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- [00:00]
Stephen Sacker
Hannah.
- [00:01]
Anna Mikhailova
I just Venmo'd you for dinner.
- [00:02]
Venmo Advertiser
Obsessed. I'm literally spending it right now on the lip gloss that's been sitting in my cart.
- [00:06]
Anna Mikhailova
What do you mean, spending it right now?
- [00:08]
Venmo Advertiser
You instantly spend your balance with the Venmo debit card.
- [00:11]
Anna Mikhailova
Stop. Say more.
- [00:13]
Venmo Advertiser
More. Exactly. The more you do with Venmo, the more you get, like, earning up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash.
- [00:18]
Anna Mikhailova
Get the Venmo debit card or check out online.
- [00:21]
Venmo Advertiser
Venmo Stash Bundle terms and exclusions apply. Max 100 per month. See terms at Venmo Me Stash terms. Venmo Checkout not available at all. Mer the Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A.
- [00:37]
Anna Mikhailova
this episode of the story is sponsored by PwC.
- [00:42]
Narrator/Host
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- [00:58]
Anna Mikhailova
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- [01:04]
Narrator/Host
Discover more at pwc.co.uk. Hello. Luke Jones here. After a busy, busy weekend of speculation. Just after 9am this morning, Keir Starmer, to the shock and disbelief of absolutely nobody, announced his resignation.
- [01:27]
Stephen Sacker
The question my party is asking now
- [01:31]
Jack Straw
is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election.
- [01:38]
Stephen Sacker
I have heard the answer of my
- [01:41]
Jack Straw
parliamentary party to that question and I
- [01:46]
Stephen Sacker
accept that answer with good grace.
- [01:49]
Narrator/Host
Andy Burnham arrived a little later at London Euston Station and was soon in the House of Commons chamber, being officially sworn in as the new MP for Makerfield.
- [01:59]
Stephen Sacker
I swear by Almighty God that I
- [02:01]
Jack Straw
will be first faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his
- [02:06]
Stephen Sacker
heirs and successors, according to law, so help me God.
- [02:11]
Narrator/Host
He's not Prime Minister yet, though. Keir Starmet will be in Downing street for a little longer whilst a leadership contest gets underway. But if Andy Burnham is unchallenged, the removals men could be making the switch as soon as early July. What does that mean, then, for the lame duck Prime Minister Keir Starmer? In the interim, how are Labour MPs reacting to the new dawn that broke in summer 2024, ending so abruptly? And what does this latest serving of political turmoil do to our standing in the world? In this extra afternoon episode of the Story, we are handing over to our Times Radio colleague Stephen Sacher for the latest.
- [02:50]
Stephen Sacker
Is Britain a Serious Country? It's a question friends from around the world are asking me today and I'm struggling to come up with a positive answ. A serious country wouldn't be contemplating the ascendancy of a seventh Prime Minister in little over a decade. A serious country wouldn't have allowed the short term politics of personality, vibes and avoidance to repeatedly undermine the need for deep structural reform of the economy, defence, welfare, social care and so much more. What a waste the last few years have been. Love it or loathe it, Brexit presented the country with a challenge to protect its independent capabilities and capacities on the world stage. Right now, we look like a banana republic without the bananas. Keir Starmer promised us competence and an end to Tory chaos. How hollow those words sound today. He must take a major share of the blame for the collapse of his premiership. It is quite an achievement to have more than 400 MPs in a parliament of 650 and still lose the support of cabinet colleagues and your own parliamentary party. Starmer's missteps from the Mandelson appointment to his half baked welfare reforms were serious. His ineptitude at what Americans call retail politics has been a debilitating handicap. But if he is feeling bitter towards many Labour parliamentarians today, it is understandable they as a group have been avoidant and unserious. This is a party that, just as much as Boris Johnson ever did, believes it can have its cake and eat it. Expanding the size of the state, failing to address its structural inefficiencies, while assuming that it can somehow conjure up economic growth and maintain the confidence of international lenders. Maybe the circle of blame needs to be drawn wider too. The media, social and mainstream, is increasingly addicted to the drama rather than the substance of politics. And all of us, yes, we the people, seem to think politicians need to deliver instant gratification or get in the bin. Ultimately, Sir Keir couldn't convince his party or the British people that he was a leader capable of getting Britain out of the rut it is in. But why should we believe Andy Burnham will do better? He was an effective mayor of Greater Manchester. He'd galvanized Labour support in Makerfield. But does that give him a meaningful mandate? Of course not. He's coming down to London today, not just on the west coast mainline, but more on a wing and a prayer full of positive vibes and big hope. A word that he inserts into virtually every sentence. He wants to walk into number 10 without a messy leadership contest, but that brings with it obvious dangers. Surely his ideas need to be tested his competence assessed. Is Britain a serious country? Well, the bond markets will make their judgment. So too will Messrs Trump, Putin, Zelensky, Netanyahu, Xi Jinping, Macron, Mertz and more. I wonder what their answer would be today. For The Times at 1, I'm Steven Sager. Well, let's go live to Downing street right now and join our political editor, Anna Mikhailova. Anna, I know you've roughly had four hours now to take in Starmer's resignation and the immediate fallout. What are your thoughts right now?
