555. Burnham’s Cabinet Purge and the Rough Sleeping Pledge

24:13This suggests that he does.

24:16Rory Stewart:And that also he's prepared to appoint real specialists to roles. I mean, one of the things that was so distinctive about Cameron is that he didn't really often attempt to match people's knowledge and expertise to their roles. So he would bring in Philip Hammond, who was very bright, but he was made defense secretary without having much defense background, foreign secretary without doing much foreign affairs before he got the job. Michael Fallon, you could make the same case on defense. But in this case, when he was looking for an AI minister, he didn't think this is a way of putting in a labor member in order to manage the party.

24:52Rory Stewart:He really thought, who is the person in my bench who knows more about AI than anyone on earth? And I pride myself on knowing a little bit about AI, but I definitely defer to Kanishka if I was looking for a real star. I mean, that's almost like an American appointment. That's really bringing in one of the brightest people in the country to do that. There's one new cabinet appointment which goes against that theory, because here's a little minor piece of history, which is making big waves in the legal press this morning, a lawyer friend of mine tells me, which is that Alex Norris, elected in 2017, also, by the way, born in Manchester.

25:30But a not a MP, went to university there. But he's the first non-lawyer, I think, to be appointed to Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice.

25:42Rory Stewart:Michael Gove had that job. You're right. So in which case, the legal press should bloody calm down. I think the first non-lawyer to get the job was Chris Grayling, who became Lord Chancellor in 2012. Oh, was he not a lawyer? Not a lawyer either, no. Okay, I'm going to demand a rebuttal in the, I can't remember which legal paper it was that sent me. The other thing, he's also, they're a husband and wife MP team. He's married to Emma Foody, who is the MP for Cramblington and Killingworth. So they're going to have a, you know, great time together. Now, he's in charge of prisons. And one of the sad things is that we lost Lord Timpson, who resigned very early in one of the prisons, which is a great pity, particularly since we keep saying that one of the big problems in prisons is the prisons ministers never stay long.

26:31Rory Stewart:James Timpson had a really good tenure, and we'll point out that he was in there longer than me. I think he would have done the full two years. But it's still not very long, given that what we were hoping to do was really... Here's another thing that I want Andy Burnham to do that he hasn't done, which is to commit that people are not going to be reshuffled. I want people to feel they're in their job for a minimum of two years unless there is some extraordinary scandal. There's a basic assumption that you're going to get the job for at least two years and you can plan accordingly. Would you support me on that?

27:08Yeah, I'm totally with you on that. And I suspect most prime ministers will be with you on that, but I'm afraid that politics, particularly in the modern age, you know, it's like J.D. Vance when he said that, you know, Watergate today would be a kind of one day wonder. In America, that may be the case. But if you think, and I think if you go back to Angela Rayner's stamp duty or Louise Haig, which was something to do with insurance on a phone that she'd lost, most American politics looked at us at that point. What is this about? Even Peter Mandelson, the Americans are saying, you know, why is he resigning over this?

27:43It's like, so I, but we do have, I think, and I think it's good, by the way, we have different values to the Americans, which is just sort of awful. Shout out here for our interview with regime change authors, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan on Leading Now. But I think that, you know, there will be, you just know there will be, there will be scandals. And the thing is about the way our media operates as well is that these new names now that have come in. People will be looking to dig in and find stuff and what have you. But look, nobody wants to make change. I think the other question that is going to be interesting, we saw a little bit, I mentioned Steve Reeves' letter, but we've also seen this morning Darren Jones, who was the Prime Minister's first secretary prior to that chief secretary, who did a post last night saying, you know, thank you and good night, seeing you in September with a pint of beer in his hand, and yet was first out of the traps tweeting this morning, essentially saying, very pleased that Andy Burnham is going to be cutting VAT on fuel bills.

28:45However, where he says the money's coming from, scrapping this digital ID thing, it wasn't fully funded. Now that felt, that was a very deliberate move, basically to say, so that's him and Steve Reid and now him basically saying, we're not just going to sit back and take this, we're going to, you know, we're going to be sniping from the sidelines. So whether he coalesces around those sorts of people, becomes oppositionists. Don't underestimate, though, Andy Burnham still has the big majority that Keir Starmer won for him two years ago.

