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Newscast
Andy Burnham Makes His Move
00:34:07
Andy Burnham targets Westminster return & Wes Streeting resigns
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Hello, We've got three big things to talk about on this podcast and we're going to do them in the reverse order in which they happened on the day on Thursday. So, last of all, we'll talk about Angela Rayner's return to politics, or the ability of Angela Rayner to return to politics because her tax affairs have been cleared up. Then we'll talk about the departure of Wes Streeting as the Health Secretary, with a blistering letter to Keir Starmer saying that he had lost confidence in the Prime Minister. But we will begin with the bombshell news on Thursday Tea Time that there is now a very clear route back to Parliament for Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, which means he may morph from Andy Burnham Mayor, to Andy Burnham Prime Minister, in one scenario. So that is what you will hear on this episode of Newscast, which will be recorded on Thursday Tea time and which was broadcast on BBC1 after question time.
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C
Newscast, newscast from the BBC.
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D
Humanity's next great voyage begins.
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B
We are in the midst of a rupture.
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C
Nostalgia will not bring back the old order.
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D
Six, seven. Yeah, it's supposed to be me as a doctor.
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B
Daddy has. Has also a special connotation.
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C
Ooh la la. Thinking about it like a panto helped.
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Do we play music now or what do we do?
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Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio
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and it is Chris at Westminster and
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it's Alex in the newscast studio and
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also Joe pike in the newscast studio.
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B
And we are recording this episode of Newscast on Thursday evening, just past 7pm I feel like today has been the longest, longest, longest day, because you couldn't tear your eyes away from anything that was happening in the Labour Party because it felt like something was happening every 10 minutes, 5 minutes. Would you put it to an even smaller time interval than that, Alex?
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C
No, I'd say that's about right. And it's also one of those days where what happened first thing this morning, which was to do with Angela Rayner, feels like it happened 17 years ago by this time tonight, because so much has moved subsequently.
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B
And actually the biggest thing in this whole drama around, will Keir Sammer survive as Prime Minister? Will he be challenged? Who will challenge him? When will it happen? Who else will join in? Actually, the biggest kind of revelation for that was this evening at tea time, Chris, wasn't it? And we should just explain the various things that have happened.
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D
Yeah. We should say, first of all, just to be absolutely clear, as we record that there isn't Yet a formal leadership challenge to the Prime Minister. That has not happened yet because nobody has got to the Magic Number of 81 MPs to trigger a formal contest. But my goodness, the wider conversation is absolutely roaring along. And, yeah, the development on tea time. At tea time on Thursday, was Andy Burnham the Mayor of Greater Manchester, not an mp. You've got to be MP to be a candidate to be the Labour Party leader, saying he's found a seat. Makerfield, not a million miles from Manchester city centre, to the west of Manchester. And the MP there, Josh Simons, is going to stand down and said there'll be a vacancy. And not only that, but Labour have made it clear that this time, unlike that by election, not a million miles away in Gorson and Denton a few months ago, this time they will let Andy Burnham stand as the Labour candidate, or at least they won't stand in his way. So we are looking at the prospect of a by election in which Andy Burnham is the Labour candidate. In other words, he has a potential path back to Westminster. What a barnstorming circus of a by election. It's going to be extraordinary because you've got a guy on the ticket whose pitches I want to be Prime Minister. He won't be running defending Labour's record in government over the last two years, although plenty of people will challenge him about it. Given that, you know, he'll have Labour, he's Labour on the ticket, he's going to be running to be Prime Minister. And Reform are already saying they're going to throw everything at it. They did pretty well in the area in the elections last week. What a thing that is going to. That's going to be.
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B
No, Joe, it's almost going to be like a sort of mini Prime Ministerial election in a system where we don't elect the Prime Minister.
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E
Absolutely. I mean, the opportunity for Andy Burnham is enormous in that if he wins this once Labour sort of stronghold, which now looks like Reformer, are on the
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B
march because there aren't any Labour strongholds really anymore.
