The Week: How Much Pressure Is Keir Starmer Under?

Summary

Newscast (BBC): "The Week: How Much Pressure Is Keir Starmer Under?"

Date: December 12, 2025
Hosts: Adam Fleming, Chris Mason, Alex Forsyth, Faisal Islam

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Episode Overview

This reflective episode of Newscast focuses on the mounting pressures facing UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, particularly within the Labour Party. The panel discusses internal criticisms exemplified by Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s provocative interview, explores broader currents of political jockeying, and analyzes the underlying tensions shaping Labour’s leadership and policy direction as the party approaches key elections in 2026.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Wes Streeting’s Open Critique and What It Reveals

• [03:29] Adam introduces the catalyst: Wes Streeting’s New Statesman interview, wherein Streeting expresses “frustration” with the Labour leadership and likens the government to a “maintenance department.”
• [03:47] Chris Mason elaborates that Streeting’s comments go beyond his remit as Health Secretary, signaling a deeper critique of Labour’s lack of vision.
  • Memorable Quote: “It was a problem if the government was seen as the maintenance department of the country.” (Chris Mason, [04:03])
• [05:09] Adam notes the critique is distinctly pointed at Starmer.

2. Interpreting the ‘Maintenance Department’ Dig

• [05:15] Alex Forsyth argues Streeting’s remarks are strategic, conscious of ongoing leadership debates:
  • Memorable Quote: “Wes is a smart, astute politician…full in the knowledge that he was making comments that would have been perceived through the lens of ‘is Keir Starmer the right leader?’” ([05:15])
• [05:58] Adam and Faisal decode Streeting’s bond market comments, relating them to similar tensions expressed by figures like Andy Burnham.

3. Wider Labour Rebellion & Leadership Jockeying

• [08:23] Chris discusses his conversations with Labour insiders who confirm active campaigning both “left, right, and centre,” hinting at emergent ambitions beyond Starmer.
• [10:18] Chris shares anecdotal evidence of parties and informal political networking teeming with speculation about potential leadership alternatives, and the dilemma of moving away from the 2024 manifesto without a direct mandate.

4. Vision, Storytelling, and Labour’s Missing Message

• [12:34] The panel reflects on Streeting’s apparent aim: to address a perceived lack of “storytelling” by Starmer’s government—Labour MPs feel the party is failing to tell its story or inspire.
  • Memorable Quote: “The government’s failed to tell its story properly…hasn’t had enough kind of leadership from the front…” (Alex Forsyth, [13:11])
• [13:28] Faisal postulates that dissatisfaction could mirror the Conservatives’ historical difficulties with UKIP—questioning if the Greens now play a similar role challenging Labour from the left.

5. Shifting International Dynamics & UK’s Position

• [14:44] Faisal raises the impact of US foreign outlook and Trump’s “national security strategy” on Europe, suggesting this could quickly change Labour’s internal debates and approach to Europe.
  • Adam summarizes: “The American government wants patriotic political parties…to succeed in Europe.” ([15:44])

6. Blairites, Shabana Mahmood, and Labour’s Future Faces

• [16:43] Faisal describes a striking moment at a Tony Blair Institute event, where Blair appears to endorse Shabana Mahmood’s narrative about Labour engaging the “good spirit of the British people” with fairness and strict rules.
  • Memorable Quote: “She convinced that audience. And certainly Blair seemed pretty up on it.” (Faisal Islam, [16:48])

7. Labour’s Fragile Coalition & Upcoming Local Elections

• [23:22] Chris explains London’s crucial role in Labour’s outlook:
  • Half the party’s membership is in London.
  • London MPs are under pressure from multiple political directions (Greens, Reform, LibDems, Conservatives).
  • Memorable Quote: “…the collective mood amongst London Labour, which is big and significant, could be one of…’the clobbered from every direction.’” (Chris Mason, [26:17])

8. Policy, Growth, and the “Big Tent” Problem

• [21:37] Adam and Faisal reflect on Labour’s campaign promises:
  • In 2024, Labour’s unifying pledge was “amazing economic growth.”
  • Streeting’s vision is, essentially, more of the same—raising doubts about whether a change in leadership would yield real change under current constraints.