29:13Rory Stewart:Well, let's take a quick break. And then after the break, let's come back from the personalities into some of the policies and what we're beginning to sense in terms of where Andy Burnham might take the country. Great. See you then.

29:33welcome back to the rest of the politics with me alistair campbell and with me rory stewart i was very very very very very happy that the one big policy announcement that andy burnham made on the steps of downing street was he said i'm going to go through that door and the first instruction I'm going to give is that we end rough sleeping. Now, literally three, four days before, Izzy from our newsletter and I, we went out with an outreach team from St. Mungo's charity. And I kept saying, I said to them, I said, listen, you guys, there's a real opportunity with Andy Burnham because when he was mayor of Manchester, he made a big, big thing about rough sleeping.

30:13And this is going to be a, you know, so you've really got to be making your case and, you know, and I can have a word and let's, you know, let's really put a campaign together. We'd done pretty much precisely nothing by way of doing that. And then now he comes and says this. And I think it was, I think it also shows this consistency in him. There is a lot of the things he's been talking about in recent days. He's been talking about them for a long time. Yeah, well, let's just look at that one.

30:40Rory Stewart:So I always thought it was something that was impressive because when I was running to be mayor of London, I said, I will get rid of rough sleeping. I think it's completely horrible, right? We got a lot of problems in the country, but we're a very wealthy country. And there are people living in these terrible conditions on the streets. Furthermore, during COVID, we pretty much worked out how to get people off the streets and look after them. But the biggest argument I used against Sadiq Khan, who effectively kept saying, oh, it's all too difficult and it can't be done, is no, that's not true. Andy Burnham has basically done it.

31:16Rory Stewart:Now, there's a bit of quibbling around the edges, around the numbers, but essentially Andy Burnham in Manchester really got to grips with the situation, proved it could be done. And my view was, which I think Burnham has too, which is if you can do it in Manchester, you can do it in London. Yeah. I mean, I think Manchester is an interesting story, is that he came in and said he was going to do it and i agree with you by the way i think it's an absolute blot and we shouldn't just imagine this is just in our big cities either by the way we've got russ sleeping right around the country and he brought in this thing called bed the bed every night initiative and he got the numbers down to 89 which is you know that was a good very good reduction but then what happened part part of the problem that then saw the figures going up again was that there were people living sleeping rough outside manchester who thought oh i'll go to manchester so the the kind of the gross numbers went up and that eventually meant the net numbers went went up as well then the other thing that happened housing alliances were frozen lots of evictions of asylum seekers became a really big problem so i think he's now but what he's trying to say is we've tried it locally now let's try and do it nationally and i've got to say roy when izzy and i were out the other night it is just they were everywhere you know it's you could find them everywhere we're walking through this little park we're talking to one guy who'd been you know sleeping rough for years and years and years he'd lost five toes through frostbite on one foot and one toe on the other he hated hospitals he didn't particularly want to live inside but he obviously needed help and support.

32:54And then we're walking past him. We see this little white, it wasn't even a blanket. It was a guy sleeping inside a duvet cover, just the cover. And we kind of nudged him. And he was an Afghan asylum seeker, 22. He'd lost, he had no papers, no phone, absolutely nothing. Even though it was the heat wave, he was free. It was really cold after a few hours, just sleeping on the ground. And it was just so moving to what this guy called Marco Costa from the charity. He just took so much time eventually got an the guy's english wasn't good he got an inter he got a pasto interpreter on the phone at whatever time in the morning it was eventually got his story out of him they got him to a to a shelter shout out for get taxis by the way um black cabbies don't have a great ration get taxis their drivers are trained in safeguarding vulnerable people and it was a get driver that took this guy to one of the shelters to be to be assessed and then of course you're on to the next one.

33:53The other thing that was really quite shocking, again, you don't think of these things when you're not living that life, was that you think, well, at least when it's warm, they've got somewhere, you know, it's not like freezing. But there were two problems. One is they need more water and they don't have water. And the second is we saw one, the only woman we came across, her face was blistered through sunburn, absolutely sort of, you know, blistered because they don't have sun cream. And so big shout out to St Mungo's, but also the other great housing charities around the place. But I thought it was interesting, powerful, and symbolic that on the morning he became prime minister, he went to work with a housing charity, and then later in the day announced, we're going to try and do this.

