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- [00:00]
Adam Fleming
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- [00:48]
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- [00:50]
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- [00:56]
Daniela Ralph
Car.
- [00:57]
Adam Fleming
Come out, come out, wherever you are, please.
- [01:00]
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- [01:04]
Adam Fleming
Did this parking lot have a waterfall?
- [01:06]
Geico Advertiser
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- [01:09]
Adam Fleming
It feels good to find what you're looking for. It feels good to Geico. Hello. Slightly longer episode of Newscast than usual. And that's because the second half of the pod is going to be a big look back at the events of the week, which we normally do every week, but most weeks aren't like this one's been. And the first half will be Daniela Ralph, senior Royal Correspondent, talking about what we've gleaned about King Charles's finances. So those are the two things coming your way on a bumper edition of
- [01:35]
Daniela Ralph
Newscast, newscast, newscast from the BBC.
- [01:38]
Adam Fleming
I will resign as leader of the Labor Party.
- [01:41]
Daniela Ralph
And what will you do?
- [01:43]
Sienna Rogers
Stare at a wall?
- [01:44]
Odoo Advertiser
Humanity's next great voyage begins.
- [01:46]
Adam Fleming
You know, I like my bosses. I'll come on to them. It's supposed to be me as a doctor.
- [01:50]
Alva Ray
O la la.
- [01:50]
Sienna Rogers
Thinking about it like a panto helped.
- [01:53]
Alva Ray
Do we play music now or what do we do?
- [01:55]
Adam Fleming
Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio. And first of all, we're going to focus on matters royal, because the royal accounts have come out and actually, there are quite a few news stories in there, not least the fact the King, for the first time ever, has revealed how much tax he has paid, a thing that he does on a voluntary basis since his mother started doing that in the 1990s. The person who can bring us all the details because she's been peering into the spreadsheets is senior Royal correspondent Daniela Ralph. Hi, Daniela.
- [02:21]
Daniela Ralph
Hi, Adam.
- [02:22]
Adam Fleming
So you're Actually slap bang in between Clarence House and Buckingham Palace.
- [02:27]
Daniela Ralph
Yeah, that's right. So Buckingham palace behind me, everyone knows that there, Clarence House, it's behind the camera. We can't see. It's always slightly hidden and shielded by the trees, it's harder to spot. But it is literally just across the road from Buckingham Palace. Much smaller, much more private, a little bit hidden away, but just across the road.
- [02:46]
Adam Fleming
And we'll talk about King Charles's finances in a second. But just sticking to his lodgings, is it quite a surprise that he and the Queen are going to stay there rather than moving into his mum's old apartment?
- [02:57]
Daniela Ralph
Not really, because they've never lived in Buckingham Palace. So the fact that they hadn't really shown a great deal of interest in moving in was perhaps a sign that they weren't that keen to do it in the first place. But I think actually just hearing the team at Buckingham palace say it and say that the monarch will not be living in Buckingham palace, the first time that has happened since the reign of Queen Victoria, it's still a thing, you know, it's still quite a moment because I think for a lot of people visiting Buckingham palace, there is a magic in knowing that perhaps the King or the Queen might be there. You know, when you walk around to have a look, I don't know about you, but when I've been in, you sometimes think, oh, is this their bedroom? If they walked here, what are they doing in there? Should we peek behind the curtain? There's all of that kind of stuff. And is that perhaps lost when you know that the monarch isn't going to live there? Maybe a little bit. But ultimately it was a very personal decision from the King and Queen. They wanted to stay at Clarence House is where they've lived for more than 20 years. You've got to remember as well, they're two people in their late 70s, the king is living with cancer. And the bottom line is they didn't want to live above the shop and they didn't want the upheaval of moving themselves and their staff to Buckingham Palace. So they have chosen to stay living at Clarence House. But Buckingham palace has still been described by the King's team as Monarchy hq. It's the operational base of the Royal family that we're still going to see garden parties, state banquets, big events. And there is this chance now that without a monarch in residence on a long term basis, that the palace could be open up to the public more often for longer periods of the year, therefore generating more income and actually linked
- [04:26]
Adam Fleming
to the story about money. A lot of money has been spent over the last few years on the refurbishment of Buckingham palace. And I suppose this reinforces the fact that that wasn't a glow up for the King's flat, it was getting a public building, which is used for public purposes, up to scratch, as opposed to some kind of vanity project like gold wallpaper.
- [04:45]
Daniela Ralph
Yeah, exactly. It was not a gold wallpaper and a bit of a zhuzh up for the King's private apartments that would have been there. It was a much bigger project. Almost 370 million pounds of public money spent on the 10 year refurbishment, the resurfacing, as the palace call it, of Buckingham palace that is now nearly complete. And you know, there are some that might say, well, if the King's not even going to be living there, wasn't that a whole waste of money? But it was a really big project. We're talking rewiring, changing the plumbing. There were asbestos issues and the King's team say, look, you know, this is a 300 year old building, it needed attention. And the work that has been done, regardless of who's living in it, will make the building more usable for decades to come.
- [05:26]
Adam Fleming
Right, let's open the spreadsheets then and give us the backstory. First of all, why is the King revealing how much tax he's paid?