- [06:28]
Anna Mikhailova
Well, I think it's important to step back a bit and just like you've been saying, think of absolutely how extraordinary it is that within less than two years of winning a majority, a sizable majority, Keir Starmer has run out of road and essentially been checkmated by his own party and his own top team into having to resign. I remember very shortly after the election, maybe it was two months after Labour one, I had a coffee with a Labour MP who did not like Keir Starmer and was it was after the Winter Fuel decision had been made, and this MP was furious about that, furious about the way Starmer was running his backbenches and said to me that he won't last the term. And at the time, it was one of those conversations that really sticks in your mind, because it was so outlandish at the time that I thought, how could this possibly be the case? And yet here we are.
- [07:29]
Stephen Sacker
Here we are indeed. Now, we were told, I think, that there was no contact in the last few hours before that resignation address outside number 10, no contact between Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham. Andy Burnham then issued a statement and got on a train to London. Do the noises around you in Westminster suggest that this is going to be more of the Coronation, or is there a prospect, a realistic prospect of a contest?
- [07:57]
Anna Mikhailova
I think the significant news that we're streeting almost within minutes of Andy Burnham putting out his statement. Where Andy was, Burnham said he will run for the leadership. The fact that we're streeting then wrote a letter saying that he would not and that he would row in and back Burnham and that that was the best thing for the party. That's really significant because Streeting was the main person who could have sparked a contest. Beyond that, it's very hard to see anybody else getting the 81 MP numbers needed to run against Andy Burnham. But also the momentum is completely with Burnham, particularly after the scale of his victory on Friday. And one thing that I've picked up from MPs is they do think that he will have the ability, having watched how he ran the maker fill by election campaign and generally what kind of politician he is, they think he has the ability to bring the party together and bring different wings of it together. And he does seem to manage MPs and manage their, how should we put it, various egos in a more depth and political way than Keir Starmer ever could.
- [09:11]
Stephen Sacker
So just talk me through the process, Anna, because Keir Starmer laid out a bit of the process when he said nominations will open for next Labor Leader on July 9th. I think they'll close on July 16th. Now, if Andy Burnham is the only man whose hat is in that ring, presumably Andy Burnham may well be Prime Minister a day or two afterwards.
- [09:35]
Anna Mikhailova
Yes. So what's going to happen next is the National Executive Committee, the ruling body of the Labour Party, is going to meet very shortly and set out how any leadership contest would work. So for example, how many weeks it would be then nominations have for that contest will open on the 9th of July and close on the 16th of July. We already know that Andy Burnham has said he will run and so far no one else has thrown their hat into the ring. And as you say, no one potentially could. So if it is just Andy Burnham, then we will see him in Downing street in office either on the 17th of July or the 8th July of because the 16th will be Keir Starmer's last official day and yet if there is a contest, then a new leader will be in place by the 1st of September. So in time for the new parliamentary term. But the precise date of that will be determined by the nec.
- [10:35]
Stephen Sacker
Yeah, Goodness knows the country needs a Prime Minister and Keir Starmer is going to be the albeit lame duck Prime Minister for the next couple of weeks. There is a hugely important NATO summit coming up in early July, a summit by which Keir Starmer has promised the government will have come out with its defense investment plan crucial for British security going forward. Is it deemed credible in Westminster that Starmer can go to that summit, represent Britain in the way that Britain needs to be represented?
- [11:09]
Anna Mikhailova
Well, on the one hand, I think Keir Starmer will personally be keen to go to have that as his final summit. But, and I have asked the question to a couple of people at number 10 whether he is still going to be attending and I haven't had an answer either way yet. But the really big question that's linked to the NATO summit is his commitment to publish the defence investment plan before that NATO summit. So he made that commitment at Prime Minister's questions two weeks ago. And that is such an important piece of strategic news for the country. You know, so many people have said that this cannot come any later. That has already been delayed far too long. And now, of course, these developments put that massively into question because you can't really have Keir Starmer announcing a defence investment plan when we know that a new Prime Minister is about to come in. We will see. There will probably be some kind of continuity talks for Andy Burnham to help Andy Burnham prepare for government, but that's only if it looks like he will be uncontested. But behind the scenes, I think, you know, it'll be interesting to see what's going on with the Ministry of Defence right now, because that is a really, really big question.