34:34Rory Stewart:Yeah, we should do more on this. I also think it's worth being thoughtful about the statistics. I remember going to one of the Outer London boroughs, which was reporting that they had only six homeless people. And I spent the night in a church hall, and there were, I reckon, 32 homeless people sleeping with me in that hall. So this is, and that's a church hall where they are allowed to come in, I think, at about 11 at night, and everybody has to be out by about 6.30 in the morning. The whole place has to be cleared, so we were all cleaning up in the morning. And it was very interesting, the disconnect between the officials saying, there are six homeless people and my sitting there thinking, well, I'm surrounded by nearly 30 just in this building alone.

35:30Rory Stewart:But it can be done. I mean, it can be done. And I think what Andy did in Manchester was really inspiring. But also, as I say, what happened during COVID? I mean, fundamentally, it can be done. And there's going to be something interesting, though, that you've also pointed to with your story about the Afghan, which is as Shivana Mahmood continues being tough on asylum seekers, what happens to asylum seekers who don't have housing? And what are people who think we should be tough on asylum seekers going to think if we start providing shelter for asylum seekers? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, if you want a success story as well, St.

36:08Mungo's have got these huge murals that have been, the one that we went to see was in Bethel Green. And it had this thing, Lee was here in these giant letters, surrounded by pictures that told the story of his life. And we'll tell the story in this weekend's newsletter, because he was there to help them launch this new mural. It's a beautiful piece of work. We talked to him at this mural, which his story had inspired. And his story was borderline personality disorder, went to live in America, went to live in Canada, then moved to America, got married, mental health really, really struggling, couldn't afford to get mental health care in America, came back to Britain and found actually he couldn't get it here either.

36:51Tragedy, bad, scandal, need to do more on mental health. And ended up being picked up on the streets, rough sleeping by St. Mungo's, and they've helped him get his life back on track. He's now written a play about the whole thing. So he's a wonderful guy talked to and great stories. If you want to read Lee's story, get the newsletter and you sign up to therestispolitics.com in the description to the episode.

37:17Rory Stewart:Which other policy areas do you want to talk about? Well, the next big announcement that he's made is that he's going to cut VAT on energy bills. This is an interesting one because it was one of these things that the Brexiteers had always campaigned for because under EU rules, there's limits on what you can do on reducing VAT on energy bills. And one of the surprises that the Brexiteers kept coming up against is having claimed this is one of the great benefits of leaving the European Union, they never actually did it. Andy Burnham's now done it. And it relates to a couple of things. I mean, firstly, it's going to cost a few hundred million.

37:54Rory Stewart:and as you say interesting Darren Jones has pointed out that the scrapping the ID cards isn't actually saving any money because they hadn't really funded the ID cards in the first place but it's not a huge amount of money I mean like listen okay 400 500 million pounds a lot of money but in terms of the entire government budget that's not the kind of stuff that people are going to be looking at when they're trying to work out whether Andy Burnham is fiscally responsible it'll probably save I guess about 40 pounds on the average bill but it does relate to the interview who we did on leading with the EU Commissioner, Dan Jorgensen, who points out that one of the things getting in the way of clean energy is the taxes.

38:33Rory Stewart:And we're trying to drive people towards relying on electricity rather than other forms of energy. And reducing the electricity bills is a sensible step in the right direction. So I think that's great. Right. There's a lot of questions around number 10 North and this location in Manchester. A couple of things on that. One is just a logistics point. I mean, Tim Shipman and The Spectator wrote a long article speculating about whether Andy was going to be traveling up and down by helicopter or train and how people were going to get up to Manchester to do stuff, which made it sound as though he sort of had an idea that So people are going to be spending a lot of time in Manchester, in number 10 Manchester, running this thing.

39:20Rory Stewart:But the other thing I was thinking about is how that's going to work with the rest of England. Because in Cumbria, certainly, our experience of being run from Manchester was not positive. We got very, very angry back in the day with government office Northwest, and we felt Manchester was a very long way from understanding Cumbria and our concerns. So I suppose this is a kind of challenge to Andy Burnham, and maybe this is a route back into his book, to really follow through with proper, proper devolution. And I think proper devolution is putting power down at the level of Cumbria, 500 ,000 people.

39:58Rory Stewart:Interestingly, we just did this interview, as you said, with the Prime Minister of Iceland, about the size of Iceland. And that's really what makes sense. Cumbria makes sense. Cumbria is a very, very unusual place. Couldn't be less like Manchester. It's not urban. It's extremely remote, rural stuff. So it would be a pity if devolution ended up with power being centered in places like Manchester rather than actually being driven down to the ground. I'm not talking down to the micro level of kind of Eden District Council with 45 ,000 people, but at least half a million people. The other really, one of the many interesting points that I got from this reading Head North was his criticism of Scottish devolution to the extent that the Scottish government has centralised a lot of Scottish power.

40:49In other words, you have the Scottish Parliament, and then suddenly you have one police force in Scotland, which we can argue that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it is more, if you like, more centralisation. And I think the big surprise for me in the reshuffle, the reshuffle in the new appointments is there wasn't i thought there'd be somebody specific on this number 10 north and devolution uh now it feels to me it's going to be a bit of louise haig who's the first secretary of state and right-hand person in the cabin office it's probably going to be a bit of um angela rayner housing local government communities um it'll obviously be scotland wales northern ireland etc but i think that it's I thought that would have been signalled much more because it's so clear to me that if there is a big idea coming out of Andy Burnham, it is about devolution of power.

41:45It is about really trying to get more power out into towns, cities, rural communities, the regions. um in fact the the the end of his book um he and steve rotherham have got this kind of this 10 point they say you know these are the things we need to do um written constitution well give us give us give us the 10 yeah give us the 10 and then you can tell me what you think is so right written constitution written constitution and he argues passionately why that's a good thing and I think we support that but bloody hell how complicated would that be to although back to Iceland they almost did this through a through a citizens assembly type thing number two basic

42:30Rory Stewart:this is my this is my job my job application if you'd like someone to chair a commission on trying to bring together a constitution I'm standing by dear new prime minister oh god you just never give up do you you know that period you just never go you gotta get it well I'd do it for a job We could have a motto, disagree agreeably, as we write a new constitution. We could share the commission on the new constitution. Yeah, lovely. Number two, basic law. There's a lot of Germany in this book and the relationship between the federal center of government in Berlin and the Lender. So all part of the same thing.

43:04Number three, not heard about much of this yet, reform of the voting system, PR. Number four.

43:11Rory Stewart:And he seems to be serious about that because in a recent interview, he said that his father who has dementia and who doesn't realize that he's become prime minister was the man that always tried to convince Andy of the merits of proportional representation. And he did say in one of the interviews, he wishes his father was able to know that he had convinced him and that he would be pushing ahead with PR. So let's hope he's serious about that. And that would be a huge change because it's very difficult for the turkeys to vote for Christmas. Well, and on which point, let's see, at the moment, the MPs seem to be welcoming Andy Burnham and liking a lot of the things he's saying and doing.

43:49On that one, I think there could be more of a fight. But then the next one, he's appointed Annalise Midgley as Chief Whip. Number four, removal of the whip in Parliament. number five a senate get rid of the house of lords here to that a senate of the nations and regions elected or appointed through list system by proportional representation i quite love that six full devolution we've talked about that seven equal paths in education this is about much much more focus on technical education and he's done some of that in um in in manchester grenfell law this is about housing the hillsborough law well that's now been enacted and again back to this point about you just keep going on stuff the extent to which both Andy Rotherham and Steve Rotherham in in Liverpool Merseyside the extent to which their careers and their politics and their passions are driven by that one incident is absolutely extraordinary and then number 10 net zero to re-industrialize the north so that's about you know and by the way you mentioned Dan Yergerson he sent me a paper this week I've given up trying to get you back from the dark side but you sent me a paper basically showing just how much cheaper it currently was to produce renewables and fossil fuels.

45:02I'll send it to you. You can have a read.

45:04Rory Stewart:Anyway, that is a huge agenda. An amazing agenda and a really interesting agenda. One of the weird things I feel with Andy Burnham is although he and I couldn't come from more different backgrounds or even our approach policy very different, he became a special advisor under Tess the Jarl, I think as early as 94 and didn't get into parliament until 2002. So he was very much part of the labor machine as a special advisor from a very long time. And then he's a real veteran politician in some ways. But he ended up like me, and I feel this reading the book, feeling so much whenever he returned back to the constituency, a huge relief getting out of Westminster.

