Ghostings and betrayals: Starmer's cabinet prepares for an Andy Burnham coup

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1:02This week, we bring you a particularly scoop-packed episode of the state of it ahead of the most consequential by-election in history. That's the Makerfield by-election on Thursday, which will bring Andy Burnham potentially back to Westminster and possibly into number 10. I don't think there should be a contest. If there is a contest, I intend to be in it and to fight it. Right, Lara, scoop number one. What could happen next? Well, there are cabinet ministers, I'm told, some who you might think of and some who you perhaps wouldn't think of who are prepared to move against the prime minister should he not set out a timeline and play ball.

1:38And I'm told one of those cabinet ministers has been ghosting Keir Starmer. Who'd have thought it? Welcome to The State of It, the political podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times. I'm Stephen Swinford, the political editor at The Times. I'm Patrick McGuire, chief political commentator for The Times. And I'm Lara Spirit, deputy political editor of The Sunday Times. And look, we come to you this week. It is an absolutely explosive week in British politics. The events of Thursday will have huge repercussions. The Makerfield by-election, Andy Burnham, is coming. And we've got a pretty scoop-packed episode.

2:13We are going to reveal the potential for cabinet resignations in the wake of the Makerfield by-election to force Keir Starmer's hand. We're going to give you an insight into where Keir Starmer's head is at at the moment and how he really, really genuinely thinks he can fight on. And then we're going to talk more broadly about the possible idea that Ed Miliband may be ghosting the Prime Minister, which is coming from Patrick Maguire. But look, let's start with the obvious place. Last week was absolutely disastrous for Keir Starmer. John Healy, the Defence Secretary, resigned. His authority is in tatters.

2:45And yet still, talking to people, he thinks he can fight on. Now, I was having a conversation with someone and they were saying that his view is that what Andy Burnham is trying to do here is a coup. He is trying to do a takeover. And it is fundamentally wrong as a point of principle. And he will fight it. he will stay in the trenches and kind of go for it. I'm not sure if that's realistic, but, you know, starter for 10 there. Can Starmer fight this thing? Well, he can, in a literal sense. Technically. He can, yeah, technically he can. He still has the Prime Ministerial bully pulpit, the microphone, and he has the constitutional right under the Labour Party rulebook to be on the ballot, if he so wishes.

3:26It's one of Jeremy Corbyn's curious legacies, that one. So if he wants to, he can. And by all accounts, he does want to. He was badly shaken by John Healy's resignation last week. But I was having conversations with Keir Starmer's closest allies all week, ministers, people in number 10, personal friends, and all of them said the same thing. And it all came down to what you just said, Steve. As one minister who's very, very close to Keir Starmer told me, he thinks his mandate was to do two things. Change the country, and he feels he's now changing the country. They said, don't see the social media ban and stuff like that as legacy building.

4:02It is him finally getting the system to deliver. And if you're only listening to that, I did semi-sarcastic air quotes around that line. And the second thing is ending the Tory psychodrama. That's how he interpreted the second part of his mandate. Keir Starmer, in the words of one of his closest confidants, thinks that the credibility of the Labour Party and the legitimacy of the government is at stake. As you say, Steve, Andy Burnham, he thinks, doesn't have a mandate, hasn't set out his plan for the country. He thinks there's a mess of contradictions as Andy Burnham's plan for the country. Is it continuity?

4:33Is it Starmerism with a smile and a Paul Smith T-shirt and a woolly black accent? Or is it ending 40 years neoliberalism and ripping up the Thatcher settlement? It can't be both. And they think they can draw those out over the course of a leadership election. And speaking to people in the week, they are probably gearing up for a leadership election. They're thinking about who is going to staff that campaign. Stuff like that. So he is serious. I opened my column last week with he can't be serious, can he? But he is. What's your take on it then, Laura? Yeah, I think that is exactly where they are.

