What the hell’s going on in Westminster?

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0:48Welcome to this bonus episode of The State of It, the political podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times. I am Stephen Swinford, the political editor of The Times. I'm Laura Spear. I'm the Deputy Political Editor of the Sunday Times. And we are here today in the aftermath of Wes Streeting's resignation. And two things have happened. First, after much consideration, he has finally left government. To be frank, it would have been insane if he hadn't, given that he had told the Prime Minister to his face that he was going. And second, he's decided not to go for the leadership. He has not triggered an election.

1:21And we will get into this. There is discussion about whether he actually had the numbers to do so. and we will go through all of the detail of that. But for now, we just wanted to talk about where we are now and where we're going next. So right now, we exist in a situation where we have a really damaged Prime Minister. Keir Starmer is fatally wounded, probably. He has 94 MPs having called for his resignation now, including West Streeting. He has got this absolute exoset missile of a resignation letter from Wes Streeting, which questions the very core of his character and identity. It's really brutal.

1:59One of the most brutal resignation letters that I've read. And then there is still this looming threat called Andy Burnham on the horizon and the soft left. So you've got a really damaged prime minister, a deeply divided Labour party. And at the same time, there is no clear resolution anytime soon. Is that fair, Laura? I think that's fair. I mean, I just bumped into Wes and an aide smiling. Where did you find them? I found them. I was pushing my bike in, Steve, to reach you in time for lunch. And rain was just beginning to fall. And I turned the corner and literally nearly went straight into Wes and his aide.

2:33And they were smiling. We said hello. We didn't exchange other words. I think they're obviously pretty busy. But he was smiling. He was upbeat. They were upbeat with each other. But who knows? You never know whether these things are gallows humour or they're actually genuinely in a great mood. Because people around Wes that I've been talking to, they're pretty depressed. So they really, you know, they were worried he wouldn't resign at all. So they're pleased that he did so. But ultimately, it has ended with him not going over the top. And with, for this moment, at least, Keir Starmer clinging on to power.

3:02And they were done. They've all resigned. They've all gone out and done what he said they should do. And they feel pretty embittered. But I guess for Wes Streeting, after the last 48 hours, he was putting in calls, we were told, at 11.30 last night onwards, trying to get the 81 MPs that he needed over the line. But there must be an element of relief, I think. From West Streeting? Yes. This is finally done. Finally done. He's finally made the decision. Yeah, all of these. So we should talk about what happened and we should talk about why West Streeting didn't go over the top. And there's a couple of schools of thought on that.

3:36But the first one is about the numbers. So the last 24 hours have been insane in Westminster. Streeting has been calling around every MP, can his aides have as well, trying to get them to give him his vote. Now, his people, they say they had the 81 numbers. Starmer's allies say they absolutely didn't. And he bottled it. Yeah. And I mean, it's pretty hard to make truth of either of those definitively right, because both of them have a reason to say that. We don't have the speech. And neither of them have definitive proof at this point. And for that reason, I think I've had the exact same conversations as you will have had, Steve, with Wes's allies who are absolutely insistent that he had the numbers and there were different dynamics in play versus those who are saying, we know Wes and there's absolutely no way that if he had the numbers, he wouldn't have moved definitively today against Keir Starmer in circumstances where he's now essentially had to fall on his sword and resigned from the entire government.

4:28If he was capable of a luxury leadership challenge, he would have done so. So if we then just take, and these are different accounts, but if we take the account from Wes Streeting people, they say Wes Streeting told them this morning in his office, he had a group of A's gathered there, that he was not going to go over the top, that he was not going to mount a formal leadership contest. And they say that there were actually two reasons for that. The first is that the 81 MPs he needed, when we looked at the figures, we think there were about 38 to 40 backbenchers that might have backed him, which is obviously a long way off 81.

5:00So then he was in a situation where he needed to get people from the payroll. Now they claim they had these people. There are also claims that there were cabinet ministers that were ready to go over the top with him. But that would have been a hugely destructive move. It would have destroyed a government. We remember the last days of Boris Johnson, the last time this happened, when a government collapsed in on itself and you had this kind of like absolute bizarreness of prime minister reappointing people only for them to resign 24 hours later. So it would have precipitated a crisis of government and a crisis for the country.