- [05:33]
Daniela Ralph
Well, these are the publication of the Royal accounts. They're an important part of the Royal year. They happen around this time every year. The difference this year is there has just been this real scrutiny on the family finances. The fallout after the whole situation with Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor and his accommodation and who's paying for what has just put royal money under more scrutiny than it's ever been, really. With lots of calls politically for great accountability and for transparency. That has been heard to a degree by the teams within both Buckingham palace and Kensington Palace. And one of the little chinks of light they've given us in the publication of Royal accounts this year is to give us those figures for tax. So we know that since the King became King and since Prince William became the Prince of Wales, jointly, they have paid over £50 million to HMRC. In the year 2024 to 2025, the king paid just over £12 million in tax and Prince William in the same period, paid just over 7 million pounds. It's the first time we've had any kind of ballpark figure for a monarch paying tax. So that in itself is interesting, it is new information, it is something we didn't know before. But it is openness with limitations, because what we don't know is quite how that figure was got to. What was the breakdown, what were the sources of income that were liable for tax rate, what were the numbers there that were put together, how were things audited? We don't know any of that information. We don't know anything about private investments, savings that were taxed. So, yes, we've got more information, a little bit information, more information than we had before, but it's far from all of the information that perhaps you'd like to have.
- [07:12]
Adam Fleming
Yeah, we don't know, for example, how much cash the King had in a, in a stocks and shares isa, which is now going to be charged higher tax rates because of Richard Reeves reforms. And also the thing about, about the King's finances is that there's so many different sources, money go into, into his household. As you were saying, there. There's the money that he gets from, from his own private investments, there's the money he gets from the Duchy of Lancaster, which is a basically sort of a big, almost like landlord's business that's been established for hundreds and hundreds of years, designed to give the sovereign an income. And then, of course, there's the, the, the money that, that the Royal Family as a whole get from the government to do their public duties.
- [07:52]
Daniela Ralph
Yeah, all of that is right. And it just gives you a flavor of just how complicated these accounts are. Whenever I go into Royal Accounts Day, as I did yesterday, I always think I get this, I've fully across it, I've done my homework, I've been through the numbers and accounts from past years and past reports, and you still get in there to go through the new figures. And it is really complicated. However much, you know, you just don't know all the detail. You haven't got all the numbers of all the separate bits of incoming money. And as you say, we're never really going to know, are we, exactly what the King's private money is, how much he's got in his bank, what his investments are, what his savings are, what he's inherited. So, you know, there is a lot of information that will always be missing. It is difficult to really dig down into the numbers around royal accounts, but we have, you know, got a little bit more information this year, perhaps than we've had before. And I think that is a, a little bit of a response to Buckingham palace and Kensington palace, knowing that the public wants to know more.
- [08:51]
Adam Fleming
And have you seen much reaction to this, or is this just a case of everyone thinking Oh, a rich guy pays rich guy amount of tax.
- [08:58]
Daniela Ralph
There is a bit of that. And I think part of the problem with this as well is that you kind of, if you are a Republican, you're not going to like this in any way whatsoever. You're just not going to really believe in a constitutional monarchy. You're not going to believe in the hereditary inheritance of grand estates and land to give you an income. If you're a staunch monarchist, you're going to think, well, of course, the King and Queen need public money to do the work of the public, to get out and about to be seen to be doing charity stuff. You know, you are philosophically in two very different places, which tend to be how you then look at the Royal account. So it's sometimes very hard to get an impartial view or somebody who can look at it with a cool head. And I think, you know, depending on what camp you're in, that's going to be your take on what the numbers are.
- [09:42]
Adam Fleming
And one of the sources which I alluded to earlier on is this sovereign grant, which is the amount of money the treasury gives to the Royal Family to carry out their duties. So not for private stuff, not for the Royal family as a family, but for the Royal Family as public figures. And that seems to be going up by a lot.
- [10:00]
Daniela Ralph
Yeah, that is a quite eye catching figure that came out of the account. So that figure from 2027 is going to be just under £100 million every year for five years. So it's going to be flat, it's not going to follow inflation, it will just be that figure. But that is more around double what it was three years ago. So that is a really considerable uplift. Now, when you ask why has that happened? Well, Buckingham palace say, because there's just a lot to do. The Royal Family are carrying out more engagements, there are more historic buildings to maintain. They've got two big projects on that they want to do as well, which is improving cyber security across all Royal residences. And there is this transition to green energy that they're doing as well. So, for example, £11 million has been earmarked to change the boilers at Windsor Castle, just as one little slice of what that money is going to be spent on. But it is still a huge uplift for that figure to be doubled to almost £100 million for five, five years. It's a figure that has been approved by the Prime Minister and by the Chancellor. But what we don't know is what were the state of the discussions? Was there Any pushback from the government in terms of the numbers, how was it broken down in terms of justifying what they needed to spend and what it would cost? So it's another one of those situations here where we have some of that information. We can see there is a massive uplift, but we don't quite know the flavour of the conversations that were had to agree for that number to go up. And I think, you know, if you are anti the monarchy, if you think the Royal Family costs too much money, well, that kind of uplift is something that will really annoy you.
- [11:34]
Adam Fleming
And also the Sovereign grant is basically an algorithm, isn't it? It's a formula that was come up with by George Osborne when he was Chancellor, which is that the, the Royal family get 12% of the profits from the Crown Estate. And the Crown Estate is the bit of the, the architecture of the sovereign that owns the coastline and the seabed on which we're building loads and loads of wind farms and wind farm connectors to bring onto land.
- [11:59]
Daniela Ralph
Yeah, that's right. It started at 12%, that figure. It's now going up to 20 to get that £100 million figure.
- [12:06]
Adam Fleming
Oh, I see. So that's the bit of the algorithm that's changed.
- [12:09]
Daniela Ralph
Exactly when you say it was an algorithm. Algorithms can change, of course, and they can shift. And that's what has happened in the conversations with government here to come to this new figure for the sovereign grant, the percentage has gone up.