5:08And it sounds like he's conceded privately to friends and allies that there will be a leadership question at some point, that he's not going to bury his head in the sands and pretend that that is not a dynamic and is not something that a large number of people are calling for. But the kind of case is essentially that Andy isn't ready. and I think some of his allies in a way that I think does appear to be slightly facetious to those of us on the outside but I think they do genuinely sort of believe it they think oh well it's it's generous to give Andy a bit more time to set out what exactly it is that he will want to do and you think I don't actually think that that's generous I think that's just an attempt to possibly buy for some time and obviously the uh the belief is as Patrick has just articulated that actually he will buckle under the weight of that scrutiny and uh and a kind of closer look at exactly what it is that he would do in power but it does sound like he's very serious and it does sound like they feel that there are these pitfalls for Andy Burnham which to Andy Burnham's team I think they think is just painfully ridiculous.

6:00Well let's talk then about how realistic that is let's put that to the test and I want to just rewind slightly to the events of last week which were totally mad on one level so John Healy obviously resigned number 10 was blindsided by that and we my colleague Oliver Wright did a fantastic read on it at the weekend but the reason they weren't quite expecting him to go over the top is because they were much more worried about two other people. They were worried about Rachel Reeves, who was furious about this kind of extra spending on defence. She felt the whole issue was settled. They thought genuinely the Chancellor could quit, and they were particularly worried about Ed Miliband.

6:34Now, Ed Miliband was being asked to find cuts to net-zero budgets. And he was resisting the cuts. And he was resisting them, and he was deeply unhappy. And in the end, he swallowed the 1 % cuts like everyone else. But that was where Starmer's attention was. So John Healy, they never thought he'd go over the top. They didn't think he'd do it. He was a loyalist. But this is, Patrick, where we come to your delicious scoop, please, on Ed Miliband. It's very juvenile, but please. Well, Ed Miliband has taken, you know, he's got a timeshare arrangement in every single Labour MP's head. And, you know, he spends most of the year inside Keir Starmer's at the moment.

7:09Keir Starmer was trying to get in touch with Ed Miliband last week, and I was told that he just couldn't get through to him. Ed Miliband was ghosting the prime minister. Is the prime minister calling Ed Miliband? By all accounts, Ed Miliband was not picking up the Prime Minister's calls. Look, maybe he was busy. You know, he's got a department to run. But that shows you how much the relationship, the extent to which that defining relationship, really close relationship, Ed Miliband stayed in the Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet for much longer than some of Keir Starmer's closest advisers would have liked him to, longer than Morgan McSweeney would have liked him to, because he and Keir Starmer had a bond that predated Keir Starmer's time in politics.

7:44Keir Starmer felt he owed a lot to Ed and he thought to a certain extent, They were friends. I'm not entirely sure that was ever reciprocated properly by Ed Miliband. But there we go. And here we are now. And Ed Miliband, by the way, is the crucial person in all of this. In how, not only how this weekend will unfold after Andy Burnham wins in Makerfield, but how the government and Labour's chance of the next election. But we'll get on to that a little bit later. I was speaking to a minister last night. The minister got in touch with me last night at the Blue, not someone I speak to very often.

8:15and they were saying, we all know Ed Miliband is going to resign at some point. You know, Andy Burnham needs to do something more than get Ed Miliband to resign. But look, as you and I wrote on the night of the local elections, after the polls closed in the local elections, Steve, Ed Miliband sold his shares in Keir Starmer a long, long time ago. He was the first to go over the top. He was the first to go over the top. He went and told the Prime Minister, you know, mate, come on, you need to set out a timetable. You should think about setting out a timetable. Keir Starmer basically said, clear off.

8:42and everything that's happened since, I think we can probably trace back to that conversation. Yeah. So, look, we should then talk about where Andy Burnham is. So I went to see Andy Burnham. I went to the Working Men's Club. To Stubbshaw Cross Community and Sports Club. I met Milo, who is Lou Haig's dog, who Lara was very taken with when you went up the other week. I've actually not met Milo. You've not met Milo? I've only had the great pleasure and privilege of writing about Milo. He's lovely. He's a great dog. He's the Morgan McSweeney of the Andy Burnham project. The mysterious Svengali briefed about constantly, but seldom seen.