5:32And that would have made life very difficult for him. So that is number one explanation. And number two is Andy Burnham. So the claim is that Streeting reached the conclusion that ultimately he couldn't do this without Andy Burnham being on the pitch. That it would have effectively been an illegitimate election, that if he'd have won it, Andy Burnham, the King of the North, the Prince Across the Water, whatever other royalist metaphors you wish to use, he would still have been there, and he would have still been lurking and a threat, and he would have destabilised any government, rightly so, because there hadn't been a mandate.

6:07So that was the second consideration, and those were the two reasons, allegedly, why he didn't go over the top. I mean, isn't it just much simpler? It's just that he wasn't popular enough. Yes. I mean, it's literally just whatever way you cut it. He just doesn't have the support. He doesn't have the support of enough MPs or ministers. I mean, on point one, to your point, I can understand that that's destabilisers. But this is Wes Streeting, who's wanted to be prime minister for such a long time. If it was in his gift, he would have, you just can't imagine it being beyond him to have said to them, please do this.

6:35On the other side of this, we're going to build a better government for all of the reasons that I've set out in this resignation letter. I do not think this is a good government. I think there's a vacuum. He said that. So I think if it were possible, you would have expected him to have gone on that. And then it gets to the Andy Burnham question with the members, which is whichever way you slice it, he's got a really, really, really tough fight with the members when it comes down to it. And so it's a clever gambit in that respect from him to say, I want to fight up to this. And it will be really interesting to see on the question of ideas, whether or not he's able to get into a space where he can have this fight with Andy Burnham and where he can actually win the argument against him.

7:07Because at the moment for a number of MPs that you speak to in Westminster, Andy Burnham is all things to everyone. He's just this, as they call him now, it's now a cliche taking across the water, but you can transpose onto Andy Burnham any political ability or any policy or any ideology that you actually so wish at this point, because he's been pretty flexible in the past, it's fair to say. And one thing that Wes Streetsy might be able to do in this process, perhaps, is to tease that out and test that and to be able to force him into specific positions that might well show Wes as a, you know, nobody would deny he's not a phenomenal communicator as someone who might be able to win them over in that as well.

7:37So maybe that's what he's trying to do in that respect. There are a couple of clues that it may have been about the numbers. Like we said, we can't be so definitively but it was very late last night and we were putting the splash to bed and the splash as i'd written it uh was that wedstreeting uh will uh resign on thursday and will trigger a leadership contest so obviously you put around loads of calls and then very late on i started getting a call and someone was saying to me you just might want to be careful with that intro just say he's expected to resign but obviously things haven't i was like well what he's either got the numbers or he said so we obviously changed it accordingly and we included a very high par of he may not go over and then in the bars our colleagues were out in the bars and they heard directly from people that Wes was really worried that he didn't have the numbers and wouldn't go over so we caveated the splash accordingly in an old fashioned way newspapers do matter and we had to get it right on edition which was a very late night last night and then this this morning when everyone was waiting for Wes Streeting to move it was this bubble of everyone was impatient, this explosion was going to happen, and we knew it was coming, we didn't know when, there was suddenly a briefing from West Streeting's allies where the briefing was on background, he's got the numbers, he's got the numbers, but things are changing.

8:56And they said that cabinet ministers had been in to see Starmer in number 10 and told him to do his position. They said that people who had signed a supportive letter to Starmer had actually changed their minds and were reversing it. And so the various claims, some of them. And the problem was, we couldn't stand up these claims. We looked at, were members of the cabinet going in and saying this. And it felt like what it was, was a deliberate attempt by Team Streeting to kind of will a situation where the Prime Minister would bow to the pressure. But we couldn't substantiate it. And then after a while, suddenly the letter drops.

9:33And that's it. It's kind of, you see that there's a resignation, you see there's no challenge coming. But we do need to talk about this letter because it is one of the most vicious resignation letters that I have read for a long time. And you've seen it. You've seen it. I've seen the really bitter ones over the years, right? But where it is particularly damaging is the way it goes for Starmer's character. He basically says, we needed vision and we got a vacuum. What else was it? We needed delivery or something and we got drift. And I mean, I think that, and I'm completely paraphrasing, which is terrible, but I think one of the most painful sentences for Starmer to have read will have been the one where it said that leadership matters, but too often people have been forced to fall on their sword.

10:12Yeah, you've failed to show any leadership. Basically, you failed to take responsibility. And as a result, there's been a long line of people formally loyal to you who have been forced to leave this government as a result of what they see as failures on your part. And that will have really stunned, I think, for Starmer. So there is one element of it, which is character assassination. And what we are told is this is actually what he said to the Prime Minister in their very awkward coffee, if we can even call it that, on Tuesday morning. So it was a Wednesday morning. I've lost track of time. It was Wednesday morning, wasn't it?

10:40Apologies. It was just before the King's speech on Wednesday morning. So Sri Singh went into number 10 at 8.31 and he was in the building for a total of 16 minutes. We've done the maths on it roughly and we think that it means he was probably sitting down with Starmer for what was billed as a kind of coffee between two friends by Starm's allies, but anything but for 13 minutes, which I don't know, maybe you can get. Is that on the basis that you've worked out how long it takes to sort of get it? It's quite a hot coffee. So like the big question is, did they have time for coffee? No, that isn't the big question.

11:12The big question is what was said. And what was said to me was actually, Streeting said all of these things to Starmers face at this meeting. I have lost confidence in your leadership. These are the reasons why. I'm not sure it was quite as punchy as the letter, but let's be frank. if you've done that there's there's really no way to go from that i mean imagine sitting with your employer and you were an employee and telling them i've lost confidence in your leadership i think you're doing a terrible job but then we still had the kind of surreal pantomime of the state opening of parliament where he was sent to stage and we also had the surreal pantomime of number 10 at the lobby um where the prime minister official spokesman repeatedly insisted that the prime minister had confidence in west streeting because he didn't obviously want to sack him.

11:55So utterly weird kind of reality defying 24 hours. But obviously, if you just told your boss, I have no confidence in you, and I think you're a terrible leader, that probably is the end of that. Do you think that there's any other way that's treating in these last few days since the local elections could have played it differently and had a better outcome for himself? No. Because one MP was saying to me, if he had in the wake of these elections just immediately completely resigned. It would have looked like leadership. But as a result, we're days on and it looks like he was forced into a corner and this was really the only thing he could have done.

12:29Because yesterday at the King's speech, the fact that you have that, the Times have that story, which was essentially, yes, tomorrow it's going to happen, on a day when actually we've been told why Streeting has such reverence for the royal family, which he does, we should say. This is entirely our fault, weren't we? We should take, the Times should take responsibility for this. So we learned that Streeting had been speaking to his allies and that he had been telling them directly. It's Patrick Maguire, my colleague, our great colleague from this podcast, and Aubrey Allegretti between them had spoken to different people.

12:56He said, yeah, Wes says he's going to resign tomorrow and go for leadership. So we looked at this and thought it's a great story. And we published, I think, 20 minutes before the King's speech, which obviously blew up the entire of the King's speech and everything that followed and created a great deal of scrutiny. But it's not the Times' fault. It's not the Times' fault. No, no, God, I'm not. those allies. That's the fault of those allies. It's not a blame issue. It's a moving situation. Our job is to get the story out there, I think, as best we can. But do you see what I mean about the politics of it for the street in camp?

13:27I think for some, I'm concerned about it. And I just wonder if there was any other possible way that they could have played it. And I just don't know what the answer to that is. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. This is Felix Salmon from Slate Money, and I'm here to tell you about Apple Card. Even as a seasoned traveler, things can still get stressful, which is why I use Apple Card on my international trips. And with 2 % daily cash back on every purchase with Apple Pay, I'm actually earning daily cash as I travel. Instead of coming home feeling like I've drained my bank account, I come back with cash back I can put toward my next trip.

14:09Applying the wallet app on iPhone. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City branch, terms and more at apple.co slash applecardbenefits. I think we would probably always have got to this point because of the point you made earlier, that he's simply not popular enough, that he wouldn't have had the numbers. And I do also think there is something really valid to be said in the legitimacy point about Andy Burnham, that let's say he'd won this thing. Let's say he'd got through. Andy Burnham still exists. The soft left still exists. And there's no way that West Street is going to be, I mean, people on the soft left hate West Street.

14:52Hate is almost a soft, a generous word. There is just, I mean, you just, the conversations that you have with him, you think there is absolutely no way that with West Street in number 10, in circumstances where they haven't been able to feel the candidate, effectively their favoured candidate against him, that they would have allowed him to do anything whatsoever. I mean, they just would have been so aggressively opposed to him at every turn. You have that amazing quote, which has been denied, which again was a quote that Patrick Maguire got, but it was that Angela Rayner would rather stick pins in her eyes and see Wes Streeting become Prime Minister.

15:23So it is visceral, their feelings about him. So obviously, it would have been really, really difficult. And when you look at that letter, a resignation letter, that is the second part of it. It is a direct olive branch to Andy Burnham. And it says that he wants a broad contest where streeting this is. So he wants a broad contest. And he says that essentially it needs to have the best talents of the party involved. And that is not even subtle code. He is saying Andy Burnham needs to be on the pitch, that we should not have a leadership contest. So you've gone from streeting, apparently gunning from a contest that would have removed Andy Burnham completely to recognise in the reality of the situation that he didn't have the numbers possibly, that he couldn't go over the top and therefore offering this olive branch and saying, well, actually, Andy Burnham should be on the pitch.

16:09And we know if Andy Burnham was on the pitch, what would happen? He would trounce West Streeting in that subsequent election. The numbers are just... The left has the whip hand on it. It has the upper hand. So I think this is, for now, probably the end of West Streeting's prime ministerial ambitions. I don't know if you agree with that, Laura? I think the only hope really that they have is that Andy Burnham doesn't survive contact with reality and that they have this long drawn out contest where West allies are well organised, where they make a genuinely robust political case and where we should say they're able to say on the economy in particular, we're entering a recession.

16:42This is an extremely difficult time. Andy Burnham, people don't buy what you're saying about the bond markets and that you do end up having some kind of big row about that in which West Streeting emerges victorious. Whereas I have to say, I find that prospect quite unlikely. I just, I think knowing what we do about the Labour membership, knowing what we do about their current positions in the party, it does feel like the soft left has the upper hand at this moment and that the weight behind Andy Burnham would be so convincing. But I mean, it's hard to say if it goes long with any certainty what would happen.

17:08So I think when you stand back now, if we talk about what happens next, there are three big questions, right? The first one is what does Andy Burnham do? And we'll talk through that shortly. The second is what does Keir Starmer do? He's got a wrecked and broken party that he needs to put back together. I forget the third question. I did have a third question. Oh, the third question is obviously what the backbenchers and the cabinet do. Because obviously there is immense unhappiness there. And will someone move? So let's just take the firm in turn. Let's talk about Andy Burnham. It's actually really hard for him to get back to Westminster.

17:41Everyone assumes that there's some kind of swap deal you can do where one MP, and we've been promised this for months by allies of Burnham, that there would be an announcement of someone leaving, he would go in their stead. Great, that's one of the top Trump's issue. It doesn't work like that. Because one, you have to find an MP who's willing to stand down. It's quite a lot of things to give up. You've got a generous salary. You've got an interesting life as an MP. People don't give that up easily unless there's a promise of the sinecure elsewhere, perhaps a peerage under a future Burnham thing.

18:09So one, you've got to find someone. Two, you need the permission of the National Executive Committee, the Labour's ruling body, to get it. And who controls the NEC? although this may change, Keir Starmer. So he could block him again, right? Three, and perhaps the biggest obstacle, let's say that Andy Burnham is able to stand in a by-election somewhere in Manchester. Absolutely fine. There is no guarantee he would win that by-election. However popular he is, you look at what happened to Labour in the elections, and they were devastated in Manchester. The electoral map shifted there. So there's no guarantee.

18:41And all of that process would take a very long time. So there are real big challenges for Andy Burnham. Yeah. And so arrives Angela Rainer. Angela Rainer. End of state death. Yes. You know, I woke up to some texts from those on the soft left saying essentially this changes everything. 6am this morning, the story drops. Angela Rainer, I've been cleared by HMRC. Although arguably she hasn't, but she says I've been cleared by HMRC and it effectively clears the way for her to have a crack. I mean, it says to the soft left, there's no situation now where you don't have a hard hitting or serious proposition to fight West Streeting.

19:16I mean, clearly before we knew that Miliband was Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, was amenable to putting himself forward in circumstances where Wes was the kind of spectre, you know, he would run if that was a threat. But even so, I think this question of Rayner being a plausible candidate now for the soft left was very, very energising in circumstances where, for the reasons that you've just explained, Andy Burnham does come with a lot of procedural hurdles if they are to be able to see him in Parliament. And that is the other point about the soft left. People talk about it as if it's one entity.

19:44It's not. It's much like the rest of Labour Party. It's riven with bitter divisions and infighting, as all politicians are. But you would not believe how rude some people, senior figures on the soft left, are about Angela Rayner. They really think she is not fit for the job, not fit for purpose, and they would much prefer Andy, obviously Andy Burnham, but if not Andy Burnham, then Ed Miliband. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, thinking about this earlier, this earlier, the soft left is defined basically in historic terms by what it's not, right? It's not the Labour right, it's not Blue Labour, it's not the socialist campaign group, it's not the kind of left of the party.

20:17It's got values, values. Values, I mean, born out of, you know, the 1981 deputy leadership election and Neil Koenig's decision there. I mean, it is an amorphous body. We think it's more than about 80 MPs who are hardline and probably more who would pile in in that. So organising them has been notoriously difficult. That said, one of the things they've taken from confidence from this week when it's voting to me is the fact that they're constantly told they can't organise, they can't do politics. And it's Wes Streeting today who's resigned without being able to trigger a leadership contest and not any of their would-be candidates.

20:45Yes, which goes to a point. It shows that someone else is not organised, but it does not demonstrate that they are. What it suggests is that your rivals are just as disorganised as you are. I genuinely think that's fair enough. I think they have now coalesced around the Burnham solution. And that's why Angela, what Angela Rena does is so interesting, because she's obviously emerged at this point in which actually those who would traditionally have supported her have put so much energy into this Andy Burnham solution that there's no evidence that they're going to turn back and say, actually, yes, Angela Rena, we're going to abandon the prospect of someone who is frankly a less complicated candidate for whom the polling shows is the only one that people think the country would be better off with than under Keir Starmer.

21:23For somebody who actually, when we look at the polling, it's not looking great for you in the country at large, even if the membership does appear to like you. She basically becomes almost like a wild card, right? No, I was going to go into a very famous episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is all based around a wild card character doing crazy things. It's not that, but she does disrupt the narrative. She disrupts the coronation of Andy Burnham. And if he can't get back here for the reasons we've talked about, that she's in with a very real shot. So that is the Andy Burnham stroke, soft left side of things.

21:55then we just need to talk about Keir Starmer and what he does next. Because ultimately, on a day like this, you could say the story... So at this point in the day, it's mid-afternoon. I'm trying to think about where we take the splash, where we go with the paper. And actually, one story easy to do, West Streeting, Botch... And it may end up being this way, but Botch's bid for number 10 and resigns. But actually, the story, when you stand back, is still a story about Keir Starmer. It's the story now of a prime minister who has 94 MPs calling for him to leave office. He has a succession of senior cabinet ministers, one of whom just quit, and others who privately are telling him to go.

22:36And his authority is so weakened. And there is a very real risk, probably quite likely, that this turns into a kind of lame duck government now. But it is crippled by this because as soon as the genie's out of the bottle, All of those people have publicly said on Twitter they think he's a bad leader. You've got Wes Streeting saying it in this very aggressive way, and that is so damaging for his authority. He's got a couple of cards he can play. He's got this health secretary role who's vacant. I will give you, and at this stage, probably by the time the podcast goes out, it's completely wrong, but there is various bits of gossip around that.

