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Where did the obsession of some US administrations with Iranian regime change come from? It may be older than you think. I'm Tristan Redman, host of the Global story from the BBC. It happened once before in 1953, when the CIA led a coup that tried and succeeded in toppling the Iranian government. And many Iranians haven't forgotten. For more, look for the global story on BBC.com or wherever you listen.
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Hello. Here is the very shortened version of what's been happening today on Monday as we record this episode of Newscast. So Keir Starmer did his big fight back speech. Reviews were fairly mixed, I think it's fair to say. Then Catherine west, the Labour backbencher and former minister who's been kind of the star of the news of the weekend, downgraded what she was trying to do from a leadership contest to more getting Keir Starmer to set out a timetable for a leadership contest. Then we got a trickle that turned into a bit more of a fuller flow of Labour MPs saying that maybe Keir Starmer's time was up. And then at tea time, just as we were getting ready to record this episode, some PPSs. So the people who are like the lowest rung of the ministerial ladder, often called ministerial bag carriers, in a slightly derogatory way, a few of them announced that they'd lost confidence in Keir Starmer too, and some of them resigned from their posts. And then people started working out, hang on, who are they bag carriers to? And the name Wes Streeting came up, which leads some people to the conclusion that maybe Wes Streeting is in the foothills of his own leadership challenge against Keir Starmer. So we will unpack all of that, or at least try to get our heads around it, on this episode of
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Newscast, Newscast, Newscast from the BBC.
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Humanity's next great voyage begins. We are in the midst of a rupture.
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Nostalgia will not bring back the old order.
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6.
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Yeah, it's supposed to be me as a doctor.
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Daddy has has also a special quotation.
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Ooh la la.
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Thinking about it like a panto helped.
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Do we play music now or what do we do? Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio.
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And it's Alex in the newscast studio.
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And I should just say, for full Transparency, it is 6.34pm on Monday 11th May, and Chris Mason will whirl in like the Tasmanian Devil with the latest, because there's quite a lot happening. And we just thought, actually, why don't me and Alex, while We've got a kind of moment. Just talk about what's been today and then Chris can update us on the very latest, which will probably also change as he's updating us. Yeah, just one of those kind of days. So, Alex, let's wind the clock back to 10am on Monday morning, Keir Starmer was at a venue in central London doing a. And I hate this cliche, but it is true in this case, a kind of make or break speech.
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Yeah, it genuinely is true in this case, because the backdrop of that, of course, is those brutal local election results and election results in Scotland and Wales where labor just took a proper kicking. And then over the weekend, you had a sort of tricker of people expressing their discontent about the Prime Minister. So as of early Monday morning, it was like in the early 30s. Number of labor mps who'd basically said, either he's got to go or he needs to set a timetable to go. Masses of discontent across the Labor Party. So with that backdrop, Karma was going to stand up and deliver this speech in which he basically had to convince labor mps not to move against them. So it, yeah, it is a cliche make or break, but this was a proper moment where. Where he had to persuade his MPs to keep him in his job.
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And we'll come on to the content in a second, but just first of all, the visuals. So straight away I thought, well, hang on, this is in quite a dingy room, so it wasn't like a grand make or break kind of venue. But I suppose you've only got a certain amount of time to make these things happen, so let's not judge him too harshly on that. But then I thought, oh, he sat there without a suit jacket and without a tie. So I think he wants to convey a message of that. He's quite chilled about all of this. In other words, he's not buying into like the end of an era thing. And it's like sleep, sleeves rolled up. And then I thought, oh, he's trying to be personal and feel like Keir Starmer the, the. The guy in the office, Keir Starmer the dad, Keir Starmer the son, rather than Keir Starmer the buttoned up politician. And then I noticed there was no members of the Cabinet there. This wasn't a government. There was Anna Turley, who's chair of the Labour Party, who sits on the front bench in the House of Commons. But this was not. Didn't seem to me like this is a government event. It felt this is like a Sir K Starmer was a party event.
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It was a Labor Party event. So, yeah, you had Anna Turley, the Labour Party chair, and you had Lucy Powell, who was the deputy leader of the Labor Party, elected to that position by party members. So this was not a government event. And all of that is really interesting. It might sound a bit like in the weeds, but obviously this was Ker speaking to the Labor Party, basically saying, don't get rid of me, folks. I've got it in me to do this. And it's funny because I was in the newsroom in Broadcasting House in London and I was actually working on something else and trying to keep half an eye on the Star on the Keir Starmer speech. And out the corner of my eye, just as he stood up, I caught the rolled up shirt sleeves and the white shirt and the open neck and then no jacket. And I thought, oh, my goodness. Because politicians only ever do that when they want to send a message in. My interpretation of that was this was not him being like, I'm relaxed about this moment. It was like quite the opposite. My interpretation was this is him showing that he's going to fight for it. He's prepared to roll up his sleeves, get stuck in and do what he's got to do to. To save his job.
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And let's hear a little bit of the speech. And this is where K. Starmer acknowledged that quite a lot of people had quite a lot of problems with him.
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I know that people are frustrated by the state of Britain, frustrated by politics, and some people frustrated with me. I know I have my doubters and I know I need to prove them wrong, and I will.
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Where did the obsession of some US administrations with Iranian regime change come from? It may be older than you think. I'm Tristan Redman, host of the Global story from the BBC. It happened once before in 1953, when the CIA led a coup that tried and succeeded in toppling the Iranian government. And many Iranians haven't forgotten. For more, look for the global story on BBC.com or wherever you listen.
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And I think Chris is here. Hello, Chris.
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Hi, both.
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So what was that? Here's another cliche. We may as well do. Cliche Bingo. What was the mood like in the room?
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What was the mood? The atmosphere? Oh, it was. Yeah, no, the was. It was packed. So it was at a place just south of the River Thames, not far from Westminster. It was packed. I tell you what it reminded me of. I know newscasters, like a little kind of historical canter. It reminded me of 2003 and Ian Duncan Smith, as a Conservative Party leader in a lot of trouble from his own side and gave a conference speech where the famous quote about the quiet man turning up the volume. And it reminded me of that.
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And he said it very quietly.
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Yeah, it reminded me of that for two reasons. One, because what Ian Duncan Smith attempted to do in that speech was speak in a manner publicly that he often didn't. There was a bit more oomph and energy there. But it principally reminded me of that because of the reaction of those in the room. There was an authentic desire. Cause clearly the people in the room were really keen on Keir Starmer and wanted to support him, to give him long ovations, long applause, big cheers, out of kilter, apart from the fact that clearly his back is right against the wall. So there was a real sense of trying to will along someone who was in a. And still is in a very vulnerable position.
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And then, Alex, in terms of the substance of what Keir Starmer was saying, I actually found it quite familiar. It felt very much like a Keir Starmer Labour Party conference speech. A bit of backstory, a bit of, here are the sort of the themes I'm going to pursue. And one of the themes was a closer relationship with the eu. But not much detail beyond the stuff that we know already that they're pursuing.
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No, because he's been talking about that for some time and he's also had a whole load of meetings with these people in the eu, talking about closer relationships with the eu. But what I did think he'd said in that speech, which was, I think what he did a bit more bluntly, was criticize Brexit. So when he was saying about, you know, he said it was going to bring immigration down, it was going to make you safer. No, no, no. None of that happened. So it felt like there was a bit more of a direct kind of criticism of Brexit and the. And the people who pushed Brexit in a way that we haven't necessarily heard as bluntly from the Prime Minister. But in terms of the substance of what that closer relationship with the EU looks like, still not really sure what exactly is that going to involve, beyond attempt to get some youth mobility scheme, which we did know was very much on the cards before. Still not really sure. There was talk in the speech about plans to take under fully national public ownership. This still works at Scunthorpe. Again, that had sort of been kicked around a bit as a notion, and the government did do some action to step in and secure that plant I think it was last year. Am I right? Last year. So there was that in there. But. But the. I think what this was more about for Keir Starmer, and he did lean on his personal backstory and he did reference his own upbringing and he did talk about. He was trying to say, I really get it. You know, that's what he was attempting to do here was like, I understand why people in those Labour heartland communities turned away from us at the ballot box just a few days ago. I really get it and I'm going to do something about it. But beyond that, it wasn't detail rich for sure.
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And then, Chris, I imagine you left a speech and you were hammering the phones to find out if it was enough for Labour MPs.
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Yeah.