9:16Well, he's there. He's a great dog. But also I met Andy Burnham. And it's important to understand how Andy Burnham sees the Makerfield by-election. So he sees this as a mandate for number 10. The words he used was he says it is a cry for change from the people of Makerfield and the people of the nation more broadly. And he kept describing it as the first stage of changing the Labour Party. Well, I'm pretty sure I can guess what the second change is. you change the prime minister in the process um he said that makerfield is effectively a mega focus group and then he described as there are hundreds of makerfields out there so he is clearly making a the political logic is if i win this i have won the right to kind of enter number now there's an assumption of when you talk to people around burnham of the political inevitability that if he wins this by significant enough margin he will be prime minister and so kirsten will have no choice but to back down but as we've discussed that is not necessarily a given and the animus between the two men because they really don't like they didn't like each other before right and we've talked before on this show about how Starmer famously went to to get Burnham support when he was running for Labour leader and Burnham wouldn't give it and there's bad blood between them over many years but it's really bad blood now so this assumption that surely Starmer will have to give way he can't even govern his own cabinet surely that that is they are possibly an overestimate and that means someone's going to need to pull the trigger that means someone's going to need to move and it could get very bloody and very ugly very quickly yeah well indeed and obviously Andy Burnham isn't at 4am on Friday going to launch a challenge to Keir Starmer but I think there are people around Keir Starmer who were dearly wanting to because everybody needs a pretext to do what they want to do in this.

11:03Andy Burnham needs a pretext. Andy Burnham needs a challenge from someone else or cabinet resignations or 200 members of the Parliamentary Labour Party coming out and saying it's over for Keir Starmer, send for Andy. When Andy gets in on Monday, let's make him Prime Minister. Keir Starmer needs a provocation from Andy Burnham so he can make his case and declare he's going to fight and fight on to win. It was put to me by one ally of Keir Starmer though, the best thing Keir Starmer could do, the most confounding thing Keir Starmer could do on Friday is nothing. You know, cursory, terse congratulations to Andy Burnham, then do and say nothing.

11:38Because at that point, the Parliamentary Labour Party will be frothing at the mouth. Some of Andy Burnham's more excitable supporters, and I say supporters, not the people who are with him in Stubshaw Cross Labour Club every day, will be bowing for blood. You know, they'll all have lots of pages to fill and lots of copy to write. You know, there will be a market for furious allies of Andy Burnham saying X, Y, Z, or allies of the Prime Minister saying he's bottled it. I can see my WhatsApp webpage now and I can see the four or five people who will be peppering me with messages if we've got silence from both sides on Friday saying, where is Andy?

12:14Andy's bottled it, right? And everybody wants a provocation. Everybody needs a provocation. But if Keir Starmer says and does nothing and his allies are disciplined and say nothing, it's quite confounding for Andy Burnham in that point because what do you do or say? It's like, do you launch a challenge? Do you not launch a challenge? It sort of becomes a sort of phony war stage until he gets down here on Monday. Which brings us to scoop number two from Lara, which is the question of pressure. So pressure will take two forms. They are actively getting that list of 81 MPs together. But like you say, we could end up with a couple of hundred MPs coming out and calling for Starmer to go.

12:51That is one form of pressure. The second form is from the cabinet, Lara, and you've got some gear for us on that this week. Yeah, I mean, I think what Patrick says is really important, which is there is obviously a clear distinction between the people who are advising Andy Burnham and the people in Westminster who will want there to be a much quicker momentum. I mean, you know, I'm told Andy wants to get to London. He wants to meet some of the newer intake. This is not a case of like immediately trying to move. But that said, I think if it got to, I mean, it's been put to me, you know, if it got to, if it was Starmer saying, oh, you know, we might be able to have that conversation at Comfort, that is way too long.