9. Labour Leadership Challenges: Practicalities & Public Appetite

• [22:31] Alex details high hurdles for any leadership contest:
  • Requires 80+ MPs backing a challenge, no obvious standout successor, and awareness that frequent leadership changes could damage public confidence.
  • Memorable Quote: “…how much you have to factor in the public tolerance for a party that changes leader…after the Conservatives did the same so rapidly…” (Alex Forsyth, [22:56])

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “Nobody’s enthused by maintenance departments.”
  Chris Mason, [04:13]
• “If you’re a government that defines itself by what you can’t do, voters…are going to start to notice.”
  Faisal Islam, [06:43]
• “There is some quite good news happening in the UK tech sector…that might show the UK has a decent stake in the future world economy.”
  Faisal Islam, [28:56]
• “The underlying theme…has been running through the past 18 months…because they haven’t quite worked out how to deal with [Labour’s coalition] yet.”
  Alex Forsyth, [26:23]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:29] — Wes Streeting’s New Statesman interview
• [05:15] — De-coding the “maintenance department” criticism
• [08:23] — Leadership jockeying, internal party campaigning
• [12:34] — Labour’s missing vision/storytelling
• [14:44] — US strategy’s impact on Europe and UK Labour's posture
• [16:43] — Tony Blair’s event & Shabana Mahmood as a rising figure
• [23:22] — Importance of London and looming local elections
• [26:23] — Labour’s enduring coalition headaches
• [28:06] — Predictions: Scotland, Wales, and the “state of the nation”

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Looking Ahead: Future Watchpoints

• London local elections ([23:22]): Potential for internal party unrest depending on Labour’s strength/weakness across the capital.
• Devolved elections in Scotland and Wales ([28:06]): Will heavily influence national conversation about Labour’s fate and Starmer’s leadership.
• Mood and confidence in the country ([28:56]): Tech sector performance and economic indicators as potential turning points for public perception.
• Labour's narrative strategy ([27:11]): Starmer’s intentions for re-setting the government’s “story” in the new year will be critical.

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Tone & Style

The episode blends the BBC’s reliably analytical tone—considered, careful, cross-examining—with a candid, “inside Westminster” vibe. Banter and personal anecdotes (“Christmas party” stories, [09:02]) make the episode relatable, while the panelists’ depth of access and experience delivers high-level insight for political aficionados and general listeners alike.

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This summary captures the episode’s key themes, strategic questions, and dynamics facing Keir Starmer and Labour, and provides context and attribution so that even non-listeners grasp the current political crossroads.

Transcript

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[Adam Fleming]

Start growing your business today. Head over to get started.TikTok.com tiktokads hello, our search is continuing to find a newscaster in every single country that's going to be at the World cup next year. And we've got a message from Tim who's in British Columbia in Canada who says originally from England, I'm now living in the southern interior of beautiful British Columbia, Canada. I might fit the criteria for your yet to be Games World cup feature. Let's see Tim as a truck driver cruising the highways of Western Canada up and down the west coast and the top left hand quarter of the us. Yours is one of the many pods that keep me company on the road. I'm a Watford FC fan and get to follow all the games plus many others while I'm eating up those miles or parked up. We're on the lookout for tickets for the Vancouver or Seattle games which at the moment are available for eye watering prices. Newscast is a daily listen for me, usually after the 6 o' clock news podcast. Keep up the great work well Tim, keep up the great messaging and keep up spectating on the World cup for us from Canada, one of the host nations cause they're doing it alongside the USA and Mexico. And while Tim is hitting the highway, he'll be listening to the next episode of Newscast, which is our regular Thursday night TV show, last one of the year on BBC1, where we look back at some of the big events of the week and actually the entire year.

[Alex Forsyth]

Newscast, Newscast from the BBC.

[Faisal Islam]

Fat Boy Slim and me in the.

[Chris Mason]

Classroom doing our violin lessons.

[Faisal Islam]

I was the tattletale in the class.

[BBC Newscast Outro]

Can I have an apology, please? I trust almost nobody.

[Adam Fleming]

Then Daddy has to sometimes use strong language.

[Alex Forsyth]

Next time in Moscow I feel delulu with no salulu.

[Chris Mason]

Take me down to Downing Street.

[Adam Fleming]

Let's go have a tour.

[Chris Mason]

Blimey.

[Adam Fleming]

Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio.

[Chris Mason]

And Chris in the studio and Alex.

[Faisal Islam]

In the studio and Faisal in the studio.

[Adam Fleming]

I've just realised we haven't got a Christmas tree this year.

[Alex Forsyth]

How miserable.

[Adam Fleming]

Normally we do have a Christmas tree, we've got regular foliage, but that's not.

[Alex Forsyth]

Like, put some baubles on your plants.

[Chris Mason]

Our tinsel is green.