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E
Yeah, but it was sort of one of the strongest, safest seats in the country. If he can win it, he can say to everybody in the Labour Party, you think we need to take on Nigel Farage's party. Look, I'm the guy who in this seat has managed to beat him. And it wasn't some sort of easy victory at all. The alternative, of course, is that his political career stops. Stops stone dead. The Labour majority is about 5,400, but that's from a couple of years ago, of Course. And a lot has changed since then.
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B
And Alex, the last political test in that part of the world, and it's more closer to Wigan than Manchester, isn't it? Makerfield was the local authority elections last. Last Thursday, basically the trigger for all the drama we've seen this week with Keir Starmer. And Reform did spectacularly well in those elections in that part of England.
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C
Yeah, they did. They absolutely did. They took seat after seat after seat off labor in Wigan. And Makerfield sits under Wigan Borough Council, even though it's in a. Not Wigan itself. And not only that, but if you look across that whole area. So just down the road, St Helens Reform again took seats, took seats. Labor lost seats, lost seats. And Nigel Farage has already come out and said that they're going to throw everything at this by election. And of course the Green Party are very likely to stand in this by election as as well, who are nibbling away at labor support from the other direction. So the backdrop to it is difficult. And a majority of just under 5,400 in normal terms would be an okay majority, but this is not normal times and this will not be a normal by election. The only caveat would say to all of that. So it is a bit of a test for Andy Burnham as to whether he can win this seat. And as Joe says, if he wins it, he can say, I'm the guy that can beat Reform if he doesn't win it. Quite the opposite. The thing about by elections, though, is we are absolutely right to look at the results from the local authority elections last week. And because they show that Reform had a real growth of popularity in that area and labor support has fallen back really important context. But people do often behave differently in by elections than they do in other elections. And I think for this by election in particular, that's that notion is going to be on steroids because as Chris said, every man and his dog's going to be there. Every party is going to be throwing everything that they can at it. This is a by election, as we say, which is not just for an mp. Obviously, electing an MP is really important. This is for the guy that's made no secret about the fact he's standing because he wants to challenge Kia Star. All of those various variables, plus the fact that according to the pollsters, Andy Burnham's personal ratings are better than the Labour Party's, more broadly are all the variables to throw in the mix. But my goodness, what a test.
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B
And Chris, because we're now a few steps away from Andy Burnham, Potentially being Prime Minister. Everyone is jenning up on what his political philosophy, where it's actually arrived at now after he's been mayor of Greater Manchester for nearly 10 years now. Before that he was a Culture Secretary under Gordon Brown. Before that he was a special advisor in the Blair government. So people are looking for clues as to, well, what kind of Prime Minister he might be now that that's a possibility.
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D
Yeah, I mean, quick caveat, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves given that there's that by election to come, but it's a totally fair kind of question.
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B
And yeah, let's be the only people in British political journalism this week who haven't got carried away.
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D
Sorry to be a party, not to accuse you of any party pooper, but yeah, totally. I mean, we're going to start seeing scrutiny, I mean, particularly of Andy Burnham, given that if you like, his explicit public campaign starts now, has started now in this statement that he's put out this evening, which is further ahead really than where we're streeting is. We'll come on to talk about West Streeting. But he, you know, he offered a critique of the Starmer approach to government but he didn't explicitly say that, you know, he would be running or declaring, etc. Etc. So, yeah, Andy Burnham is going to. His pitch is going to be that he would govern the UK in the way that he has been the Mayor of Manchester. He talks about Manchesterism, he's talked about what he's done, for instance, with public transport on the buses there, the B network, the private, the private investment that he's brought into Manchester City Central, though some say that there's quite a lot of that that was happening, that was happening already before his tenure and then there will be scrutiny of his sort of record before that. And he used to get a lot of accusations lobbed at him about, about flip flopping, about not having a clear sense of who he was. He argues, and his supporters argue he has sharpened that a lot as mayor. The other thing he's going to have to do is, and this has started already, by the way, but is get to know one heck of a lot of Labour MPs because he's not been at Westminster for quite a while and the parliamentary Labour Party has changed massively in the time that he's been away. I mean, not least expanding massively a couple of years ago. So he and his supporters, and yes, he has plenty of supporters at Westminster who can help him with that in the time that it takes him to attempt to get back here. He's got a lot of. He's got a lot of politicking to do, both in Makerfield and in and in Westminster.