13:22That is way too long. I mean, this is not a long time frame that they're looking at, but it is also, as Patrick says, not an absolutely immediate one. But they have these different tools at their disposal. One of which I'm told is a number of people in the cabinet who are willing to call for Keir Starmer to go and to move against him. Some obvious and some not. Now, you probably surmise that the obvious would include somebody like Ed Miliband. But clearly there will be other people that have agreed to act on behalf to speed this up if it is necessary. And of course, there's a hope that Keir Starmer, of his own volition, says, you know, I'm going to make this transition slightly easier.

13:53But we know that that's not where Keir Starmer's head is at all at the moment. And so they are having to look at these various different options. I think, I mean, the key thing when I talk to this to me is they want Keir Starmer, they say, to leave with some dignity. I mean, I think that's not necessarily a selfish position. I think, as we know from looking at the polling, Labour members, the wider Labour coalition probably would feel more favourable towards Andy Burnham, were it possible for them to engineer a situation where it was not like dragging Keir Starmer out of number 10 in a really kind of horribly humiliating way for him.

14:25At the same time, you know, they will say, look, Keir Starmer's premiership is dead. Like it's been dead for a number of times. It died again last week when John Healy resigned. And there is a fundamental inability to recognise that. And that's why I think it could get a tiny bit messy. But there is some self-interest, right? Because clearly Burnham has an interest in a bloodless coup. The last thing he wants from what I gather is a long summer with a long leadership contest, Wes Streeting's battle of ideas. No, exactly. Well, it's a battle of ideas Wes Streeting's not going to be involved in, by the way.

14:56I think we should just put that on the record. Wes Streeting is not going to be a candidate, certainly a successfully nominated candidate in a Labour leadership election, right? I'm sorry, Wes, for saying that so bluntly, but it's true. Lots of Wes's allies, including the sort of close people who are close to him who quit, have woken up and smelt the coffee, right? Lots of these people are now thinking, how do we get behind Andy Burnham? How do I ensure I'm not completely unemployable when Anneliese Midgley, Chief Whip or Political Secretary, is looking down the long list of the 2024 intake in a month's time, in two months' time, thinking, oh God, who's going to be PPS to the minister for flooding?

15:41You know, it's not going to be West Street's battle of ideas. It's going to be, you know, to use a slightly tasteless comparison someone made to me last week, it's going to be like the Waco siege, right? It's going to be like Keir holed up in number 10 with a massive stockpile of, you know, bombs and bullets and sort of daring the forces around him to come and get him out. And the whole Labour Party is going to die in the process. So the question is, does Burnham have the political courage to pull the trigger? There was one theory that someone put to me, the suggestion which isn't true, but I'll run you through it anyway, because the reasons it's not true are interesting.

16:16The suggestion was Wes was going to go up to Makerfield this week, which he has done. He has seen Burnham and that they were going to cut a deal. And the deal would be that he would go over the top. He would take the numbers and trigger the leadership contest. So because people don't like being the first mover. Right. So he would do that. And then he would get rewarded, let's say, with the job of foreign secretary. That was the suggestion. Obviously, talked to a lot of people around that. That is our job. And it was roundly rejected. And I think that's right, by the way, because actually, when you look at this speech that West Streeting has given in the city today, it is a demolition, a lot of it, of Andy Burnham's economic vision.

16:50He says that it wasn't 40 years of neoliberalism that was the problem. We should not be squeamish about the markets. He says bond markets are not the bond villains. So it's a repudiation of a lot of what Burnham stands for. So whether he has the numbers to get there, as you say, Patrick, it may be impossible for him to join the contest. But either way, everyone seems to be allergic to actually making the move other than possibly Ed Miliband. Well, totally. And as Andy Burnham said on Question Time, it was like, oh, I believe, I'm not going to do, as a fellow wool out of respect for... Please do it.

