We’re all just normal people railing against politics

0:28I'm Jake Stauk, co-founder and CEO of Serval. IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Serval, IT becomes the AI engine powering the entire company. This is a new way to run IT. We guarantee you'll automate 50 % of all tickets and we'll prove it to you in a free four-week pilot. Go to serval.com slash ACAST. That's S-E-R-V-A-L dot com slash ACAST.

1:00Who won? How did they play? What was wonderful? What was woeful? And why? I'm Tom Clark and on the Game Football Podcast we answer all of that plus provide detailed analysis of the tactical trends on the pitch and the financial situations of it. I'm joined by former footballers as well as reporters and columnists from the Times and Sunday Times. We're here twice a week and for this summer's World Cup we'll bring you daily shows with our team covering every inch of the tournament. Find the game wherever you get your podcasts.

1:34I love this place. I love the people of this place. You can't vet every single one of them. Are we confident that our qualified plumber, ex-army reservist, family man, an all-around good bloke, he's the right man? I think Burnham's the right man for the job. The big thing about him is he's honest. That was all we know on us growing up. We had to vote Labour, but now it's completely changed. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of The State of It. I'm Lara Spirit, the Deputy Political Editor of The Sunday Times. I'm Patrick Maguire, Chief Political Commentator for The Times. Before we get on to the reason why Patrick is in his car, let me just say about what we're going to be discussing in the podcast today.

2:20We'll be talking about the Makerfield by-election, in that all-important contest where Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor, is hoping to succeed and where Patrick and I have spent a little bit of time in recent days. And we'll also be talking about the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and what seems to be an attempt by her to stay in her job, regardless of what may come in the coming weeks and months in British politics. But Patrick, can we just start off? So you're in Hay. Do you want to just explain to the listeners and those that might be watching Envision why it is that you're in your car?

2:46Yeah, so I am at the Hay Literary Festival, where I appeared yesterday, on a panel that was meant to include one Andrew Murray Burnham, but he pulled out, was replaced by Jess Phillips. Had a very interesting conversation with Jess Phillips and Ellie Chowns, the Green MP yesterday about Makerfield and many other things. And I came out of my accommodation just now to get a smart shirt and I managed to lock myself out of my accommodation. You wouldn't make a dog do what I'm doing right now, but I am working like one, so that's why I'm here. The lengths that you go to for this statement. And we should acknowledge, of course, the very conspicuous absence of the great man, Stephen Swinford, who is not here with us this week, but will be back next week.

3:26Patrick, can you just say a bit about the Makerfield by-election in recent days? For starters, we shouldn't say Makerfield because there is no such place. There is Ashland in Makerfield, there's Hindley, there's Ince, there's Oral. But Makerfield, nobody says they live in Makerfield, right? So that is point one. And what I was struck by on Friday, and obviously going to Ashton on Friday, most of the people I saw on the high street were actually other lobby journalists. And Andy Burnham had just launched his campaign. So lots of Labour people around everywhere. But speaking to Labour people who've been up that day, people speaking to me with various degrees of frankness, and we'll get on to this in a little bit in more detail.

4:10They all said roughly the same three things. One, the Andy Burnham factor is real. Whether they were inclined to believe that Andy Burnham was the guy before this happened, whether they've known Andy Burnham for a long time and they doubt him, whether they're massive Andy Burnham fans, every Labour person who's on the doors in Makerfield, indeed, reformed people too say the Andy Burnham factor is a real thing. He is doing so, so much better than a generic Labour candidate would. Second, everybody is saying this is pretty solid reformed territory. You know, even with the addition of Andy Burnham, they are doing better than they would in almost any other seat in the country, as the 2024 results proved.

4:48And we'll discuss this in more detail. But everybody is saying, Restore Britain, Rupert Lowe's, Breakaway Party are a real thing. Remarkable consistency across all of the accounts. And that doesn't usually happen with a by-election. You know, you go up and you get a sense of something and then everybody's trying to spin you. What's remarkable is basically everybody is saying exactly the same thing. That's really interesting. I think so we did a focus group last week. I think it must have been on Tuesday evening where we joined a lot of these voters. But remotely, they were talking from this constituency about what they felt.

