Is Starmer trying to screw Burnham before he even starts?

0:02This is a global production. In that question and that answer, all the reasons why Keir Starmer in a few weeks time is no longer going to be Prime Minister. It's dog ate my homework stuff. I mean, it really is. It's that threadbare. A nearly dead government having to pretend that it's not nearly dead. And a Prime Minister who is making decisions about things who frankly has no authority to do. That shouldn't be how political decisions are made. And so I don't think it's malice from Starmer or anything like that, not at all. I don't think that would be it. I think this ridiculous situation with the defence investment plan is a by-product of the overall ridiculous situation we're in, which is that Keir Starmer is still in.

0:41Paul Nowak:You don't need to rush this. Nobody else is asking for this to actually get done within the next two weeks. I mean, we do have such a thing as the wheels of government. We have a whole civil service. we have a whole array of men and women who can actually fill in the missing gaps. You know, that is the point of the back office of government, if you like. It's not all down to one man. Sure, I'm not defending Starmer in all of this. I think Starmer is the author of all of this. It's a year overdue. If you haven't got the detail now, when are you going to get the detail? Even the limited plan that he has announced has completely unravelled because he hasn't found the money to pay for it.

1:19It is£5 billion short. We 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? Mr Speaker, what they did was to cut defence spending. When they came into power, defence spending was 2.5%. What did they do? They cut it to 2.3 % a cut. But on welfare, what did they do? They put it up by£88 billion. So we'll take no lectures from them about either welfare or defence. That was Keir Starmer in the Commons after the unveiling of the defence investment plan. We know they want to buy drones. We know they want to buy warships.

2:05But in the middle of this is an unexploded bomb of£5 billion of unfunded pledges.

2:12Paul Nowak:Which got us wondering, is Keir Starmer screwing Andy Burnham before he's even started? Welcome to The News Agents.

2:28It's John.

2:29Paul Nowak:It's Maitlis. It's Lewis. And after what was supposed to be the centrepiece of Keir Starmer's legacy in these dwindling, dying days of his government, which was announced the defence investment plan yesterday, the details have emerged today, which confirm the suspicion of some that there was in fact less to this than met the eye. Keir Starmer, in fact, has been described by the Times as leaving a series of unexploded bombs for Andy Burnham, presumably unexploded, not paid for bombs for Andy Burnham, because the defence spending plans that he unveiled yesterday, quite a significant portion of it is basically unfunded.

3:07i.e. the Prime Minister has announced a target and destination, but at least to some extent, not actually articulated or provided details as to how they will get there. This is basically a£4.7 billion funding gap, which is nearly a third of the£15 billion increase in defence spending, which Starmer planned yesterday. If you go through the details of it, and I say details, it's pretty scant. You go through the documents that have been put out by the government in the last 24 hours. You just have line by line with things like efficiency savings, X billion pounds, or changes to procurement, X billion pounds.

3:47And these line by line items, which on one level are specific, but are also utterly vague. And this also gets to what to me, leaving this detail aside, was the central problem of what should have been a really big political moment yesterday. because this defence investment plan, which is supposed to safeguard how we're going to protect ourselves as a country for the next 10 years, etc, etc. Much awaited. The big political problem was that you have a prime minister whose authority is all but spent, who is going to be out of office in a couple of weeks. When he was asked, is the incoming prime minister, Andy Burnham, signed up to the detail of this and signed up to the ambitions of it and signed up to the spending of it, all Keir Starmer was able to say is that he had been briefed and rather elliptically said, I think any Labour prime minister would want to adhere to this plan.

4:38So we can take it from that that the answer is Burnham is aware of it, but he's not signed up to it, which is obviously a pretty big problem given he's going to be prime minister in three weeks. We should also say happy birthday, shouldn't we? Thank you. Well, I was hoping it might have come a little bit earlier than that, but thank you. Well, just in the...

4:54Paul Nowak:I think you were speaking. Yeah, well, you introduced yourself, mate, Liz. I was hoping to say mate, and you have to be fair. Happy birthday, Liz. Yeah, exactly. You did give me a very nice apricot cake. So what can I say? An apricot cake. Well, we look forward to it. Let's get this recording done quickly so we can go and eat cake. Keir Starmer was asked all about the defence investment plan when he unveiled it. And this was from Beth Rigby of Sky News. From the beginning of your premiership, you have prioritised Britain's role on the world stage. But your defence plan is a year late. It cost you your defence secretary and has no timetable for meeting the new NATO commitment.