45:42Rory Stewart:He talks about the same thing I felt, getting off a train, breathing the air, and just how uncomfortable he felt with the whipping system, with the centralization of power and how much he believes that the genius of Britain is local. This is, of course, as usual, a chance for me to plug Middleland. But I'm interested in this because Middleland is about my trying to make a sort of Andy Burnham-style argument. The book just coming out in paperback, live shows coming 13th, 14th September. Oh, for God's sake, that's three plugs in one episode. I mean, honestly. But the reason I think I'm intrigued by this is that my gut instinct as a member of parliament, which is what Middleland's all about, is that the things that worked best in Britain were at the more local level, that democracy worked better, that accountability worked better.

46:35Rory Stewart:I mean, I keep coming back to this obsession with the idea that a French mayor can kind of get poked in the chest when he goes to local micro by somebody to actually say, why aren't you sorting this out? And the sense that you want to be responsible for things you can fix. So many of my constituents, you know, were interested in planning, they were interested in, you know, residence parking, they were interested in local schools. And these are things which I as a member of parliament didn't have power over. stuff. So there was a very weird thing of us putting out leaflets saying we were going to fix all these things when we didn't actually have a budget power to do it.

47:09Rory Stewart:People had the budget power to do it with the local councillors. Nobody knew their names and the turnout in the local elections were very small. So fixing that stuff and a sort of sense, I think, that he's drawing on the best of France and Germany here, which may be a little bit unfashionable, but definitely reflects also its idea on industrial policy, which is that industrial policy is best done for Manchester from Manchester or best done for Cumbria from Cumbria. Because it's only at the local level, you really understand the texture of the type of industries you got, the type of skills you've got, the type of vocational skills that you need to match the industries that exist in this place.

47:48Rory Stewart:It's very place-based, isn't it? The other thing I think we should maybe just close off on is is the we said at the top the world view um and if you think about i mean i can remember tony blair's first day as prime minister there's an awful lot to do but i got the sense that yesterday andy burnham was doing a lot so he makes he does a fit in the morning he goes and he does he goes to see the king he does a little speech outside number 10 he goes in uh he knows the buildings there's no need for that but then he does the old nuclear codes thing and And then he's appointing the cabinet. He's meanwhile taking all these phone calls.

48:22So he had this phone call with Trump. And if you remember when Andy was first sort of being talked of as leader, I think it was obviously he was going to become leader. And Trump's reaction was, oh, yeah, he's a mayor of some town. Well, Andy clearly remembered that because he said, I really hope to show you the delights of my city, Manchester, because we're going to hold the G20 there when we host it next year. but the American relationship is going to be important I hope he doesn't do the kind of sycophant route I hope he doesn't do the kowtow route I hope that we're tough I think I'll be fascinated by to watch both Hexerth and Wes Streeting who's the defense secretary how that goes down because Wes Streeting I don't think will take any of the bullshit and then of course we've got Rubio and Ed Miliband.

49:13Now we are, it's always been for a long time, the junior partner they're in. But I think, I hope we don't take any of the nonsense. I hope we call out some of the nonsense. I am slightly worried about the drill, baby drill, North Sea thing, because I think this North Sea thing is a bit of a nonsense. As Dan Juergenson said, if we're really going for energy in the North Sea, it's about investing in wind power there. Of course, there is a lot of wind we can do. And as you said, I think you acknowledge now, it is about price and it is about taxes as much as all this thing about where we're getting energy from.

49:47Rory Stewart:Oh, well, no, I don't think I fully acknowledge that. Okay, well, let's, let's, let's. But we don't want to get dragged into the North Sea. But let's finish, though, with a sort of summary on Andy Burnham. So he's come in. So far, I think I'm right in saying he seems to be appealing. I mean, most of the sense that people have is that he's a pretty decent person. We have a strong sense of his interest in localization shaking up Westminster. Can he do it? I mean, I guess the thing I want to finish on is, can he deliver? Is he going to be tough and radical? I mean, if he really wants to bring a written constitution, radically devolve power, introduce proportional representation, completely remodel our state, he's going to have to make a lot of enemies.

50:32Rory Stewart:It's going to be very, very tough. And almost immediately, people are going to say, this is a distraction. Nobody cares about the staff that's not top on the voters priority list. And he's also going to have to still deal with the impossible problem of the Labour Party, which is we're basically bust. There isn't any obvious source of money. And most of the sources of money that are proposed by people, I certainly think are pretty irresponsible and don't really work. so he's going to have to manage a pretty tight financial ship with a Labour Party that still somehow thinks that the whole problem is beastly Tories and austerity and a proper Labour government would be much more generous in a way that I don't think he can afford to be.

51:14Rory Stewart:Anyway, do you think, what's he going to do with those things? Look, I think he's shown with the cabinet and the route to becoming prime minister and defenestrating Keir Starmer, who I was glad to see when left County Street yesterday, Went for a drink with his mates. But look, the truth is we don't know. But what we do know, and this is why I think this book is really worth rereading, is that he's had views about what is wrong with Britain, and in particular what is wrong with our politics and the way that our politics works. So he's going to have his work cut out in terms of... He clearly, I think, wants to change the culture of government in a big way.

51:57Now, that is hard, but I think that's where he's going to have to take a lot of the tough stuff. I think that is why he has put Healy into the Treasury. This Green Book thing, we should maybe do an episode later on the Green Book and how it works. And then we've got to see whether he can just manage the sheer volume of stuff that is going to be coming at him. But it's interesting to me, I'm just looking at the media monitoring thing of the front pages. Up till now, the right-wing papers have basically been trying to take shots at him the whole time. It's interesting, a slightly different tone today.

52:31The Daily Telegraph headline, Burnham Pins Hope on Healy, and rather a flattering picture of him on the front page, which is... And then even the Daily Bail, which of course hates anybody who's not a sort of, you know, out-and-out right-winger, they've got their little Messiah without a mandate blob up by their thing. But they're not really sort of screaming there. And this picture of him with his hands together and the front page headline is, let's pray he knows what he's doing. On his first day as PM, Burnham vowed the biggest political changes for 40 years, refused to rule out yet more tax hikes.

53:06The old Daily Mail would have said, your taxes are going up. Put a convicted fraudster in charge of his leftist agenda. That's Louise Haig and her phones. And made Ed Miliband Foreign Secretary thankfully not chancellor for the daily mail that is really really really really tame and likewise the daily express which is you know basically farage fanzine let's hear how you will bring back hope then andy in other words not totally putting the boot in yet now he won't have a very long honeymoon that's just i'm afraid the way of the modern age but i think he um i think i think you're right i think people feel he's he's come in he's got a lot on his plate and he's started pretty well.

53:47So there we are. Yeah, I've got to say, Roy, he's vying for some of the front page on the tabloids with the death of Kevin Keegan. Now, Kevin Keegan, there's a lot we could say about Kevin Keegan, great footballer, first British player to play in the Bundesliga, beloved in Germany as well as England, England manager, manager of Newcastle, legend in Liverpool. But also, I think when he died, as he did yesterday, Kevin Keegan, they showed the Tony Blair head tennis thing. I think when Tony Blair dies, that will be shown as well because it was the greatest photo call we ever did. And we thank Kevin Keegan for that and very much more.

54:22Rory Stewart:Brilliant. Well, 17 % famously of Andy Burnham's post so far have been about football. So you've got a lot in common with him, with your love of football and music. But much more to come back to with our new prime minister. We've done a lot on appointments. We've begun to sketch out some of the strategy, got into a bit of the devolution, much more to learn about his economic policies in the days to come from John Healy. Thank you very much and look forward to continuing in Question Time. And Roy, why don't you just put the listeners out of their misery and tell them what we're going to talk about in Question Time, because they're going to be shocked by what you want to talk about most.

54:54Rory Stewart:Well, okay, so I'm afraid we're coming back to AI, but we're coming back from it from a very exciting direction, which is China has just released an extraordinary new record-breaking frontier model and announced an amazing new international organization around AI, which has stolen a march on the US in two ways. Really interesting example of China's new soft power and hard power coming into operation. That and much more to come in Question Time. Yeah, we're going to do Zelensky and some of his troubles and we're going to do Kemi Badenok kicking out a few of Rory Stewart type Tories from her party.

55:32See you then. See you then. Bye-bye.