Q&A special: Burnham's coup, his future cabinet and "duplicitous" colleagues

20:32Lewis Goodall:Basically adopting the 2010 Osborne approach. Problem is with that is that 14 years had passed and the country was in no mood to hear it in the way that perhaps it was in 2010. So I think that happy warrior, that happy warrior kind of feeling that I think has done Burnham an enormous amount of good, I think they will try and sustain. And I think their approach to Farage will be substantially quite different to that of Starmer. Starmer, again, saying this is the wrong strategy, but Starmer, again, invoked a kind of, you know, quite, almost a kind of a pop ecliptic sense. It was a dark, tried to invoke a quite dark vision of what Farage would mean.

21:10Lewis Goodall:And basically tried to set it up as, you know, it's the forces of us against darkness, really. I don't think Burnham will do that in the same way. You know, or at least if he does, it will be a change from what he's done up to now. Up to now, he's tried to basically say, look, you know, I want support from reform voters. I'm not going to demonise reform voters. I'm just going to adopt a sort of more positive message about ourselves and Labour and working with other parties. So I think the question is, is to what extent that that difference in disposition sustains and how long he'll be able to sustain it in terms of a polling bounce.

21:41Lewis Goodall:But if he does, if he does, I really think we'll be talking about a general election quite quickly.

21:45Jon Sopel:We'll have more of your questions in just a moment and more fascinating facts about earwash. It's about canals. Oh, I can't wait.

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22:29Lewis Goodall:Learn more at MeaningfulBeauty.com.

22:43Lewis Goodall:Right, before we go to the next question, John, did you know that Britain's first successful canal tunnel experiment happened in Erewash? The Erewash Canal was one of the engineering triumphs of the 19th century that helped fuel the Industrial Revolution in the Midlands. So where would we be without it? Well, that is truly... I'm going to hold that.

23:03Jon Sopel:Should we do an OB from there? Yeah, let's do that. From the Erewash Tunnel?

23:07Lewis Goodall:Yeah, big time. In the dark. Emily would love that.

23:10Jon Sopel:In the dark. No signal.

23:11Lewis Goodall:be really hot, she'll love that absolutely perfect good, well the next question is from your neck of the woods John, sort of, that's Clareth Australia Catherine Barras says this, would Burnham have been as compelling a replacement if he had won the Gorton and Denton by-election, given he would probably run to the left to consolidate the left vote and would not have been perceived as a reform slayer, was it another political mass calculation of Starmer to block Burnham from running

23:37Jon Sopel:well that is a great question And when we were up in Makerfield last week, well, that was precisely the question that you raised about, you know, how different this could have turned out and how differently Andy Burnham would have been perceived if he had been sort of facing off against the Greens. And that, you know, he had to go into a duck's auction with the Greens about how left wing you were going to be. And would people have felt the same way about him if he had run there? Look, I think it's true that the Burnham campaign, this has been the most extraordinary coup d 'etat that has happened in British politics in the sense that it was so kind of brilliantly done that, you know, within moments of him winning a by-election, you felt that Starmer was done.

24:25Jon Sopel:I think that it would have probably been the same if he had fought Gorton and Denton and I think there was an extent to which Starmer was trying to sort of stave off the inevitable by delaying and saying you can't run there and then being forced into it later on

24:43Lewis Goodall:Yeah, I genuinely think this is one of the great counterfactuals and will be one of the great political counterfactuals of recent years I can understand why Starmer blocked it and it seemed like the logical thing at the time. But without a doubt, as we said on the show in Makerfield, I think if he'd been fighting against the Greens, he would certainly have tacked left. I think the selection of Makerfield is going to genuinely affect our politics in a way that if he'd been in Gorton, it would have affected our politics in a different way because we've got a prime minister. Yes, he's got a big majority now because he had such a sensational win.