5:32By getting it across the line, you have made a start to your legacy on defence. But do you acknowledge that it will be your successor who will need to secure it? And has Andy Burnham given you assurances that he will increase defence funding in the next spending review? Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much, Beth. Let me just put it in this way. I think a test of any prime minister is whether they leave the country in a better state than they found it. And if you look at our country, that is undoubtedly a case on the economy, undoubtedly a case on public services, in particularly the NHS, but also undoubtedly a case on defence and security and international leadership.

6:19We are in a much better state now than we were when we took over two years ago. And that isn't just measured in the amount of money we're putting into defence, the record investment that went in as a result of the announcement I made last year, the addition to that today, but also the fact that other countries now look to the United Kingdom as a leader on defence and security. We're the first to be consulted. We are the country that others want to work with. And I'm proud of that. We do leave the country in a better state. As for the future, I have no doubt that all Labour governments will remain that number one commitment to our defence and security.

6:56Labour governments have always done that and always will do that. And I'm absolutely certain. I think you have in that question and that answer all the reasons why Keir Starmer in a few weeks time is no longer going to be prime minister. and why Andy Burnham is going to have to pick up some pretty ugly, broken, jagged pieces as a result of what Keir Starmer is leaving behind. Because there you've had Keir Starmer working on this for a year, but without the authority, it seems, to get different departmental heads, cabinet ministers around the table, to agree to sacrifices in their budgets to pay for this.

7:35And you've got now Andy Burnham thinking, well, thanks a lot, mate. This is a bloody nightmare.

7:41Paul Nowak:Yeah. Ugly, broken, jagged pieces and promises. Because the one thing that Rachel Reeves as Chancellor and Keir Starmer promised was that they wouldn't start cutting from those capital budgets across Whitehall. And what do we now learn? That of the£15 billion that will be this additional money for defence,£4 billion of it will come from capital budgets, whether it's the£1.1 billion from selling government assets or nearly£3 billion that will come from extra cuts to road and energy projects. In other words, all these projects that are underway, that are actually going ahead full steam, that are controlled by various departments, are starting to be slashed now.

8:25Paul Nowak:Money taken away from stuff that is actually already accounted for, that stuff is already going ahead, that tenders have been made, that, you know, holes in the ground have been sort of built. that is now going to stop in order to fund this extra money for defence which is just a massive headache for every single government department that's going to be affected by this. I think it's even worse than that. I mean, if you look at it, I mean, that's bad enough in terms of this whole thing screams to me it's dog ate my homework stuff. I mean, it really is. It's that threadbare, to be honest. And for Keir Starmer, who, you know, has done lots of great things on defence, to be fair, he has raised overall spending.

9:03He got there much more quickly than Rishi Sunat did. He's done great things on foreign policy. But honestly, if this is his job application to be the new secretary general of NATO, I'm afraid he's not going to get past interview stage. Right. Because, I mean, you know, you look at the efficiencies, 11 billion pounds worth of efficiencies is going to fund this. Right. Which includes, I mean, as various analysts have said, this is vague at best. The first bit of efficiency is£1 billion through a new defence operating model, which will provide a unified enterprise to translate political direction into strategy, planning and delivery.

9:36It's not a word salad, it's a word buffet. It's also an indication that there will be reforms to quangos to save money,£3 billion, something that government after government suggests that they would like to do. £4 billion will come from improvements to acquisition and breaking down operational barriers. again highly uncorrected what it means.

9:53Paul Nowak:That's great if you can get 4 billion every time you do that I start myself. And so don't take it from me, I mean Meg Hillier who's a Labour MP but she's the chair of the Public Accounts Committee has said that these plans are hugely optimistic and that's before you even get to one of the most contentious decisions which is they've delayed plans for a 9 billion pound upgrade of military housing which the Labour government had promised to veterans which is in a shambolic and barely habitable state and as you say Emily as well the 7 billion of cuts to capital budgets in different departments, which have not been identified yet, which will take a long time and might never happen.

10:27And of course, we all know it's not going to be Keir Starmer's problem. As you say, John, it's Andy Burnham's. Yeah, and you just imagine, look, you've got the NATO summit about to take place in Istanbul. You've probably got diplomats in London, US diplomats in London, writing back telegrams to the Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the President and the Secretary of State about what is Britain's new commitment and does it all add up? And I think, you know, they would be very well justified in writing telegrams saying, well, intentions good, actual measures taken. What is there? And I think that this is really bad if you are trying to promote and project that, you know, Keir Starmer is serious about these objectives of, you know, of what defence spending is going to be.

11:16And if you look at what would need to be spent in future in the coming years to meet these much higher targets. Oh, my God. Where are you going to find the money for that? Because it ain't going to be efficiencies. A money found down the back of a sofa.

11:30Paul Nowak:Well, helpfully, Rachel Reeves has just been adding insult to injury by writing a piece in The Telegraph, warning Andy Burnham not to start borrowing more to fund the defence project that they're leaving him. So she has said that this defence investment plan we know will add 15 billion and it's only been made possible because of her strict fiscal rules and that it would harm Britain's national security if you started borrowing more. I mean, there is this sort of ready-breck aura, isn't there, around Rachel Reeves, where the one thing that she has consistently done and said is, I've stuck within the fiscal rules, I've stuck within the fiscal rules, don't borrow more, I've stuck within the fiscal rules.

12:12Paul Nowak:The fact that nothing else really got done on her watch, except for the sticking within the fiscal rules, seems to be aligning her, seems to be escaping her. because we are left with a man who's now being essentially lectured to by the outgoing Chancellor, who feels like, I mean, who knows, but it feels like she is essentially being sacked along with the Prime Minister. I mean, I know there is this question of whether she keeps her job. I feel that is vanishingly small. And she's now lecturing the incoming Prime Minister about how important it is to stick to the fiscal rules, to deal with the black hole.

12:49I mean, look, I mean, to go back to the question, you know, you started, the episode with, I mean, is Starmer actually trying to kind of, you know, screw Burnham over in some way with this? I don't think it's that in a sense that I'm sure that, you know, Starmer has... It's not malice. No, it's not malice. I think that this is, I think what we've got here is frankly a product of this ridiculous situation that we're in at the moment, which is that we've basically got a nearly dead government having to pretend that it's not nearly dead, and a Prime Minister who is making decisions about things, who frankly has no authority to.

13:19I mean, we had that argument the other day, Emily, with that discussion about, like, you know, the decor of our constitution. I think that's the word you used, decor. I think one of the reasons why I think we don't tend to have these interregnums, I think it's for precisely this reason, which is that right now...

13:33Paul Nowak:Bloody is best. Yeah, like in the sense that, look, you know, Starmer wanted to get this off, you know, it was part of his legacy. I understand that they've been working on it and so on. But the truth is, if Starmer wasn't resigning now, it may well not have been published at this moment, precisely because all of the details are not finalised. You know, the I's aren't dotted, the T's aren't crossed. And he said to our colleague, Natasha Clark, LBC's political editor, I think like a week ago, this would be fully costed, fully costed. And it's not. And because, frankly, he wants to have a legacy.

14:05And we've had a bit of a record now, to be honest, of prime ministers in the fag end, the kind of like the actual, not even just the fag, but the sort of ash bit of the fag end of their premierships, rushing out these decisions, trying to cobble together a legacy. You know, Theresa May did it with the net zero legislation, which might have been good or might have been bad. Boris Johnson did similar things in his last days as prime minister. And the machine wants to give it to them because it wants to give them something to say as they're going.

14:32Paul Nowak:To your point, if they're heading off to NATO to do their last summit and they're thinking that maybe their future career lives in defence. Exactly. But but but really, that shouldn't be how political decisions are made. And so I don't think it's malice from Stammer or anything like that. not at all. I don't think that would be it. I think it is this ridiculous situation with the defence investment plan is a by-product of the overall ridiculous situation we're in, which is that Keir Starmer is still there. There's no need for him to still be there. He has set out a timetable that is the Labour Party's timetable for nominations.

15:04We all know there's not going to be one. We all know that Andy Burnham is going to be the next Prime Minister. I know that Burnham wants a bit of time to prepare, but frankly you know, you don't always get exactly what you want in these situations. And the absurdity of this defence investment plan and the whole shambles around it is simply a by-product of the fact that we've got a Prime Minister who has no political authority left and even if he wanted to get all the details ready, he can't because he's working on a circumstance. I'm not sure I agree with all of that. I think that it does make sense that there is a bit of an interregnum because Andy Burnham has only just come back to the House of Commons.