5:20And Restore Britain did keep coming up in a way that I found quite surprising. And I said to the great Luke Trill from More in Common, I asked him whether or not that was unusual. And it was unclear to us how representative that might be actually of the seat on Tuesday evening. And then by the time I got there on Thursday and voters up and down the high street that you just mentioned, but also elsewhere outside Sainsbury's and other places across the constituency, bringing up Restore Britain completely unprompted, I should say, by us, made me think actually there might be something there. So I think you've been speaking to some people in reform about how they might counter this particular threat from Restore.

5:54But I think by the time we saw the first constituency poll on Saturday evening, which did say that Restore Britain had, I think, about 7 % in this current poll. I mean, well above the margin that Andy Burnham was leading by, just three points in that poll. Clearly marked out this party as something that would be a real threat to reform in this election. How do you think that they're thinking about this now? Yeah, and they really have sort of electrified that race. What I would say about the Restore Britain thing, well, it's twofold. The first is that I think a lot of people up until now thought this was basically just Rupert Lowe's ex-account.

6:32His tweets are obviously amplified. Whoever's doing his tweets, because I think there is broad consensus that someone who tweets so fluently in the language of a digital native and so often, it might not be a 69 year old man who wears his glasses on a string and it's a look that really works for him but you know quite possibly rupert lowe doesn't do all of his own tweets maybe rupert lowe is going to do a nasty tweet about me whatever right but clearly he is a digital politician but i think a lot of people thought this is just an x account a hyperactive x account what is actually clear is that if you were to call restore britain anything it's probably the facebook party rupert Rupert Lowe has more than a million followers on Facebook.

7:11He is, you know, pumping out anti-immigration messaging all the time. And you saw in our colleague, Damien Whitworth, he went up to the constituency. And what was striking is, you know, you're getting in focus groups, your ST poll over the weekend, your Sunday Times poll over the weekend by Servation, had them at 7%. It's not just Rupert Lowe saying we're doing really well in Makerfield. It is, you know, Damien Whitworth encountering random people in the street, in community pubs, your focus group with Luke Trill, the poll, right? They clearly exist. And in the words of one person on the Labour campaign, they said they're everywhere.

7:48And whether they mean, you know, they're everywhere in the discourse, their posters are everywhere, etc., etc. They're clearly real. and the social media aspect of this is fascinating because something Nigel Farage said to me on a couple of occasions is Facebook is probably the most important social media network in British politics and he has loads of followers on Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg changed the algorithm after Trump was re-elected and it meant that Nigel Farage was no longer penalised, right? Right-leaning politicians were no longer penalised and that was a great boon to reform. boomers and people outside, a lot of people outside of London of a certain age are still on Facebook, right?

8:27That is still the dominant social network. And if Rupert Lowe is big on Facebook, then it might suggest that actually he's big in the real world. Of course, it doesn't mean Restore are about to supplant reformers, you know, the main party of the right in any way. And there are some people who take varying views on this, you know, maybe 7 % in the ST poll is too high, maybe it's too low. But clearly, if reform want to beat Andy Burnham, in the words of one source close to Nigel Farage, they need to squeeze that 7 % from the Sunday Times poll. And that's the only way they beat Andy Burnham. Yeah.

9:03And in conversations I've had with people in reform, there has been actually a real degree of confidence that they are going to be capable of squeezing that result. And I think the initial reaction to that poll, which was within minutes, I think Nigel Farage had posted it online to basically say a vote for Rupert Lowe is a vote for Andy Burnham shows that they are going to, I really think, bang this drum aggressively over the coming months. And I should also say, in Makerfield, where I sat down in the constituency in the office with the reform candidate, Robert Kenyon, for a proper sit down interview, we spoke about this question of restore because it had been coming up quite a lot.