25:17Lewis Goodall:But I do think it will change the character and kind of tenor of our politics that we have got a prime minister, not just with a seat in the north of England, but in the Red Wall as opposed to North London, I think that would be a big difference. Maurice Glassman, the rather peculiar Labour peer, was saying the other day... Peculiar? He's an interesting guy, but he's quite peculiar. He represents an increasingly unusual tradition in the Labour Party. He says some interesting and peculiar things. But anyway, he was saying the other day that basically there's proof that there is a God because he has set up that Burnham will become the MP for Makerfield, which will take him down the sort of blue Labour tradition that he represents of more socially conservative, sort of slightly more illiberal, anti-immigration, all those sorts of things.

25:58Lewis Goodall:And I think it really, really will matter. And if... I think if Starmer... If we think about the counterfactual now, if Starmer had allowed him to stand then and he'd won, I think it would have been far less likely, because it was before the local elections, that the Labour Party would have crowned him. There would still have been more political support for Starmer within the parliamentary Labour Party. I think it would have been harder for Burnham to turn down a cabinet job. So we probably would have been in a situation where he would have been in the cabinets and it would have been easier for him to challenge after the local election.

26:30Lewis Goodall:So I kind of feel we would have ended up in the same place. But certainly that proof of concept that he is a reform slayer, to use Catherine's phrase there, would have been much the weaker. And I think it might have meant, might have meant that he, a.e. Burnham, would have been more likely to face a challenge. But with the momentum he got from that by-election, as we see the potential of that challenge, and there is discontent in the Labour Party. Not everybody in the Labour Party likes Andy Burnham. Make no mistake, there's lots of people waiting in the winds, waiting for him to fail. But right now they know that collapsed like a house of cards.

27:02Lewis Goodall:They just knew that they couldn't stand against this oncoming tide.

27:05Jon Sopel:I mean, the genius of Burnham, and we'll see what it's like when he has to govern and when he's got key cabinet decisions to make and all the rest of it. But the genius of Burnham has been that he has been slightly on the left and slightly on the soft left and then slightly Blairite. And he sniffed the political wind and the way it was blowing and adjusted to it. And that doesn't make him a flip flopper or kind of insincere. I think that's politics. That's what you have to do in politics. You know where the wind is blowing. And if you kind of set yourself against it, you get knocked over by and large.

27:41Jon Sopel:He sensed that and he's also sensed where opportunity might present itself. And this whole operation that went on with, you know, Josh Simon resigning the seat and setting up the by-election, Andy being confirmed as a candidate, knowing that Keir Starmer couldn't stop him, then winning the by-election after terrible local council election results. I mean it's just been it's been brutal and it's been brilliant I mean you know you may not like Andy Burnham you might be upset about what's happened to Keir Starmer you might think what is wrong with the Labour Party but just as an act of political assassination you'd it's hard to fault

28:19Lewis Goodall:it we've got another voice note now and this is from we're getting around the the world today John you're like this all the old air mile soapal over there voice note here from Neil from Bangalore Hi, John.

28:30Jon Sopel:Hi, Emily. Hi, Lewis. Huge fan of the podcast. I'm Neil, a public policy student from Bangalore in India. And I wanted to ask about Andy Burnham's immigration policy, given the fact that Shabana Mahmood is likely to remain the Home Secretary. I have been seeing a lot of my friends who want to study in the UK scrap their plans, basically studying in Europe because of the costs and because of the tough immigration rhetoric. I think one of the UK's biggest soft powers is its attraction of global talent to its universities. So what do you think that Andy Burnham is going to do on this particular topic?

29:03Jon Sopel:Is he going to double down, basically saying he is fine with the idea of lesser students coming in to study in the UK? or is he going to change that perception returning the UK back into this kind of educational soft power that it once was love the podcast and I hope you guys answer the question fantastic I love the fact that we've got kind of Neil in Bangalore wanting to OB in Bangalore yeah oh yeah I'm up

29:27Lewis Goodall:for it so we're doing we're doing the Erewash tunnel yeah canal tunnel then Bangalore and

29:33Jon Sopel:Bangalore used to be where the English army officers British army officers would go to retreat because it was a nice temperate climate. We can't do Bangalore and Erawash facts.