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C
And it's worth saying I am. So he's twice ran for the labor leadership before. In 2010 when he lost to Ed Miller band, in 2015 when he lost to Jeremy Corbyn.
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B
And I actually started the 2015 one as the favorite.
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C
Yes.
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That competition.
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C
Yes. I bumped into a very senior Conservative in Westminster this week who said to me, and obviously they would say this and obviously they would do this, but they said, we're going through the archives and digging out all of the clips. So he's also going to come in for a lot of opposition from the opposition. And the point they were making is that there might be quite a fair amount of mps in Westminster of the 2024 intake of labor mps who don't know Andy Burnham. And so you can bet your bottom dollar that the Conservatives and others, as you might expect they would, are going to be trying to shape that opinion.
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E
And he's not necessarily had the scrutiny while he's been the mayor of Greater Manchester, Adam, that that many other cabinet ministers have had over the last two years in government or the, what, five years under Keir Starmer's leadership in opposition. So I think the pressure and scrutiny he'll suddenly face a bit like arguably the Green Zag Polanski's face, you know, Nigel Farage facing questions about his finances. That does happen when you're suddenly in the spotlight. It could be challenging. And he did start his career as a Blairite. I mean, he worked for Tessa Jowl. He served as a minister. Yeah. Under. Under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. His critics argue that, you know, his opinions change with the wind. But I think what he managed to prove in Greater Manchester, partly, actually, during the pandemic, remember, he was quite prominent around lockdown restrictions because when we were
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B
in the tiered zone where you have different places having different restrictions. Manchester, he felt, was being dealt with quite harshly. Yeah.
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E
And he was. He was seen as one of the. One of the sort of better communicators who stood up for his area. A bit like maybe Nicola Sturgeon took advantage from. From that period in Scotland too. And he has sort of built on his national profile, I suppose, perhaps we don't quite know what his politics are now because he's not faced the scrutiny many of his rivals have in Westminster.
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B
He was on newscast last year with his mate Steve Rotherham, the mayor of Liverpool, because they'd written A book about how the things that they were doing in the north of England could be an excellent blueprint for maybe doing across the whole of the uk. And two things jumped out at me from. From us listening back to that episode the other day there. He's in favor of proportional representation, so a different voting system. And also, when it comes to Westminster and voting at Westminster, he doesn't think MPs should be whipped to follow instructions from their party leaders.
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D
Vote for legislation that changes mind.
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B
Exactly. Because as Prime Minister, that would make your life very hard if you didn't have the power to whip people. And, Alex, just a little bit of backstory to this as well. The fact that it's this guy, Josh Simons.
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C
Yeah.
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Standing aside, he is. Well, some people might say he's a bit player, but he has been a player in the drama of the last few months, hasn't he?
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C
Yeah. And I'm not sure many people thought that it would be Josh Simons who was gonna stand aside for Andy Burnham. And the reason for that is because Josh Simons was the former guy at the head of the top of Labor Together. Now, Labor Together was the think tank that was widely credited for propelling Keir starmer into number 10 and doing all of the preparation work behind it. Fair enough. Josh Simons took over a little bit later than the heart of that operation, but that's the background he was given a job in. He was a minister. He had to quit that job because of all the controversy over the actions of Labor Together, the think tank, when he had been there as part of it. So he's not the kind of person that people thought would suddenly lean in to seemingly support Andy Burnham by stepping aside and giving up his seat, even though he has come out, had come out a couple of days earlier and said that he did think it was time for Keir Starmer to go. So that's like another kind of little curveball in it, and that's prompted a whole lot of speculation, and it is speculation, I should really stress, about whether or not people in the broadest of broad terms on the right of the Labour Party are actually working with supporters of the left or the soft left who might lean towards Andy Burnham to try and kind of have some sort of, you know, joint coronation and save some sort of strange battle. Now, it's worth saying that lots of folk are disputing that or denying that or whatever, but I think given that. We'll talk about. We're treating in a moment, but the nature of the way that we're Streeting didn't leap over to challenge Keir Starmer directly and suggested there should be a contest with the broad field and as many candidates as possible. Seems now that the party is coalescing around the notion at least, that Andy Burnham's going to be on the pitch.
