Keir Starmer resigns. Andy Burnham prepares for power

0:00At PwC, we optimize the systems that put your data to work so you can scale your AI from proof of concept to competitive edge and accelerate your tech evolution so you can redefine what's possible. From blueprint to breakthrough, we take you further with tech so you 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. The pressure to have a summer worth posting about is real. So is financial stress, social exhaustion, and the anxiety that sneaks in right when things are supposed to feel good.

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1:23Growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election. I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace. every decision I've taken has been about putting the country I love first that is why I will resign as leader of the Labour Party and when I leave the biggest job in the country I shall spend more time on the most important job being the best husband I can to my fantastic wife Vic who has been a rock by my side through good times and bad and being the best dad I can to my beautiful children who are my pride and my joy.

2:33Thank you very much. Welcome to this emergency edition of The State of It where we've just watched the Prime Minister stand in front of Downing Street and announce a timetable for his resignation. I think what's clear from this statement is that he didn't want to go but he says that he had no choice that his MPs had kind of made their judgment and and the quiet bit which he didn't say explicitly was they had judged that he should not be prime minister um there was nothing in there about the multitude of mistakes that he's made the u-turns the catastrophic decisions there was a lot about his achievements and in the end he said they've made their judgment and they've cast that judgment and we now stand here Patrick I think we're on the cusp of well my eldest daughter is nine years old this will be her sixth prime minister since she was born.

3:18So since she's been on this earth, this brief time, six prime ministers, it's all a bit surreal, isn't it? Yeah. And is it the 23rd of June today or the 22nd, the 10th anniversary, give or take a day, of the Brexit referendum? And a prime minister made by Brexit, Keir Starler, is the latest victim of the political dysfunctionality that's followed. But you're right, Steve, that is the takeaway of lots of Labour people who are filling up my WhatsApp right now, is your takeaway. There's no contrition. Yes, there was, it was dignified. It was properly the sort of speech Andy Burnham's backers wanted to hear.

3:59There was no blood on the walls. There was no vow to fight on. But you're right, there was no contrition. There was no apology. There was no acknowledgement that he was anything but a hard-working Prime Minister who constantly vindicated his own self-assurance. And it's very, very moving, obviously, to see a man who is always in control of his emotions be overcome by them at the end while talking to his family. And no human being could fail to have their heartstrings tugged by that. But I have to say, reflecting some of the views of his critics and the people who've worked with him they watched that and thought well this is partly the problem you know this is all about you it's not about the party it's not about how we've got here and you know it sets up a transition of power that I think will be infused with quite a lot of bad blood you know that group of people there with Keir Starmer, lots of people among them have been with him since the very start, will be watching that and will be watching what they think is a good and decent man brought low by people who don't have a plan, who aren't serious and who have forced him out quicker than is in his interests, but also in their view, quite sincerely, the national interests.

5:24Let's start, Patrick, with the obvious question of where it went wrong for Starmer. And you've done a what i would say is a masterful piece on the times website right now which looks at in detail where it went wrong for someone how it went wrong i mean off the top of my head i've always thought the biggest sin was tonal he came into office promising change and hope and a better life and was utterly miserable almost from the off warning of pain to come there were catastrophic decisions over welfare catastrophic decisions over wind fuel payments there were so many u-turns we lost count there were so many different priorities there's so little preparation for government um well we have litigated this many times on this podcast patrick but we'd love to hear your take on how did we get to a situation where a prime minister that came in with the landslide majority became the most unpopular prime minister in history i think the long and short of it steve and if some of the people who were with kia starmer in the street today were honest and And those are his close personal friends and closer staff.

6:27So it's hardest for them to say. But if the cabinet certainly were honest, and if the people who have served with Kirsten in number 10 and come out the other side were empowered or sufficiently disloyal or bitter to say this publicly, they would just put it very simply. He wasn't up for it. He was up to it, and nor was he up for it, actually. He wasn't really equipped for the stuff of politics itself. He had never really accepted that sometimes the things about politics that he found infuriating, the focus on what people believed, the existence of factualism in the Labour Party, not as an exercise in self-indulgence, but the outworking of sincere, genuine and meaningful differences in political and economic philosophy.

7:19He never really understood all of that. He thought, as with so many other things in his life, he could sort of overcome that by force of will and hard work and diligence. And he thought, and lots of his former staff and ministers will tell you this, that being called to mediate on big policy disputes was a sign of failure, that he shouldn't be dragged into it. He hated that sort of thing. How do you think winter fuel happens? How do you think welfare gets to the point that it does? It's because he was someone who didn't really understand or want to undertake the basic duties of political leadership.

7:57And, you know, all the stuff you mentioned is true as well. You know, the lack of preparation for government, that's because he outsourced that to Sue Gray, thinking you could separate it from the politics. The backlash from the Parliamentary Labour Party over immigration, welfare, Gaza, winter fuel, that's because he outsourced the politics to Morgan McSweeney and Rachel Reeves in the Treasury. Every single example, right? Defence, the latest thing that's come back to haunting. What was his theory of where Britain should be in the world, what his defence should look like? Well, he asked George Robertson, Tony Blair's Defence Secretary, the former NATO Secretary General, to commission that.

8:33And then he didn't find the money for it. He couldn't force Rachel Reeves to find the money for it. He couldn't take the crunchy decisions required to find the money for it. And Tome, you're right, Steve, is a crucial, crucial aspects in all of this. This was a government, and this was a prime minister, who would say one thing, never quite substantiate it, and then very quickly end up doing another thing. He was constantly engaging in arguments or trying to win arguments without ever really making them, without ever doing the hard work. And actually, why did he win a landslide? Let's be honest.

9:07The public never really loved him. I think at some level they found him in a fencing in 2024, but they never formed a, they never really believed in him because what was there to believe in? You know, this was not a Labour Party that returned to power as it did in 1997, having rethought social democracy from first principles for a new age in the global economy and geopolitics. It was a party that in 2022 discovered it was going to win by default and then got into the game of risk aversion and triangulation and clever positioning. And that was not a governing philosophy. And so it's proved. So look, let's look ahead to the next stage, Patrick.

9:50And look, politics is a brutal business. And it's nowhere more brutal than in the intros we write. And just to explain to listeners what I mean by that, we go from writing intros which begin most of them with Keir Starmer thinks X, Y and Z. And suddenly there's a shift to power and it becomes Andy Burnham thinks x, y, and z. It moves very, very quickly. And in this case, today, it's moving even more quickly than a lot of people anticipated. We are now in a position where Andy Burnham will, in all likelihood, be Britain's next Prime Minister in three and a half weeks' time. Worth treating, the former Health Secretary has folded in behind him, and that means it is odds on to be a coronation that he will walk straight into number 10.

10:36And let's just remember, this is a guy that has had barely any time to build a policy platform to work out who his key people are and yet he will be a number 10 in three and a half weeks time so you now have ahead of us an extraordinarily consequential period of time where he has got to effectively scramble around to build a government build a policy platform and have all of that done in time for the world cup final it's quite a tall order yeah we know andy burnham is offering a wholesale change in culture and presentation. And maybe, maybe, you know, listening to Keir Starmer there outline the achievements of his government, the legacy is not all bad.

11:14You know, part of the problem is it's not the changed Labour Party he promised people in 2024. It's not what Morgan McSweeney would have liked a Labour government to have done, but it's good, solid, progressive stuff. So maybe Andy Burnham will come in and say, actually, this is all right, this stuff, I'll just present it differently. And people will like me and I'll acknowledge that there are big trade-offs in this and we were actually governing from the left. And, you know, maybe that will be enough. That's certainly not what some of his backers on the left of the Labour Party want him to do.

11:42But the big test now, it's not an entirely, you know, it's a short timetable. Nominations over on the 4th, the 9th of July, close on the 16th. If Andy Burnham is the only candidate successfully nominated, bish bash bash, he goes to the palace. He is prime minister within nine weeks of having declared in Makerfield. You know, that's what I wrote in the piece when Josh Simons resigned. get this right and Andy Burnham will be Prime Minister in eight weeks. Nine weeks is a pretty good return on that initial and very risky investment. What we're about to learn, though, is whether that bad blood I spoke about earlier will manifest itself in an effort to stop Burnham.