15:38You know, there's an awful lot of briefing documents that, if you think that if you're running into a general election and you're the leader of one of the parties that is competing for government you'll have had weeks and weeks of civil servant briefings about this is where the state of things are in the treasury or on borrowing or whatever the happens to be so that you are up to speed when you do move in the night after a general election andy burnham has won a by-election 10 days ago or whatever it is nearly two weeks ago he has wanted to be prime minister for about 20 years sure but has he been has he been kept briefed by cabinet secretaries about what is going on.

16:13But that's the point.

16:13Paul Nowak:In other words, you don't need to rush this. Nobody else is asking for this to actually get done within the next two weeks. I mean, we do have such a thing as the wheels of government. We have a whole civil service. We have a whole array of men and women who can actually fill in the missing gaps. You know, that is the point of the back office of government, if you like. It's not all down to one man. It's not all down to one... Yeah, sure. I'm not defending Starmer in all of this. I think Starmer is the author of all of this. This is, it's a year overdue. If you haven't got the detail now, when are you going to get the detail?

16:47When are you going to get this sorted out so that the defence investment plan has got every I dotted and every T crossed? Because it's a year overdue already for the home. It's not so much the dog's eaten my homework. I haven't done my bloody homework. And that is what's happened here. I think that's what it means. Yeah, I know. Just to break down. Yeah, all these years, John's like, all these dogs eat homework. Oh, it's incredible. But what has the government been doing on all of this that it's taken so long? It was never going to happen because he hasn't got the capability to deliver all this stuff.

17:20He should have let Burnham do it. If Burnham, look, I think in this situation, it's a bit like, I mean, you know, it's a bit like when you have in America, when you have an outgoing presidential administration and you only have like one president at a time. But when there's a president elect, which is kind of this weird situation we've almost kind of moved into, you know, they do work together. And there is an awareness that you have that sort of gradual transition of power. The Prime Minister promised an orderly transition of power. This doesn't feel very orderly in the sense that I think if he really wanted to do this, in reality, he would have needed to at least get broad brush sign off from Burnham.

17:55And that's clear that he doesn't have it. It's clearly doesn't have it. What's Burnham going to do?

18:00Paul Nowak:To bring him into the conversation? Because that was what it sounded as if he was going to do originally. Would it be possible for this to have been written by two prime ministers, an outgoing one and an incoming one? I mean, do we call him prime minister-elect? Prime minister-elect. Well, technically he hasn't been elected, so I guess we don't. But even just signing off, at least on a broad brushstroke of it, I mean, what's clear is that he's been briefed about it. And for Starmer to turn around and go, oh, well, I'm sure, I think it's, again, it's not malice, but I think it's pretty, I don't think it's ideal, Starmer going, any Labour prime minister would want to sign up to this.

18:34Well, what a ridiculous thing to say. No, they wouldn't. You can't just say that any Labour prime minister would want to sign up to particulars of this plan because there are political choices involved in the plan. He might not think that it's a very good plan. He might not think, as we've been saying, that the details are there.

18:48Paul Nowak:Or choose something that you think the Labour Party is broadly on side. I mean, he's just announced, literally 10 days ago, the social media ban for under-16s. I mean, does that just disappear now? Or could that have been his legacy? Could he have brought Burnham onto that and say, right, this is the next few steps, these are what we're going to do to firm up something that you believe in, that I believe in, that the party can get behind. I mean, it's interesting that this whole idea that we now have a prime minister elect, which is not part of our way of doing things at all. If you look at America, you know, George W.

19:19Bush wanted to tie Obama in to some of the measures that he was taken after the financial crash. And Obama is saying, no, mate, this is on your watch. I take over on January the 20th. this is yours and other presidents have done the same where you know there's been a great calamity you know the financial crash of 1928 of as well where you know the the incoming president is is saying sorry mate this is on you you know you i'm not i'm not part of this and so you know burnham probably hasn't been a i just don't think you'd have got two prime ministers to sign it off in that way we do have and we don't even um we've got we've got a form for this in our own country or a protocol for this in our own country, which is that during an election period or once Parliament has been dissolved or once you're looking at a change in Prime Minister or government, typically big new announcements are not made.