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E
Simons is also just 32 years old. What's so odd about him resigning? He's only just arrived. He did arguably crash and burn quite quickly in becoming a minister and being forced to resign, but it does seem unexpected in by elections, it's often somebody who wants to retire or somebody who's facing ill health who steps down to make space. Josh Simons is somebody who is seen as incredibly bright, promising sort of policy brain, his critics say, not quite sort of street smart in politics, which is why he got himself into trouble. But odd that he decides to stand down. He argues for a principled reason so soon after arriving.
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D
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because the journalistic inquiries around who might be willing to give up their seat in the northwest of England for Andy Burnham has tended to focus on folk not exactly in their first foot of youth, assuming that the carriage clock and a spot of retirement would appeal. And it turns out it's a 30 something.
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B
And just to be clear, the first hurdle that Andy Burnham was gonna face was actually being allowed to throw his hat in the ring to be selected as the Labour candidate by election. And tonight we've been getting all the signals from the labor leadership that they will not stand in his way. So just to. Just to confirm that first hurdle, looks like he's cleared it already. Right, let's rewind the clock back to the ancient time of 1pm on Thursday.
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E
Backwards, are we?
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B
Yeah, we're going back. Yeah, it's. That's the power of podcast. Jump into whatever order you want to do it in. Yeah, we're streeting finally, finally announcing his resignation, which I sort of felt was about to happen for about the last 49 and a half hours. Chris.
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D
Yeah, we were building up to. And in fact, when Alex and I were chatting on Politics Live on BBC Two at lunchtime, just before one o', clock, we were saying. Because I think it was reasonable to say at the time, although we would say that, wouldn't we, that the story then felt like West Streeting's not saying anything when there's been this anticipation that he would. And then when he did say something, he sort of said half of what he might have said. So he said he was resigning as Health Secretary, by the way. During the morning, I was being sent stuff that was being sent by him to labor mps, which were the kind of these, like, kind of game show style photo slide things being sent around on WhatsApp groups to Labour MPs, which is effectively him doing his. As he saw it, his greatest hit sits as Health Secretary, then at lunchtime he packs it in and walks. But he. And it's a pretty stinging critique of the Prime Minister and his style of government in his resignation letter, but does not say that he's going to, you know, throw his hat in the ring, nor say that he's got the support to allow him to do that. And then began a blizzard of briefing from those on his side saying, yes, he's got the numbers, but, you know, he's taking his time. He respects the fact the party wants a conversation. All the stuff about, you know, leaving space for Andy Burnham to make a move. By the way, Team Burnham say there wasn't any coordination with them around all of that. And then you had other folk who were, broadly speaking on Team Starmer who were saying, look, we don't think he's got the numbers. And in fact, somebody who I was talking to who was well placed to have a sense of how the numbers might shake out in the parliamentary Labour Party claimed to me that there was only 44 nailed on backers for Wes
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B
Streeting, which is only just over half of what he would have been doing.
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D
Indeed. And that for him to clear the total would require loads and loads and loads and loads of ministers to resign. Now, you might think, well, hang on a minute. If you've got supporters on the radio out loud saying he has got support, and then you've got other people off the record saying he hasn't, both can't be right. It's sort of possible they sort of could be, because support is not necessarily the same thing as being willing to sign on the dotted line now. So, anyway, we'll see.
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B
So what do we think is going to happen to Wes Streeting in the next few months? I mean, is he sort of. He hasn't ruled himself out of being in a contest that then gets triggered by Andy Burnham as we then get to hurdle number 19 in this theoretical future. But, like, is he kind of. Is he sort of off the pitch now, Chris?
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D
No, no, I don't think he's off the pitch. I. He is still. He would still have the, you know, if he had the numbers, he could. He could go over the top at any point of his choosing and that would trigger, you know, that would trigger the process. Now, given the party has now said that it won't stand in the way of Andy Burnham running in a byelection and we collectively of the accepted view that this is not a typical by election, that is the party saying that it anticipates a. The potential for a race with Andy Burnham on the ticket if he can win the violation, which points to a timescale that isn't sort of wildly rushed. That said, just to walk through where we might get to timing wise, before I guess we dive into the sort of where streeting is, it's quite possible, I think, that the writ, that's the procedure that is invoked for a by election date to be set, could come quite quickly.
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B
So Josh Simons, it's in the hands of the Chief Whip of the party, whose MP is standing down.
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D
Indeed. And so Josh Simons could request a Crown appointment, which would exclude him from being able to carry on as an MP. By the way, a couple of Scottish National Party MPs have done just that, having won seats at Holyrood. And you become the. You become the. Now, let's get this right between us. The Manor of Northstead or the. Or the Chiltern Hundreds, which are Crown appointments which you cannot hold whilst also being an elected Member of Parliament. And that means, because technically you can't
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B
resign as an MP anyway, basically, there's a weird. MPs don't resign like anyone else resigns from a job. You get appointed to a weird historic pretend job. It sounds like it's from Game of Thrones completely. That's how you resign and you hold
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D
that post until somebody else resigns and takes the post from you. Anyway, that could all happen quite quickly. So, you know, is it possible you get that by election within about a month or five weeks maybe? I'm speculating now. If you did do that and Andy Burnham won, so two ifs, he could be back in Parliament by sort of mid June, end of June. That's still three weeks, four weeks before Parliament rises for the summer. I'm just imagining, you know, where we might be with some kind of timescale here. Are you then looking at a contest that is happening over the summer and concluding around about the time of the party conferences, maybe in the autumn. Is that the time frame we're now looking at? I don't know, but it may well be, given how the last couple of hours have panned out.
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E
But that presumes, Chris, that Keir Starmer doesn't hold on. And what is so strange about Today is that it's not clear anyone has the at one name. Who knows what Andy Burnham would have? But everybody is talking about in Parliament, including Labour and Peace, talking about who is next. We have, effectively a leadership contest, Adam, which has started without a vacancy and without anyone being declared. And so much of the focus now being on the future means that Keir Starmer is in this awkward position of being a little bit in the past and sort of forgotten, but not gone.
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D
Yeah. And I thought it was interesting that Andy Burnham, in sort of politely nodding to that reality in his statement and also, of course, hoping for the time to sort out the by election, et cetera, et cetera, was saying, effectively, look, this last week's been a spot on the lively side. You know, let's give the government chance to govern for a bit. Very tricky when you're paralyzed by this sort of stuff. And as you say, Joe, where the Prime Minister's power is basically kind of gone, but let's give the government a bit of space to govern whilst this process, whilst this process works its way. Works its way through.
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B
Yeah. This is going to sound very countercultural because everyone's been very excited today and it seems very momentous, but I thought one of the themes of what everyone's been saying was just trying to step back from the precipice a little bit. So if you think about Wes Streeting's letter, where, yeah, he didn't actually trigger the contest, and then he says, I want, when there is a discussion about the party's future and the next leader, for it to be really wide so that we can have lots of ideas, which is an opening to people like Andy Burnham. Then you got Keir Starmer's response to Wes Streeting's resignation letter, which was really nice, laid it on quite thick. Not have a sort of spurned X feel to it at all, really, by letter. And then you've got, yeah, Andy Burnham saying, let's everyone just be respectful to the Prime Minister who's in post at the moment and still has got a job to do. So everyone just trying to dial it down from 11 to maybe sort of nine.