9:36And to be honest, it had also been coming up in conversations with reform voters who were saying just proactively, I'm very worried about this. I would say just as often as people saying, you know, I'm thinking to them was actually this kind of solid reform vote that was saying, no, no, I'm really aware of them and I'm really worried about the fact that they might split the vote on the right. But when I put this to Robert Kenyon, he was quite clear that he felt that the restore thing was a kind of online frenzy of kinds, that it was not reflective of what had been happening on the doorstep. And actually in the local elections very recently, you know, a little over two weeks ago, that when they had been canvassing out in the wards, he of course is a reform councillor, that actually restore was not something that had come up on the doorstep at all.

10:17So clearly they feel that this is something that has basically come out of nowhere, slightly. And it'll be really interesting to see how they handle it. I think if we can just talk about the candidate Kenyon for a second. There's been new revelations in The Times today about remarks that he has made in the past, indication perhaps that he didn't vote for Brexit, that he'd actually been fearful waking up after the Brexit debate. And obviously in recent days, more revelations about his use of violent and sexual language online in past social media posts that's been unearthed as well as racist language as well.

10:48And I just wonder, obviously, reform standing very solidly by him. I think we've seen from Danny Kruger, of course, a leading kind of policy voice in the party, a desire not to kind of condone that language or to support it, but nor to say actually that we're condemning the candidate outright and completely disassociating ourselves from him and reform have defended him. I just wonder from your perspective, whether or not you think that this is going to make any difference or not? Well, it's interesting comparing and contrasting the reform candidate with the other candidates, right? Because everybody is doing a sort of normal people railing against politics thing here.

11:24You've got Andy Burnham, the new Labour. That's new Labour with a big N and a small N, the new Labour anti-politician. You've got Robert Kenyon, who is a, you know, the archetypal working tradesman. and you've got Restore's candidate, who is a local mum who campaigns on special educational needs issues, right? Because so these are all, you know, not particularly political people. But look, the calculation reform have made to date on their candidate, Robert Kenyon, is that normal people, in inverted commas, some of the stuff he was saying about immigration, you know, will strike a chord with people.

12:02At the same time, Restore have been attacking Robert Kenyon and some of the more graphic remarks he's made about a particular female celebrity in the past. So it's interesting to see them attacking him from that angle. But, you know, all of this adds up to something we knew already, really, which is this is a really, really finely poised race. But look, regardless of whether Restore's support is overstated or not, it's going to tell us something we didn't know, which is how do reform respond when they are faced with a challenger to their right? Because reform's line on restore is pretty robust.

12:43You know, they think it's a party that is basically beyond the pale of acceptable discourse. So, you know, I don't think we're going to see reform lurching to the right to try and win back restore. But emphasising the central plank of their new message, which is, you know, If you don't like the Labour Party and you don't like politics as usual, you've got to vote for Nigel Farage. And you risk letting Andy Burnham in and an even worse, woker version of the Labour Party in if you vote for anyone but reform. And it'll be a big test as well as they have built a very effective and high-tech field operation.

13:17How effective are they identifying those sort of waverers or those people who are tempted by Restore and hitting them with a personalised squeeze message? It'll be a big test of how they exist in that sort of broader the right me ecosystem and i think it will be really interesting to see how central or otherwise robert kenyon actually even is to this race i mean it's quite notable that andy burnham has been absolutely everywhere and he's done you know tons of press and interviews in recent days and i think we'll come to talking about his shifting stances on some of those political issues and previous pledges but it's interesting when you think about robert kenyon that you know we had a very slick launch video from him we had a very slick uh you know and pretty long i think something like nine minute video of him talking about politics in the front of his van with Nigel Farage.

13:57I sat down with him and did have a big conversation with him, but he's not been front and centre of this race. He's not a kind of media trained politician at all. And I noticed, you know, when I was interviewing him, I would say he was pretty nervous. Like he didn't feel like he was in his kind of natural habitat at all. And I just wonder how much, you know, Nigel Farage is going to kind of thrust himself to the front and centre of this contest owing to that. Because I think it will be quite interesting to see, particularly with the more scrutiny that Kenyon is getting. I do want to ask you about Burnham though, because obviously we've seen quite a lot in recent days about his shifting stances on various political issues.