- [12:23]
Adam Fleming
Now, talking about numbers, people complain about the price of a train ticket, but the Royal train to Lancaster in June 2020, that trip cost £48,460. I can see why they're bringing the Royal Train out of service.
- [12:37]
Daniela Ralph
Yeah, the Royal Train goes out of service next year. And Perhaps that's why 48,000 pounds to get to Clitheroe does seem rather a lot of money even in peak time, doesn't it? So the Royal Train is expensive. We knew that. And when you go through the travel figures in the accounts, there are quite a few train journeys that seem quite eye wateringly expensive. You know, we're talking well over £20,000 for a trip. So from next year, the Royal Train won't be used. There's also around three quarters of a million pounds spent on 177 helicopter flights by the Royal Family over the past year. A lot of chartered aircraft being used as well. Over £800,000 spent on chartered aircraft. And the most expensive overseas trip of the year, that was made by Prince William to Saudi Arabia back in February. And that cost £130,000.
- [13:23]
Adam Fleming
The only intel I have on the Royal helicopter is that the late Queen had a sweetie drawer on it. And if you were invited to be on the helicopter with her, she'd open the sweetie drawer and there would be a range of sweeties in there for you to choose from.
- [13:36]
Daniela Ralph
That is excellent intelligence. I didn't know that.
- [13:39]
Adam Fleming
That's why I'm not Senior Royal Correspondent and you are now. We have been watching a documentary on iplayer about the England squad going to the World cup in 2006 and there's a great guest appearance. Yeah, a great guest appearance by you.
- [13:56]
Daniela Ralph
I know I look so young and my skin is so nice and I hadn't had any children by that point. I just looked at it longingly. Yeah. I was at the Beckham's party in Hertfordshire in 2006, I think it was. Yeah, during my days covering a bit
- [14:10]
Adam Fleming
of sport and that mean was such a. Such a picture of that era. And I think my main takeaway from it was because that was, that was the peak of kind of celebrity culture and all the mags and the tabloids being obsessed about celebrities and you just think the sort of the culture around the England squad now, they're like a sort of like a monastery now compared to what the England squad was like then.
- [14:33]
Daniela Ralph
Yeah, I mean, those were wild days. I did the World cup in 2002, which was in Japan and South Korea, which again was at the start of that whole WAG culture. It was in the days when Sven Eriksson was the England manager. We'd had all the gossip about him having an affair with the TV presenter Ulrike Johnson. It was peak tabloid scandal for the England football team. And I can remember during that trip, you know, we would see the players out and about, you know, having dinner, sitting outside, having a coffee. They went shopping on the big to the big department store in town one day. The whole team went out one night, just went for a late night shop. I mean, the mood was completely different to the discipline, you know, that is there in the England camp now. They were very different times.
- [15:14]
Adam Fleming
Well, Daniela, we've managed to talk about Buckingham palace and Beckingham palace in the same conversation. So well done.
- [15:19]
Daniela Ralph
Perfect.
- [15:21]
Adam Fleming
And that leads seamlessly on to our next entry for supporter Reporter where we're looking for a newscaster with a link to every single country that is represented at the World cup in the usa, Canada and Mexico. And we have got a message with a link to Curacao. So here we go. This is from Martin says I actually live in Perth in Scotland, but I'm originally from the Netherlands. However, my best friend as a teenager was born in Curacao. As a teenager I was cared for by his family for a while and his parents started seeing me as their son, which they still do to this day. Oh, that's really cute. And as a result I started seeing my best friend as my brother. Oh wow, this is heavy. But in a good way. I even understand a fair bit of Papiamento, the language spoken in Curacao. My adopted brother and I both moved out of the Netherlands as adults, him to Belgium, so not very far, me to Scotland. But we still make efforts to see each other and the family as much as we can. The two of us went together to Hampden park for the warm up match, Scotland vs Curacao at the end of May and had a great time. I might not be from there myself, but I'm proud of what the Blue Wave has done as by far the smallest country ever to qualify for the World Cup. Best wishes, Martin Katz. Martin, thank you so much for your message and from your extended family as well, who are kind of in there too, thank you for getting in touch and I'm gladly willing to bestow on you the title of newscast supporter reporter for from Curacao via Scotland and the Netherlands. So you got a few claims in there as well, but your main one is Curacao, so consider that bestowed.
- [17:05]
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- [17:13]
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- [17:18]
Daniela Ralph
Car.
- [17:19]
Adam Fleming
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
- [17:21]
Alva Ray
Please.
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- [17:27]
Adam Fleming
Did this parking lot have a waterfall?
- [17:29]
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- [17:31]
Adam Fleming
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Adam Fleming
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- [17:53]
Sienna Rogers
Yeah, we won.
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- [17:57]
Alva Ray
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- [17:58]
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- [18:39]
Adam Fleming
Now, normally at this time of the week, we do a bit of a look back about what's been happening in politics. So this week, that's going to take us about 17 hours. But don't worry, we've got two people who are very, very good at talking about what we've learned this week from observing what's going on at Westminster. Returning to the newscast studio, political editor of the New Statesman magazine, it's Alva Ray. Hello, Alva.
- [18:58]
Alva Ray
Hello.
- [18:58]
Adam Fleming
Busy week. Edition of the magazine.
- [19:01]
Alva Ray
Yes.
- [19:02]
Adam Fleming
And also Sienna Rogers, who's deputy editor of the House magazine. Hello, Sienna.
- [19:06]
Sienna Rogers
Hello.
- [19:06]
Adam Fleming
Right, where were you on moment where Keir Starmer's premiership came to an end? Although it's still going weirdly, because we're in the in between period.
- [19:14]
Sienna Rogers
I was at home doing broadcast from my bedroom.
- [19:19]
Adam Fleming
Talking about it. Yeah.
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Sienna Rogers
Talking about it, Yeah.
- [19:21]
Alva Ray
I was. Yeah. I was also at home, which is not that far from Westminster, having been on the phone. Yeah. There comes a point when you think, am I just going to be in transit for this big moment? And I was speaking to people inside number 10. I was able to report that the Prime Minister's Chief of staff had announced to all of number 10 that he was resigning, that, like, Keir Starmer was resigning. Was able to report that, but I just thought, I can't miss it if I'm on the tube or walking.
- [19:50]
Adam Fleming
And have you managed to glean the moment that the light bulb went off in Keir Starmer's head, that he had to go.
- [19:56]
Alva Ray
So I'm told it was Saturday, but on early Sunday morning at the time, I was being told by people very close to him that he hadn't made his mind up. So I. I'm still actually not sure if we're ever gonna completely know. It sounded like he decided on Saturday evening and then he began writing the speech. But I don't know what you heard on that.
- [20:21]
Sienna Rogers
I mean, I've heard Friday, but again, it's one of those things where we don't literally know Keir's own mind and we'd have to know that to know the real answer.
- [20:30]
Adam Fleming
Right, yeah. And it's interesting. Cause I was thinking last night. Oh, hang on. If the reason he went ultimately was because of Burnham's victory in Makerfield was so overwhelming and so much bigger than the gap between reform and Restore. So it was a very clean, big win. But we knew that on Friday morning when Keir Starmer did a poll clip with Joe pike for the rest of the media saying, I'm going to carry on fighting, which had been his line consistently. So he had access to the information of the size of Andy Burnham's margin of victory at that point, but still had the old position. So it must have been after that.
- [21:04]
Daniela Ralph
Yes.
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Alva Ray
But also I think there's a question as to how much the decision was made for him, even though ultimately it had to be him. When you think about the exact timings of it, I think that the people around him who care about him had different views as to whether he should fight. I think some people really, really wanted him to and that was his inclination. But other people, I think, were worried that that would be a really humiliating experience for him. And sometimes when these things leak to the media, they're leaked for a reason. So if you're 90% of the way there to deciding that you're going to resign, maybe that observer front page was a nudge, you know, and then once Donald Trump tweets that you're doing it or posts on social, then you have to do it.
- [21:48]
Adam Fleming
It does sound like Donald Trump hadn't been told he was doing it. It was just Donald Trump's assessment that made it look like he'd been.
- [21:54]
Alva Ray
But Donald Trump, I think having read some of the media reports on the Sunday morning, so, you know, the nudge made.
- [21:59]
Adam Fleming
Donald Trump reads the Observer.
- [22:01]
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- [22:02]
Adam Fleming
I'm not sure that's the endorsement they would want, but. And Sienna thinking back to. And so I wasn't here, so I was watching it from a distance with quite high fomo. But the bit everyone remembers is him welling up when he talks about his wife and his kids. Less noticed is the rest of the speech. And it's a speech of. It's broken up into thirds in my mind. So the first third was a bog standard, quite boring Keir Starmer Listicle of things like breakfast clubs, which we've become all too used to. The middle third, you then realize is a very quite hands off way of saying I'm going to resign. Because the way he phrases it is the question that my colleagues are asking is, am I the right person to take the party into the next election? And I now have heard that the answer to that is no, which is a very sort of thirdhand lateral way of saying I've got to resign.
- [22:54]
Sienna Rogers
The Passive voice was strong.
- [22:56]
Adam Fleming
Exactly. And I'm just wondering now that you've had a week to think about that speech, what's your kind of lasting take on it?
- [23:01]
Sienna Rogers
Well, yeah, the most striking thing obviously was him being very emotional when he was talking about his family, which didn't surprise me at all because he is very emotional when it comes to his family and he's, he's always been that
- [23:13]
Adam Fleming
way and I mean that in a, in a respectful way.
- [23:15]
Sienna Rogers
He's also very, very defensive of them and you know, that's completely understandable. But he can get quite angry as well as upset about that. So that didn't surprise me. But then what, what also struck me listening to it was that list call he gave in that so many of the things and then I had lots of calls and messages to this effect afterwards were things that he had been dragged kicking and screaming towards. So you had obviously children being lifted out of poverty. So that was a reference to removing the two child cap. Now that's something that he initially suspended mps over before having to let them back in because they u turned on it. There was the employment rights and obviously lots of trade union people were going cannot believe that he just cited that water down because he watered it down. And it was such a fight and a struggle and we still need to have part two for the rest of it and all. So it was kind of actually a bit of a list of the struggles that he's had in government and the problems that people have had with him.
- [24:15]
Adam Fleming
And can I just clarify, when I use the word softy, I'm not using that in a derogatory term. I'm using that as a label for a man of a certain age who is quite open to talk about his family and his feelings because not all men of a certain age are willing to do that. And also it's not necessarily a huge part of our political culture for men to do that. That's just before I get any complaints then. Alva, what I've been really struck by is when Helen McNamara, the deputy cabinet secret formerly was on newscast on Wednesday, she said she the alarm bells started ringing for her with the selfie in Westminster hall when Andy Burnham arrived and there was hundreds and hundreds of labor mps there to welcome him. And we posted that on Instagram and I haven't had an Instagram story that's had such a divided response as that one for ages. That moment, whether you agree with it or disagree with it, has turned into quite a powerful moment.