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D
Yeah, completely. Because whilst that is what they're saying in the warm words publicly, the vitriol that is spinning around, particularly at Westminster, to be fair, there hasn't been a vast amount from those who are the closest to Andy Burnham. In fact, I've not picked up any from those closest to Andy Burnham. There's been a few nights here and there the. The stuff that's been flying around at Westminster, particularly between kind of Team Starmer and Team Streeting and particularly actually, broadly speaking from those supportive of the Prime Minister in Team Streeting's direction has been jaw dropping.
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C
There's a couple of things to note on that. I think you're right, Adam, to read the sentiment from some of those letters and statements about the need for people just to take a breath and step back. But I think there's something else which is the growing awareness of how all of this is going to land with the public. And I think, you know, yeah, you've heard that from labor mps who've been acutely conscious that already up to this point and have expressed it quite, quite openly in the Prime Minister's letter, there was a line that stood out to me. This is his letter to Wes reading in response to his resignation when he said a reminder of what he called the chaos of the Conservatives when they changed leader and how much damage in his view, that that did. And I think, I suspect, and I don't know this now, but I suspect there will be a sort of slight period now of karma, calmer kind of attitudes from within the Labour Party while that by election process unfolds. The by election itself will obviously be hugely contested and, you know, lots of attention on it. You wonder then after that, and I think you're starting to get a sense of this from quite senior people in the Labour Party already, how much there is a sort of growing call for some sort of, rather than a bruising open contest, some sort of agreed transfer. So Margaret Hodge, for example, who is a Labor peer, been around a long time, she was suggesting that there should be a sort of agreed timetable and a coronation, to use her word. Lucy Powell, who is the deputy leader of the Labour Party, we understand she's going to be talking at a union, fire Brigades union conference, saying something very similar, talking about the need for Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting, Andy Burnham to all work together. You know, I just sort of wonder if that's going to become a growing voice in this conversation and it won't be everybody, because obviously the Prime Minister at this stage has made clear that he's going nowhere and he thinks he was elected to govern. So I think there's a lot of question about how the Prime Minister now responds to what might be, might be a section of the party increasingly calling for a kind of handover of power
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B
as opposed to the precedent for the Labour Party would be Blair handing over to Brown. And the reason there wasn't a contest was because Brown had managed to either eliminate all his opponents or convince them not to stand against him. So that actually Tony Blair could say, I'm going to leave on this date. Gordon Brown will take over that afternoon.
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C
Yeah. And it's too early to say whether that's going to be the case now because it depends what treating decides to do it. Andy. Andy Burnham's made his attention abundantly clear at this point. It depends what we're treating decides to do it then depends what the Prime Minister decides to do. And certainly the message from the Prime Minister is we want to govern. Obviously, what we have seen over the course of the last few days makes it harder to govern because he's had this vocal opposition from 89 of his own labor mps.
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E
Has he?
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C
He hasn't done an interview for days. His cabinet have come out. So we've heard from Bridget Phillips in the Education Secretary On Thursday, Pat McFadden in the cabinet, you know, lend giving their support to the Prime Minister, saying, we want to get on with the job. But in reality, when you've had that public questioning of your authority and leadership from within your own party, the very act of governing becomes harder. And that's before we get to some potentially controversial legislation that was in the King's speech, that was already looking likely to attract some opposition from within the Labour Party. Now, where does that leave him? So just the practical as well as the political aspect of governing has become harder.
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B
Yeah, I'm sort of just picturing what, what it would be like to be a makerfield in that election. And you could just, you could print off the. The list of, of legislation that was in the King's speech yesterday and say to Andy Barnum, do you agree to that? You could go, you can almost imagine me standing there with a clipboard and a pen going, do you agree to this bit of legislation if you're Prime Minister, do you agree to this? Do you agree to this?