- [12:28]
Stephen Sacker
Anna. Anna MacKailaber, Times Radio Political editor outside a still pretty noisy Downing Street. Thank you very much indeed. I'm joined now by Times columnist and highly experienced political observer Fraser Nelson. Fraser, it's great to have you on the Times. At one pithy first question, what, in your view is the biggest reason for Keir Starmer's failure as Prime Minister?
- [12:53]
Fraser Nelson
Well, for his failure. He failed ultimately to command the respect of his colleagues. The Prime Minister can't put a government together. That Prime Minister will fail. That's what happened to Boris Johnson. In the end. This wasn't a Thatcher style leadership putsch. This was just people coming to him saying, we don't support you anymore. Enough members of your cabinet and party say that you have to go. Of course, this didn't used to happen in British democracies. Parliament's parliamentarians used to rally behind the person who'd won the election with a democratic mandate. What we're seeing now is a change of form attitude, a changed era where politicians and ministers are more prone to regard their leaders as kind of cheap, faulty appliances. If they go on the blink, then they replace them rather than try to fix them.
- [13:34]
Stephen Sacker
Yeah, I mean, he lost, frankly, he lost his cabinet and he lost the Parliamentary Labour Party. Do you think there is a moment you can point to where it became clear that he had lost that authority inside his own political movement?
- [13:51]
Fraser Nelson
Yes, I think that moment came with the Mandelson resignation. His response to that, his persecution of Ollie Robbins, the Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office at the time, and just the whole kind of dysfunction it showed demonstrated that once Morgan McSweeney, his chief advisor, had gone, Starmer was not a properly functioning politician. Now, that is the point where Andy Burnham was able to get permission to stand for a by election. And from that moment on, the Labour Party thought, okay, we've now got an alternative. We don't like this guy. Pre previously we couldn't quite see who would replace him, but now we can see that if Andy Burnham gets the okay to stand, he will run and we'll put him in. But I think the Mandelson debacle was the last straw.
- [14:33]
Stephen Sacker
If Keir Starmer ultimately wasn't seen to be the answer for the Labour Party after two years in power, is there reason, in your view, to believe that Andy Burnham is the answer?
- [14:46]
Fraser Nelson
Well, this is why I have some problem with this whole setup, I must admit. I mean, I guess I've watched too many of these new primaries before. I've watched this kind of cycle of hope that when you get a new guy whose opinion poll ratings are better, then that's better than the person who isn't liked. But the problem with the opinion poll ratings that tend to go down the longer that you're in power. And I can't see what Andy Burnham would do differently to Keir Starmer. I can't see how he would solve any of the problems that ended up impaling Keir Starmer. And also not quite sure if, you know, perhaps he will have some kind of secret sauce that will mean his popularity will stay high when everybody else is tanked. But he could end up going through exactly the same cycle and Labour could be ending up in a couple of years time thinking, why on earth did we get rid of Keir Starmer, who at least had a mandate, when Andy Burnham hasn't been able to make any better progress?
- [15:40]
Stephen Sacker
Fraser Nelson, great to have you on the Times at one. Thank you very much indeed for joining us. Well, this is doubtless a huge day for the Labour Party. With me now is Jack Straw, a cornerstone of Blair Brown governments of the past. He was Home Secretary. He was Foreign Secretary. Right now he's observing the movements inside his party from afar, but he remains a very influential voice. Jack Straw, welcome to the Times that Won. I just wonder, given your lifelong commitment to the Labour Party, what are your feelings about what has happened today?
- [16:18]
Jack Straw
Sadness above all that. It has come to this. I think there was an inevitability about Sakiya's resignation, given really the events of the last few months, but particularly the missteps that sadly have happened during the 23 months of his premiership.
- [16:40]
Stephen Sacker
You think those missteps were so serious that he had to pay the ultimate price, do you?
- [16:45]
Jack Straw
Well, the problem was that the electorate fell out of love with him very quickly. And as we know from the local elections which took place in early May, those results were almost certainly the worst local election results of a Labour government in office, certainly since the war. I mean, I remember absolutely terrible results in 1968, where we lost almost every London borough bar about three, and lost many councils across the country. But our base wasn't as undermined.
- [17:26]
Stephen Sacker
Yeah. And you didn't defenestrate Harold Wilson, although,
- [17:31]
Jack Straw
I mean, Harold Wilson had by that stage already won two elections. I don't speak for Labour MPs anymore, but the problem they faced was that they had been going out on the doorstep week after week, not just in the run up to the local elections or in certain by elections, but for the last 18 months. And finding that it was extremely difficult to get members of the public to accept that Sakir Starmer was doing a thoroughly good job, which in many ways he was, but in some respects he wasn't. And they were then worrying, as Labour MPs can, and I've seen it plenty of times, about their prospects at the forthcoming general election.