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So we were scanning the room, we were seeing who we could grab to talk to afterwards. There weren't many sort of senior Labour figures there. There was a sprinkling of MPs. There were no cabinet ministers. There was Anna Turley, who's the Labour Party chair. There was Lucy Powell, who's the elected deputy leader of the Labour Party. You might recall she was sacked from a job in government and then ran for the deputy leadership. After Angela Aina had left the job and then won that, I managed to grab a quick word with her. But then after that, it was all about what happens next. And the immediate thought afterwards was, what does Catherine west say? This is the former minister who spoke to our colleague Ben Wright on the PM program on Radio 4 on Saturday afternoon and kind of out of nowhere said she was willing to run as a stalking horse candidate, as a candidate seeking the support of those who wanted to try and trigger a leadership contest. And she would see what she made of the speech and then she'd offer her reaction to it. And we got a statement at lunchtime from her in which she reckoned that what the Prime Minister said was too little, too late. But crucially, she said she was no longer running as a potential leadership candidate, but instead would privately gather the views of Labour MPs, particularly those who might want to see some sort of timetable into the autumn for a new Prime Minister. And at that point, this was at lunchtime. It looked like the pressure might just be easing on the Prime Minister because clearly that was a better outcome for him than the alternative. Looked like it was a better outcome for Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, not currently an mp, and so couldn't run in a contest where one to start very quickly. It looked like it was better news for him as well. And Perhaps less good news for we're treating the Health Secretary because outwardly one vehicle via which turbulence could coalesce, if turbulence can coalesce, had seemingly kind of gone.
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But.
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But in the hours since lunchtime, and the pace has quickened as we record it just before 7 o' clock on Monday evening, in the hours since from Monday lunchtime to Monday tea time, the trickle of Labour MPs going public saying he should go, or set out a timetable to go, seemed to turn from a trickle into a flow. And then at 6 o', clock, or a couple of minutes before 6 o', clock, we had two ministerial aides, parliamentary private secretaries, to give them their official title. It's the most junior rung of the kind of government ladder, saying that they also thought that their boss should go. Among them, Joe Morris, who was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to one Wes Streeting, he of significant Prime Ministerial ambition. Another, Tom Rutland, who was a PPS to the Environment Secretary, Emma Reynolds. And there's been a third resignation of a third PPS saying that the Prime Minister should resign. I don't think they have yet resigned from their PPS role themselves, but that's a notching up.
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Now.
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They're not household names, they're not ministers, they're certainly not Cabinet ministers, but it is a notch up because it is people who are bound by the collective responsibility of government, saying the guy at the top of the government should go,
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just to make two other historical analogies to try and trump you, Chris, in the historical stakes. This reminds me of two episodes from the past. So the whole Catherine west efforts to get enough people to sign up to say, oh, the Prime Minister should resign, or set a timetable for his appointment of his replacement. That reminds me of the whole Theresa May, Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee, collecting letters of no confidence and everyone waiting for him to hit the magic number that would have triggered a leadership contest. So it's sort of a bit familiar from that. And then the whole PPS is resigning. So the people on the bottom rung of the ministerial ladder, which is always such a cruel way of describing them, but it is accurate, it is a ladder and they're at the bottom of it reminds me of 2006, when Gordon Brown's allies were trying to get Tony Blair to announce when he was going to resign, and the way they pushed him over the edge was to get PPSs to resign, to show the depth of feeling in the Parliamentary party that he couldn't carry on. So those are the two things happening here. But Alex Just a little point of process for the Labour Party. None of these things are actually in the official Labour Party rulebook for how you get rid of a Prime Minister.
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No. And it's interesting that you mentioned Graham Brady, and he was obviously chair of the Conservative backbench committee that was in charge of gathering letters. If you wanted to move against the Prime Minister at the time, it's really worth noting the difference. So under the Conservative rules, you could, as an mp, if you didn't quite like what the PM was up to, you could stick in an anonymous letter to Graham Brady, and when he got over a certain number, then he would go to the Prime Minister, say, sorry, pm, it's going to be a leadership contest. This many people don't really want you in the job. The Labor Party rules are really different. It is clear that what you need is any 81 Labor MPS, that's 20% of the parliamentary Labor Party, to publicly back one challenger to the Prime Minister or Labour Party leader. So while Catherine west says that she is gathering names of people who might want the Prime Minister to go, that could get to 81, that could get to 181. Unless there are 81 rallied around an alternative challenger, that will not automatically trigger a leadership contest in Labor. So it's a very different situation. Having said that, that's not the only mechanism, of course, by which a Labor Party leader, or a Prime Minister in this case, could be unseated. There is a scenario where the pressure just grows too much, that so many people come out publicly in the Parliamentary Labor Party that, you know, Kirmer, as we're talking about in this scenario, decides that he just can't withstand that pressure. There's an alternative scenario, and this may or may not be, and I caveat that, because we don't really know what's going on. I certainly don't. Chris might. I don't. But it might be. There is a sort of orchestrated thing where you get junior ministerial position resignations and then the cabinet decide they need to have a word with Keir Starmer and say, we think it's time for you to go because your authority's draining and you're losing support of people at lower levels of government as well as across the party. So there are other scenarios, but the only formal, definite way that backbenchers can push it is by 81 of them gathering around a specific candidate to launch that challenge.
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And that's the thing, Chris. That 81 number is the only sort of specific threshold that we've got in any of this and also looks like that's the process. That's not the one process that's not happening here, the one with a specific threshold that could help us all understand it had been reached.
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Indeed. Because as things stand, which is an important sentence to use at the moment.
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Yes, it's now 6:47, as we record
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it, as things stand, there isn't a wannabe candidate who publicly is seeking those 81 names. In other words, someone who says, you know, sign up to my cause and we will publicly say we have met the threshold for there to be a leadership challenge, not least because Catherine west has said she is not that person. But what appears to be happening as we record is a gathering momentum of Labour MPs, including, as we say, ministerial aides, which is a notch up in the pressure on the Prime Minister saying that he should go. We're well above 10% now of the Labour Parliamentary Party. And the thing to watch now, as of Monday evening, is, is there a remorseless momentum to those public calls where it gets to the point that it is simply unsustainable for the Prime Minister because his authority is clearly shattered? That's what we seem to be looking at now. And, of course, the other thing that might happen in the context of this continuing to happen, MPs continuing to say he should set a timetable to resign or he should resign, is that it could create space for a candidate to conclude that it's ripe to go over the top with their own list of 81 MPs, some of whom might already be publicly out there, others who might not be, and then you're into a scenario of there being a contest.
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And I suppose the only thing we know for definite in that scenario is that that person would not be Andy Burnham because he's not an mp.
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Exactly.
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Again, I'm just looking for things that we know for definite here that we can actually sort of write down in ink, as opposed to just being slightly in pencil or just floating in there. And so we know for. Definitely that would be Andy Burnham, but it could. It could be Wes treating.
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Yes, exactly.
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He's kind of the strongest potential at the moment, isn't he?
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Yes, you would have thought so outwardly, but. But the. With the expectation that were he to. To be in it, then you would have, perhaps Angela Rayner, who knows who else seeking to contest it too. The. The other element of it which is interesting is, is there. Let's see how things play out and things are moving so, so, so quickly. But if you had a scenario where. And the Prime Minister, of course, has not gone anywhere near this. In fact, he said the exact opposite. But in a scenario where the Prime Minister was willing to set out a timetable and were that timetable longer than being very, very imminent, it's possible you could have a scenario where, you know, others would try and get back to Parliament very quickly. I was talking to Clive Lewis today, the Norwich mp, the Labour backbe, who's very close to Andy Burnham, who said on camera that he thought that Andy Burnham could be back in Parliament within a couple of months and that the by election, which of course would be something of a circus, would be him seeking to be the next Prime Minister. That would be the pitch. He wouldn't be fighting that by election, trying to defend the work of the current government. He'd be running that by election to become Prime Minister. Now, clearly, winning the by election is not the same as becoming Prime Minister then with the whole process of a contest, et cetera, et cetera, that's just what he'd be seeking to do.
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Also, just as you were talking there, I think we had another PPS resigning, Nausheba Khan, who's PPS at the Cabinet Office, but that's me just reading off social media. So not totally, totally confirmed, Alex, just in terms of the people who have been putting their head above the parapet today, whether they're these fabled PPS's or not, it's quite a spread of people, isn't it? Different wings of the party, different ages, different grievances against Keir Starmer, maybe.
C
Yeah. And I think that's probably what makes today feel a little bit different to what we had seen in the immediate period preceding this, because there have been for some time some very vocal and public critics of the Prime Minister. There have been a very, very small number who for a little while now, have suggested that he isn't the right guy for the job. And then what we saw over the course of the weekend seemingly was a sort of push by some from the left or the soft left of the party who would maybe favor Andy Burnham for a future, future leadership contender. They were the ones that seem to be pushing for this notion of set out a timetable for your departure, Prime Minister. Now, what we've had today is the people who've publicly now suggested that they've lost their confidence in the Prime Minister for one reason or another, at some point or another, think that he probably needs to go to the extent of that, has spread to different kind of wings or groupings with the party. So we had Chris Curtis, who is the chair of a group of Labor Growth MPs, he came out and said that he now thought that the Prime Minister couldn't stay in the job. So I think when you start to see people from different parts of the party come out, and as things stand, I think what we're now like 56, 57, that kind of number have publicly said that they think the Prime Minister should either go or set a timetable for himself to go. That is only out of. That's still only 56, 57 out of more than 400 Labour MPs. But when the. When the extent of that spreads to different parts of the party, you seem then to get the sort of sense that the momentum behind this is certainly growing.
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And we're now at the stage of the evening where our colleagues are reporting how many ministerial cars are in or out of Downing street, which just tells you that people have been in or out of Downing street in a car.
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Yeah. Don't read too much in the cars.
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Yeah. Chris, anything else you want to bring us in terms of things that are actually happening and you're picking up?
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Well, what's happening?
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I mean, you've been talking and listening to us, so you haven't had much chance. Multitasking.
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We're into one of those. We're into one of those zones. In fact, I just came off the 6 o' clock news and I was recounting as I walked down the stairs of maybe remembering the whole business around Boris Johnson and indeed around Liz Truss, and moments where stories just move with incredible pace. And in the. The time it took for Sophie Raworth to read the introduction at the top of the 6 o' clock news and then for me to talk to her live about 10 minutes later, that ticker, that number of Labour MPs who had said the Prime Minister should go had gone up by four or five. And that's the kind of world we're in now, and where no one person is in sole control, certainly not the Prime Minister, where the various leadership camps are thinking, you know, what do they want to do and when? Because timing can be so, so crucial in all of this Cabinet meeting happening first thing tomorrow morning, what happens then? What does the Cabinet do next? What do ministers at a more junior rank than the Cabinet, but more senior than those ministerial aides, what do they do? And it's one of those things where. And you'll recall this, we were saying a few minutes ago, weren't we, the whole business of Graham Brady and the letters and the Conservatives and all the rest of it, it can get to the stage where the individual action of a particular minister or aide or whoever it might be. I mean, often, of course, they will talk to lots of colleagues, etc, etc, but the individual decision that may have been weighed and kicked around in their mind for days on end or whatever, when that comes, can suddenly change the metric or can tempt others to follow suit or can, you know, just have a bigger bearing than perhaps they had anticipated. Perhaps the Catherine west case study is one of those cases in point. And, yeah, so we're very much in that zone now where, I mean, who on earth knows how the next 24 hours plays out?
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The only thing I'd just say is that, you know, there are very many people in the Labour Party, the parliamentary Labour Party, Labour and Peace, who do not want this to descend into some bloody battle. Internal infighting, angry, playing out in public. And I think they are acutely conscious that they don't think the electorate would want to see that either. People out there.
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The argument Starmer made in his speech, completely.
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And there are many labor mps, and it is interesting to note how many people, even among those who've gone over the top today and said they don't think the Prime Minister should lead them into the next election or whatever words to that effect. They are saying there needs to be an orderly transition, a timetable for departure. You know, it seems to me there is a real consciousness that some of
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those people are using orderly transition as code for keep this going so that Andy Burnham can swoop in and take over. But some people are using it in a let's just calm down sort of way.
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Absolutely. So even at this moment, among the people who are now saying they don't think that Keir Starmer's the guy for the job, even they don't seem, seem to be agreed on the next step in this. All the while you've got some people that party really anxious about the notion of turning inward and infighting and wrangling and tussling about who's going to be the next Prime Minister in Labour Party leaver leader. All of the fresh memories of what happened to the Conservative Party when they did that quick succession of leaders and how the electorate ultimately didn't forgive them for all of the turmoil that it put the country through. So I think that is in the minds of lots of labor mps as well, which is like another element of uncertainty about how this is all going to unfold in the next 24 and 48 hours.