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D
Yeah, but it's also going to be. There'll be all of that. But then there he might be sort of stood at a bus stop or in a cafe or in a leisure center and asked about how he would deal with Donald Trump or what he makes of what's just happened in the Straits of Hormuz. And that will be relevant question. Given the pitch of his by election to be Prime Minister, it could be
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E
pretty chaotic, couldn't it? Especially as Keir Starmer had promised to end the chaos and had that line in his speech on day one on the steps of Downing street, that he would tread more lightly on People's Lives this week hasn't necessarily given that message to voters.
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B
Also, I was just thinking this morning, when it was looking. When a leadership contest imminently was looking a little bit more likely, presumably Keir Starmer, who would get a free pass into that contest, he wouldn't have to get any nominations, he'd be guaranteed to be in it, wouldn't be allowed to use any kind of Prime Ministerial resources to fight it, because it would be a Labour Party thing. And then you're like, well, would Keir Starmer have to pay the government for his car rides to the leisure centre where he was going to do his hustings? Would he having to phone up donors to get people to fund his campaign? And like, how would it would be so weird to have a Prime Minister who's a Prime Minister. Prime Minister 9 to 5. But outside that, just sort of on the stump.
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E
I mean, that's sort of what's happened with the local elections. Certainly civil servants told special advisors, you know, only one of you, for example, I think, in one instance can go to this event just to sort of be. Look after him from a Prime Ministerial point of view. But we can't have.
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B
Go in a nuclear submarine and like, do your. Do your slogans.
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E
Absolutely. But you can't have people who are being paid for by the public helping out with the Labour campaign event. Absolutely.
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B
The reason I dwell on that is it's a very nerdy point, It's a
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D
very Fleming point, but.
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B
No, but how odd that we'd all feel.
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C
But also, what happens to ministers in the government? Are they allowed to support other candidates in any Labour leadership? Yeah, because there's never been a sitting Labour Prime Minister that's actively fought a leadership contest. So it's kind of unprecedented.
- [28:11]
B
Right, let's rewind to the ancient history of 6am on Thursday morning, where we got another bombshell in a day of bombshells. Angela Rayner cleared by the tax authorities for her underpayment of stamp duty when she was buying her property on the. On the south coast. So she. She is back. She's. She's got a. She's got a tick from the tax man.
- [28:31]
C
Yeah. As of 6am on Thursday morning, which does feel like 17 years ago at this point, but as of that point, that was really crucial because not only because that means that Angela Rayner can be back. And it's interesting to note that Kirstama is among those who that have said before he'd like to have her back in his cabinet. Actually, he's made no secret about Wes Reading has said that Angela Rainer should be on the pitch in the past. So not only that in that sense, but as of 6:00am this morning before we had all these developments about Wes treating and Andy Burnham and all the rest of it, obviously the context was that might potentially clear the way for Angela Rayner to run in any leadership race if she chose to. If Wes Streeting had for example, triggered a contest before Andy Burnham could get back to Parliament. Now we don't find ourselves in that eventuality. And she made clear when she gave a series of interviews to the Guardian on ITV that she wasn't going to be the person to kind of pull the trigger against Keir Starmer.
- [29:22]
E
But also, oh, the timing of it, the idea as we've had confirmed to us that she got this letter or confirmation from HMRC on Tuesday. Wednesday, of course no one could do anything with the King Speech and of
- [29:35]
B
course Tuesday was the day that we had this trickle of of MPs and a few ministers saying we don't like the Prime Minister anymore.
- [29:40]
D
Fed up.
- [29:41]
E
I mean, just how perfectly has it worked out for her? Wednesday, okay, it's the King's Speech. No one would dare there say anything. But clearly they were pre recording a TV interview and chatting to Pippa Career on the phone, ready to drop it at 6am now of course by 6pm two other potential rivals were dominating the headlines. But it has cleared the way for Angela Rayner. She hasn't. She's not going to challenge Keir Starmer directly, she said, but she's also, I think tried a bit like Wes treating to look like she's thinking about about a broad contest. She wouldn't necessarily rule out backing somebody else. It's not all about me. She's basically arguing maybe there is another strong contender. But I suppose those are the sort of messages from Rainer and Streeting that at this stage is probably necessary if you're trying to persuade Labour members.