29:43Lewis Goodall:We've got to prioritise. Oh, I'm sorry. Talking of which, did you know, the Ilkeston in the Erawash constituency has one of the UK's biggest annual charter fairs. Dating back to 1252, the Ilkeston charter fair is among Europe's largest street fairs, stretching for nearly a mile. Indeed, it is so big, John, that schools and many businesses close while it's in town. I mean, they're closed anyway at the moment, aren't they? Schools. Yeah, because it's too hot. Too hot for the little ones.

30:09Jon Sopel:everyone got so woke.

30:11Lewis Goodall:It was hot in my day. Yeah, we just let the kids boil today. Yeah, exactly. It was good for them. Let them get on with it. Should we answer the question?

30:19Jon Sopel:Or do you want to go off on your street fairs?

30:21Lewis Goodall:I'd love to, any time.

30:23Jon Sopel:I think that the immigration question is really an interesting one because I think that Andy Burnham's instincts and particularly having, you know, fought off reform and been the reform slayer to use from the previous question, that he can't do anything that looks like he's soft on immigration. The other part of your question, Neil, which I think is really interesting, is the fact that the universities in the UK would love to be attracting more foreign students because that is what's keeping a lot of higher education institutions in this country afloat by the number of people who come from India or wherever it is around the world, China and the like.

31:02Jon Sopel:And if they feel that it's more and more difficult to come to this country and you're not welcome and it's, you know, tougher and tougher, then I think that hits us as well. It hits the higher education sector in this country, which is reeling at the moment.

31:16Lewis Goodall:Yeah, it's a really interesting question. I think it's clear. Look, Shabana Mahmood, she was an early convert to Team Burnham. She played her cards very well. So my understanding is that she basically approached Burnham. You know, we're talking about the tail end of last year. Even though there was a lot of speculation at that time that she herself might run for leader, I think she recognised that her profile within the party wasn't in the right place, kind of saw, intuited which way the political winds were going to blow and became an early sort of Burnham convert. So it looks likely she's going to stay as Home Secretary and indeed has convinced him, partly again because of being in Makerfield and the sort of constituency that he has, that it is vital that her immigration reforms continue and that Labour has continued to be seen as tough on immigration.

32:04Lewis Goodall:of course it does remind us of the fact that burnham just like starmer can't get away from the trade-offs that characterize the starmer government you know starmer comes in at the start of his term in office and says that growth is the number one priority now it's not necessarily true to say that if you have loads more immigration you get loads more growth if that were true then when we had a million immigration would have had you know sort of five percent or something like that in terms of growth but it is true to say as we're streeting has been arguing that, you know, there is potentially an opportunity right now in Britain to hoover up quite a lot of this high value migration, academics, scientists, engineers leaving the US, you know, PhD students, academics, all of these sorts of people.

32:47Lewis Goodall:And we could say, look, Britain is open, open for business, opening its doors to this high value migration. Will Burnham be willing to do that? Can he make that argument in a way that Starmer might not have been willing to do? it'll be a really interesting test case not least john because of course one of the really fascinating things about burnham and burnhamism or manchesterism is that kind of like the dirty little secret of manchesterism is you can make an argument business friendly socialism it's kind of like new labor on steroids it's basically courting loads of foreign direct investment why is manchester such a booming city right now it's because it has it's not because the state's been spending tons of money.

33:27Lewis Goodall:It has been courting foreign direct investment, Chinese money, Middle Eastern money, saying come and invest in Manchester, we'll provide you with special dispensational tax breaks, whatever it is. Working with this, as Burnham talks about it, public sector, private sector, working together to regenerate this great industrial city. Very similar to the sort of mood music and policy that we saw in the new Labour area. It isn't very blue Labour, let's put it that way. So, you know, Burnham will it will be a fascinating thing to see to what extent burnham if he's intent on transporting that manchester model one of the things it might actually genuinely mean is opening the door to high-end high-skilled immigration that can bring growth and gross value added right one more

34:11Jon Sopel:question this one from uh jonathan um i think i know where jonathan stands on a certain issue about one cabinet former cabinet member by the question given where streeting is a treacherous and duplicitous individual who was planning to topple Starmer from the start and is likely to do so again with any future leader. He is also despised by frontline NHS workers for the use of language. He chose to describe striking doctors. What would you do with such an odious, treacherous character if you were the new leader? Personally, I'd tell him to wind his neck in and focus on improving his 500 majority in his constituency and send him to the back row of the back benches.

34:50Jon Sopel:Jonathan, you must learn to say what you really think.

34:53Lewis Goodall:So my third apology is going to have to be to West Streeting on behalf of the show for you reading out that he's treacherous and duplicitous. Heaven forbid, West Streeting? No, no, he's very loyal.

35:05Jon Sopel:I mean, West Streeting is... When he did that interview with you the other Friday, I did listen to it and kind of gasp at a couple of occasions where I thought, my God, he is really pulling the cabinet curtain back and telling us what had happened in cabinet meetings only a few days ago. And I do think that that may have cost him some support. And so I'm fascinated to see what Andy Burnham does with Wes Streeting in terms of does he feel honour bound to give him a job because he didn't force a contest? Or does Andy Burnham feel slightly contemptuous of that? Because you know what, Wes, if you'd had the numbers, you'd have gone for it and you just didn't have the numbers, you're a busted flush.

35:47Lewis Goodall:Yeah, I don't think that Burnham's going to feel he owes Streeting a great deal. I think there are lots of people to whom he will owe jobs and who have been absolutely central in arranging and organising this extraordinary and bloodless coup. Lou Haig, the former transport secretary Annelies Midgeley is an MP that most viewers and listeners probably haven't heard but we're going to hear a lot more from I think in the future, possibly Ed Miliband too who knows, but I don't think Streeting will be among them I suppose Streeting I mean in his defence he would say that he was being loyal to the Labour Party, that he saw the writing on the wall with Starmer he was willing to go out there and say it in a way, and most of his cabinet colleagues were saying and thinking exactly the same thing, but he actually went out there and said Was he thinking about his future prospects?

36:33Lewis Goodall:Of course he was, but he's a politician. He's wanted to be prime minister since, you know, since he's in the womb, basically. I mean, you know, that's not an ignoble thing. It's not a surprising thing. There are always ambitious people in the cabinet. Starmer himself wasn't, I know people don't want to hear this, versed to some of the dark arts, you know, when he claimed that Jeremy Corbyn was a friend and a colleague and then mysteriously enough, he wasn't a friend and a colleague a few months later, you know, said that he thought that the 2019 manifesto was a starting point for everything and then disavowed it a few months later.

37:01Lewis Goodall:You know, this is politics. You know, this happens. So I think Burnham will be thinking, in Streeting's favour, I think the reason he'll end up in the cabinet in some job or other is that, you know, Streeting, whether you agree with Jonathan or not that he's treacherous and duplicitous, he is a very good communicator. He's clearly one of the best communicators that the Labour Party has got. The Labour Party doesn't have nearly enough of them, so you'd probably want them in a cabinet. And also, if Burnham wants to show that the Labour Party, he's bringing a cabinet together of rivals but also of different factions of the party he is the sort of standard bearer of what you might broadly call a Blairite right of the Labour Party so you know you'd sort of say this is a cabinet which is representing every tradition and every wing and if you didn't have streeting in then it would be difficult to sustain it I tell you what I'm fascinated by

37:49Jon Sopel:the dominance of a generation of special advisors oh it's amazing who started off when Blair and Brown were in their pomp. We're still in the new Labour era. We're returning to it because Starmer wasn't part of it but we're returning to it. So you've got Andy Burnham who was a kind of one of the special advisors early on in the Blair Brown years. You know he's brought back in James Purnell to be the Chief of Staff at number 10. Again one of those people. David Miliband we're talking about as Foreign Secretary. Ed Miliband, Douglas Alexander, Yvette Cooper the list goes on and on. Tim Allen who was the briefly you know Keir Starmer's press secretary all these people who were special advisors back in the early 90s are still the dominant force in british politics today i will be holding key cabinet positions and key positions within there's a whole documentary to be done about all these people who just grew up grew up under the tutelage pitching it pitching it as he has any commissioners listening yeah exactly you know under the tutelage of blair and brown you realize what dominant political figures they were you know for that age.

38:55Lewis Goodall:If only there were a journalist at the time who knew all of these characters and who had chronicled it to such an extraordinary extent and who could bring that to the just a little plug. Also I'm talking about plugs just before we break one more time did you know John that the world's oldest surviving gas powered street lamps are in nearby Nottingham Road Cemetery gas lamps in Erewash installed in the 1880s they're still lit by gas rather than electricity you probably reported on it when they were installed yeah exactly ha ha ha ha okay

39:25Jon Sopel:draw the line between Erewash and Tooting I'm sorry draw the line

39:30Lewis Goodall:yeah what links Erewash and Tooting what links curry houses I don't know are there some superb curry houses in Erewash

39:40Jon Sopel:so Erewash's most famous son is the actor Robert Lindsay who played Wolfie in Citizen Smith and the Tooting Liberation Front

39:49Lewis Goodall:well there you go you see there you go I out-error washed you. You have out-error washed me. A sentence in so many ways, I never thought I'd hear you say. We'll be back in just a moment.

40:08Jon Sopel:Summer is here, which means we all want to look and feel our best. A GLP-1 may be right for you. Visit orderlymeds.com to learn more about which GLP-1 you could be eligible for. Getting started is fast, easy, and happens virtually through telemedicine from licensed professionals. Check it out for yourself. Go to orderlymeds.com slash podcast. That's orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Taking care of yourself feels great. Compact and medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

40:49Jon Sopel:Hi news agents, love the pod. At the time of writing, it's possible England could face Scotland in the knockout stages of the World Cup. Could be different by the time you're reading this. I thought Scotland got battered. They got battered last night, yeah. Anyway, my question is, how should a PM go about supporting a team in a match with two nations in the UK? As another Brit married to a Norwegian. Haya Norg... Norg... Norg... Haya Norg... Haya Norg...

41:15Lewis Goodall:And that's from Max. Tuzan tak, Max. Well, it reminds me of like, you remember when Brown was asked about, would he be supporting England in the World Cup? And he said, oh, absolutely. And then he said, what if they face Scotland? Who would you support then? And he just froze. He didn't know what to say. And obviously the answer should be like, we support Scotland because you're Scottish.

41:37Jon Sopel:But he just didn't know how to deal with it. Andy Murray got in trouble for that. That's what left him being very unpopular. I didn't think Andy Murray would be playing such a good one.

41:44Lewis Goodall:You know my views on Andy Murray, John. Well, we've heard those and you've had to apologise.

41:48Jon Sopel:I think that, yeah, look, if you're English, you support the England team. If you're Scottish, you support the Scotland team. And there is no shame in either of those. Norway doing very well. They're doing very well. I may well...

41:59Lewis Goodall:That big lanky lad doing the business for him. The big lanky lad. Well, he is. He's huge.

42:05Jon Sopel:Have you seen him? He's massive. I know. You wouldn't say that to him. We wouldn't make any jokes to his face. He's enormous. Hi, hi, Erling. Exactly. And anyway, it might be England, Scotland in Mexico City next Sunday, in which case I have a ticket and I'll be there.

42:19Lewis Goodall:John, just before we go, did you know that I think we may be running out of air wash facts? The M1 motorway slices through the constituency. Junctions 25 and 26 make it one of the UK's best connected manufacturing and logistics locations. We've done some great credit to the fellas there.

42:38Jon Sopel:I think we have squeezed the juice dry. Not for the first time. We'll see you next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Summer is here, which means we all want to look and feel our best. A GLP-1 may be right for you. Visit orderlymeds.com to learn more about which GLP-1 you could be eligible for. Getting started is fast, easy, and happens virtually through telemedicine from licensed professionals. Check it out for yourself. Go to orderlymeds.com slash podcast. That's orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Taking care of yourself feels great. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider.

43:12Jon Sopel:individual results may vary. See website for details. This has been a global production.