A
I think my takeaway is, I thought when I was Watching the Keir Starmer speech from home at about 10:56, when he finished answering all the questions, I was like, oh, he's bought himself maybe a couple of days or a couple of hours and actually he'd bought himself a couple of minutes is the reality. He bought himself till about 11 o'. Clock. Right, it's now nearly 7pm, so we're going to wrap up there. Also, the, the kind of, the mad thing about all of this is the day after Tuesday, Wednesday is the King's speech, the state opening of Parliament, which is meant to be an okay, people can go, oh, it's all a load of flummery. Oh, the King doesn't even write the speech. But it is meant to be a big moment in the life of a government where it says, right, here's what we're going to do in Parliament for the next year. 18 months, 2 years. Anyone watching this? These are our priorities, these are what we care about. This is how we're going to change your life. To me, it's just quite mind boggling that that is happening in the same timeline as all of this. Oh, and actually, just to show off my learning today, I was set the challenge of some homework by Laura and Paddy and Henry on Sunday about vellum. Paddy was saying, oh, the King does a speech reading off some vellum. It's goat skin. First mistake, it's not goat skin, vellum is calf skin.
C
Good to know.
A
Second mistake. Sorry, Paddy. The King's or Queen's Speech or the Sovereign Speech has not been on vellum since the 1990s. It's on high quality paper and the only place you will find vellum now is the front cover and back cover of new legislation, which is a compromise because all legislation used to be written on vellum, but it's too expensive. House of Lords wanted to stop it. The compromise they reached with the House of Commons to maintain tradition is that the front and back of legislation is on vellum and it's archive paper in between.
C
You really did do your homework. I am impressed.
A
And I was gutted that the speed of events was maybe going to mean I didn't get a chance to say all of that, but I have now said it. It was a make or break bit of homework for me. Alex, thank you very much. Good luck catching your train and catching up with all the news tonight on the train.
C
Lovely, thank you.
A
And Chris, thanks for bringing us up today.
E
Ta.
A
And that's all for this episode of Newscast. We will be standing by to do many more. Bye bye.
E
Bye. Newscast.
C
Newscast from the BBC.
E
Well, thank you for making it to the end of another newscast. You clearly ooze stamina. Can I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? And then, without having to do anything else, our meandering chat will miraculously make its way to your phone.
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Where did the obsession of some US Administrations with Iranian regime change come from? It may be older than you think. I'm Tristan Redman, host of the Global story from the BBC. It happened once before in 1953, when the CIA led a coup that tried and succeeded in toppling the Iranian government. And many Iranians haven't forgotten. For more, look for the global story on BBC.com or wherever you listen.
Newscast – "Labour MPs Move Against Starmer" (May 11, 2026)
Host: Adam Fleming, with BBC colleagues Alex Forsyth and Chris Mason
The episode dives into a dramatic day for the UK Labour Party as discontent simmering after harsh local election results erupts into visible moves against Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The Newscast team dissects Starmer's pivotal "fightback" speech, the mini-rebellion brewing among Labour MPs, a spate of junior ministerial resignations, and what all this means for the party's immediate future. Amid fast-moving events, the team discusses the odds of a leadership challenge and reflects on historical precedents.
Setting & Tone:
Speech Content:
Quote Highlight:
"I know that people are frustrated... frustrated with me. I know I have my doubters and I know I need to prove them wrong, and I will." (05:44)
In the Room:
Labour MP Response:
How Labour Ousts a Leader:
Notable Historical Parallels:
Potential Challengers:
Backroom Moves:
On Starmer’s Vulnerability:
“There was a real sense of trying to will along someone who was… in a very vulnerable position.” (07:23)
Public Criticism of Brexit:
“What he did a bit more bluntly was criticize Brexit… there was a bit more of a direct kind of criticism… than we’ve heard before.” (08:28)
Speed of Developments:
“I thought… he’d bought himself a couple of days or a couple of hours, and actually he’d bought himself a couple of minutes.” (25:51)
On Labour’s Internal Dilemmas:
“Very many people in the Labour Party… do not want this to descend into some bloody battle. Internal infighting, angry, playing out in public.” (24:20)
On Leadership Challenge Mechanisms:
“Labour Party rules are really different… unless there are 81 rallied around an alternative challenger, that will not automatically trigger a leadership contest in Labour.” (14:29)
For listeners seeking a real-time understanding of the day’s politics, this episode offers vivid insight, brisk historical context, and clear explanations of Labour’s internal machinery at a moment of crisis.