23:11Lucy Powell, the deputy leader who's on the left party, is mooted as one person. There is an astonishing suggestion, which I don't believe, that Torsten Bell could be, who's the pension administrator, who gets in quite a lot of stick from his colleagues, but he could end up getting the health secretary role. But it's not clear how Starmer can recover from this and how he can reunite the party when the splits and divide are so deep. I mean, what does he do with Angela Rayner? Because he said he wants to see her back in the cabinet. And it's all been contingent on this tax stuff being wound up. And as you've indicated, it's not clear that it is 100 % wound up.

23:47But she's been out there this morning, I think, cleverly given what she knows about the membership, saying she's a team player, she wants to support this at the moment. How can you justify not having a job for her at the moment, do you think, in circumstances where both of them seem to be singing from the same hymn? But that is predicated on another thing, which is, this is like, so Laura used to work at The Times and left for the Sunday Times. And she's brilliant. And it's, you know, we're all fine with it. But what if, Lara, I was to ask you to come back to the Times, which I'd never do. But what if I was to ask you to do so?

24:17And, well, out of respect. And you just said no. Angela Rayner could just say no. But she's been on the airwaves this morning saying she's a team player. Yeah, but she could just say no. And then you're in an awkward, like, who would want to serve? Yeah, I know. You're right. I mean, maybe, fine, she would take it. It's a great, it's an amazing job. And it's not quite a great office of state. But if you are Angela Rayner and you believe in public duty and you believe in making difference, which she does, the role of health secretary is a really big job. I'm sure she would take it, but it's not guaranteed in the present circumstances.

24:48And then more broadly, I'm just not sure there is a bandwidth issue here. Every time he does something, people won't like it in the party. It's very divided. And they're not going to be afraid of saying so anymore. There's so many unhappy people. and I think we were in a position before where we got to the stage to any more unforced errors and it was up for him. We hit that point with that speech this week on Monday. He did this big make or break speech that fell completely flat with colleagues and many went over the top. So it means there's no latitude anymore and that you can't do difficult things with government because you don't actually have the support of your MPs.

25:23That landslide majority is no longer a landslide. You've got to knock potentially 100 people off that now because they might not back you for various reasons. That's really difficult. A drag anchor. A drag anchor. And the third, which is the Cabinet. It's the Cabinet. What does the Cabinet do? So you've got, we know Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, suggested he should leave. We know that Yvette Cooper, the Foreign Secretary, suggested he should leave. We know that Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, suggested that he should leave and set out a timeline for his departure. So is that really sustainable when so many people sitting around the cabinet table think he should go.

25:58And they know there's disaster. I suspect where we end up. And the other thing is, next week we've got the Mandelson files, right? They're not good. They're really, this is the big tranche, which I'm told includes lots of cabinet ministers, like indiscreet messages to Mandelson, having a go at each other, one another, the Labour leadership. I think a lot of the Trump stuff is going to be excised from them. But that will be yet another reminder that Keir Starmer appointed the close friend of a paedophile to high office. And that's really damaging, right? So just because we're over the streeting bump, it doesn't mean this is over.

26:36We may get a little period of calm, but we may also not. Things could move quite quickly. And there's a lot of unhappiness in that cabinet still. So whether at some point people just go to him and force him to set out that timeline for his departure. But what does forcing him look like in circumstances where they're not resigning? I mean, it's... Yeah. And what it would look like, an entire delegation, a big delegation going and saying, you need to set out a timeline for your departure, making it publicly known that they were doing so. And even then he could say no. There's also the question of what is that timeline?

27:05Because it's how long is a piece of string? We come back to the Andy Burnham question. If that is now the basis on which we're proceeding, it's quite hard to work out. All of which leaves Labour in a massive caulk mire. And the one thing I think I know is that we're going to be in a state of effective paralysis. It's going to be really difficult for the government to govern and to do what it wants. And I think that is ultimately, you know, this is bad for the government and bad for the country at a time of a major cost of living Christ on the horizon. And this is not me making an argument for Starmer and the prime minister.

27:40it's just me observing the truth of the matter which is a weakened Prime Minister entirely arguably through his own actions his own terrible decisions all the things that have happened that led us to this place but it means that Britain is not best place as it probably needs to be for what is about to come thank you very much for listening thank you Molly Guinness, Harry Kitson and Ewan Dorji