- [30:31]
C
And Angela Rainer is going to be a key voice in that contest regardless of what happens, because she commands a lot of support from a certain section of the party.
- [30:37]
D
And here's a thought which may be overtaken by the time this is watched or listened to by newscasters. Probably there's a vacancy in the Cabinet and Keir Starmer said he wants to bring Angela Rayner back to the Cabinet. But would she want to come back to the Cabinet right now? Does she fancy being Health Secretary? Just sort of throw that into the mix in terms of the, the dilemmas that so many of the kind of players in this. In this drama, wrestle with and have been doing this week, seemingly sort of minute by minute. You know what, if you're Keir Starmer, is that a wise thing to do outwardly? I think probably it would be. If it's Angela, if you're Angela Rayner, is it a wise thing to accept that's a trickier thing to wrestle with? Anyway, as you're listening or watching, we may already have the answer, but there you go.
- [31:24]
B
And also we learned in the New Statesman magazine this week in the diary column, which was written by Sam Tarry, the former Labour MP who's Angela Rayner's partner, that she was doing one of these assault course races for charity last weekend. And he said, oh, do you want me to cook you a healthy breakfast? And she said, oh, I've already had breakfast. And she'd had a bowl of sweets and a cigarette. And I just wonder, does that send a great message as your new Health Secretary? That's what they have before they go and do their.
- [31:49]
C
Well, she wasn't gonna go and do
- [31:50]
D
a charity run, don't they?
- [31:51]
E
I mean, I think a lot of people like that. There's a sort of authenticity, I suppose, to her. Certainly some close to Rainer have said that she wouldn't want to do a big job temporarily, she wouldn't want to be a caretaker. I suppose the other part of this, and I've heard this from some MPs this evening, is they think, what on earth is happening with number 10? If we're streeting jumped at 1pm and we're now looking at, what, 10 to 8, that's almost seven hours of having no health secretary. Is that because number 10 are struggling to find the appropriate person or they just want to wait till the sort of news calms down? I'm not sure. But it is odd that a major department is without a boss for quite a long time.
- [32:34]
D
And in the recent vacancies that they've had to fill, when we saw the resignation of those ministerial aides and then we saw those resignation of ministers below the cabinet level, they were filled relatively quickly. So, I mean, I would have thought, it'll happen soon. Ish. And it'll be, yeah, it'd be fascinating.
- [32:50]
E
Who's your money on, Chris?
- [32:52]
D
I don't know, to be honest. We've all been talking about how this is the sort of 57 hour day or whatever I'm. I've given him, I could say, the
- [33:01]
B
name of a fake MP that I've just invented. You'd probably all go, yeah, yeah, fucking fat just to get out of this studio and go and have a break and have something to eat. But that's the perfect time for us to wrap up this episode of Newscast towards the end of a very, very, very busy week for British politics. So Joe, thank you very much.
- [33:17]
E
Thanks, Adam.
- [33:18]
B
Alex, good to see you again.
- [33:19]
C
Pleasure as ever.
- [33:20]
B
And Chris, good to catch up.
- [33:21]
D
Cheers.
- [33:21]
B
And that's all for this episode of Newscast. Thank you very much for being with us. Bye bye.
- [33:25]
C
Newscast Newscast from the BBC, From War one newscaster to another, thank you so much for making it to the end of this episode.
- [33:34]
D
You clearly do, in the words of
- [33:36]
C
Chris Mason, ooze stamina. Can I also gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Tell everyone you know. And don't forget, you can email us anytime@newscastbc.co.uk or if you're that way inclined, send us a WhatsApp on plus or 403-301-239480. Be assured, I promise we listen to everyone.
- [34:14]
A
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