[Adam Fleming]

Minimalist Christmas this year.

[Alex Forsyth]

Bah humbug.

[Adam Fleming]

Now, this is our last show on BBC1 of this year. We'll be back in the new year, you'll be pleased to hear. And normally, as a tradition in news and journalism, we'd be reflecting on how the government's done this year, but we don't have to because we're streeting. The House Secretary's done it for us in a wide ranging interview in the New Statesman. And he ain't happy.

[Chris Mason]

No, he says he's frustrated and he did the thing that many a minister who has ambition does, which is to stray a little bit beyond their minister material brief. This wasn't a interview that was entirely focused on the ups and downs of the National Health Service, it's fair to say. So. He talked about being frustrated, he talked about the government being seen as. It was a problem if the government was seen as the maintenance department of the country, which is quite an arresting.

[Adam Fleming]

Phrase because it sounds like you're just tinkering or patching things up.

[Chris Mason]

Well, yeah, and it's sort of not. I suppose it's the point that it's not to denigrate the role of a maintenance department, but nobody's infused by maintenance departments. And he was suggesting that, you know, if that's how you're perceived, the danger is that an alternative or perhaps, as he put it, cheaper maintenance department comes along and people think, well, why not give that a go? Because maybe that's. If they're going to maintain, then they're cheaper, then why not go for that? In other words, that sense of, you know, his critique being a lack of. A lack of storytelling, a lack of vision and yes, I mean, it absolutely had a sense of. Here is a party, including some prominent senior individuals within it, who are sketching out quite often in private and certainly in public, a critique of, and therefore, frankly, an alternative vision of how Labour might govern either under its current leadership or under a different one.

[Adam Fleming]

We'll come on to the vision bit in a second. But Alex, that is not a very coded attack on Kirstama, the whole maintenance guy thing.

[Alex Forsyth]

Well, Wes treating for whatever anybody thinks about him, is a smart, astute politician who understands politics and the context to him giving the. This interview with those comments and critiques of how he thinks the government's doing at the moment is a very active conversation about leadership and Keir Starmer's leadership and what role Wes treating may or may not play in any future leadership of the Labour Party. So I don't think for a second you can read that without having the awareness that Wes treating himself would have been, well, full in the knowledge that he was making those comments that would have been perceived through the lens of.

[Chris Mason]

Of.

[Alex Forsyth]

Is Keir Starmer the right leader for the Labour Party and the Labour government right now? And so, you know, interpret as you will, it would have been done knowingly.

[Adam Fleming]

And Faisal, the bit he says is decode this for us. He says we can't talk about the bond markets. So the people that lend the government money as a binary choice between helplessness and recklessness.

[Faisal Islam]

Well, I think, well, sort of infamously around the Labour Party conference there was obviously a little bit of a excitement about Andy Burnham, which then got somewhat squashed because of similar sort of, sort of analogous comments. I would say slightly. Burnham's comments were slightly harder in hock.

[Chris Mason]

To the bond market.

[Faisal Islam]

You don't want to be in hocked about bond markets. This is a sort of lighter version of that. I. I think if we take a.

[Adam Fleming]

Step back, basically, in other words, borrow loads more money because you don't need to worry about that.

[Faisal Islam]

Well, no, but yes. Is it a bit more subtle, actually, is what Burnham was trying to say, a bit more subtle as well, which is that if you're a government that sort of defines itself by what you can't do rather than what you can do like the voters who are more important or as important as the bond markets are going to start to notice that. And I think it goes with this thing about the technocrats that he said and the maintenance, you know, that there would have been expectations like beyond the kind of core swing voters in this election, which obviously we talk about a lot as being kind of the sort of reform leaning red wall, whatever we call it these days. You know that there's also like a hinterland of labor voters that might have expected a bit more oomph from a party that had, however thin and wide, that was a majority, which varies from time to time, about 150 plus. Right. And. And it goes back to some of the conversations we've had about the Office of Budget Responsibility and its power, which is the sort of same thing as the, as the OBR here. But like who's in charge here? Like who's in charge? And I think that's probably the question that he's, he's posing and is being posed on the left. It's been post on the right. I think what's really interesting from what I've seen of labor is that that question about the bit about the obr, more than the bond markets, it's also being posed from the center of the Labour Party now from like the, the Good Growth group, the guys that were standing against Jeremy Corbyn in Islington. So there's obviously quite a wide ranging conversation. It's interesting that Streeting thinks that he can lean in in that direction. I think it just shows maybe the country does want a bit of positivity and optimism after, you know, years of crisis and chaos or that's what he feels. Anyway.

[Chris Mason]

I was talking to someone random the other day, senior figure in the Labour Party who was saying, I won't insult your intelligence by implying that there isn't campaigning going on left, right and center now.

[Adam Fleming]

And they met left, right and center as in everywhere.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah. Albeit to be clear, with a pretty small C, not a capital C, but in terms of it just being a constant strand of conversation. I was talking to somebody else because we're in the middle of the absolute thick of Christmas party and Christmas.

[Adam Fleming]

Good of you to be with us.

[Chris Mason]

It's quite nice of a night off actually. Should I tell this? I'm going to tell.

[Adam Fleming]

Go on.

[Chris Mason]

This is. I'm going off slightly off pace here, but. So last night I was at various drink Steves and last night was peak.

[Adam Fleming]

Night, I think, wasn't it? There was something like about five.

[Chris Mason]

There was a lot. And I waited until 10 o', clock, therefore beyond the point where I was not going to be called to go on the 10 o' clock news before I drank anything particularly strong but after 10 o' clock, I thought I'd have a few beers and we're moving from one place to the next and it's genuinely, journalistically, really useful, but there's also a bit of, you know, Christmas spirit about it. Anyway, I'm on my way home at the wrong side of midnight and I get halfway home and I need the loo, basically. This is not a.

[Adam Fleming]

You didn't do a piece of math.

[Chris Mason]

No, this is not a piece of Madison. I was in a tube station which had a tube station that had a. That had a gents toilet. Anyway, I barrel in there and who do I bump into? Ian Watson, BBC political correspondent who's been to a different set of parties and he's also caught short.

[Adam Fleming]

Right.

[Chris Mason]

Anyway, so just. Just give you some sense of the enterprise.

[Adam Fleming]

Oh, I thought you were going to say. Then you gleaned some massive.

[Chris Mason]

We did. We did compare.

[Adam Fleming]

Where Streeting didn't wash his hands.

[Chris Mason]

We did compare notes around all of this. I can't remember what was I about to say before I parked up on this?

[Alex Forsyth]

People campaigning left, right and center, but.

[Adam Fleming]

Not politically and with a small C.

[Chris Mason]

I had a con. That was it. I had a conversation at one of these twos last night from someone who is sort of politics adjacent and turns up at these things and is often tapped up by politicians for advice around this person's specialism. And they were saying they get loads of calls at the moment from people effectively acting on behalf of or adjacent to or outriders for. Sometimes it may be even more than one potential. But in other words, talking about what the prospectus of a candidate or candidates might be were there to be a contest and how far it would be reasonable to move away from a manifesto, because obviously any leader, were there to be a contest or were the Prime Minister to move on, wouldn't have their own mandate in the way that Kia Starmer does. So it's just when you start piecing together the different strands of these. Now, a lot of this you could accurately describe as fervent conversation that might not go anywhere and that, of course, K will make an argument that it's his majority and it's his mandate. And do you really want to plunge the party into a process in government of selecting a new year? And sometimes I think in all of the journalistic noise that there is about the Prime Minister's future, we perhaps underprice the thought that in a year's time he might very well still be there because it's one heck of a thing to turf A prime minister out or for prime minister to choose to go. But anyway, it is the talk of these Christmas dues and the conversation, the small C campaigning, which I think you could slot that New Statesman article interview fairly clearly into, is everywhere.

[Adam Fleming]

But what I don't understand about is if talking about prospectuses like what. What Wes Streetsing was meant to be unveiling about himself in this interview that. That we didn't know about already, like, we know that he's from a very humble background. We know that he wants a lot of economic growth. I didn't feel that there was extra bits of vision in there that weren't there placement there.

[Faisal Islam]

Isn't it up front page, the New Statesman? Yeah, it's a statement. People probably read more of that magazine over the subscribers over the Christmas period when they got time.

[Chris Mason]

Also, as Alex says, if you're the health secretary, you don't have to do things like this. You know, you could. You very busy.

[Faisal Islam]

Busy time for the nhs.

[Chris Mason]

Right. You could say, well, it's very kind of you New Statesman to invite, to offer to, you know, do an interview, but I'm very busy, you know, and.

[Alex Forsyth]

He'S chosen to do it. He was trying to articulate with some of what he was saying in there. I think he was trying to articulate what he perceives as the concern of some of the labor mps about k Dharma and suggesting he wouldn't be the same were that to come eventually. So that stuff around the kind of, you know, maintenance department department, that sort of slight jai, but maybe a technocratic style, as some people might see it, that Keir Starmer's had the inability to fire people up or to, you know, I think Wes Dream is attempting, although obviously he categorically would deny on the record that he's got his eyes on the top job and that, you know, there's no vacancy available and that Keir Starmer is going to be there forever.

[Chris Mason]

We know that the achievements of the government and all that.

[Alex Forsyth]

Absolutely. But I think he's trying to tap into the sense that some Labour mps, lots of Labour mps, have, which is that the government's failed to tell its story properly, that it hasn't had enough kind of leadership from the front around that. And I think he's trying to say, I get that and perhaps I could. Could, were it to come up, do something a little bit different.

[Faisal Islam]

I know the issue that I think may this may crystallize. I mean, all the question I pose.

[Adam Fleming]

We can hear your g lay rustling, by the way. Okay, well, there we Go full tech Christmas tack, bro.

[Faisal Islam]

The question I pose is this, which is the extent to which this dynamic starts to mimic kind of symmetrically what we got with Conservatives and, and Ukip, with the Greens kind of kind of nipping at the heels of, of labor all the way up to May and whether that starts to fire quite different conversations that we thought were, I mean.

[Chris Mason]

Before rather than you. I wasn't sure if you were making a big.

[Faisal Islam]

So, no, when it was uk, it was, well, Ukip it to the Tories.

[Chris Mason]

Right? Yeah.

[Faisal Islam]

Well, you get the same sort of dynamic which then I pose this to you two, really, which is if that then motivates entirely different conversations and sort of braver conversations. Like we're starting to see this, like rustling around on Europe a bit.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Faisal Islam]

I heard from someone pretty senior in government saying all of us have not clocked what Trump has done with this, like national security strategy and whether this totally changes the game. This is a combat. You know, things could get quite interesting quite quickly with this different set of kind of political boundaries, I guess, and the dynamic where, where Starmer and Reeves are. Had to look behind them at what the Green Party is doing.

[Adam Fleming]

Well, you know, I'm glad you mentioned the national security strategy. What I mean, I've clocked it quite comprehensively on newscast this week on BBC Sounds. Listen to the back catalog.

[Faisal Islam]

I made that difference.

[Adam Fleming]

What. Yeah. What have we not been clocking?

[Faisal Islam]

Well, the idea that this might be a fundamentally different America and an approach to Europe and many of our, I mean, the example that I was given was the La Republica in Italy devoted the first seven pages to what, what they saw as a total change. And you know, Ethan, La Republica is that on the center left. I, I can't quite. I'm not that expert on, on, on, on Italian newspapers, but still there was a fundamental change to the Transatlantic Pact, which was the attack not just on Europe, not just a sort of dissent, that Europe has maybe gone a different direction in terms of politics, but like an absolute criticism of its internal politics in a way that would be unacceptable the other way around. Clearly unacceptable the other way around. So does this raise real questions about our assumptions about how, how this document.

[Adam Fleming]

Says in black and white that the American government wants patriotic political parties, in its words, that represent kind of classic Europe, like read white Judeo Christian to succeed in elections in Europe? That's what you mean when you talk.

[Faisal Islam]

About, you know, there's all sorts of, you know, I think from what I'm hearing in my sphere and things like tech and economics and on the growth strategies that they say now that they've got this constant hamster wheel of trying to get the head room in the right place that was affecting them every week they feel that they can park that for several months. They're going to try and do some bold stuff in the new year. Like they say this all the time. But I was very struck because the party I went to or the. The event I went to was the Tony Blair Institute. And I haven't seen much of, you know, my area. I haven't seen much of Shabana Mahmoud but I thought it was extraordinary to see was Tony Blair giving his kind of endorsement to Shabana Mahmoud?

[Adam Fleming]

Yes, I don't know but it was.

[Faisal Islam]

Quite, it was quite something hearing from the sort of Blairite crowd of her.

[American Giant Advertiser]

Of her.

[Faisal Islam]

It was specifically I was quite struck and I hadn't. I haven't seen as much as you have of her but like her sort of fluent narrative about the Labour Party can't make arguments around fairness or has to engage the good spirit of the British people and has to do so through setting very strict rules. And she convinced that audience. And certainly Blair seemed pretty up.

[Adam Fleming]

Well, that's the player playbook, isn't it?

[Faisal Islam]

Up on it?

[Alex Forsyth]

It is.

[Faisal Islam]

But like, you know, I, I would have thought that he'd like older hands than me suggested. It wasn't the full, full ringing endorsement that you got there and I would have imagined, I don't know what you think that he would have been more. If you had to pick someone of the runners and riders. I don't know if we're runners right of stage, he'd be more a streeting. I don't know.

[Chris Mason]

But I think all of this is. I mean, I think these are all sort of reasonable questions that it's sometimes quite hard to drive to a definitive conclusion on. But you just piece together the last five minutes of our conversation. You've got the. We're streeting in the new States but you've got Shabbat and Mahmoud at the Tony Blair event. Now of course it's pre Christmas and people do these kind of interviews and go to these kind of do's, but this is the stuff and this is the stuff that's happening in public.

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chris Mason]

Let alone all the stuff that's going on, going on privately and interesting on that point about the. What we've seen from Washington and then that wider conversation about the Customs Union or if you like, the posture of the UK government towards the European Union. What's Fascinating. There is that we had a week in which the Prime Minister chose a couple of times on one day a week last Monday to sort of talk up his sort of pro European credentials within the tram tracks of the red.

[Adam Fleming]

Lines that he was doing already.

[Chris Mason]

Not joining the Customs union, single market, freedom of movement, etc, when you've had the Liberal Democrats and others making that argument that that is exactly what should happen. And then this week I thought almost not quite step back from it because arguably they weren't really stepping all that further forward than they were anyway. But certainly in the little conversation, what's known as the huddle after Prime Minister's questions this week, there was an absolute emphasis from the spokespeople on what they see as the merits of their current posture, which has allowed the deal with India and the deal with the U.S. so, okay, that's not what they were really stressing. No, no. You can argue that this is sort of subtleties of how far you lean in one direction or another because they.

[Adam Fleming]

Thought that the pro European stuff had gone a bit too far and they wanted to.

[Chris Mason]

I don't think that in that they were clearly defining when they were doing their pro European lean, what they regarded as limits of what.

[Adam Fleming]

Oh, I see. So nothing that would jeopardize the prosperity deal with the United States.

[Chris Mason]

No, no, exactly. But it was just, it was just how degrees of emphasis one week were in one direction and another were in another.

[Alex Forsyth]

Starmer was pretty robust about it in pmq.

[Faisal Islam]

This is the point, right? If the stuff that we're talking about about the other runners and riders becomes real, it becomes a very live issue, doesn't it? Well, this, and this is a very, very live issue.

[Chris Mason]

And this is exactly the point. So when, when, when I was kicking around, why did he run up that not. It wasn't even a hill, really. He sort of, he just lented. He just chose to. Yeah, he chose to use sort of pro European vocabulary twice in the same day and a couple of occasions around it. I think he did it in his Guardian piece on that Monday morning as well. And then this week there was a bit more perhaps back in the other direction, albeit without actually changing policy at all. Really. I think you have to sit it in the context of that thing I was saying about the conversations that are going on in the wider Labor Party about what its future posture might look like even beyond this Parliament, by the way, going into another general election around customs Union or other things.

[Alex Forsyth]

Obviously the conversations that are active and consistent about leadership and what may or may not happen over the course of the next few months or year or whatever it is, which are real. I think all that is really doing is crystallizing the issue that has been there, existing for Labour for some time and perhaps has formed part of the backdrop to the challenge that Keir Starmer's had in his first however many 18 months of government is that, you know, the kind of, whether you want to call it a threat or a challenge, but the existence of the left or the soft left in labor has always been there, you know, and he ran headlong into it around things like welfare and, you know, two child benefit cap and. But that, that's always been there. So has the sort of, you know, more center left aspect of the Labour Party. And you wonder if Keir Starmer and perhaps some of the way that they have wrestled with issues in government over the course of the last 18 months and ran into resistance from their own party so brutally, quite early in a big majority term government is as a consequence of the fact they weren't ever really clear on how they were going to hang that electoral coalition they won in 2024. But also the differences within a big parliamentary Labour party together and I think the conversations around leadership and the challenge from the parties of the left and the right, through the Greens and now reform, they're just crystallizing that existing challenge which had seemingly not been resolved.

[Adam Fleming]

Although the way they papered over that during the election was to say we'll get amazing economic growth, which means we'll be able to do everything, want to please everyone. And guess what? Wes Streeting's vision is for amazing economic growth, which means you can redistribute more. It's like it's just the same again, isn't it?

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah, no, no, definitely.

[Chris Mason]

And which then brings you back to I was talking to a Labor MP this afternoon who is pretty skeptical about the current leadership and deeply aware of the predicament that the government finds itself in in terms of popularity, but was saying, but it's that point the other side of let's imagine a scenario where there is a contest and all the rest of it, and as I say, let's not underprice the scenario where there isn't, but where there is and someone new comes along and there's a bit of a row and then they plump for someone and there's a certain amount of excitement and they might be better or worse on this, that and the other than Keir Starmer, but a lot of the fundamentals are just the same and they don't have a mandate.

[Alex Forsyth]

And the challenge. The other bit of all of this of course that you have to remember is the mechanics for there to be a leadership contest in the Labour Party are really, really tricky. So you need a whole lo MP 80 think 80 to think that there would have to be secondly that there isn't a kind of one obvious candidate that's standing out. Thirdly, Kirstama's been pretty clear at this stage at least that he ain't going nowhere. Thanks guys. And fourthly, I just wonder and I'm sure this, these conversations happening equally they are, is that how much you have to factor in the public tolerance for a party that changes leader on the back of fresh memories of the previous party, the Conservatives that change leader so rapidly and how that did not persuade anybody publicly that they kind of had the answers to the country, you know. So that has to be baked into the calculations as well. And I think it, I think it is being so.

[Faisal Islam]

So I think that they'll be very carefully hoping the economic numbers go in their direction.

[Alex Forsyth]

Yeah.

[Faisal Islam]

And one of the things from the budget which was kind of under cooked afterwards was the idea that they've actually physically kind of intervened with the inflation rate like so. So it's higher than it was going to be but it's still the 0.4 percentage points lower. And the bank of England back that up to go half a percent less. It's quite interesting that that means that the inflation rate if they're right will be below 2 and a half percent by April and we will not hear the end of it from them.

[Adam Fleming]

And another interest rate cut just before Christmas and all the numbers on net migration look like net migration has already plunged quite a lot. It's going to plunge even further. And actually maybe the conversations we're having in a year's time were quite different.

[Faisal Islam]

So that is true. But I was also struck by sort of deja vu when I heard about that. This customs union vote that happened and I was it 10 Labor MPS that.

[Adam Fleming]

Voted was a little parliamentary maneuver that was never going to get anywhere leg legislatively it passed. It was the. Yeah. Trying to propose a customs union.

[Faisal Islam]

But I've always thought there's always like key indicators and these things start small and then they get big, don't they? I mean all the ones that we, you know, we, we had to cover in 2019 they start small to get big. And I just thought oh, Meg Hilliar, the Treasury Select Committee Chair has voted for this. You know, right in the middle of the Party sensible probably would have been a minister and she's voted for this. And someone said to me, well, you've got to understand the London mps are under a lot of pressure and London Councils in May, you know, there's some quite interesting predictions.

[Chris Mason]

There's a really.

[Faisal Islam]

Well, I'll let you, I'll let you do it because I, I. How credible you, you know, if only.

[Adam Fleming]

I'd asked her when I bumped into her going to buy my Christmas tree years ago, I could have got the scoop on that. Never mind.

[Faisal Islam]

But I'm very worried apparently about the London councils.

[Chris Mason]

I don't know, massively so. So ahead of the elections next May, so devolved elections in Scotland and Wales and elections to loads of local authorities in England. There's obviously a big focus rightly on Scotland and Wales electing devolved government. Someone said to me the other day, do not underprice London for two reasons. For three reasons. Number one, half of Labour's membership lives in London, so how the result is in London will perhaps disproportionately shape their view about the party's predicament. And number two, maybe there are only two parts. I was trying to think what the third was as I embarked on the second one. Number two, the. Oh, there is a three parts. Number two is the vast majority of mps in London are Labor. So again they will feel the results. Number three is that labor within London and obviously London is, is big and is politically diverse in many senses. Labor are likely to face challenges from almost everywhere on the political spectrum, whether it's Reform, Greens, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, in other words. So this person was saying to me, their fear is come the day after the collective mood amongst Labor, London, labor, which is big and significant, what could be one of not only, ah, this.

[Adam Fleming]

Is terrible, but the, the clobbered from every direction.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah. And there won't therefore necessarily be a consensus on what the solution is.

[Alex Forsyth]

Which comes back to that whole problem is it has, you know, when they won in 2024, Keir Starmer almost had. It's always sounds strange to frame it as a problem when they've just won a stonking great majority, but a similar challenge to Boris Johnson in 2019 when they'd somehow managed to hang together quite a disparate electoral coalition with people with quite different views on stuff around one sort of central theme. And for 2019 for Boris Johnson, it was obviously get Brexit done in 2024 for Keir Starmer, you could argue that they were the obvious alternative to the Conservatives and people were fed up with the Conservatives in government. But beyond that, what do you then do you know? And I think that has sort of been the underlying theme that's been running through the past 18 months and maybe why we've seen some policy shifts and moves around some of the key central issues, because they haven't quite worked out how to deal with that yet.

[Chris Mason]

I'm fascinated about this. In the early weeks of the new year, what do Labour decide to run with, if you like, as their theme, their story for the first five months of next year when you're heading into these hugely important elections, what's going to be the kind of controlling thought now, I think, as we always tend to do in the early weeks of the year, the early days of the new year, you'll have the Prime Minister and others coming out and doing those sort of. Of new year kind of speech or news conference or event or whatever where there is that kind of sketching. But I think that's going to be fascinating. And the extent to which he attempts to address this recurring criticism which Wes Streeting has aligned himself with in this interview, around the maintenance department, around the storytelling, around the kind of vision thing or the. Or the kind of. This is what we're about.

[Adam Fleming]

Let's do a very quick bit of further future gazing. Chris, you pointed our of attention to the London elections, how they could be very significant. Alex, give us something to keep an eye on.

[Alex Forsyth]

You've got to say, the elections in Scotland and Wales, which also will be massive and really significant, largely I think, judged through the prism of how Labour does in those elections, because obviously Labour has been in power in Wales forever and ever and ever. And Labour, at one point in the not too distant past, were hoping to take control in Holyrood. So there's a huge question mark over the Labour performance, but also what will be interesting to see how the other parties fare, not least plied and reforming in Wales. And of course, those elections matter not just because it's about people choosing their representatives with all the consequences of that for the course of the next few years. That is important and of itself. But for me, sitting where we're sitting, that is the absolutely crucial inflection point of the next 12 months when it comes to determining everything we've discussed, you know, about Keir Starmer and his government.

[Chris Mason]

Beyond that, Wales, Wales, Wales, I think is that. Yeah, it's me. Fascinating.

[Faisal Islam]

I'm gonna pick the mood and confidence of the country, right, Because I think we labor promised a lot, you know, just calm and wasn't politically calm, I think it's fair to say. But now they think they've got the foundations in place for some economic calm, which should yield some fruits if it's going to work. And so the proof point for this, which is I am slightly obsessed with, is that there is some quite good news happening in the UK kind of tech sector and quantum computing and AI. And you should be able to see that now. That won't change. Loads of. Loads of votes everywhere. But it. But it might start to show that the UK has a decent stake in the future world economy. Kind of closer to the consumer in terms of their confidence and mood. I can't say further than the World cup transform everything. We're having them play Scotland in the final.

[American Giant Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

Unlikely. Having watched the whole draw program last week, it's going to be hilarious even. Forget the sport, just the fact that it's in America in this moment and how they're going to do it. That program series. My highlight will be, I hope this happens. Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau getting engaged. Pop and politics.

[Faisal Islam]

I assumed that was AI and then.

[Adam Fleming]

Someone said, no, this is a problem.

[Faisal Islam]

Everything on social media, I'm like, if it's too good to be true, it's a. I thought. I just assumed that was made up. No.

[Chris Mason]

And now I can see I'm just imagining the sort of newscast special at that moment where, you know, live from Toronto or whatever.

[Alex Forsyth]

Adam's gonna be there.

[Chris Mason]

Sure. Well, exactly. You've got to go and get an invite.

[Alex Forsyth]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

What if it's the day England are playing Scotland in the final, though? It could be in Toronto. Well, hopefully the wedding's in the morning and the finals in the afternoon.

[Alex Forsyth]

Sorted.

[Adam Fleming]

Bob's your uncle. And that's all for newscast on your screens on BBC1 for this year. We will be back in January. If you'd like to listen to podcast editions of Newscast on BBC Sounds every day, there's a QR code on your screen now which you can scan, which will take you to Newscast on BBC Sounds, where you can get analysis like this every single day of the week. Although not all the episodes will include thrilling anecdotes about going from Christmas party to Christmas party and then needing the toilet on the way home. But thank you for listening. Bye bye.

[American Giant Advertiser]

Bye.

[Adam Fleming]

Newscast.

[Alex Forsyth]

Newscast from the BBC.

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