- [25:08]
Alva Ray
Yes. But I guess I would add A little bit of context to what Helen McNamara said, because I've seen. I don't know if it was on newscast or on her own podcast.
- [25:17]
Adam Fleming
Everyone's got a podcast.
- [25:18]
Alva Ray
But she. But she was saying about how, you know, she'd never seen this before and it seemed completely unprecedented. It actually isn't. It does happen people every time. People seem to not believe this, but you can actually go and look up a photo of the byelection.
- [25:32]
Adam Fleming
Helen's point was that you don't normally see that many Labour MPs and you maybe wouldn't see the chat Chancellor, but
- [25:38]
Alva Ray
actually it is often in the hundreds and so, you know, you can go and look at the photos and they are often, especially after a big by election that's hard won, they are huge moments. Often the Prime Minister goes like it. So actually that bit is normal. Andy Barnum wasn't breaking with precedent or doing anything unusual there. That's just like what the Labor Party does. But obviously in this context it just landed very differently. I went along for it and it was really quite extraordinary. It was like a rock star was coming. Parliamentary security could not cope with it. They were putting up barriers and getting really, really stressed because it was. All the journalists were there, we were all there, all the MPs were there, or a lot of them. Hundreds and hundreds. But also special advisors, aides, visitors in Parliament were hearing, oh, we might see Andy Barnum. So they were all piling into Westminster Hall. There was a serious need for crowd control. And then. And there was this sort of building anticipation and what entrance is he gonna arrive from? And when he came in, there was almost a sort of Mexican wave and there's this sort of like eruption through the whole building. And there was. I mean, there's been a lot of this behind the scenes in the Labour Party in recent weeks, but the power play and just the human politics of people trying to get to the front of the photo to be near Andy Barnum was hilarious. Like Angela Rayner arrived quite conspicuous, conspicuously late with a whole posse behind her and marched straight to the front. Rachel Reeves straight to the front. Steve Reed, who's, you know, been quite critical of Andy Barnum in recent weeks, he was there reasonably near the front. Campaign team.
- [27:19]
Adam Fleming
Is it true there was a cabinet minister crying?
- [27:21]
Alva Ray
Yes, I put that in the New Statesman cover story this week.
- [27:27]
Adam Fleming
And were they happy tears, sad tears, tired tears? I mean, it's hard to tell from
- [27:32]
Alva Ray
a distance, but I guess I can't speak for them, but I think they were sad tears. Even Though they still turned up for the selfie. So I think there was a bit of confusion as to the thinking behind that, because there wasn't actually an obligation to go and welcome Andy Barnum there. And I think especially with really senior Cabinet ministers, you can assume that they're off doing something terribly important and that's why they can't make it. But, yeah, the emotions were running really high that day. And just over the road in number 10, there were lots of quite tearful meetings, I gathered. I mean, that's probably not surprising to anyone listening, but a lot of tears. And then about half past four, they cracked open the wine and went out into the Downing Street Garden and drank until the early hours. And I think probably a few people could blame them, maybe some people would. People would think, you know, you still have a job to run.
- [28:27]
Adam Fleming
Yeah.
- [28:27]
Alva Ray
But, yeah, it was a. It was a big, big moment.
- [28:30]
Sienna Rogers
It was quite funny this time, this. So then they had this, as Alice has, this Downing Street Party, and I'm told they had. Trying to be. Trying to avoid those moments because of the kind of echoes of previous governments, the lockdown parties, party gate. And this obviously was a moment where it's like, well, it's all ending, isn't it? And then they had this weird kind of funereal slash wake atmosphere and it went on and on for hours and hours. And there was Keir Starmer, then he was there the whole time and there were. There was also his wife and children and they were playing on the trampoline and everyone was drinking and then they were jumping and dancing and it was a. People who went. Described just a really kind of strange atmosphere of just sort of, this is the end. I can't believe this has happened so quickly, but also it's inevitable. Kind of teary, emotional, happy, everything all at once. Quite an extraordinary evening, actually.
- [29:26]
Adam Fleming
Right, then, back to politics. What do we know about what Andy Burnham has been doing this week to get ready?
- [29:32]
Alva Ray
He's been busy, so he's a new mp. He has all of the stuff that a new MP has to sort out, like an office and working out where everything is. Even though he was in Westminster before, he also has the Greater Manchester mayoralty by election, which he triggered, and he's sort of duty bound to support. So he's been there today supporting the candidate Bev Craig with her campaign and
- [29:58]
Adam Fleming
there's a full list of candidates for other parties as they've been selected on the BBC News website.
- [30:02]
Alva Ray
Yeah. But then I think that there's a sort of twin track priority thing going on beyond that. So Andy Barnum's team are actually not taking it for granted that he's going to go unchallenged, even though that is our working assumption. But they're trying to compile the biggest list of Labour MP nominations that they possibly can, so that no one else
- [30:25]
Adam Fleming
could get the 81 that they need to join.
- [30:27]
Alva Ray
And so that if there isn't a contest, it feels like he has just a resounding mandate that no one can question. So there's a real effort to bring MPs in, particularly 2024 intake Labour MPs who didn't overlap with him in Parliament. He's been trying to meet a lot of them, speaking to MPs privately about his vision and what he wants to do. It's been a lot of outreach. And then this is the main bit, which is he has three weeks to prepare for being Prime Minister and so he needs to come up with who his Cabinet is, who his team behind the scenes is, a whole policy program, a plan for his first 100 days. And I gather that's been really, really frantic. He sets a lot of the direction, he has lots of the ideas himself. But all this team who've been working on that assumed that they would have the summer and that they were doing this work, policy work, for example, for a leadership campaign, or that the economic speech he's going to deliver next week, they thought that would be in the context of a contest, whereas where basically
- [31:31]
Adam Fleming
what, you'd unveil some health policies on Monday, some economic policies on Wednesday, some other policies in another area on Friday, and then repeat that cycle for six
- [31:39]
Alva Ray
weeks and you'd be doing some visits and you'd be responding to what any other contenders would say. And yeah, you would have a little bit of time and it would be for the purposes of a debate that you would be doing this as well as eventually preparing for government. Whereas he's going to go straight in, probably. And so everything has just been massively accelerated. We had the announcement that James Purnell has been brought back to be his chief of staff, going into number 10. He only started a couple of days ago, so everything is happening really, really quickly and I think no one in that team is denying that it is a huge scramble and really actually just quite difficult.
- [32:17]
Adam Fleming
Can you go to his MP's office? And I don't know which bit of the building is in because I've not been down for a nosy and I don't have a pass anymore. So one of you would have to let me in. Can you go and sort of stand outside and see who's going in and be like, oh, that person's OB dangling
- [32:30]
Sienna Rogers
for a job, as everyone is. He's still stationed in this whip's office.
- [32:35]
Daniela Ralph
Yeah.
- [32:36]
Alva Ray
He doesn't actually have his own permanent office.
- [32:37]
Sienna Rogers
He's still waiting for that.
- [32:39]
Alva Ray
And you would think, why give him a backbench MP's office for three weeks when he's probably gonna.
- [32:45]
Adam Fleming
Is that a premium in that building? Sienna, I noticed something yesterday when the nec, so the Labour and National Executive Committee published the timetable, there was a tiny moment of jeopardy for Andy Barnum, which is the hustings the week after the nominations open. Now, because it's before the nominations close, presumably anyone who fancies just sharing a platform with Andy Burnham can apply to be in that hustings, which will be in front of Labour MPs. Am I right?
- [33:12]
Sienna Rogers
Well, yes. I mean, I think they would have to be in the process of trying to get nominations in order to.
- [33:17]
Adam Fleming
Oh, yeah. Not just some Catherine West. They're all friends from the stalking horse days. Just fancy 10 minutes with the microphone.
- [33:22]
Sienna Rogers
Yeah, we need more Catherine west, don't we, me? Yeah. So they'd have to do that. And even that. I know that at the moment everyone's ruled themselves out, apart from Alcons, and I think he's. I mean, like, everyone was assuming that anyone like Darren Jones, who still was having their kind of name floating around and not preventing that from happening. It was about job negotiations, obviously, and getting that meeting with Andy Burnham so that they could have a discussion. Alkhand, you know, he obviously wants a debate, but whether he'll actually go and seek nominations once the MP MP nomination window is open is a different matter, I think. I mean, we will see, but, I mean, nobody thinks that anyone but Burnham could get the 81 nominations required. Yes, they could take part in a debate, just to make it more interesting.
- [34:09]
Adam Fleming
But I just want to, because you do hear people saying, we need to have a bit of a debate and we need to at least look like there is a process. And actually it would be good for Andy Burnham himself to have an opportunity to have an argument with somebody. So I just wonder if somebody would put themselves forward to sort of be kind of like super interviewer.
- [34:26]
Alva Ray
There is definitely a discussion going on about that. And, I mean, I think there's such an inevitability to this idea that Andy Barnum will win eventually. Whether that's a quick or a sort of slower process. I think that the Most skeptical and, you know, sort of Keir Starmer loyalist. People would argue that there are maybe up to 100 Labour MPs who will happily support Andy Burnham eventually, but who have their concerns, who want a bit of a debate, who maybe could get behind someone else just for the sake of a contest. And that was sort of where that chatter around Darren Jones came from, even though he has ruled himself out. So I think that, like, probably he will go unopposed. But I think that I'm quite struck from speaking to Andy Burnham's team that they are really not discounting that possibility. The whole theme, not just in a
- [35:22]
Adam Fleming
hole, we don't want to look. Look like we're measuring the curtains kind of way.
- [35:25]
Sienna Rogers
Well, I think it is more that, to be honest. I mean, these people, they say the same thing to me and I'm just like, yeah, yeah, okay.
- [35:32]
Alva Ray
I just. I think, though, that they. They do need to sort of make sure that they. I think they do really have to make sure that they are not being complacent about people support. Like a lot of Labour MPs don't know Andy Burnham. And they've been really moving quickly to rectify that and bring people in. But I think that, yeah, this has been the strength of this slow coup so far, that they're focused on each stage at a time and trying not to be too complacent about it. So I think that it is a genuine thing of they need to get hundreds and hundreds of names that you need above 300 on that nomination paper.
- [36:10]
Adam Fleming
So it's overwhelming.
- [36:11]
Alva Ray
So it's just absolutely overwhelming. And that's still not completely a done deal.
- [36:14]
Adam Fleming
Now, there's one political magazine not represented here, and that is the Spectator. And their political editor, Tim Shipman, has written a long piece with lots of interesting things in it. But one of the things that's made a lot of waves is this quote he has from a senior labor source claiming that Andy Burnham will be Labor's first female prime minister. Sienna, how is that slightly odd sound
- [36:37]
Sienna Rogers
bite gone down not well with women's plp. So I revealed these kind of text messages that are going around on the WhatsApp group that the labor women have. There was. They were absolutely furious. Of course, they all interestingly assumed that it was a man and were saying things like, you know, a period of silence from our male colleagues would be welcome, especially at this point, and just getting very, very angry. And also discussing this whole dynamic of, obviously, labor infamously has never elected a female leader. And why is that? And there was some talk of. Well, it's also. It's kind of women's self hatred is one of them. They would talk about internalized misogyny, but also just the fact that women get a really, really hard time. Contests and then they always come bottom every single time. It's a consistent trend. So why would anyone put themselves forward at this point? Obviously this is even more a kind of particular dynamic where everyone knows Andy Burnham's going to win. So it's even more pointless to go through that pain to put yourself forward. But yeah, the women were absolutely furious.
- [37:43]
Adam Fleming
But from what I could see, what this person was sort of trying to suggest was the. That Andy Burnham is what, so confident in his masculinity that that means he can then politically focus on. I don't even know how to say this. It's so uncomfortable for me. That means he could focus on like women's issues like education and social care.
- [38:04]
Sienna Rogers
Social care and girly stuff.
- [38:07]
Alva Ray
Yeah, they've said that, you know, men. Men tend to be interested in budgets and bombs.
- [38:11]
Adam Fleming
Budgets and bombs? No, no. Isn't it. No. Isn't it that female Tory Prime Minister have to be concerned about budgets and bombs so they don't look too female? I think that's this person's argument.
- [38:21]
Alva Ray
Yeah. I mean, I think gendering bits of politics and policy is a highway to doom and embarrassment. I think. Look, people just find that really, really strange. I mean, this has been a really big theme inside the Labour Party. Women feeling quite marginalized. The way Sienna was nodding to under Keir Starmer. A lot of women felt very unhappy inside the Labour Party, right up to the top of the cabinet. You know, a feeling that the women in cabinet were being briefed against a sort of macho culture in number 10. And then like that, going right through the parliamentary party and things like that. Welfare rebellion were primarily organized by women.
- [39:05]
Adam Fleming
Yeah. Meg Hillier was the front, but a
- [39:08]
Sienna Rogers
woman who had been overlooked despite her vast experience for a minister.
- [39:13]
Alva Ray
But then a lot of these, some of them involved in that rebellion. But just in general, a lot of the women who were marginalized or overlooked or shunned or dismissed by Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, the people around him are now absolutely central to Andy Burnham's team.
- [39:29]
Adam Fleming
The Northern Queens, as they're called.
- [39:31]
Sienna Rogers
Yeah.
- [39:31]
Alva Ray
As the New Statesman dubbed them.
- [39:33]
Adam Fleming
Yes. I wonder if they dubbed themselves that or whether you dubbed them.
- [39:36]
Alva Ray
They dubbed themselves that and I quoted it and then I think it was in a headline without quote marks. But yeah, they dubbed themselves just to
- [39:42]
Adam Fleming
Be clear in the providence of that.
- [39:45]
Alva Ray
And yeah, I think that that has actually unexpectedly become a big theme around Andy Burnham because I think his reputation was actually the opposite. You know, is he a bit too blokey?
- [39:57]
Adam Fleming
Football oasis.
- [39:58]
Alva Ray
Football oasis. Beer. Does he get a bit touchy with female journalists? That was.
- [40:02]
Adam Fleming
Does he?
- [40:03]
Alva Ray
I think that. I'm just asking the question, but that was the question. But then actually overwhelmingly speaking to, you know, people this week looking forward to an Andy Burnham premiership, even people from parts of the party who wouldn't instinctively like Andy Burnham are quite impressed by this team of strong women he has around him. This, what feels like a genuine cultural reset that Burnham is hoping to achieve. You know, when I interviewed him, I asked who he was closest to in Parliament and the whole list he gave was just women.
- [40:38]
Adam Fleming
Right.
- [40:38]
Alva Ray
All the people running his campaign were women.
- [40:40]
Adam Fleming
Well, even though his right hand man for definitely decades has been the guy called Kevin Lee, the first person he's appointed to run his team is a man called James Purnell.
- [40:49]
Alva Ray
I think, though, looking at who's doing policy behind the scenes for him, for example, it's about, you know, five women and, you know, the people who ran his campaign in Makerfield, it was all women and so obviously we have to see the way it all shakes out and where the exact appointments are. But. But he talks about how proud he is of that and it's a thing that people are starting to remark upon that they haven't seen a Prime Minister or a male Prime Minister so comfortable with a team of mostly women and quite strong minded, tough characters, I have to say as well.
- [41:27]
Adam Fleming
Although the end of the Starmer era, Downing street was quite female. There was two joint chiefs of staff who were women, one who went on maternity leave, director of comms who was
- [41:36]
Alva Ray
a woman, but still the key strategists were men. And actually he did get the old band back together to sing the old hits. Before he did that farewell speech, people could hear the voice of Morgan McSweeney in it. And Paul Ovenden, his former director of strategy, was seen leaving Downing street by the front door. I think that the criticism was always that it wasn't that there were no women working for Keir Starmer or anything, but that just the culture felt, yes, blokey and macho, bit patriarchal. All the men in it would say, but, but we have women in this team. But I think, you know, but if
- [42:14]
Adam Fleming
you're having to say that.
- [42:16]
Alva Ray
And some of the women in the team also felt like that the culture could be a bit Blokey. But definitely it was just, you know, from outside, a lot of. A lot of the women in the Labour Party felt uncomfortable with it.
- [42:25]
Sienna Rogers
And that women were repeatedly overlooked for jobs in number 10 as well was a big theme. I think that. Yeah, sorry, carry on.
- [42:34]
Adam Fleming
Well, I was going to say, lastly, I wondered if this period, these three weeks was just going to be a bit of a kind of vacuum and that was only filled with, what's Andy Barnum doing today? What does it reveal about his premiership to come? But actually there is some classic sort of end of term political chaos happening right now and it's about the Home Office Minister, Mike Tapp, who wrote an article for the Times, Siena, basically with a different position from his boss, the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood. And it kicked off on Thursday night.
- [43:04]
Sienna Rogers
Yeah, that was wildly optimistic of you, it turns out, because the chaos is not over. In fact, it's intensifying. It's all a bit of a mess. And I think, you know, several weeks ago I did hear kind of this idea. I don't. It was never kind of seriously considered or taken seriously, but this idea of should we just suspend collective responsibility? Because this is a really unique situation the Labour Party hasn't found itself in before.
- [43:28]
Adam Fleming
In other words, Cabinet ministers wouldn't have to be loyal to the Prime Minister.
- [43:31]
Sienna Rogers
Exactly. And obviously this came up particularly because there was this whole idea that Wes Streeting had lots of ministers who were supportive of him but obviously couldn't be open about that when he was in the running for the leadership and number 10 was saying, nope, they'd absolutely have to resign and wouldn't be able to be open about their support for him. And Streeting team's response was obviously, well, that means that you're scared of how many nominations he would get. So this is a kind of context. And now it does seem like basically it has been suspended, but nobody has said it out loud, it's not officially happened. And so you got this situation where Keir Starmer didn't take the advice that he was receiving from Morgan McSweeney, I'm told, to sack the dissenters in the Cabinet, so including Shabana Mahmood, who had obviously told him that his time was up. And at the same time he's now not sacking at time of speaking, not
- [44:21]
Adam Fleming
sacking Mike tat, which is 20 to
- [44:23]
Sienna Rogers
3, not sacking Mike Taz for doing something that clearly I think does breach collective responsibility. And it's interesting and very familiar that the kind of common thread in both those scenarios is inaction.
- [44:38]
Adam Fleming
And the latest we know is from the lobby briefing of journalists at lunchtime, which was that the Prime Minister is receiving advice on what to do about the ministerial code in that case. Right, Alva, last thing to you. By my magic of bad timing, I was away for Keir Starmer's resignation speech and I'm on holiday next week, which means I will miss Andy Burnham's first, first big speech as almost Prime Minister designate on Monday. What can you tell me about it in advance?
- [45:04]
Alva Ray
Oh, so, I mean, I'll be tuning
- [45:07]
Adam Fleming
in, but I'll be tuning in from a more, even more relaxed environment than this.
- [45:11]
Alva Ray
So I haven't. I haven't had a specific conversation about what's in the speech, but I've had lots of conversations about the economic policy he's building. So I don't know how much of this is in the speech and how much is being held back because it
- [45:21]
Adam Fleming
is being billed as an economic speech, isn't it?
- [45:23]
Alva Ray
Yeah, very much an economic speech. It's about his vision for growth and repeating his sentiment of fiscal responsibility. But I think that people who work for Andy Barnum would say, we had a discussion a few weeks ago, didn't we, about what Manchesterism is. Is there any sort of meat to this idea? People weren't entirely clear what the thinking was behind it, if it was a coherent ideology. I think that the people who work for him are saying it's not really about an ism like that. Actually, Andy Barnum has been talking about some quite radical ideas for well over a decade. It's about like the devolution of power and wealth, so massively empowering mayors, probably giving them tax raising powers. He's talked about wanting to rebalance taxing wealth over income, which is sort of, you know, a thing that people in the Labour Party have been speaking about for a long time. You know, taking the fight to water companies, bringing utilities into public control, that's definitely a big thing that they are looking at. So I think. And then he's also been really interested in apprenticeships and vocational training for a long time. And I think that these are all things that they're hoping to do a big bold offer on. Once he gets into number 10, it'll be interesting to see which bits he focuses on. I would imagine sort of the devolution of wealth and power. And, you know, he leaves the grid of Manchester mayoralty, gets into number 10 and he immediately gives the power back to them.
- [46:55]
Adam Fleming
Yeah, I will give you both a tenner each if it's not delivered this speech in a B network bus garage or tram depot. Or maybe he'll want to escape for that, actually, because it's becoming a bit of a cliche now, the B network in Manchester, so maybe he'll want to avoid that. I'll give you both a fiver. I'm lowering it down now. If it's not in front of a bee network bus or tram.
- [47:21]
Alva Ray
I mean, I would be so surprised if it wasn't. Yeah. Either in Manchester or just in the north. Something that underlines a sort of economic message that's far from London.
- [47:32]
Adam Fleming
We'll see. And you can collect your winnings or not the next time we meet on Newscast. Sienna, thank you very much. Thank you, Alva. Thanks to you too.
- [47:39]
Alva Ray
Thanks for having me.
- [47:40]
Adam Fleming
And that's all for this episode of Newscast, but a reminder, you can follow in Martin's footsteps and become one of our supporter reporters, where we're looking for a newscaster in every single country that's represented at this show year's World Cup. Still quite a few slots up for grabs, and if you want to grab one of them, the email address is newscastbc.co.uk and the WhatsApp number is 033-01-239480. And as you can tell, the link can be quite loose. It doesn't have to be that you were born there or living there. It can be a little bit more lateral than that. But love hearing from you nonetheless. Right, that's all for this episode. See you soon.
- [48:17]
Alva Ray
Soon.
- [48:17]
Daniela Ralph
Bye.
- [48:17]
Adam Fleming
Bye. Newscast.
- [48:18]
Daniela Ralph
Newscast from the BBC. Well, thank you for making it to
- [48:21]
Adam Fleming
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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Adam Fleming
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