17:22No, no, no, don't worry. When I did an impression of Ed Miliband, Ed Miliband's spuds complained, so I'm not going to get off on the wrong foot with a fellow wool in Andy Burnham. He said, West Street has launched a leadership contest, so I'm going to join it, right? You know, it's harder, and it's a bigger provocation to Keir Starmer to arrive, because that's what, you know, if you're Morgan McSweeney on the other end of the blower to Keir Starmer, you are saying, you know, when Andy says he's going to challenge, here's the script, right? You know, you don't have a mandate. It's really, you know, I'm meant to be going to the NATO summit in a fortnight's time, etc.

17:55It's a crisis. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But at the same time, and then going long, you know, it's micawberism, right? You know, you're in number 10 waiting for something awful to turn up. You're waiting for the Manchester bar election or you're waiting for, I don't know, Trump to break the ceasefire or something. So then you can go back on whatever deal you've made over an orderly transition. Right. Let's head to the interval. And when we come back from the interval, we are going to talk about one of the key men, obviously Ed Miliband, and what will happen to him. Will he be the next chancellor?

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19:02Welcome back to The State of It, the political podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times. Now, for the second half of this podcast, we are going to be talking about Ed Miliband. Ed Miliband matters because he could well be the next chancellor or maybe not. Lara, do you want to kick us off on this, that there are very different theories around everything? Yeah, I mean, I wrote about this at the weekend. There is something of an emerging split in the Andy Burnham firm between Ed Miliband and perhaps Meata van Buller, former minister who recently resigned on one side and the kind of wider soft left on the other side.

19:34Now, the possibility of Ed Miliband as a chance, I think is quite a good encapsulation of the reasons for that particular divide. And I was picking up quite a lot of unhappiness about that prospect at the weekend. which given many people have been speaking about in a Miliband chancellorship as if it was a done deal, I thought was really striking. There are a couple of reasons why there are some real concerns there. The first is a real sense and suspicion that they feel that Miliband has been telling others that he's in line for the job, that that's a done deal. They worry that there's been too much personality in this already.

20:05And I think that's something that has grated some of them up the wrong way. And the second more interesting point, I think, is actually on positions of policy, particularly net zero, where a number of them think, actually, Andy needs to be in a position where he has some flexibility on this, that he can look at these things abstractly without any ideology and say, actually, I think, for example, yeah, we will need to grant new licences in the North Sea, perhaps. Let's see. He says he's open to that. This is something that some around him think he is open to and that he needs the latitude to be able to be open to.

20:34And part of this is not, because I think it's really key to say that it's not that we know that Ed Miliband is absolutely, firmly, completely forever against more drilling quote unquote but he is against new licenses right and i think one of the key things here is is not that there's necessarily this massive policy divergence there it's a sense among some around burnham that actually what you need is to be able to make these decisions without all the newspapers writing your chances on resignation watch and there being this whole psychodrama of saying where is ed on this where is andy on this is there a split who are the ed supporters who think that actually this is a disaster and it's going back on all of the things that we've done on net zero and you you cannot have that and actually a separate part of that as somebody suggested was interesting was saying look at the Scottish Labour MPs among whom uh Andy has not made as fantastic as inroads in uh as he has some other coalitions saying this would be a really important overture to them who are traditionally more in favor of moods like this and could be a smart thing so there's some suspicion there I think for that reason and also separately I reported that actually senior advisors to Burnham have been lobbying hard Shabana Mahmood to take the position of Chancellor, that she's wavering on this still.

21:39These conversations resumed in a big way because of what happened with John Healy and the whole ferrari around defence spending and the fact that this was clearly an indication of the really tough fiscal conversations that are ahead. Shabana still wants to stay at home, but I think is being worked on quite significantly, I think it's fair to say. You get to the nub of the entire issue for Team Burnham here in terms of not just the sort of government they form, but how smooth their path is. Right. They're linked. A lot will depend on the sort of government Labour MPs think they are putting in office without a contest.