14:32And we're reading in the Times this morning about some disaffection, I think it's fair to say, on the left of the Labour Party about what might be seen as him moving slightly further away from some of these previously and perhaps more openly progressive political issues. Do you think this matters so much and how relevant do you think it will be? Well, in the campaign, not hugely, I think, because all Andy Burnham is doing is saying a series of things that probably bring it closer to what most people in the constituency he's trying to win believe. For those of us who are trying to divine what a Burnham government looks like, have we seen over the last week or so on everything from the tax policy in the manifesto to the EHRC guidance on trans and gender issues and sex-based rights, and the EU as well, and proportional representation, insert a whole range of things, exactly the things that Andy Burnham might have said were his points of difference with Keir Starmer, have been downgraded from sort of policy proposals to aspirations to, you know, hopes and dreams.

15:35And does that tell us something important, though? And this is the question I've been grappling with. Is the actual proposition here that Andy Burnham is not going to change anything too drastic? He's talking about taxing land. That's about the boldest thing he's now saying, right, looking at a council tax. But is the Burnham project, unless and until he can win an election by himself, just to lean into what this government actually is, which is a pretty conventional, straight up and down, middle of the road, wouldn't look at a place in Central Europe. Is he just going to lean into the policy decisions Starmer's taking, which are pretty left-wing on everything from recognition of Palestinian statehood to tax to foreign policy?

16:15Does he just lean into those and communicate them more effectively? But in terms of what it means for the by-election, these sort of U-turns or adjustments or refinements in Andy Burnham's position, Where they might work is if reform, if they have a way of winning this race, they always thought it was going to be remind people that Andy Burnham is a politician, right? He is ultimately a politician. The choice of Robert Kenyon compared to past by-election candidates like Claire Powell in Kefili, Sarah Pochin, you know, former Tory councillor, etc., etc. She won in Roncorn. Very deliberate choice.

16:45Don't pick a politician. And he is running against a professional politician, even though he no longer looks like a professional politician, Andy Burnham. remind people that Annie Byrne is a politician, that he's flip-flopping, that he is U-turning, etc. So can they do that? Let's see. It's really interesting. I think, I mean, just listening to you speaking about those changes, slash refinements, slash whatever of those terms you wanted to use, was this question that is doing the rounds at the moment, which I guess is sort of two or three degrees removed from political reality insofar as we still don't know how the by-election is going to go, still less if and how Kirstama might fight after that happens.

17:22But this question as to whether or not we would see an early election should, you know, say Burnham becomes the leader and does have all of these bold plans that he has spoken about in the past that he would like to do, but feels constrained by the manifesto to do them. I think it's the Professor Rob Ford from Manchester who is calling these mandate fairies, basically saying it's completely unrealistic to say that there would be an early election circumstances where you've got more than 400 Labour MPs and an enormous majority and the only person who has gone out on a limb and done something as silly as to call an early election from a position of parliamentary strength was Theresa May.

18:00And that didn't go very well. And I just wonder what your thoughts are in that respect, because there are conversations that you have with those, particularly on the more progressive wing at the moment, who are feeling a little bit nervous, I think it's fair to say, about these kind of changes or shifts in stance from Andy Burnham, who are sort of, you think, maybe slightly hoping that actually he would do something to make it possible to do these bold things that he wants, rather than wait for a few years for an election and then perhaps never even see any of these more progressive ideas realised.

18:26I don't think anybody around Andy Burnham is seriously thinking about an early election at this stage. I have spoken to a couple of MPs who are supporting him, who say, you know, it's a shame how this has happened, in a way. It would probably be better for Andy Burnham looking as well at some of the growth data that came out this week if he was taking over a similar position to Mark Carney, even with a year to go, where he could benefit from a polling bounce and then be able to call an election because it's towards the end of the cycle anyway. Calling an election little more than two years in, even three years in, the emphasis for Andy Burnham will be getting on and delivering or selling what the government is already doing more adeptly.

19:11Yeah. And there is no question that even Andy Burnham is going to win, in the best case scenario, a comparable number of seats to 2024. So in a way, he can only lose. That's a really interesting point. OK, well, we will see you all shortly after the break. And I just want to acknowledge for those who are watching online that there have been a few location changes for Patrick McGuire owing to his phone overheating. And I need to relocate to rejoin us from Habe. All is well. And we will see you shortly.

19:43I'm Jake Stouck, co-founder and CEO of Serval. We built Serval to automate the IT work that slows companies down. Onboarding, password resets, access to applications, my laptop stopped working. While employees wait for help, their real work is put on hold. IT desperately wants to automate this work, and that's why they need Serval. You just tell Serval what you want to automate in plain English, and it's built. No drag-and-drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Serval, IT becomes the AI engine powering the entire company.

20:22This is a new way to run IT. We guarantee you'll automate 50 % of all tickets and we'll prove it to you in a free four-week pilot. Go to serval.com slash ACAST. That's S-E-R-V-A-L dot com slash ACAST.

20:43Who won? How did they play? What was wonderful? What was woeful? And why? I'm Tom Clark and on the Game Football Podcast we answer all of that plus provide detailed analysis of the tactical trends on the pitch and the financial situations of it. I'm joined by former footballers as well as reporters and columnists from the Times and Sunday Times. We're here twice a week and for this summer's World Cup we'll bring you daily shows with our team covering every inch of the tournament. Find the game wherever you get your podcasts.

21:39is, the right format. Then watch the data tell you it worked. You're not buying impressions, you're buying influence. Learn more by visiting acast.com slash advertise.

21:54Welcome back. We are going to be discussing a little bit about the government that is still existing and work is still ongoing, but particularly through the lens of one figure, and that is Rachel Reeve, the chancellor, because we're hearing more from her this morning. She But it's not the first, Patrick, is it, that we've heard from the Chancellor in recent weeks and since the local elections that suggests that she might be very, very keen to let people know that she'd want to stay in her job, regardless of what happens over the coming months. No, she's been raising eyebrows and a couple of hackles around the cabinet table, the Chancellor, because she has been, you know, the opposite of Keir Starman.

22:28In the wake of the local election, she has been in overdrive announcing a raft of new measures for the cost of living, temporary cuts to VAT, free bus travel for teenagers, a whole range of things. And the word they're using in the Treasury is populace, right? Solid economic populism. It's very much in tune with the new mood in the Labour Party. and you know there have been briefings too to the Guardian and I think indeed to our papers that she'd be keen to stay on as Chancellor to to stabilize the markets and you mentioned Lara her letter to fellow cabinet ministers talking about buying British there was actually a clash at the cabinet table last week or clash is one way of putting it I think there was there was a sharp rebuke from Rachel Reeves to Ed Miliband over his department's use of non-British suppliers for offshore wind.

23:23And she's been saying, you know, what, even if it costs the government more, we need to buy British, right? Quite sharp political messaging from the Chancellor. And you wouldn't tell from this or discern from this that she may well be in a position of political weakness. The first thing anyone who takes her from Keir Starmer is going to do is probably not keep her, per the briefings, probably get rid of her. But it's interesting, right? She is a actually does, if you speak to her allies, feel vindicated by events, feel like she's made the right calls, and is probably running the only bit of the government that's really doing anything right now.

23:54It's really striking. I don't know what you think. Yeah, I mean, it's very interesting. I think we should discuss this question of the Chancellor post-Kir Starmer, if indeed that does come to pass, because I think it's been something of received wisdom that Ed Miliband would be the Chancellor that Andy Burnham would choose. But actually, of course, there's been quite a few rumblings that it could be a Shabana Mahmood, of course, at the moment, the Home Secretary, but and somebody who completely, we should say, those close to her deny any suggestion that, you know, she's got anything at all to do with this.

24:20But it is interesting. I'm hearing, you know, rumbles from the centre left of anxiety about the future Chancellor and who it might be. And I think that role in particular is a subject of a huge amount of jostling, much of which has actually dismissed out of hand, seemingly, and perhaps prematurely, the idea that Reeves herself could well carry on. And I mean, I I struggle to remember exactly how many weeks this is, I'm afraid. But a few weeks ago, I was speaking to a number of MPs who were saying that they were genuinely very concerned about the bond markets and circumstances where there was a change of leader.

24:52And they did feel that Rachel Weaves would be a pretty solid option to continue, actually, and that there wouldn't be a huge amount of fiscal manoeuvring that they could do anyway. And so this would be a great signal to the markets that Burnham wasn't going to scare anybody and that this would be a government that they didn't need to be worried about. And I think also quite interesting listening to the radio this morning, Lord Wolfson, of course, you know, the head of Next and also a conservative peer sharply criticizing many of this government's policies, particularly around things like the minimum wage, mentioning the sharp rise that we're seeing in youth unemployment at the moment.

25:23But it was very interesting on the Today programme, so on Radio 4 this morning, that he, at the end of the interview, was asked about Rachel Reeves and whether or not it might be a good idea to keep her and did basically, without saying explicitly, but did basically say that it would be a good signal and a good sign of stability were she to say. I mean, it stopped short of saying that explicitly, we should say, but basically was in that position. And I do wonder if we get closer to a situation where there was a change of leader, you would see more of this momentum behind it. Yeah, and it's worth saying that a lot of the stuff Rachel Reeves has been announcing over the past couple of weeks, Treasury sources are at pains to say, you know, was entrained before the local elections, but at the same time, you know, these people are not stupid.

26:02They knew where it was going to end up and where the Labour Party's direction of travel is heading. And using words like populist, it does suggest a sense that Rachel Reeves isn't allergic to the new politics of the times. And I think, you know, the Lord Wolfson thing is really interesting, right? And you identify, right, very critical of what the government is doing now and some of the policy choices, but ultimately that better the devil you know feeling with Rachel Reeves because we do know, right, that whether it's fair or not, there can be as many Ed Miliband briefings, or briefings about Ed Miliband, I should say.

26:34Ed Miliband would deny he's briefing anyone, or sort of close to him or briefing anyone. Briefings about Ed Miliband in the FT saying, you know, he told Andy Burnham to commit to the fiscal rules or whatever. You know, regardless, you know, the market's clearly on, that hot on the idea of an Andy Burnham, Ed Miliband combination. so it's going to be one of the most revealing and interesting choices Andy Burnham makes and the difficulty is it's actually quite hard to discern what he's going to do and who in the cabinet is up and down because look at what the cabinet are doing and aren't doing it make a feel you know they've been told by Andy Burnham's campaign you can come up and you can knock doors but you're not doing photo ops right you know so Rachel Reeves is up there she'll be knocking on doors in Inns or Hindley like she's not going to be doing photo calls with Andy Burnham I mean I I think, you know, if we were betting people, if you speak to Labour MPs, the other person they want to get rid of is the Chancellor.

27:24But there is actually a strong counterintuitive case for doing it. And I think Rachel Reeves recognises that. Otherwise, she wouldn't be behaving in the way she has been in recent weeks. And I mean, much will also, you imagine, depend on how she handles the coming months with the fallout from the Iran war. I mean, obviously, we saw some announcements from her last week, clearly aiming to reassure voters, but also especially reducing that on summer attractions, for example. Clearly, things that are trying to just, you know, appeal to the basic sense of them being more popular with voters. I mean, that package was quite interesting, but it did not include the biggest answer, which is what they're going to be doing about voters' energy bills.

28:01And surely that is going to be something that Reeves has to grapple with. And if indeed they are in circumstances where they can't be as generous as they otherwise would like, is she going to go into the kind of window in which Andy Burnham makes his decision about her political future from a position of relative weakness? I think it's hard to see with the timing at the moment how that might work. I had a story on the front page of The Times last week about that same question, Laura, about timing. You know, when is the best time for these decisions and these transitions to be made? You know, people in and around number 10 saying, well, actually, Keir Starmer could hang on till early next year because Andy Byrne won't have a mayoral by-election to lead once he takes every maker field.

28:37You know, people close to number 10 saying Andy Byrne doesn't want to take it up till November. Keir Starmer's got a conference to do. What if Labour lose the mayoral by-election, which, by the way, they probably won't because they're changing the electoral system back to the supplementary vote, which makes it harder for a form to win the day after the maker field by-election. and then what if he loses that by-election, you know, maybe Keir Starmer's going to be PM until early next year, regardless of when Andy Burnham takes over. If it's in the near term, he might be in the thick of the straight-up move stuff and the economic crash and the oil shock.

29:11Does it become less attractive as time goes on? I mean, clearly he wants to be Prime Minister, but exactly when he takes over, may he play a big, big role in determining how long a honeymoon he gets. It would be really interesting to see how Andy Burnham manages that kind of incumbency, anti-incumbency factor in this by-election. In one of the focus groups that we did, there was a voter who very much didn't really think that a vote for Andy Burnham was a vote for so-called change. I mean, she basically said, you know, I don't like Nigel Farage, but I just don't know if I can vote for Keir Starmer.

29:41I mean, literally suggesting that Keir Starmer was on the ballot here in the way that many people have accepted that he is not. So I think there's still, you know, a lot that's set to be determined about how that election is seen. But I think, I mean, we do also need to talk a little bit about and recognise really that Keir Starmer is still in number 10. And I guess the question is, are we actually completely certain that he's going to be leaving number 10? I don't know if we fully address that yet. While we're having this conversation, of course, the government is announcing various measures.

30:06We've seen them tout good news in their view on falling migration, on NHS waiting lists, on, as you say, growth being revised upwards. Can we just address this slight elephant in the room? Because we're sort of pretending that we know with absolute certainty what's going to be happening. Do you think there's a world in which Keir Starmer survives? And if not, can you just lay out for listeners why it is that journalists are talking, you know, with so much foresight and forward thinking at the moment about the possibility of a future beyond Keir Starmer? Well, because, look, so many Labour MPs and so many Cabinet Ministers and so many Ministers are all acting as if, you know, it's just a matter of time and that the make-a-field by-election is a mere formality after which Andy Burnham is going to become Prime Minister.

30:44Or there might be a leadership contest with West Street Inc. You've got a guy who was Health Secretary until about 10 days ago going on the radio talking about how he's going to challenge the Prime Minister. You've got the Mayor of Manchester running in a by-election with the express purpose of getting rid of the Prime Minister and changing Labour locally and nationally, as he keeps saying, in his campaign material. So it would be weird if people weren't treating this as a de facto transition of power. It should be said, though. I mentioned that story I wrote in The Times last week. There is a feeling that Keir Starmer won't necessarily go gently, that he doesn't think it's right for the country that if Andy Burnham gets in on the 18th, 19th of June, he should immediately ring the removal plans and leave a pint of milk in the fridge for Andy Burnham, but otherwise take his lead.

31:34OK, and on that note, it's time to wrap up this week's episode of The State of It. And the full candidates in the make-a-feel by-election are Andy Burnham, Jake Austin from the Liberal Democrats, Dan Clark from the Libertarian Party, Alan Howling Lord Hope from the official Monster Raving Loony Party, Robert Kenyon from Reform UK, Robert Neil Palinol, an independent. Sarah Elizabeth Wakefield from the Green Party. Rebecca Shepard from Restore Britain. Peter Mark Ward from Rejoin EU. And Michael William Winstanley from the Conservative Party. Thank you so much for joining us. One with more technological challenges than usual.

32:08But do make sure to watch in video and check out all the various locations that Patrick McGuire joined us from on this week. And Steve Swinford, of course, will be back with us next week. Thank you so much to Harry Kitson and Ewan Daughtry who made this week's episode. and we'll see you all soon.

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