12:17The Labour Party has two options, right? It can acknowledge that this isn't how they wanted it to end, but that Andy Burnham is the only show in town. He's got 200, 300 head many backers, and, you know, let's get it over with and we will try and influence Andy Burnham and try and pull together because we've just seen what happens when we don't, we cannot possibly go through this again. Or the alternative is that hardcore of people who variously think Keir Starmer is hard done by, who think Andy Burnham is, you know, a charlatan and little more than, you know, a Uniqlo menswear model, as we read in this morning's times, or that they wanted a change of leadership, but this is the wrong time, and they feel angry at some of Andy Burnham's supporters and Wes Streeting from making this happen.

13:12We're about to find out whether they are angry enough or feel a principled enough objection to this, say, hang on, no, we are going to find a candidate and we're going to put them up and Andy Burnham will have to fight them. Are there 81 of those people at this point, and who is the candidate? Those are the two big questions. I don't think it's impossible. But now this thing has a certain irresistible momentum to it. Maybe the Labour Party will regret it. There are lots of people who were around in 2007 who regret that Gordon Brown got his coronation, but we appear to be living through a similar moment in Labour history.

13:48At PwC, we optimise the systems that put your data to work, so you can scale your AI from proof of concept to competitive edge. and accelerate your tech evolution so you can redefine what's possible. From blueprint to breakthrough, we take you further with tech. So you 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. The pressure to have a summer worth posting about is real. So is financial stress, social exhaustion, and the anxiety that sneaks in right when things are supposed to feel good.

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15:58I mean, the utterly surreal thing here is we don't even know who his chancellor would be. And that really matters. And there is a big row within Team Burnham about whether Ed Miliband should be his chancellor. So some people, or particularly people who are Ed Miliband allies who are also Burnham supporters, say that Ed Miliband is the guy that can deliver radical change. Look at what he's done at Desnes. Look at all the kind of wind farms, the mass renewable energy. He is the person to implement the radical change the country needs. Other people that I'm talking to in Team Burnham, and I'm sure you're having the same conversations, Patrick, are saying, well, look, Andy's biggest weaknesses are fiscal credibility.

16:36They are economic credibility. And if you put Miliband in the place as chancellor, that is going to feed into that criticism that this guy, and it will essentially, one cabinet minister was saying to me, it will unnerve the markets, the markets will move, they will be extremely concerned about the prospect of Miliband in a position of power. And it's not just that side of the things that's concerned. You're also hearing the similar stuff from Sharon Graham, the leader of the Unite Union. She said that Miliband will be a noose round job creation. So that is a massive almighty vow that is going on at the moment over who should Burnham's pick for Chancellor be.

17:13Exactly. And we are back into a situation where Andy Burnham is trying to balance his obligations to a series of audiences. You know, you and I both wrote this, Steve. It's been a surreal month or so for Andy Burnham, because he's been thinking, OK, I need to find a message that appeals to the voters of Brin and Billinge and Oral and Hindley and Ashton and Makerfield. I need to speak to the Labour membership. I need to speak to the Parliamentary Labour Party. I need to speak to the country. And I need to speak to the markets. As Prime Minister, as leader in waiting now, he's in the same position.

17:45I remember having a conversation with a minister last week, someone who'd been elevated to high office by Keir Starmer, wasn't particularly close to the Prime Minister, and could see the writing was on the wall. They'd woken up, they smoked the coffee, they knew Andy was going to be Prime Minister, and in that moment I knew they were texting me to try and sound out, to try and work out what they had signed up for. But they weren't enthusiastic. They were surrendering to the forces of political gravity. And one thing they said has stuck with me. They were talking about themselves and their colleagues and saying, well, if Shabana's Chancellor, half the parliamentary Labour Party will be unhappy.

18:19If Ed's Chancellor, half the parliamentary Labour Party will be unhappy. And this moment of catharsis will very quickly sour. Yeah, everyone's happy Andy Burns back, or most people are happy Andy Burns back, that Labour can win again, that Keir Starmer might leave. But it's once you get beyond that moment of release and think, OK, it's the morning after, we've got to clean the kitchen and put this away and put all the tins away clean up the ashtrays and find out what we're having for breakfast when the sort of you know the headache hits right and and that is the big problem and so you know he can pick Ed Miliband spook the markets but consolidate what he did in makefield which was reunite the progressive vote behind him shabon remove's not going to do it but he could pick someone from the right of the Parliamentary Labour Party that will signal credibility to the markets.