22:15Right. So a minister got in touch with me last night and they made this exact point after saying, and becoming more convinced that Bossman, by which they mean Keir Starmer, not the proprietor of a local corner shop, might try and tough it out and actually take it to a contest. And if Andy doesn't actually have a clear pitch early next week, then he can't actually press the button as too many MPs will be worried about what direction he'll go in. Some saying they want Andy, but don't want Shabana in number 11. Others saying they want Andy, but don't want Ed in number 11, etc. So if you're not moving Shabana Mood out of the home office, that sends a signal to the PLP.

22:48If she's in number 11, that sends another signal. If Ed Miliband is anywhere near number 11, that sends another signal, right? So very quickly, you're making trade-offs in terms of personnel that could alienate people and could make people have another look at Keir Starmer. Yeah, I mean, I think it's really, like, Shabana is key here in a way that people don't fully understand, I think. I mean, I'm told there's no kind of big whiteboard that they're working off in terms of cabinet positions. But I think, you know, I was talking to somebody earlier, and I was like, well, you know, if there is a big suspicion about Ed Miliband, but Shabana Mahmood doesn't want to take it, what happens then?

23:16And there are a number of names in the hat, of which perhaps John Healy is one, which is quite interesting. but it's not the case that there's this kind of absolutely firm settled view and they know what's going to happen another name by the way we haven't spoken about who could be very important come friday come the weekend come next week is yvette cooper who has sort of kept her head down has obviously expressed her reservations about keir starmer to keir starmer has been very busy with the iran deal but she was named by the minister whose text i was quoting to you there as someone who could resign, as in they think she's going to resign, but that's the sort of person swinging behind Andy Burnham that will matter to your median Labour MP who wants to be on the winning side, knows Keir Starmer's a dud, but isn't entirely sure about the intended consequences.

24:00So, Ivet Cooper, former Treasury Minister, knows Andy Burnham well, could possibly be another outside pick for Chancellor or would have a strong case for the Chancellor if Siobhan Mahmood doesn't want it. Although, she does have a reputation for being indecisive among colleagues. And as one minister joked to me, when I asked them about the prospect of Yvette being Chancellor, they said, well, in that case, the next budget will be in 2035. So there you go. Cruel joke about Yvette Cooper. I merely pass it on. I want to throw one other name into the discussion, mostly so that Lara Spirit can aggressively shoot me down, which I'm looking forward to.

24:34Rachel Reeves thinks she could still be Chancellor. This is true. this is her view is that one she has to trust to the market and two she's going to be prepared to go there on net zero and make cuts that Ed Miliband couldn't and three she said when you look around you have a conversation like the one we've had it's not exactly clear so why not stick with what you've got now Lara please the response to that so I don't think that's gonna happen that's not where the heads are I think in Burnham circle yeah I mean look I think last week was quite an important instructive moment for this because they're particularly unhappy with the briefing about John Healy.

25:09Do you remember there was a Treasury official that said, let's be clear what John is asking for here, cuts to schools and hospitals. And I think one of the key things that is in their minds when they're looking at this decision about Chancellor is the flexibility that any pick is going to give them with regards to the decision they make next. And one thing that we know about Rachel Reeves in the last week fortnight is that flexibility is not something that those who have had to be working with her over the defence investment plan would necessarily really say that she has had and I genuinely don't mean that as a criticism but I do I'm saying that that is something that will be playing in the minds of those around Burnham and it is simply not where they are right now.

25:43One of the things I just wanted to mention we do need to mention this this conversation is obviously predicated on Andy Burnham winning in Makefield right and it's important to stress this because the reason we are talking to you like this is because restore is a factor and also we are having conversations with people in reform who think they're probably not going to win it. But there is a world in which reform do win this and then all of this conversation is different. We will still likely end up in a very violent and difficult leadership contest. I think it could be far wilder than what comes next if Burnham does win it because there's no clear candidate.

26:17Well it'll be horrific. It'll be Keir Starne versus Angela Rayner versus Ed Miliband versus West Streeting and Al Khan's trying to count to five at the end of it. That's the difficulty. And by the way I'm glad that's the first and only mention of Al Carnes and his leadership bid on this podcast forever what I would say about that prospect Steve, we had a poll from More In Common, constituency poll from More In Common in Saturday's paper of Maconfield and the two stats that stood out and you had one as well Laura, we both had Restore keeping their deposits what More In Common have found in our poll yeah okay Andy Burnham is five points ahead, Restore win at 8 % of the vote, split vote on the right, hands it to Andy Burnham.

27:01Just as significant was that 13 % of Makerfield voters were still undecided. And both campaigns, particularly Andy Burnham, who for the past couple of weeks has been trying to squeeze those undeciders down, but every day going to knock on their doors personally. Reform was saying as well, we are focusing big time on undecideds. Then I was in Makerfield on Saturday and Sunday, watching Restore canvases, of whom there were loads, by the way, they had a thousand people there over the weekend. Everywhere you drove, Abram, Oral, Billing, Hindley, in fact that's like that bit in the office, you know, Wynersh, you know, they were everywhere and they were paying particularly close attention to reform houses, these restore canvassers.

27:44But yeah, that 13 % undecideds could be very, very significant. Are they breaking for restore? Are they breaking for reform? Will they get into the ballot box and actually think screw Andy Burnham or will they be swept up in Burnham mania like the rest of us that is that is decisive or maybe the convergent poll is actually bang on the money and Andy Burnham is going to win by 12 points regardless I mean I think one of the one of the interesting things about that poll as well that I wrote about in our politics newsletter was not just that it had a kind of striking lead for Andy Burnham but I think it also spoke 12 point lead I think it also spoke to one of the interesting conversations we could be having after this week if all goes well for Labour which is could reform have won this if they played the election differently?

28:22Was it always Andy Burnham would have won this? And was there perhaps, is there perhaps a concern about the candidates? And one of the things that Convergent asked respondents was to basically raise issues that they'd heard spoken about during the campaign. And there was a really striking statistic, which was among Labour voters, four in 10 of those who didn't back Labour in the recent local elections, but say they will in this Thursday's by-election mention comments by Kenyan. So those are those past social media comments that have proved... These were misogynistic comments. So it's kind of comments like self-professed at one point, sexist.

28:52Obviously, you know, he has tried to clarify those comments, but he has not overtly, explicitly kind of disavowed them and apologised. But it's interesting that they raise that unprompted. And I just wonder if it will create something of a conversation after the election about, you know, was it was it something to do with the candidate? Or perhaps was this was this simply that Andy Burnham just had such perfect momentum and a brilliant operation and it would never have been any other way? Well, look, the world's going to shift on its axis on Friday. we are going to do a special edition of The State of It live on Times Radio on Ed Vasey's show.

29:21Laura and I will be in the studio. I'll be in Makerfield. I'll be banging on the door of Stubshaw Cross Labour Club waiting for the bar to open or something. Yeah, waiting to meet Milo the dog. Yeah, and I've been at the counter overnight, so looking forward to that. So it's at 10.15am on Friday morning, and please listen then. And look, we are duty-bound to read out the full list of candidates in the Makerfield by-election. So here we go. They are Jake Austin of the Liberal Democrats, Count Binface of the Count Binface Party, Andy Burnham of the Labour and Cooperative Party, Dan Clark of the Libertarian Party, John Dyer, who is independent, Ed Gemmel of the Climate Party, Paul Goulds, who's an independent, Howling Lord Hope, the official Monster Raving Loony Party, Rob Kenyon of Reform UK, Robert Pownall, who's an independent, Rebecca Shepard of Restore Britain, Sarah Wakefield of the Green Party, Peter Ward of Rejoin EU, Michael Wynne Stanley, the Conservative and Unions Party.

30:40You can outthink, outpace, and outperform. PwC. So you can. PwC refers to the PwC network and or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity.