← Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
We've got a plan: Louise Haigh on her journey back to power
00:42:03
Louise Haigh MP, key Burnham ally, live at Sheffield's Crossed Wires festival.
Loading summary
Transcript154 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hello. The Starmer era is coming to an end and the Burnham era is about to begin. This edition of Political Thinking is being recorded on the Radio 4 Fringe Stage at the Crossed Wires Podcast festival in the great city of Sheffield. My guest, Louise Haig played a perhaps the crucial role in the man they called the King of the north becoming the next leader of the country as a whole. She looks set to play a vital role at the centre of his new number 10 operation. What's more, she is a Sheffield lass, born here, schooled here, now the MP for Sheffield, Healey, and I think her mum and dad might be in the audience too. Now, when Labour came to power, Keir Starmer made Louise Haig Transport Secretary and the youngest female Secretary of State this country had ever seen. She passed the law that will bring the railways into public ownership. But within five months she was gone. She'd resigned when it emerged that she'd admitted to a fraud offence when she was in her twenties. Many believe that Red Loo, as she was known not just for the colour of her hair, but for her politics as well, had been punished for being the left's voice in the Cabinet. And recently the New Statesman, the magazine, credited her with for the sheer guts of her high stakes manoeuvring to take down the Prime Minister. Louise Haig. Welcome to Political Thinking. Louise, I want to start by just saying, how are you feeling? Because you're on the brink, not just of a new era for the Labour Party, for the country, but for you.
- [01:43]
B
Yeah, I'd say my baseline every day is frazzled and then we sort of get to varying levels of stress every day, depending on how things pan out. But it's obviously right now. Wonderful to be here in Sheffield with you. I always appreciate getting out of Westminster and it's a particular pressure cooker at the moment. Everyone is very excitable and very anxious for what's to come, but most of all excited. I think it is a huge opportunity to turn things around for this Labour government.
- [02:13]
A
Anxious and excited. What was striking in Andy Burnham's first big speech after it became clear he was going to be Prime Minister, was that phrase heard hope in every heart. Now the cynics can say, what the hell does that mean? But do you think that's what's been missing? A bit of hope, a bit of optimism?
- [02:27]
B
100%. And I think when you look back over the last couple of years, the government never really recovered from the mood music and our positioning as soon as we won the general election. From winter fuel to the 22 billion black hole and the things can only get worse spread speech, which Morgan McSweeney,
- [02:49]
A
when he did this podcast only a week ago, admitted it was a mistake. They were just too gloomy. Did you shout the radio and say. I was saying that at the time.
- [02:57]
B
I mean, we were elected on a mandate for change and, you know, everyone was hopeful when we came in. There was excitement and ambition for a changed country and the government immediately turned around and said that wasn't possible. And as I say, we've just never been able to recover from that. No matter how many resets Keir Starmer and the rest of the government attempted, it could never get itself out of that. So that's why where Andy positions himself now and how he connects to the country. Because as much as we might think we know and have heard all Andy's shtick to death, a lot of the country still doesn't necessarily know about him. And they need to learn. They've not had the benefit of a general election campaign in which he's been out on the telly every day with his whole team around him. So he's got a big obstacle to overcome to become known to the country as a whole. But it's a huge opportunity as well because he can tell that story of hope and optimism that has been missing.
- [03:52]
A
The other thing that McSweeney admitted was that he, Keir Starmer, the government, hadn't really got a plan when he won that election and that not enough had been done to think it through. Have you got a plan? Has Andy Burnham got a plan?
- [04:06]
B
He certainly has. He is the surest politician I've ever come across of what he thinks and what he knows needs to be done. And there's this concept or this narrative that's gripped hold of some in the Westminster lobby that he's unprepared or inexperienced because he's been away from Westminster for the last nine years. That couldn't be further from the truth because he has spent that time thinking very deeply about how the country is run, what holds regions like Greater Manchester and therefore most regions and the devolved nations of this country back. And he has got very, very clear ideas and a plan to put that right.
- [04:44]
A
Now, I saw you the other day, we were chatting about coming here to do this interview at the Crossed Wires Festival. And I hope I'm not breaking secret by saying that you were about to then head to the Cabinet Office to meet the Cabinet Secretary. These so called access talks that you are allowed to have, when it's obvious that you're about to go into government. Does it feel like reality's kicking in?
- [05:06]
B
Oh, it certainly does, yeah. It is incredibly daunting. But Andy gives me confidence in those talks and in every conversation I've had that his priorities and a sense, but also his plan for what he wants to do is so clear. There is barely a domestic policy area that he has not had responsibility for because Greater Manchester is such a large devolved area. It's got so many powers and so many responsibilities. So he's had experience in nearly every area, more experience than any normal cabinet minister would have in preparing for a job.
- [05:38]
A
So there's a difference, isn't there, between knowing a lot and having a plan?
- [05:42]
B
Yep. Yep.
- [05:43]
A
I'm assuming, am I being naive, that perhaps Andy Merlin didn't start thinking about what he might do as Prime Minister two weeks ago when he became the MP for Makerfield? He's been thinking about a while longer.
- [05:55]
B
I don't think I am breaking any state secrets to say Andy has been thinking and has had his ambition. His ambitions have been clear for some time.
- [06:02]
A
So I mean, literally years, ever since he became mayor of Greater Manchester, in a way he's been thinking, well, if I ever got the top job, this is what I'd do.
- [06:10]
B
Yes, I believe so. And of course he's run for leader twice before, so this is hopefully Touchwood. Third time, third time lucky. So he's, you know, he has been thinking about this and certainly planning for this, for this moment or at least the last year.
- [06:23]
A
Yeah. So meeting with you, meeting with others saying, if it happens, what do we do?
- [06:29]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would, you know, the means and the, and the mechanism for it clearly only came. It only became clear after the local elections that it couldn't continue the way it was continuing.
- [06:40]
A
Yeah. But if I were to grab your mobile phone, would I get the hundred day plan? I mean, is there a plan?
- [06:45]
B
Yes, of course there's a plan. Yeah, but already. Yeah, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna tell you about it here.
- [06:51]
A
So there is a plan. There has been a plan for a while and that is a plan that I'm not gonna ask you who's who, but is not just names but policies as well. There is a plan ready to roll.
- [07:02]
B
Yeah. And I know it's driving the lobby and indeed a lot of my colleagues completely to distraction that the cabinet hasn't been announced or that there's been no briefings around who's going to be doing what jobs, but Andy is in a totally unique position at the moment in that he's not beholden to anybody. Normally, when you've won a leadership contest or you're on the cusp of winning a leadership contest, you've had to do horse trades and deals with all kinds of people. But he's not had to do that to get to the position he's in. And therefore he can set out the agenda, including the machinery of government changes, which he started to announce this week with number 10 north, and then build out the people from that. And that's the right way to do it. But it's so, so rare that you get given the opportunity to do it that way.
- [07:43]
A
Now, number 10 north, the idea is an office in Manchester and we are talking in another great northern city in Sheffield, where I just get a little hint that people in this room might think, can he stop banging on about Manchester? Now I'm all in favor of him banging on about Manchester because he's my own batch.
- [08:01]
B
Yeah.
- [08:01]
A
Is that a problem, a danger?
- [08:03]
B
I think that he's so closely associated obviously with Manchester and indeed Liverpool, because he's not actually. He's from Liverpool. So there is clearly a need to speak to, as I say, the whole country and demonstrate how his brand of politics and Manchesterism applies. I mean, this morning the Times had written up who was who around Andy, and they described me as part of the Manchester mafia, which. And the Times have written quite a lot of offensive things about me in their time, but that kind of takes the biscuit.
- [08:31]
A
You're gonna sue a Sheffield Sues for being Guilfar of Manchester. Now the other thing he's talked about is not just Manchester, but obviously Makerfield, the name of his constituency. And you spent four weeks of your life living, eating, breathing everything in Makerfield. What was that like, living through that?
- [08:49]
B
It's funny you say eating because I cannot tell you how many times a day I was offered a pie whilst living in. Whilst living in Wigan. So myself and Jenny, who used to work for me, shared an Airbnb in Wigan, in the centre of Wigan, and took my dog Milo with me. He became the star of the campaign. He was just sort of weaving his way around the campaign center. Every time I turned around, another stranger was feeding him a sandwich. But we were based in this utterly sort of surreal campaign center called the Stub Shore. It was a formerly labor club, now a community center, and it was open to the public the entire time and had a working bar all day, every day. So you can imagine some of the characters that were weaving in and out of the center. And every single Thursday, every single Thursday, it had an exotic bird auction in the back room. And men, and it was mostly men, would come from all over the Northwest with their cages filled with these exotic birds and sell them to each other. I've never, never seen anything like it. They had a T. Rex tribute band on one week.
- [09:51]
A
You had a few parties in there, not for politics, but for people just hiring the venue.
- [09:54]
B
Yep, Yep. There was a wedding in the back, which Andy joined in. There was a wake the following week, which Andy played a very big role in as well. It was just the one wedding, or
- [10:04]
A
were there four weddings, Andy?
- [10:07]
B
Just the one. Yeah. We did the whole. The whole life cycle.
- [10:09]
A
Talking of four weddings in a funeral, who turned up?
- [10:11]
B
Yes, he did. Hugh Grant turned up on the. On the Wednesday night on the eve of poll. Steve Coogan had been there the weekend before. I mean, they'll be reeling now that we've left. It feels like a fever dream.
- [10:20]
A
You talk about it fondly, but I'm told that you and some others. When he first said, that's where I'm gonna run for Parliament, because let's keep reminding ourselves, if he couldn't win a by election, he couldn't go on to be Prime Minister, you were pretty nervy about it. Did you actually say, don't do it?
- [10:35]
B
I was. We'd just obviously been through the local elections and Reform had won 50% of the vote in that seat. They'd won in every single ward and we were trailing on 24%. It was a huge challenge and a huge risk, but he was absolutely adamant that that was the seat he wanted to contest, partly because it is genuinely home and half of the seat is his old Lee constituency, but part because he wanted to take on Reform and show how they could be beaten. And he said to me, do you remember, Lou, when we went for lunch last year and you said to me, you're going to have to show how you can take on Nigel Farage. And Annalise Midgley was looking at me and she was like, you can't even remember the lunch, Lou, can you? Andy remembers everything you've ever said. So I had that thrown back at me. So I lost that argument. And it would make her feel what it was. But it was like everything with Andy. He's so instinctive, and he was absolutely right and it was the right seat at the right moment.
- [11:27]
A
What's the message, though? You see, because there are some people who saw that result and say, well, look, Nigel Farage is finished already. Piers Morgan was on the telly the other day, wasn't he saying Farage was dead in the water? And there are some of your colleagues who may say, well, that's problem dealt with. We don't have to worry about that anymore because it showed that the Democrats were willing to lend votes to Labour, the Greens, even some Tories as well. Would that be a tad complacent?
- [11:51]
B
Very, very much so. We've seen Nigel Farage reinvent himself so many times. And the interesting thing in that by election as well, was the rise of Restore, an even scarier prospect, obviously, than reform, because they are. Rupert Lowe is explicitly a far right individual, whereas Nigel Farage is always very careful to know where the line is and not go beyond it. He is clearly damaged for lots of reasons, partly Makerfield, but certainly the donations that he's taken. And he's clearly unused to the level of scrutiny that he's currently under and it's rattling him. But I don't think we should ever, ever write him off because he's proven so many times to be able to come back and grip the mood of the nation.
- [12:29]
A
So why Andy Burnham, then? You mean there are other people who are in Westminster with you? There's Angela Rayner, there's Ed Miliband. They broadly share your politics. Lots of people thought they'd be very good as leaders of the Labour Party. And yet a year ago you're having lunch with Andy Burnham, already talking about him being Prime Minister. So why so?
- [12:48]
B
Well, let me say, first of all, Ed and Angela are both my really good friends and they are both incredible politicians, very, very talented. And of course we're both. And Ed already obviously has been leader of the Labour Party, but I think
- [13:00]
A
he might be the next Chancellor, of course.
- [13:01]
B
And I think what Andy did, you
- [13:03]
A
know, she didn't ask.
- [13:04]
B
We've just been through that, Nick. But what Andy did offer, I think, in a way that no other candidate really could, was an opportunity to unify the PLP and appeal to both potential reform candidates and Green candidates. You looked at where Andy's polling was amongst the membership of the Labour Party, the public and his standing in the PLP.
- [13:24]
A
That's the Parliamentary Labour Party, the jargon, all the MPs and the peers as
- [13:28]
B
well, and he topped all three. It was just miles ahead. And it just seemed negligent to not attempt to get the most popular politician in the country.
- [13:38]
A
Everyone who talks about it, whether they are politically aligned with him or not, have to say this includes lots of his political enemies. Talk about the fact he's empathetic, the fact that he's friendly, the fact that he remembers things. I don't know him hugely well, but he always remembers, you know, my mum's on well and asked me about that. That's his style, isn't it? You've got a bond. Somebody joked during the by election, Andy doesn't even go to the bathroom without Lou waiting outside. How true is this?
- [14:04]
B
That's not true in the slightest.
- [14:06]
A
Let me stress outside, that's what they were saying. But you're close and you have got closer as you built up to this moment.
- [14:13]
B
Yeah, I mean, we met in 2015 when I was first elected. We didn't know each other very well at all before my mum, who, as you mentioned is here today, went to see him at a hustings because, of course, he was running for Labour leader then in Doncaster, and marched up to him afterwards and said, will you give my daughter a job if you're elected leader?
- [14:32]
A
So what was the answer?
- [14:34]
B
Well, of course he said yes, yes, yes, in that moment, doesn't he? Yeah. So obviously then he left Parliament. But I worked very closely with him as Shadow Transport Secretary and Transport Secretary, as I did with all the mayors, and then we became quite close after I resigned, and he was very, very supportive of me publicly and privately in that period.
- [14:51]
A
Yeah, I mentioned your resignation in the introduction and I imagine. Is this right? It's still quite a painful thing to talk about.
- [14:57]
B
Yeah. I mean, it was the most. You know, I'd say it was the worst period of my life by a country mile.
- [15:03]
A
What, because you're in the crosshairs?
- [15:06]
B
In the crosshairs. I mean, look, the nature of the conviction that came to light all started from the fact that I was mugged when I was in my 20s and had my bag stolen. And when I went into work the following Monday, my boss at the time said, was your work phone in the bag stolen as well? And I mistakenly said yes, and it was a work BlackBerry and they replaced it with a different phone. And it was only later that I realized that it hadn't been stolen, that it was in the flats. And because it was at that point a decommissioned BlackBerry, I didn't tell my work and I should have, but as a result, I was prosecuted for fraud. And when I was in the Shadow Cabinet, I told Keir about this and he was very empathetic, he was really, really decent about it, and I explained it was spent. And then I got a conditional discharge and I paid a £15 victim surcharge and he said, so the conviction was spent. The conviction was totally spent. And he said, I'm really, really sorry, Lou. That's awful. I don't know why you were prosecuted.
- [16:14]
A
Just to be clear, we're talking about the man who used to be the Director of Public Prosecution.
- [16:18]
B
So he kind of knew exactly what's not exactly. So we went through the detail and he said, I'm really sorry. And then that was that. It was never mentioned.
- [16:27]
A
So what happened?
- [16:28]
B
Well, that was. I was. He promoted me three times after that conversation, including into government.
- [16:34]
A
But the truth is, he sacked. You didn't know. I mean, you formally resigned, but said they wanted you out.
- [16:39]
B
Yeah. When it hit the headlines and when the Times got hold of the story, initially, colleagues in number 10 were being supportive and put out a statement. And the statement included. Well, they signed the statement off from me. Sorry. And the statement was very clear. It was all disclosed to Keir Sama in opposition. But then Morgan rang me and Morgan
- [16:58]
A
McSweeney was chief of Staff to Keir
- [16:59]
B
Sama and asked for my resignation. And I had to really push, even for a conversation with Keir. He didn't want to have that conversation with me himself. And both Morgan and he kept saying, well, additional information has emerged, but at no point would any of them tell me what that additional information was. And afterwards they repeated that, and it was painful because they could have said, look, these headlines are awful and it's not going to be nice for you to ride them out. And it wasn't. And to be honest, I would have agreed and I would have gone on that basis because I didn't particularly want to ride them out. It was, you know, it was embarrassing and it wasn't pleasant to go through, but to pretend that I hadn't told him and to brief so consistently and so viciously for quite a number of weeks after that was a deliberate attempt to knock my character down.
- [17:52]
A
The Times claimed the row was about more than one mobile phone and that's what the new information was.
- [17:59]
B
Exactly. Just categorically untrue. Categorically untrue. And I've sought corrections on a number of occasions around that.
- [18:07]
A
The Prime Minister in the House of Commons talked about new information coming to light. Is that true?
- [18:15]
B
No. I mean, like I say, none of them ever told me what additional information. None of them gave me the courtesy of telling me what that was.
- [18:22]
A
So, still, now, you don't know.
- [18:23]
B
Gave me a chance to defend myself. The circumstances of the conviction are exactly as I describe them now, and exactly as I described them to care in opposition and if anything, as you've just pointed out, the issue has been over reported. There is nothing further to it.
- [18:39]
A
So it could be that what Keir Starmer said in House Gomes wasn't accurate.
- [18:43]
B
There's certainly, from my perspective. No. No additional information other than what I disclosed to him.
- [18:48]
A
Yeah. I'm going to use journalistic translation and call that not telling the truth, I'm afraid, because it seems to me that's what you're saying. There was something else that struck those of us looking at the time. You wrote a long resignation letter, eight paragraphs, you had your gratitude for being given a job, the achievements of the government, the hopes. Do you remember how long his letter was?
- [19:08]
B
It was about eight. Eight words, wasn't it?
- [19:10]
A
Three sentences.
- [19:11]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [19:12]
A
Sorry, you're going by it was not quite it, but it was quite like that. It's pretty brutal, isn't it?
- [19:18]
B
Yeah. I don't. And I honestly don't. You know, in your introduction, you said that, you know, some of my allies or those on the left of the party would say that I was punished for being seen as the voice of the left. I genuinely don't know because, like I say, Keir promoted me on a number of occasions. We always got on perfectly fine. So I can't. I really genuinely can't explain what went so disastrously wrong. But we've not had a single personal conversation since you and the Prime Minister. Yeah, yeah. So something did go very, very pretty.
- [19:50]
A
Extraordinary, isn't it, that he couldn't find it in himself to say, you're right, I'm sorry it worked out this way.
- [19:56]
B
Yeah. And I just. I think, like I say, there are ways and means to deal with that. You know, unfortunately, I've had to sack people in my political career and you don't have to do it in a way that it's frankly so hurtful.
- [20:09]
A
That brings us to culture, doesn't it? Because one of the complaints about Keir Starmer is not a naturally empathetic man. Now, to be fair to him, I know friends of Keir Starmer and they are hugely loyal to him. And he's had the same friends since he was at university. These are his mates. He plays five aside. So with people who really know him, they speak well of him. With people who don't know him that well or deal with him through work, not so good. Does simply changing the leader change the culture? What some people call the boys club of number 10? Or does something more dramatic have to happen?
- [20:43]
B
No, of course, it takes a huge amount of work to set a culture in an organisation, and especially one as disparate and enormous and sweeping as the government, and that has such an interaction with the media on a daily basis. So it's going to take leadership, not just from Andy, but from across the whole political and staff team. And we've really tried to model that already. You know, Andy was really clear in the by election that he wasn't going to do traditional point scoring, that there wasn't going to be a negative campaign, even against the reform candidate. And we've carried the. That over already. You know, there's been no negative briefing against any of our colleagues, which shouldn't be something to boast about, but is actually very, very different from, unfortunately, the culture that we have seen. We're really trying to model that, really trying to make sure that we only recruit people who are absolutely committed to that culture.
- [21:28]
A
And is that partly about having more women at the top? Because again and again, this phrase, the boys club, is used. Now, Morgan McSweeney, when he spoke on political thinking, totally denied there was a boys club, insisted that many of the people he worked with were women and were being patronized and not being the credit they deserved. But you said it. Bridget Phillipson said it, Lisa Nandy said it. Again and again, people say it. Mm.
- [21:53]
B
And I think I certainly would take Bridget and Lisa's word for it. I mean, they have both been, as have I, obviously, victims of incredibly sexist and unpleasant briefing in the press. Angela has. The way Sue Gray was treated was absolutely disgraceful.
- [22:08]
A
She was the first Chief of Staff.
- [22:10]
B
You know, the idea that there wasn't a cabal of men that were deliberately mistreating women around the government is just fanciful.
- [22:21]
A
A cabal. Mistreating. That's quite strong words.
- [22:25]
B
You had to open the papers most day to read the vicious briefing that was happening, you know, the horrible way they would talk about our colleagues to journalists.
- [22:32]
A
Now, you became a target. And, as I say, many journalists thought one of the reasons Morgan was Sweeney asked for your resignation was because you had become a target. Looking back, do you think, in a sense, you made yourself a target when you entered government? I mean, famously, you had what the Times describe as vibrant red dyed hair is what they describe it as.
- [22:55]
B
I mean, I've always had red hair of varying degrees, and it did go back very, very red in the general election. Do you know, after I left government, I heard that the whips and some around number 10 had been pestering both my partner and some of my friends to tell them that they had to tell me I had to dye my hair. And all of them were like, I'm not telling her that. Are you mad? There's no way I'm daring to do that. Look, it certainly made me a very obvious target to deride by the Daily Mail and to freak people out that I was sort of a communist. And, well, Red Loo. Red Loo, exactly the title that was used.
- [23:30]
A
But of course it wasn't just because of the hair, which is a neat thing for a newspaper headline if they've got a photograph. It was about policy. You were renationalizing the railways. You passed the bill for Great British Railways. They said you gave the train drivers and others, rail workers in general, a big pay rise. In return, they claim for. For nothing. So looking back, have you learned from that experience? Does it make you think, as you're on the brink of going through it all again, what do I do differently this time?
- [23:57]
B
Well, I mean, on the. On the train drivers, they did get what sounded like a big rise because it was done over three years. They'd not had a pay rise in three years and they'd been on national strike for two years, which was causing, as I'm sure you'll remember, absolute havoc on the national railways. I sat back after doing the deal and allowed that narrative to take hold in the press and I didn't go out and make the case loudly enough. I don't think the right wing media are ever going to think very highly of me. So I don't think that the right thing to do in those scenarios is to sit back and avoid a fight. Because actually, I think what the public want to see is whose side politicians are on. And they want to see us picking fights with vested interests and with corporate interests that don't work for the people of this country. So I guess what I'm saying, Nick, is I'll probably just draw a bigger target on my back. But I don't think we can shy away from those kind of fights. Making the argument.
- [24:59]
A
But I guess the critics would say the train drivers union is a vested interest. They were the ones holding the country hostage.
- [25:07]
B
Yeah. And it was a dispute over pay and they needed a pay settlement. I mean, you tell me, why don't you fight them? It was way below what other public sector workers received. It was actually quite a tough bargain.
- [25:20]
A
And given what we've just described, and you were very clear about it, the worst trauma, in a sense, you've been through in your life, is there a Bit of you now, days before Andy Burnham becomes Prime Minister, and we're expecting you to go to the heart of his number 10 operation, where you think, good God, why am I doing this again?
- [25:38]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, don't know if I'm having a job, I genuinely don't. And I know far better than to try and brief myself into a job with you, Nick, because Andy absolutely hates that.
- [25:47]
A
Yeah, we'll get your mum to go out now.
- [25:49]
B
Yeah, yeah, she can go and give him a ring. But, yeah, of course I'm. Of course I'm trepidatious. It's not an easy thing to do at all. And I look at the way Angela Rayner has been treated over the last few years. I look at the things that are said about Rachel Reeves. I've had the last 18 months as a backbencher, being able to come to terms with some of that and focus on the things that matter in the constituency and not have to deal with that daily scrutiny. I look at Angela, who is also similarly a backbencher, but still subject to the same level of scrutiny, and I don't. I genuinely don't know how they're still standing. They are incredibly resilient and incredibly impressive. So of course I worry about the pressure and the scrutiny.
- [26:30]
A
But you had, in your background, didn't you, some preparation for this. Was it a granddad who was a trade union official in the family?
- [26:38]
B
So my granddad was in the fbu.
- [26:40]
A
The Fire Brigades Union.
- [26:41]
B
The Fire Brigades Union. Sorry, you keep on. Keep on spelling out my acronyms for me. Which was actually even more interesting that he was in the Fire Brigades Union, because he'd actually lost a leg in the Second World War. He was a Royal Marine commando and he lost his leg charging a machine in Northern Italy. But then he went on. He lived in Chesterfield, which is not far from where we are now, and he worked in the fire service and was in the fbu. My mum's brother, as well as that was my mum's dad. My mum's brother was a miner who was on strike in the 84, 85 strike. So there was politics kind of very much in the background in the extended family growing up. But I actually never grew up around party politics at all. I couldn't tell you that anyone, particularly around my youth, was a member of a political party. It was actually a teacher, like so many people, you know, it's teachers, isn't it, that are big, formative moments in their lives? And it was a teacher that encouraged me to join the Labour Party.
- [27:31]
A
Sometimes it's not a direct influence in that way, it's when you're growing up, it's what you're seeing, what makes you angry. I always think one of the most revealing questions in politics is what really makes you angry. So, Louise Haig, what makes you angry?
- [27:46]
B
Yeah, I'm growing up in Sheffield in the 90s. The thing that has always motivated me is the rampant inequality in this country. The fact that some people can barely afford to put a roof over their houses or over themselves, or has to fight so hard every week to put food on the table and pay their bills for their children. And some people have more wealth than they can spend in a thousand lifetimes. And Sheffield is a wonderful, wonderful city, but unfortunately it remains quite an unequal one. Danny Dorling did this famous study about the bus route that goes across most of the length, kind of west to east of Sheffield, and you lose 10 years of your life expectancy along that bus route.
- [28:26]
A
Now, you've talked about inequality more than once in this conversation. And the moment that I thought, hey, here's Louise Hague, who was in the Cabinet, is now saying, the Labour Party's got to change, is when you were a key organiser in what we call a rebellion, you might not like the word, against the government's plans to cut disability benefit, in particular the so called pip, the personal independence payment. The problem Andy Burnham has is we know the bill is unsustainable, isn't it? So how do you meet your concerns about looking after people with the need to keep the bills down?
- [29:00]
B
Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely right. The welfare bill is ballooning massively and in large part because there has been such a huge increase in PIP and in youth unemployment. You know, we inherited, when we came into government, a situation where a million young people under 24 were out of work, not in education or training either. And that number hasn't shifted. And that is a terrible scarring effect for the economy, for society. But for those young people to be unemployed at that stage of your life can have profound consequences for the whole rest of your life. The problem, the way the government tried to attempt to tackle this issue last year was just very blunt. Short term cuts, just hacking off the benefit eligibility and the amount that people would be entitled to. And the reason why so many Labour MPs were really concerned about it was because there was no sense of how these people would be able to live their lives. Some of them just obviously not able to work. And when you make just hacks like that, it pushes up costs elsewhere in the system. It pushes costs onto local authorities, it pushes costs onto housing, so it wouldn't sustainably bring down the welfare bill. And that's why Pat's done the right thing and bringing in Alan Milburn to look at this, so it can be done in a properly long term sustainable way and encouraging, really encouraging young people back.
- [30:15]
A
But I think there'll be plenty of people listening or watching who say, well, hold on, some of those people can work. Maybe it needs tough love. Maybe what is required is to say, actually, for a short period of time, maybe we will support you, but we need you to go to work. That is an obligation, part of the responsibility of being able to get benefits 100%.
- [30:35]
B
But the irony is, is that PIP isn't actually just an out of work benefit. And the way the government were attempting to do it last year, by cutting it was always designed in order to cover the costs, the additional costs of being disabled and the way the government had designed it last year would have meant some people who were in work but claiming things to help them get to work would actually fall out of work.
- [30:56]
A
So why did it happen? I mean, you like Rachel Reeves, I think you meet her quite often, don't you? So it's not like she's the enemy. No, Rachel, you would imagine, agree on most things. How does something like that happen? What's gone wrong if you say it's gone wrong?
- [31:10]
B
The problem, unfortunately, was that lots of MPs were raising their concerns with the centre, with ministers, with number 10, with the whips, and I know the whips were feeding that in and saying, there's going to be a real problem here. And again, I'm sorry, but to go back to that boys club, there was a. Well, they'll just do what they're told. You know, we don't care that these concerns are being raised. They will go through the lobbies and they will vote for the bill. And a combination of the very, very real concerns that people had, not being listened to, them not being dressed, and that attitude from the centre created just that huge opposition that we saw that meant the whole thing collapsed in the end.
- [31:51]
A
Well, let's talk about the future. That's what people would be most interested in. And what the challenge facing the Burnham team is going to be. Let's take this welfare one. You have written a lot about curbing the power of the Treasury. You say no other country in the world has such an imperial finance department as we do. I think if I had a Treasury official in that chair and not you. I tell you what they'd say. They'd say, every politician always says, if you just invest a bit more, we'll save in the future. And what the treasury says, no, no, we need to save now, we need money now. Because people say, well, if we just help young people back into work, and that'll cost us a few billion now, but don't worry, it'll save you more. If we just help disabled people to get employment, that'll save money. But we need money now. That's going to be a problem that hits Andy Burnham just as much as it's hit Keir Starmer, isn't it?
- [32:42]
B
There's no easy choices. And I think part of the problem when we came into government was that we thought that we thought there would be and we thought there's a strand, I think, that goes through the Labour Party sometimes that just thinks the opposition, the Tories are the bad guys and they'll have made loads of really bad wrong decisions and we'll go in and we'll make better ones. And actually the experience of government is there's just loads of bad choices. It's like, do you want this terrible thing or that equally terrible thing? And you've got to just measure it up on the basis of risk.
- [33:11]
A
Do you know that Andy Burnham can make terrible choices?
- [33:14]
B
Yes, I've seen him, Seen him do it, definitely.
- [33:17]
A
Such as
- [33:20]
B
none that I can share on this stage with you.
- [33:23]
A
You mean he's already behind the scenes taking some difficult choices?
- [33:27]
B
Yeah. I don't think you can get. I don't think you can be in frontline politics for 25 years as Andy has, and get to where he has now without making some really, really difficult.
- [33:34]
A
Ah, but people say, look, being mayor basically is about being a front man. That lot of the success of Manchester had actually been baked in for 25 years, thanks to the leadership of other people who'd been there and they can't think of an example. And I've known Andy for 25 years, I can't think of an example where he's had to say no publicly, can you?
- [33:54]
B
Well, you think. I mean, think about what he has been through, as great at Manchester Mayor, through the pandemic, through terrorist attacks and he's led the police, he's led the health service there. There will have been very difficult decisions and very difficult trade offs, as there always is in government. But just on the Imperial Finance Department, I did actually go for a drink with Rachel Reeves this week and she joked that she should have turned up with A crown and scepter, as a result of my comments.
- [34:17]
A
She was Empress, exactly, of the Imperial. But now the importance of you describing it that way is that you, and indeed there's a long history of this idea, have said let's kind of slim the treasury down a bit, let's take some of it, hold on, Government away. Is that something we should expect?
- [34:34]
B
Well, look, I wrote about this earlier this year and was talking about big machinery of government changes. I think whilst Andy has a clear plan for some of that because he thinks really deeply about rewiring the State, I don't think in two and a half years we've got time to break up the treasury because it would just drag everything down and be a huge distraction. But as you say, this is not a new idea. It's been sort of. Well, it was done, of course, by Harold Wilson in 1960 when he broke up the treasury and created the Department for Economic affairs. And it does the rounds as a, as an issue every so often because the treasury is all powerful and does exert, I think, too much power over other areas of public policy. You know, even within my budget, when I was the Secretary of State for Transport, I was allocated a budget, an annual budget, but I still had to go and get sign off from the treasury for every single thing within that budget that I spent.
- [35:23]
A
So it's got its tentacles reach out.
- [35:25]
B
Absolutely, absolutely.
- [35:26]
A
Now there is a solution to that without setting up a brand new department.
- [35:30]
B
There is, exactly. And there's lots of things called beefing
- [35:32]
A
up number 10, isn't it?
- [35:33]
B
Exactly, exactly. And number 10, I think to say, is at the heart of running the fifth largest country in the world, is criminally underpowered. What, too few people, Too few people, too few powers. So it doesn't, I think it's right to say at the moment that it doesn't have the ability to commission directly into the Treasury. So the treasury has total capture over the fiscal context and essentially puts decisions to the Prime Minister who doesn't have full sight of the wider issues.
- [36:01]
A
Just, forgive me, translate that jargon a little bit for us. Are you saying that at the moment a Prime Minister, any Prime Minister, can't say to the treasury, well, I'm interested in this tax change. They'd have to go and persuade the Chancellor, who then ask the officials and then it might happen?
- [36:15]
B
Yeah, yeah, I'm fairly sure that's how it happens. It certainly was how it was happening when I was last in government. There needs to be a proper beefed up economic unit in number 10. That both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have access to. And that can give the Prime Minister a full suite of advice when they're making these huge decisions that affect the country.
- [36:38]
A
How do you avoid them going to war? Cause you will know the great history of number 10 and number 11 is the rivalry. How do you avoid Burnham falling out with Chancellor Miliband?
- [36:53]
B
Well, that requires them. I mean, and if that were the case, they're very good friends, so that would be fine. They wouldn't be falling out or, or Shabbat. Well, equally, they're also very good friends or. Louise, I am absolutely happy to say on record that I am not going to be the Chancellor.
- [37:08]
A
That's not the tough, not even the Chancellor of the Dutches Lancaster.
- [37:11]
B
I'm not going any further on anything. Now.
- [37:15]
A
There's another central idea that Andy Burnham has talked about, which I wanted you to translate as well. The politics of place. Now, I think people sometimes, if they're not reading every detail, not watching, listening to speeches, might think, oh, he's banging on about Manchester again. He's making a different point though.
- [37:32]
B
He absolutely is. And when he talks about the Makerfield test, it doesn't mean that every policy has to deliver funding for Makerfield. It's talking about how communities like Makerfield that feel that they have been ignored or not by served by the politics of Westminster will have to be top of the list now.
- [37:49]
A
So how can a Burnham government change that?
- [37:51]
B
So this is why the place based approach is so important. So part of it is devolution and making sure that the authorities as close to the ground, so that whether that be the council or the mayoral authority have the resources and the powers they need to do that. And that those decisions aren't being made in Whitehall, but also that the decisions that are left in Whitehall are taken from a place based perspective. So I'll give you an example of that. The Home Office, when it disperses asylum seekers, so when it places asylum seekers around the country, it does so basically on the basis of the contract, whether it be Mears or Serco, and purely on a cost basis for that line in their budget. But the consequences of those decisions drive enormous costs in the country because they're routinely placed in the poorest areas of the country alongside your probation hostels, children in care that are shipped out of London and other wealthier areas, and the social cohesion and risks and community tensions that those decisions cause put enormous costs on those areas and have profound impacts both the economy and society.
- [38:55]
A
A last thought about this before we have to wind up our conversation here in Sheffield. You're very proud, aren't you, as a Sheffield lass, as I say, and also as a local mp, of the fact that the one place in Sheffield that a lot of people who've never been here have heard of is the Crucible. And there was a real possibility that the reason people have heard of that, which is the Snooker World Championship, which I watched as a kid and lots of people still watch, would not be in this great city and wouldn't even be in this country. Now, how did government make a difference to that?
- [39:25]
B
It was just a couple of months ago, just before the World Championships kicked off, that we were able to announce with the government and the government had worked really closely with the council and it is obviously something I'm incredibly grateful to, to Kir Starmer for to invest in the Crucible and ensure that we kept the Snooker World Championships here for another 20 years at the very least. Yes, that deserves a clap in Sheffield, definitely, because we genuinely believed we were going to lose it. We genuinely believed we were going to lose it to Dubai or China. And I think, as you say, you know, all of us growing up have that very romantic, kind of nostalgic feeling about watching the snooker on a bank holiday Monday. It's very personal to me as well because my brother is a snooker journalist and has a snooker podcast. So we're just such a Sheffield pair of siblings. Do you play? No.
- [40:08]
A
Really?
- [40:08]
B
No. Watch it, just watch it.
- [40:11]
A
You don't play snooker but you do play football, though.
- [40:13]
B
I, I have played football in the past, including, as I'm sure you're about to say, in the House of Commons chamber. I'm sorry, you played football in the
- [40:22]
A
House of Commons chamber? Myself, we come to the real Louise Hague scandal.
- [40:28]
B
It was on the front page of the Metro at the time. It was.
- [40:32]
A
Okay, so we've got the green benches.
- [40:34]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [40:34]
A
And you've got those kind of sword length lines on there. So where was the goal?
- [40:39]
B
Well, we were more sort of doing keepy uppies. It was to, it was to do. It was to sort of launch the new Parliamentary Women's Football club. But there's. Yeah, there's actually quite an iconic photo of me sat in the Speaker's chair with the football. We did. I did have to write and apologise to the Speaker Burkhow the next day.
- [40:55]
A
Was he unimpressed?
- [40:57]
B
No, he thought he was hilarious, obviously.
- [40:59]
A
Did you say order? Order? But he probably won't be able to do that in a few months to come. But it's going to be a fascinating time. Louise Haig, thank you so much for joining me on Political Thinking. Thanks for listening to this episode of Political Thinking. The producers were Hannah Wilkinson and Flora Murray. The editor is Giles Edwards. Hello.
- [41:27]
C
Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of youf're Dead To Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history seriously. Every episode, I pair up a historian with a fantastic comedian and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series, we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. And that's with Kael Smith Bino joining us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist, discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Burch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parris. That's yous Dead to Me. Listen first on BBC Sounds.