeney come along.

30:52And I think Keir Starmer was the right man at the right time. You know, sometimes the cards fall into place. And clearly he is a man. And I think this is the thing that is always underestimated about him. He is definitely a deeply, deeply competitive person. And he has a deeply profound sense of self-belief, which can be a bit confusing. Because I think we look at him and see quite a mild-mannered man. a man who you know is not a sort of loud presence you know he doesn't fill every room when he walks into we look at someone like boris johnson that just sort of like epitomizes kind of ambition and and what we might think of narcissism and self-obsession and self-promotion and we look at someone like starmo and we don't think that but he doesn't mean he doesn't have those characteristics and i think that more than anything else i think that i always he always reminds me a little bit of like um a kind of labor a sort of a sort of a more sort of a Tory politician in in labor clothes and what I mean by that is that a lot of Tories particularly historically were less ideologically driven in the sense that you know they just have a sense that you know the government's better run under the Tories than it is under labor labor politicians are often expected to have a sort of slightly more developed kind of like intellectual perspective certainly the labor party expects that of them and I think Starmer in a way is just a kind of instinctive social democrat hasn't thought a great deal about the sort of big ideas of politics but has a sort of instinctive sense that things are better off with labour and the cards have fallen into place for him and you couple that with his ironclad self-belief and he is where he is and

32:23Jon Sopel:he's also there is an element of personality about Keir Starmer and I remember when you know he was running for the leadership I met a friend of mine who was a solicitor in criminal law who had instructed Starmer as the barrister to act in a number of cases and I said what's Keir Starmer like and he said oh he's great he's really great I mean we we use him for a non-jury advocacy work and I said sorry what does that mean well we wouldn't put him up before a jury to persuade a jury but we asked get him to do something for technical reasons about the law before a judge and you think a judge's lawyer a judge's lawyer so he can't do retail and not being able to do retail when politics is a retail business is a really big handicap and i think his inability to kind of warm you know make the public attracted to him to warm up people to make people feel they're part of his project i think has been a huge handicap and again you know why if you're this very shy private slightly awkward man would you want to do this and i think annul's question is an interesting one.

33:32But I'm fascinated by those sort of people because there are quite a lot of them who reach the top of politics. I mean, Theresa May was another one. Gordon Brown, to some extent, as well. But again, I always think, and you always think, like, I can see you'd be a great civil servant. You know, you're obviously very technocratically proficient and you're, you know, you're obviously a very capable person. But like, why, given that these things, the sort of retail element, as you say, John, makes you so uncomfortable, why put yourself in that position? And I always think, and I think May was exactly the same, I think we sort of think these people are shy and I think very often they have an outer layer of shyness but it disguises a kind of really steely core and as I say sort of ironclad sense of self-belief I think that was May, I think May had that I think Nick Clegg used to tell about how May, you'd go into a meeting with her and there'd be no small talk and you'd think it's because she's shy but it's not because she's shy, it's actually because she's deeply self-confident and she doesn't have to feel that she has to nervously fill a silence, you know, and I think there's an element of that about Starmer as well and I think those sorts of personality types slightly confound us in politics because we assume that there's a sort of shyness or whatever it is but i don't think it is quite that or if it is it's quite a surface level size as opposed to someone like boris johnson who has a sort of exterior bluffness yeah but a kind of weird sort of inner shyness once you actually sort of talk to him for any sort of length of time so people are complicated right and they don't they don't fit easy categorization but i am i am genuinely fascinated by this sort of outwardly introverted politician because you say why are you putting stuff through it because it's sort of nightmarish.

34:57It must be nightmarish for you, but they do it anyway. We'll be back in just a moment.

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35:44Right, before we go and crawl off after a very long week, we've got our question. Final question from Abby Powers in York. Powers is a great name, isn't it? If she wants to be in politics, power is a great sign. I noticed yesterday from Sam Coates that Sam Coates from Sky News was suggesting Gary Neville may be a possible candidate to replace Andy Burnham as mayor of Manchester. Do you have any opinion on how suitable he would be for this position? And do you think this could signal a change in direction for politics in his country with more celebrities looking to stand for office? Well, I think...

36:17He's political, Neville, isn't he?

36:18Jon Sopel:I mean... Yeah, he's very political. And I think that, you know, he wouldn't be a Johnny-come-lately where it was just a badge being attached to him because the party thinks, oh, well, he's famous, therefore he'll do well. You know, Gary Neville, I've seen around Labour Party conferences for the past few years. And, you know, and recently, you know, his podcast company Overlap is part of now part of the global empire. And I saw him the other day and he was, all he wanted to talk about was the politics of what was going on right now and what was happening in the government. So he is deeply political.

36:52Jon Sopel:I think in some ways he might be a very good you know he's got an instant name recognition he's great as a football good mank boy absolutely and you know and he has played football at the highest level there would be an attraction yeah look I mean we've talked about it so many times that the the challenge I'm going to be a bit unpleasant to exactly some of the sort of personality types we were just describing I think in 21st century politics particularly on the center left with stakes as high as they are with the sort of personalities that we know they're going up against on the right and let's be honest sometimes the far right there is no place for the wallflower or the minnows or the kind of you know like sort of shy types who are just worthy and technocratic and very very kind of you know diligent you need those people in politics, of course you do, at a certain level.

37:49But at the top level, I'm afraid, I'm afraid it would be like running Gladstone in the 1950s during the television age. You know, like, politics has moved on, politics has to fit itself around the technological media space in which we operate, and therefore you need candidates, and I think Neville would be a great example of this, who can bust through the attention economy, who have something to say, and that's important as well. You don't just want sort of idiots to put up there and you know just people with name recognition but when you've got someone like Neville who fits ticks all the boxes of getting attention but clearly is really political and I hate the kind of snobby around I mean I don't follow footballers you know but I hate the snobby around footballers where people like stick to football and all that kind of thing why on earth shouldn't they be getting involved in politics and have something to say about politics seems to me Neville would be an absolutely perfect candidate if he wanted it in a race like that where Labour would be really you know pushing water uphill to hold on to the morality.

38:45Jon Sopel:No I I think, Lewis, I think you're wrong. I think what we need are more candidates who've done PPE, who've then gone to work for... I'll tell you, I'll tell you. That's not too... Who've then gone to work for a trade union for two years, who've become a parliamentary researcher, and then they went to go and work for an aid agency. I mean, look, politics is absolutely full of people with very conventional backgrounds, increasingly so where they've never done anything other than politics. Or public advocacy or those sorts of things. My God, it would be a breath of fresh air to have somebody who is political, who does have political beliefs, who's been going to party conferences for years, but had another life.

39:24Jon Sopel:He had a life as a professional footballer at the highest level, Manchester United and England. He has had a great career as a football analyst. He set up a podcast company. He's been a big investor in Manchester. You could see that he would be a very attractive candidate right now. He's got the newsagent's endorsement. I think the absolute kiss of death. Oh, my God. Oh, dear. Well, it was nice while it lasted. Sorry, Gary. We'll see you next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. This has been a Global Player original production.