19:08I know Pat McFadden, a Darren Jones. But in doing that, your backers on the left say, well, what was the point of this? We expected radical change. We thought this was a reset moment. Or you can take the path of least resistance and pick someone the Parliamentary Labour Party will find inoffensive, an Yvette Cooper, a John Healy, which was not going to spook the markets. There's a story in one of the papers this morning about how bond traders would like to see Yvette Cooper as Chancellor because they trust her and they think she's sensible but there'll be a lot of people out there saying well what what's the point what what was the point of that what you what you're trying to do so it's really really difficult and the the variance of views within team burn does remind you that this the hopey changey happy clappy you know northern soul keep the faith mood of the campaign necessarily can't you know endure in the form we saw uh at stubshaw cross labor club for forever because they're about to hit a very very crunchy series of serious trade-offs and i agree with all of that patrick but just to okay let's let's finish i think one of the things looking at this is he could be a number 10 very shortly and he wanted time to prepare he wanted time to gather his ideas and thoughts for government and his team it looks like he's probably not going to get that time and as we learned from starmer and as we learned from actually successive prime ministers first impressions count with voters right and the gloss can come off incredibly quickly in number 10 remember rishi sunak he came into number 10 he was actually a pretty popular politician much more so than the conservative party brand he tanked within a matter of weeks starmer tanked within a matter of weeks so the the spotlight is totally unforgiving in number 10 and if andy burnham isn't ready if he doesn't have a policy a positive policy agenda to match the vibes that gloss could come off very quickly and that's the challenge for him here yeah it is and that's the that as you say is the ultimate risk that labor has that moment of pathosis it has its release you know you've got a lot of angry people who feel let down betrayed ill-treated by Keir Starmer and a lot of people though who have doubts about Andy Burnham You know, they just want this to go away and for something better to take its place.

21:27But they've already shown these Labour MPs how impatient they are, how fickle they are and how unwilling they are to wear difficult decisions. Now, it may be that with careful political management, that with a bit of human, a touch of human, speaking human to the parliamentary Labour Party, with a degree of sincerity and with a different political message, Andy Burnham can lead them through those decisions. But if he can't, and he doesn't, and he is also mugged by reality and geopolitics, we could be back here in six to 12 months in another leadership crisis and Labour MPs asking themselves, why, oh, why, oh, why?

22:11Not did we get rid of Keir Starmer, but why, oh, why are we here again? You know, what can anything make this better? Is this a problem with Keir Starmer or was it something intrinsic to the Labour Party or, more terrifyingly, modern politics itself? Big questions. I'd say the role of decisive political leadership is under price in all of this and charismatic leadership. But Andy Burnham has a big, big task ahead to show that he can be decisive and remain charismatic when he is under the spotlight, not in a working men's club in Wigan, but in that place he disdains so much, Westminster. I was going to wrap up at that point, Patrick, but you reminded me of another critical thing that is going to dominate the discussion in the days ahead.

22:54It is the question of Andy Burnham's legitimacy. He has won a by-election. Does that therefore entitle him to run number 10? And straight out of the traps, as soon as Starmer resigned, Nigel Farge put out a statement calling for an early election. And that's the point. He's in this bind. If he wants to do things differently, if he wants to change the country, if he wants to diverge from the manifesto, those cries are going to get louder and louder for an early election to call that every time he stands up and speaks in the comments every pmqs when you're going to call an election that will be the noise that comes back to him and that's the challenge for him that is he is he entitled to be the prime minister yes he's fully entitled by some margin to be the labour mp for makerfield but that does not necessarily entitle you to be the prime minister of the united kingdom Yes.

23:39And, you know, we know from our conversations with senior civil servants last week, Steve, this is what the Whitehall machine is really worried about. You know, at what point does Andy Burnham come in and how quickly does it all become very, very unstable? Because there is a national clamour led by Kenny Badenock and Nigel Farage. I worry more about Nigel Farage campaigning on this in his own seat and seats like it. Is there a national clamour for an early election? You know, what point does Andy Burnham start chafing against that and the manifesto and things have got to go to the country? So Whitehall are worried.

24:11The Parliamentary Labour Party is worried. And I suspect the opposition are probably licking their lips because it's full of risks for the Labour Party and opportunities, even if we see the best version of Andy Burnham, the version that the Parliamentary Labour Party are very, very dearly hoping is going to make the journey from Wigan to London today. Right, we will leave it there for today. Thank you for listening. We will be back tomorrow with another episode of The State of End. God knows where we'll be by then.

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