- [18:17]
Stephen Sacker
If I may, Jack, if I may, I want to ask you whether you believe that the Labour Party, the parliamentary party more than anything, is capable of taking tough decisions, capable of being mature and actually indulging in politics of substance rather than being poll driven and media driven, because, let's face it, Keir Starmer tried to take some difficult decisions about welfare reform, for example. The party wouldn't have it. Now. Andy Burnham, should he be the next, is coming to power promising real change. But is the Labour Party ready for real change?
- [18:52]
Jack Straw
My honest answer is I'm not certain. But they. They will have to face up to this if they want to continue with a reputation for good government and crucially, want to win the next election. One of the lessons of, of which there are many From Tony Blair's 10 years in government, is that if you make tough decisions, you'll caught some unpopularity in the short term, but actually you'll get a great deal of respect out of the public, which will then translate, as it did with Tony, into three successive general election wins.
- [19:30]
Stephen Sacker
That, if I may say so, is a very interesting point. And what makes you believe that Andy Burnham is made of the material that will deliver tough decisions?
- [19:40]
Jack Straw
The jury's out with me on that one. I'm not certain. I saw him as a young colleague in the cabinet of Gordon Brown between 07 and 2010. The truth about Andy then was he was kind of middling in terms of his performance in Cabinet.
- [19:57]
Stephen Sacker
Some of his colleagues called him a people pleaser. And is a people pleaser what Britain needs right now?
- [20:02]
Jack Straw
Well, Tony Blair was a people pleaser. And Tony Blair was also the. The most successful Prime Minister that Labour's ever had and brilliant at it. So there's nothing wrong with being a people pleaser. What you have to do, however, is to use your influence and power to persuade your parliamentary party and the party in the country and the country to go to places which they have not anticipated and which could be a bit painful on the way. So if you take the issue of welfare reform, everybody intellectually appreciates that we're spending far too much on welfare and some of it is wasted. That's the easy bit. The difficulty is in actually saying, well, we're going to cut this and we're going to cut that, and if you start cutting, people will scream. In order to get that through, you've got to lay the ground, you've got to roll the pitch. To use another analogy, one of the things that Keir, I'm afraid, wasn't very good at was kind of politics of all this, was preparing people.
- [21:01]
Stephen Sacker
You keep referencing Tony Blair. I mean, Andy Burnham's own man. He's not Tony Blair. And I just wonder. Final and short answer, please. Final question is this. What do you think leaders around the world are making of what we have seen in the last 24 hours? Another Prime Minister on the horizon in the UK, we don't look like a serious nation.
- [21:20]
Jack Straw
Well, we are a serious nation, but they'll be bemused about this. And Andy Burnham, if it comes to this, becomes Prime Minister, as I put. He certainly will, will bear a very heavy responsibility. And he's got to understand that if he wants to govern well, he will become unpopular pretty quickly. He's got to take some really tough, hard decisions and follow them through, which didn't happen, I'm afraid, under Geir Starmer. Without that, we'll be in difficulties.
- [21:47]
Stephen Sacker
Jack Straw, thank you very much indeed for joining me on the Times at One.
- [21:55]
Narrator/Host
That was Stephen Sacker from Times Radio's the Times at One, speaking to former Labour Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. And before that, Times columnist Fraser Nelson and Times Radio political editor Anna Michalova. For more from Stephen Sacker, you can listen to the Times at One every weekday at one on Times Radio. And for even more insight and analysis on today's historic turn of events, you can tune into our sister podcast, the State of It as well. That is it from us today, but we'll be back again tomorrow morning. For our post mortem on Starmer's Premiership, asking where it went so wrong. See you then.
- [22:47]
Anna Mikhailova
This episode of the Story is sponsored by PwC.
- [22:51]
Narrator/Host
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- [23:08]
Anna Mikhailova
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- [23:16]
Narrator/Host
Discover more at pwc.co.uk.
- [23:21]
Anna Mikhailova
hannah, I just Venmoed you for dinner.
- [23:23]
Venmo Advertiser
Obsessed. I'm literally spending it right now on the lip gloss that's been sitting in my cart.
- [23:27]
Anna Mikhailova
What do you mean spending it right now?
- [23:29]
Venmo Advertiser
You instantly spend your balance with the Venmo debit card.
- [23:32]
Anna Mikhailova
Stop. Say more.
- [23:34]
Venmo Advertiser
More. Exactly. The more you do with Venmo, the more you get, like earning up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash.
- [23:39]
Anna Mikhailova
Get the Venmo debit card or check out online.
- [23:42]
Venmo Advertiser
Venmo Stash Bundle terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 per month. See terms at Venmo Me Stash terms. Venmo Checkout not available at all merchants the Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA.