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Patrick Maguire
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Manveen Rana
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- [01:05]
Manveen Rana
From the Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Manveen Rana. It's been a big day in Westminster. Two major players in the Mandelson saga have been giving evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Sir Philip Barton, the former Permanent Secretary to the Foreign Office, and Morgan McSweeney, as the former chief of Staff to the Prime Minister, he used to be one of the most powerful figures in the country, and yet one we rarely hear from today. He was being grilled by MPs over the pressure placed on civil servants to wave Peter Mandelson through as the ambassador to America. He described the appointment with hindsight as a serious error of judgment. Meanwhile, in Parliament, MPs have been debating whether the Prime Minister may have misled the House. For all the latest and the best insights from the corridors of power, we're bringing you a special, special edition of our sister podcast, the State of It, with the Times political editor Stephen Swinford, chief political commentator Patrick Maguire, and Lara Sperrit, deputy political editor of the Sunday Times.
- [02:36]
Stephen Swinford
Welcome to the State of It, the political podcast from the Times and the Sunday Times. I'm Stephen Sinford, political editor at the Times.
- [02:44]
Patrick Maguire
I'm Patrick McGuire, chief political commentator for the Times.
- [02:46]
Lara Sperrit
I'm Lara Spirit, deputy political editor at the Sunday Times.
- [02:49]
Stephen Swinford
And look, this week we're not coming to you from our studio. We are coming from the most salubrious place in the entire of Westminster, on the roof terrace just outside the Times Porter cabin in the middle of the parliamentary estate. The reason that we're doing that is because today is a massive day in Parliament and trekking over to London Bridge to film it where we normally do it, was just going to take up too much time because we have a massive day where we are right in the middle of it of Mandelson today. Keir Starmer's original sin, his catastrophic decision to appoint Mandelson in the first place, has come back once again to haunt him. I think we've had four hours of evidence from Morgan MacSweeney, his former chief of Staff, and Philip Barton, the former Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office. And as I speak, we are right now in the middle of a very long parliamentary debate on whether the Prime Minister should be referred to the Privileges Committee. Parliament sleaze watchdog. Effectively answer. He probably won't be. But look, let's start with the most interesting bit of the day. The man has come out of the shadows. Patrick, do you want to kick us off on Morgan McSweeney? Yes.
- [03:54]
Patrick Maguire
So Morgan McSweeney appeared before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee for two and a half hours. Now, just for context, Morgan McSweeney, a name people are well used to hearing. Now, even in death now even in political death. Now he's out of number 10. He's no longer Keir Starmer's Chief of Staff. But the remarkable thing is, before this week, we had never heard Morgan McSweeney talk at length. He briefly appeared on stage at the Kyiv Security Conference last week, but that was his first ever official public appearance. You know, you had to look in the bowels of Facebook for clips of old Labour together panels to even find 10 seconds of him speaking. And today, I think everybody thought it was gonna be a huge moment, and in a way, it was, you know, as a sort of historical curiosity, but. And we'll get into what was discussed, but my view is that was the most tremendous waste of time and worst possible advertisement for parliamentary scrutiny I've ever seen.
- [04:50]
Stephen Swinford
That's fair enough. I mean, one of the interesting things about it, Lara, which is worth starting on, is there is animus between the two principals here. So what I mean by this is Emily Thornbury versus Morgan McSweeney. Can you just explain that? Cause you could feel it in the room. You could see it.
- [05:04]
Lara Sperrit
Yeah. I mean, you could see it. And I think one of the tasks that Emily Thornbury had before her today, and we can discuss whether or not she succeeded, was to make the inquiry of Morgan McSweeney looked like it was genuinely in the interest of finding out exactly what happened in the vetting of Peter Mandelson, and only in that, rather than the kind of wider slate of political issues that she might have wanted to question him about. And the reason Perhaps why people think she's sceptical of Morgan McSweeney is in part because of course she was supposed to be the Attorney General in this Labour government. She was one of the surprise omissions from the Cabinet when that government was put together. And there are various reports that she regards Morgan McSweeney as perhaps not the best advertisement for this Labour government or indeed the Labour movement. And I think, I mean, I would say personally, I think that was pretty visible today. I don't know what you think.
- [05:50]
Stephen Swinford
She referred to the Boys at one point, didn't she? Which is the Boys Club. The Boys Club, which is. I think actually you were the first to report on the Boys Club, Patrick, which caused consternation in number 10 at the time and outrage from Keir Starmer.
- [06:01]
Patrick Maguire
Yeah. The divide between Sue Gray and the Boys Club or the lads arrayed around Morgan Mitsuini, one of the most contested characterizations of labor politics in the past five years.
- [06:12]
Stephen Swinford
Kirsten was very angry. From memory, he was.
- [06:15]
Patrick Maguire
He said it's an insult to all the brilliant women on his teams who actually several of them self identify as paid up members of the Boys Club as well, if it even exists. And sadly the Boys Club has now been disbanded through various sackings and resignations. But that was the only point in nearly two and a half hours, actually probably more than two and a half hours of pretty circular, repetitive, at times utterly pointless and irrelevant questioning from the committee, some of it pretty unseemly and personal and spurious. I hold no brief for Morg McSweeney, by the way, but I do hold a brief. My own finite period of time on this earth and also the sort of reputation of Parliament as a place that can scrutinize this stuff. That was the only point when the Boys Club came up and when he was accused of finding jobs for the boys, with a reference to Matthew Doyle's failed ambassadorial push, that his sort of temper frayed. His unflappable mild manner gave way to something like irritation, saying he wasn't looking for jobs for the boys. Indeed, the boy in question was about to lose his job and didn't get a job. But other than that, Morgan MacSweeney did what friends of his were telling me he was going to do yesterday, which was play a straight bat, try and correct the record. He referred repeatedly to his own mythos. Other Greek lagers are available. He referred repeatedly to his own mythos, the idea that Peter Mandelson was a hero or a mentor of his. He said he started speaking to Peter Manelson in his 40s in any regular way. And if Emily Thornbury had read the book of mine she was citing, she would know that her line of questioning on Peter Mandelson being Morgan McSweeney's great patron at Labour HQ in 2001 was untrue, given that Peter Mandelson never spoke to or recognized the gingerhead intern from County Cork at that point. Indeed, as Tony Blair quipped to me and Gabriel when we wrote our book on this period, you know, Peter ignored Peter. Peter ignored Morgan then. He certainly doesn't ignore him now. But the point of Morgan Sweeney's evidence was to say, I am ignoring this guy now. I'm distancing myself from this guy now. The revelations about Epstein were a knife to my soul. That'll be the headline. A knife to my soul.
- [08:28]
Stephen Swinford
I think, look, I agree with you that there were elements of it that were a waste of time. And as ever in Parliament, you do lose your life and you watch the ticking away sometimes. I think we did learn some new things, particularly what I would point out. And we can talk about this in a bit more depth. Depth is we learned how insane the process for appointing Mandelson was that Morgan McSweeney asked the question. So they get this due diligence report from the Cabinet Office and it's got so many red flags. It's a sea of red flags. And Morgan McGooks at it and asks three questions by email of Lord Mandelson, which are, he can't say what they are, but we do know what they are. It's all about, were you still friends with him? Did you stay at his New York apartment? Anyway, so McSweeney is asking those questions. That is an insane process because McSweeney has been advocating Mandelson for the role. He is a friend of Mandelson's. And then the responses that Mandelson gives are adjudicated and judged by none other than Lord Doyle, another great friend of Mandelson. And no way on this earth is that a sensible process. It would be in breach of so many HR violations in any normal company or business, let alone for the appointment of such a senior ambassador. Put it bluntly, Starmer got Mandelson's mates to oversee a crucial part of the process to appoint him as US Ambassador.
- [09:48]
Patrick Maguire
And Morgamit Sweeney admitted today that was wrong.
- [09:50]
Stephen Swinford
Yeah. And, yeah, he said that was probably a mistake and probably we should have got propriety and ethics to do that. Well, obviously that was a mistake. But that does tell you Something about the nature of this process, it clearly seems designed almost to get Mandelson imposed.
- [10:04]
Lara Sperrit
Yeah. And I think. I mean, we'll come to it, but I do think that's at the crux of this discussion about whether or not there was pressure that was placed on those in the Foreign Office to expedite this appointment. And clearly the distinction that Sir Philip Barton wanted to make keen today in his evidence that came obviously before McSweeney's, was there are these different kinds of pressure. I don't think it interfered with the developed betting per se, but clearly we had a month to make this work and to get Peter Mandelson to Washington in time for the inauguration. That was obviously going to be a really difficult task. And as such, we could be in no doubt of the fact that number 10 wanted this and thought this was the utmost importance to them. And that in itself puts pressure on those that are having to make sure that this happens.
- [10:45]
Stephen Swinford
We should talk about pressure. Okay. Because this debate about pressure, it sounds like we're dancing on the head of a semantic pin. But let's just unpack it a little bit. In the Commons last week, Keir Starmer said there was no pressure whatsoever over the appointment of Lord Mandelson. He subsequently clarified that rather hastily when he realised what he'd said to say. What I actually meant was not that there was no pressure, but there was no pressure specifically on the vetting process, because, of course, pressure exists in all walks of life. And that was the argument that you saw Morgan McSweeney try to prosecute today. It's essentially the argument is there's good pressure, trying to check that things are happening in time and there's bad pressure, improper pressure, where you go through red lights. The Foreign Office contention, quite clearly from Philip Barton, the former Permanent Secretary that spoke today, and Sir Ollie Robbins last week, was that this was improper, reckless pressure from number 10 to. And they had no interest in the vetting. They just wanted to ram the appointment through. The number 10 argument is that this was proper. And that matters because it's the heart of the debate we're seeing in the Commons today.
- [11:46]
Patrick Maguire
Yeah, indeed. And Morgan McSweeney's contention, by the way, was that he was not the one or the only person applying undue pressure, or that he was somehow the author of this entire process and the Mandelson plan. I mean, for connoisseurs, you mentioned the Boys Club earlier, Steve, for students and
- [12:04]
Stephen Swinford
scholars, of the Patrick Maguire,
- [12:07]
Patrick Maguire
of my work and Gabriel's work and all the groundbreaking popular History we've written. No, but for students of the sort of high politics of Keir Starmer's team, Morgan McSweeney's very first answer, after he gave his sort of slightly lacrimose and very earnest opening statement about the value of public service and Jeffrey Epstein's victims and all of that sort of stuff, the first question he answered was about, when did this all start? And he said there was an access talk between the Civil Service and Keir Starmer's team that I wasn't in, where it was first suggested Peter Mandelson, or more broadly, a political appointment, might be the ambassador. Now, who was in that access talk,
- [12:51]
Stephen Swinford
who could that be?
- [12:52]
Patrick Maguire
His old nemesis. He didn't mention her by name, only Emily Thornbury did. But Sue Gray was that person. Right, so first answer he says, well, actually, sue was the one saying, this was our plan ages ago. And throughout the course of it, very subtly and in quite a sort of deceptively, in a way that looked collegiate, but the effect was not necessarily collegiate, he kept saying, look, the Prime Minister, one has agency, two trust, loads of people, Jonathan Powell, the Foreign Secretary, the Cabinet ministers to whom he's close. If any one of these people had come to Keir Starmer and said, this being a Mandelson guy doesn't seem like a good idea, he would have listened to them. So it was very subtly, I think, trying to divest himself of all the blame and spread it more evenly across his former colleagues.
- [13:42]
Stephen Swinford
The other thing that I thought was really interesting about today is just the sheer amount of secrecy around this. So he revealed one pertinent fact, which is that there was a meeting in mid December, he said, at which Keir Starmer confirmed he wanted to go ahead with Lord Mandelson. Now, we know nothing else about that meeting. It didn't. We didn't even know of its existence before now. And we've got a small scoop for you here. I can tell you the Cabinet Secretary has written to the Tories after they asked her some questions. So Antonia Romeo has written to the Tories and she has said they can find absolutely no record of any meeting at which Starmer made this decision. They can find no minutes from any such meeting and they can find no decision note. And that kind of matters, because this is obviously a big, consequential appointment. And it strikes me that very deliberately, this has all been done without anything being written down, almost as if they anticipated that if this all backfires, there could be a paper trail that could cause us damage.
- [14:39]
Patrick Maguire
Well, Morgan McSweeney did say he worried even after the appointment was made, that it could go wrong.
- [14:44]
Stephen Swinford
Yeah. So they clearly knew that this was coming and we are seeing the consequences of that. We've got this humble address which is this extraordinary process of the mass disclosure of documents. There is nothing so far, and there will be a little bit, but not very much from Morgan McSween. There is nothing from Keir Starmer himself and there is no note of the decision that he took. So we're in this kind of perverse position that the Prime Minister is publicly taking ownership of it. He is apologising for it, but on the actual nitty gritty of why he took the decision, what were his calculations at the time and what was his assessment of those risks? Because he knew the risks. He read the papers. We know that, but we still don't fully understand how he came to do that process. The whole thing is shrouded in secrecy. We also had evidence from someone at the Foreign Office's security team, the former head of their security, and they were talking, he was talking about kind of like writing notes down from the vetting document and then shredding them later, such as the sensitivity surrounding the process. So part of the problem here, even as we try to kind of do this kind of first version of history, is the documents don't exist. There are no receipts because it was done in secrecy by a tiny group of people in number 10, without even telling the then head of the Foreign Office, Philip Barton, that they'd reached the decision until it was made. That's quite something.
- [15:57]
Lara Sperrit
Yeah, massively. I mean, on the humble address point, it is going to run and run, I think. You know, you said last week, you reported, Steve last week, that we won't be expecting that now until after the King's Speech. I'm picking up a lot of anger from Labour MPs that it's been allowed to run for that long, I think. I mean, a number of them making the case that actually, yes, obviously it would be quite damaging to come out shortly before elections. And we can understand that. But why do we want this to run and run and run, which it now is almost certain to do for a pretty long time, given that when those documents come out, they're going to be pulled over with a huge degree of attention and care and no doubt there'll be a number of new revelations that emerge.
- [16:31]
Stephen Swinford
There was a bit of that. There was a tiny bit that filled me with that kind of frictional joy that you get when, you know there's a Story to become where Morgan McSweeney revealed that some helpful messages from Lord Mandelson had been sent to him which are going to be shared as part of that humble address on Mandelson's suggestions for the Cabinet reshuffle and who should get what job. Now McSweeney is very careful to say, look, he may have been in number 10 at the time, but he was not playing a role in the reshuffle. And as you will see, we didn't take heed of his picks. But I can't wait to see those messages.
- [17:01]
Patrick Maguire
No, indeed. And the evidence that Morgan McSweeney spent the day ghosting Peter Mandelson as from outside of the room. I remember and you know, far from me, far be it from me to make myself the main character of today's parliamentary drama. I was delighted to be quoted by the chair of the committee. Cause a couple of days after that reshuffle, I included the testimony of a number 10, someone who was in the room for those discussions, who noted that yes, Mandelson had been in number 10 that day, but he wasn't in the room. And as Emily Thornberry quoted to the committee, was refusing to leave number 10 while the high drama was going on. But you wouldn't want to be one of those Cabinet ministers who had Peter Mandelson's seal of approval. As everyone is scrambling to distance themselves, one of Morgan Sweet's critics, sometime allied now critic of Morgan Sweeney, noted that there was some degree of rewriting history going on. Yes, he has to distance himself. But there were some things, Morg Sweeney said that to people who know this period weren't really passing the smell test. And I think the proof will be in the pudding of the nature of his communications, not just with Morgan Sweeney, but with others when we see them come out the humble address process.
- [18:11]
Stephen Swinford
And there's still the question of what Mandelson was doing in number 10 that day. By Morgan McSweeney's account, he was hanging around in reception and refusing to leave.
- [18:17]
Patrick Maguire
Well, no, no, let me tell you, let me tell you. Cause you know, one of my frustrations with this whole committee process is, you know, people were asking questions seemingly at random, half remembered, when actually if you read this stuff closely, not just my work of like the whole lobby, a lot of their questions have already been answered. But he was, he was in number 10 that day to talk through a lecture he was going to give on the special relationship the next day, which by the way then really irritated people in number 10 because it stray from the government's line on China. So, you know, it was a pointless meeting anyway, because whatever was discussed, you know, Peter Mandelson didn't stay on message, according to Chagrand, number 10 AIDS. But, yeah, it was all, you know, there was. There were those sort of moments of. Of light relief and for journalists, a degree of, uh, entertain and notes for one's diary.
- [19:03]
Stephen Swinford
So, look, if we look at this in the round and we'll come on after the interval to the Privileges Committee itself and where we're going on that, but when you look at the evidence today, who are the winners and who are the losers? I'm going to start on the really easy one, because I can go first. Obviously, Starmer is a massive loser here. We have just spent four hours listening to different versions of the same point that he made a catastrophic mistake in appointing Lord Mandelson. One which is still being unpicked all this time on. And that shows no time of stopping.
- [19:32]
Patrick Maguire
Yeah. And he was weirdly peripheral to Morgan McSweeney's evidence. I mean, Morgan Sweeney was duty bound to say the guy has agency, he's, you know, likes to build consensus, etc, etc, which I think is sort of possibly a diplomatic way of saying he was really in charge. And actually he takes ages to make decisions. But the striking thing was, when you listen to Morgan Sweeney trying to explain and contextualize the relationship with Peter Mandelson. I spoke to loads of people with long political experience. I had a circle of confidants. That was a word he used to describe Peter Manson. Not his friend. He didn't deny he was his friend, but he didn't say he's not his hero, not his mentor. I like to think so, Steve. I like to think so when I'm giving evidence of the Swinford inquiry, that's how I'll describe it. But the striking thing was, as he was reeling through these people, Labour grandees, political masterminds, you didn't really get the sense that Keir Starm was involved in those discussions at all, you know. Yes, the upshot of it was Morgan Sweeney was really close to Peter Mandelson. And a lot of these discussions, a lot of the rationale for stuff the government does, even of this consequence, was sort of presented to Keir Starmer. Keir Starmer, he's not dry. You know, you didn't get the sense that Keir Starmer was driving anything from any of Morgan McSweeney's testimony. He basically had a couple of cameos as someone to whom they had to Refer things and someone who, don't worry guys, please believe me, I really respect the guy and I'm not his puppeteer.
- [20:51]
Stephen Swinford
So I think on McSweeney, Lara, let's talk about McSweeney. I think score draw for me on McSweeney.
- [20:56]
Lara Sperrit
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think to your questions of winners and losers, I mean, I think it's been a, a pretty good day for Siroli Robbins. Like we're still, we're still in the place where it's actually increasingly difficult to see the merit behind his sacking.
- [21:09]
Stephen Swinford
Why was he sacked?
- [21:10]
Lara Sperrit
I mean, you know, I think clearly today there was not suggestion from Morgan McSweeney that, you know, Ollie Robinson, I mean, he said I wasn't there for that. But he notably refused to endorse the Prime Minister's decision to sack him. He did, you know, take the option that was available to him in recusing himself for making any judgment on that. He very much said I wasn't there. I don't know about that decision. But clearly it's quite hard to find people who are defending that specific decision at this point. And I think that probably isn't going away. Even though at this point we're talking a lot more about Morgan McSweeney, we're talking a lot more about earlier political decisions than those around the Prime Minister. I do think this is going to continue to be an issue for them.
- [21:43]
Stephen Swinford
Yeah. And look, just to break this down really simply, the Prime Minister sacked Ollie Robbins because he accused him of overriding the initial security, UK security vetting advice that he should not. Madison should not be given developed vetting. And that was the contention. What actually emerged was Ollie Robbins never saw that. He never saw the bit of paper he didn't know. You can't tell the Prime Minister something you don't know. So he appears to be a bit of a drive by victim in all of this. I'll tell you something. Well, it's not amusing, but it tickled me slightly. There are all these stories about how Ollie Robbins is going to get an enormous payout to rival Philip Rutlands. A 340,000 pound payout. There is a problem with that, I'm told, and it is a problem of Britain's employment law because Ollie Robbins was employed for a period of less than two years. And I'm sure listeners will get in touch if I'm wrong in this. He cannot claim for unfair dismissal.
- [22:35]
Patrick Maguire
Where's Angela Rayner's Day one rights when you need them?
- [22:39]
Stephen Swinford
So it's probably going to be a sum significantly south of that. But on the plus side, I think he merges with his reputation in tax and is the unfortunate victim of the fight for Kirsten's battle for survival. So, look, we're going to head to the.
- [22:52]
Patrick Maguire
I should just say before we do, Steve, we were talking about Morgan Sweeney and how he'll feel after that. I mean, speaking to friends of Morgan Sweeney, and I don't mean that as the journalistic euphemism, I do mean people who are friends with him, people who have spoken to him beforehand since, you know, say he is, you know, broadly happy. It wouldn't have been a comfortable experience for him being, you know, before the committee for two and a half hours, having lots of stuff thrown at him. But by all accounts, by all reliable accounts, he is pleased to have had the opportunity to set the record straight as he sees it, particularly about himself, you know, and it will be whether his statements can hold up to scrutiny. And I am getting a couple of messages, people saying, come on, that can't. That is, you know, even if you're trying to distance yourself from the guy, that is not really reliable.
- [23:35]
Stephen Swinford
And I think one of the problems he's got is, look, MPs have just seen that they can call him before him and question him, like, if I'm the MPs on the home Affairs. So any committee you're now going to put, it won't be the last that we've seen.
- [23:47]
Patrick Maguire
You're looking for any pretext to say, how can we get Morgan Sweeney in front of this committee?
- [23:50]
Stephen Swinford
Yeah, exactly. Because it's box office, potentially, is how they'll see it. And sadly, that is how MPs do work. But, yeah, okay, we'll head to the interval now and when we come back, we will talk about Sir Keir Starmell's battle for survival and the Privileges Committee.
- [24:13]
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Patrick Maguire
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- [25:49]
Stephen Swinford
Welcome back from our theatrical interlude or interval as we've been weirdly describing it on this podcast. So, look, let's talk about the Privileges Committee and I'm going to advance a contentious argument. Obviously, it's a bad day for Starmer on one set. Yet again, he's talking about his appointment at Mandelson, but by the Same token, number 10 is working. They mounted this extraordinary operation to get wavering Labour MPs to back the prime Minister and vote down the Privileges motion, and they appear to have succeeded. One MP that we spoke to said, look, I was wavering, but then my whip rang me and then I had a call from two senior ministers, two cabinet ministers, and then I had a call from two senior backbenchers. And you know what? I'm not wavering anymore. So something in the machine is still working. When it comes to a fight for survival, they can do it.
- [26:39]
Lara Sperrit
Yeah, I mean, I think that's pretty true, but I think it's true in the limited sense that it's working until May, after which point I think those cabinet ministers who've been calling up in support of Starmer, a number of them at least, will be making a new assessment on whether or not the losses they've sustained are grave enough that they ustain. This is May 7, May the seventh, those crucial sets of elections at which Labour is poised to take a very serious beating. That will be the big reckoning. And after which I think it's kind of, you know, who knows what will happen? But you would expect, I think, people to be rogue rowing in behind Starmer in response to a motion that, you know, even those who are skeptical of Starmer's handling of this affair would say, actually the key fatal judgment for Starmer was thinking that Mandelson would Be a good pick as ambassador for them. It's not a question of whether or not Starmer might have stumbled a bit with his words. It's a much more serious question about his political judgment. And that's the thing that after May they'll be looking at.
- [27:28]
Patrick Maguire
Yeah, we're talking about the number 10 operation to shore this up. I mean, listeners with long memories who haven't buried this memory may remember one of Boris Johnson's many near death experiences. There was an Operation Save Big Dog run by, you know, luminaries such as Nigel Evans and Chris Pincher and his number 10 team at the time, a similar MP lobbying organization. I mean, one senior labor figure did joke to me that this one could be called Operation Rescue Dog or Operation Save Sick Dog. There's, there's Life in number 10 yet. They've been lining up, you know, the likes of, you know, Gordon Brown intervened yesterday to say Keir Starmer shouldn't be hauled over the coals for this. David Blunkett, Alan Johnson, in our paper on Monday, when we revealed the whipping operation in a front page story. We did, Steve, but it's as you say, Laura, it's sort of tactical day to day survival. Something is shifting in the cabinet and people are worried that the cabinet have actually reached the end of their tether. They're not seeing a positive offer from the Prime Minister. Yes, he can survive day to day. Yes, his operation is still good and vital enough to get through these tricky, crunchy moments in Parliament. But in terms of the big picture offer to the country and his personal reputation, I think that's the thing the cabinet are reckoning with right now. And I don't think their conclusions are necessarily positive. And I don't, you know, that's why they've sort of started to alight on this idea that, okay, we can't agree on who it should be, necessarily when it should be or what it should be or how we should get rid of him. But we can agree this can't go on and we'd like this to move. So that's why there's this talk of getting the Prime Minister to agree to a timetable for his departure is now the flavour of the month for discussion among those who want to see him gone.
- [29:12]
Stephen Swinford
So when I talk to cabinet ministers, I hear exactly that, Patrick, the same as you. They all tell me this is unsustainable. But when you ask them, what are you going to do about it? They all say, well, it's for the backbenchers to kind of come forward and make the Prime Minister set out a timetable. I heard that from two different Cabinet ministers. This idea that for the backbenchers to do it, and what I'm not hearing at the moment is anyone in Cabinet really being willing to step up and do it themselves. Now, that could change. Someone could be the Michael Heseltine of 2026, the James Purnell of 2026, but it isn't there yet. It's more. Somehow the incredibly disunited and fractious backbenchers are going to unite around one common goal, which is removing some of. That might happen, but it might not.
- [29:56]
Lara Sperrit
Yeah. And I mean, actually, one of the many interesting moments in Josh Grancy, our colleague's, interview with Keir Starmer at the weekend was when he. He referenced that kind of quiet, loyal part of the parliamentary Labour Party, which I think is a completely fair thing. Actually, I think it is some of those in Cabinet who have, among the gravest misgivings about Starmer and that hope that it should be on the PLP and it should be their responsibility, I think is quite difficult. I mean, in terms of looking after May at that kind of big offer that Starmer will have to make. You know, I reported at the weekend that he'd been talking to aides on Friday about how that needed to involve accelerating clean energy plans and talking about that and an offer to young people that to me sounds like more of an offer to the soft left or to the left of the party in the wake of a big threat from the Green Party, than it does necessarily from the much larger number of Cabinet ministers, according to rmrp, who are set to lose their seats from the Reform Party. So I think you have to remember that whatever big offer we're going to see from Starmer, if it is a big offer. And I should also say that there are some closer Downing street who say if you're looking at a big offer, you need to. And MPs actually, you should think about. About what? About the triple lock? What about Europe? You know, what are these actually genuine big issues where you are picking a fight with somebody and any of the big. If it is going to genuinely be a big offer, I think it is going to also alienate a number of people. And is Starmer strong enough politically at the moment to take an offer like that, which is going to alienate some of his strongest.
- [31:13]
Stephen Swinford
You are getting soundings that they're looking at some quite radical things. I mean, so things that probably don't cost them anything. We talked about this before, but Starmer was Asked in an interview with Cathy Newman on Sky News, he was asked, would you. Would you commit to rejoining the EU as part of your campaign for the next election? Didn't respond.
- [31:32]
Patrick Maguire
Really interesting.
- [31:32]
Stephen Swinford
Normally he shoots it down, talks about his red line. So that is one you could see a genuinely radical offer at some point on the eu. And the other story which was, I was very envious of, obviously lobbied. There's a great journalist in it. But this was from Kieran Stacey at the Guardian. He did a story which was, Rachel Reeves is looking at freezing private sector rents for a whole year to help deal with the Iran crisis. Now that is a really big left wing kind of offer to deal it.
- [31:58]
Patrick Maguire
Well, it's a million miles away from the political posture of this government under the late Morgan McSweeney. It's a million miles away from what housing ministers have said for a very long time. You know, and it shows you the sort of stakes at play here. And Keir D' is rhetoric. He addressed Labour mps on Monday night. They're the signs that he was gonna get through this week unscathed were clear because only two people got up and said mildly critical things. But his language that he was talking about, you know, he was sort of sounding a bit like, I don't know, Huey Long or some, you know, peak FDR saying like we're taking on people who hoard wealth and all of that sort of thing. Right. Sounding like basically sort of cod Corbynite and it, you know, a million miles away from where he was this time last year. It's really striking.
- [32:39]
Stephen Swinford
What is it said in Jules, we're gonna need a bigger boat. Well, he seems to certainly be possibly some things in the offing. They will have a plan. What's quite clear is this Chequers away date that they did, they sat there, they came up with a plan for the Privileges Committee, but obviously they were also talking about the broader plan after the locals. So we are about to enter a fascinating time of kind of life or death for Starmer. And I think he's probably gonna have to go quite big to have a good shot at surviving.
- [33:05]
Patrick Maguire
Yeah, but will it be big enough? Because we've heard countless briefings before about is the Prime. The Prime Minister's gonna go big. The Prime Minister's got a new lease of life. He's found a politics that worked, that's worked for him. It's funny like, you speak to people who are involved in coming up with those briefings who sort of look back on them and think, well, that was. That was never gonna happen, or that sort of thing. Like, is it going to be big or are we going to get a classic Keir Starmer speech where he gets up and says, yeah, all that stuff we're doing, all that incremental stuff we're doing. You should be more grateful for that, guys. And I'm just coming up with a new slogan to package it all. I think he does need to sort of set out a bold agenda for the next 12 months. That is genuinely bold. That is not something he's doing before that proves that this guy has ideas. It's not just, I am the inhabitant of this office and stuff is ticking along and if only I could talk to more people about it. If only I can just repeat what west street team wants called the long laundry list of breakfast clubs and all of that sort of stuff. So that is the fundamental problem. And, you know, for the Cabinet as well. I think the Cabinet have seen this film countless times before. They know it. You know, I wrote this on Friday. Like, they all know what the problem with this government is. They are all sort of sitting on their hands and hoping against hope and moaning amongst themselves and leaking and briefing. But at some point, and, you know, it may not even come after the 8th of May, and I know some of them listen to this podcast, but it's like, guys, you know, and have always known what the problem here is, we got a big reminder of that from the nature of Morgan Sweeney's evidence this morning. We've had it from every person who's given evidence. We have it from the fact of this privileges debate. Like, when are you going to do something? I mean, that is the variable. It's not on the backbench to do it, it is on you to do it. It is not about your cars and boxes, it's about the future of Labour Party. And I mean, and some of them speak like that in private, but you don't get the sense there is impetus towards anything milder than maybe we can have a discussion about asking him for a timetable to which, as he told Josh Clancy, our colleague, he's just going to say no.
- [35:06]
Stephen Swinford
Yeah. I mean, the one other thing that I think is clearly a factor which isn't talked about enough is Starmer himself in all of this. I bumped into a minister when I was heading down to the canteen the other day and they were saying to me that, look, go back to when he talks about playing five A side football. He did an interview with Chris Mason and it was one of those personal Ones where he talks about Arsenal and his love of five side. He described himself off on the pitch as a hard bastard.
- [35:28]
Patrick Maguire
I've got to correct you, Steve, go on. I've had a morning of people citing things incorrectly and not having read my book. That was a quote given to Gabriel and I by a guy called Martin Plout, longtime friend of summer from Kentish Town, who played five or side with him and described him as a hard bastard who played to the edge of the room really hard.
- [35:47]
Stephen Swinford
Yeah, he did in the interview. So he is.
- [35:49]
Patrick Maguire
Yeah. Nick Robinson. Nick Robinson asked him if he was a hard bastard and he said, yeah, I'm a hard bastard bastard. He's taken.
- [35:54]
Stephen Swinford
He is, from Patrick.
- [35:55]
Patrick Maguire
The book he described as bollocks again in a Josh Delancy interview a long time ago, and yet he quotes it himself. That is. That is the acme of everything that's wrong with this Prime Minister.
- [36:07]
Stephen Swinford
Good. But the reason we are talking about hard bastards.
- [36:10]
Patrick Maguire
Yes, sorry.
- [36:10]
Stephen Swinford
Is because there is a world in which, let's say, the stars align. You know, streeting rises, rain arises, and he goes, okay, come and have a go. And he puts himself automatically on the ballot and he just sees it off because he's got the payroll. What I haven't picked up is that the guy is breaking that. He's like Boris in the Last Days, kind of seeing Michael Gove's snake head in the darkness, as his aides described it at the time. I'm not getting that. I'm getting the kind of not Gordon Brown's Circle 2010 vibes, but I'm certainly getting someone who is feeling pretty immovable at the moment.
- [36:45]
Patrick Maguire
No, but you do speak to the circle of people who know him well, and that's a pretty small circle in Labour politics who do say, look, he's not an idiot. Despite the popular portrayal of him, he's not completely oblivious. He is not totally devoid of political intelligence. He knows there is a pretty big chance he won't lead Labour into the next election. It's just that he now needs to use this next period to say, okay, even if that is true, and maybe at some point we can have a discussion about it, but this is my bolder. That's the best way to shut people up, to say, say, I'm gonna do something you can all get behind, rather than say, I'm the Prime Minister. Here's the same boring speech I've given a million times before. Here's the same policy platform that's clearly not cutting through on the doorsteps, even though it's good and progressive people aren't voting for it. I am gonna unite us around something that isn't me. Cause the Labour Party and Labour voters are not gonna unite around Keir Starmer. But he could be the standard bearer for a message that does unite them.
- [37:40]
Lara Sperrit
I mean, I think, yeah, I think Patrick wrote about that kind of impetus for a timeline, possibly after the May election, cabinet. And you know, I was talking to people about that over the weekend and you do get a sense from some people that will say along the lines of, well, okay, if you actually care about Keir Starmer, if you are one of the few people that genuinely calls him a friend, a personal friend, a political friend, then you might say, what is in his interest? Is it in his interest to say, okay, I want an orderly transition. I'm going to come to Labour conference and you're going to, you know, celebrate me as one of a tiny handful of labor leaders that have ever actually won an election. And, you know, we'll send you to Ukraine and Zelensky will hail you as one of the great defenders of his, of his nation and the European, European cause. And it allows you to move out of politics in a dignified way. Is that in your interest? You know, I put that to one friend of the prime minister who said, well, you know, that possibly sounds kind of compelling, but at the end of the day, you know, Tony Blair was under a great deal of pressure to outline a timeline for when he goes. And as soon as you say you'll go, you can't do anything, it goes.
- [38:36]
Stephen Swinford
David Cameron, as soon as he did it in his kitchen to James Landau,
- [38:40]
Patrick Maguire
it went three Shredded Wheat to too many. That's what he says.
- [38:43]
Stephen Swinford
Well, I think that brings this week's episode from the heart part of the House of Parliament to a close. Thank you all for listening. Look, if you're enjoying this podcast, please subscribe on Spotify, on Apple, podcasts, on YouTube, wherever you get this from. I mean, we are a three dimensional beast now, both audio and video. So please sign up and subscribe.
- [39:16]
Manveen Rana
That was the state of it, which you can find every week wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. The producer today was Ewan Daughtry and executive producer Molly Guinness. We'll be back as usual tomorrow.
- [39:39]
Patrick Maguire
From globalization to innovation sustainability to market volatility, there's always more than one to a story. Explore different perspectives on today's most important business and economic issues with the Flipside podcast from Barclays Investment Bank. Hear two research analysts in a lively debate and get insights from every angle. To further inform your view, listen to the flip side on your favorite platform. Okay, Caller one wins courtside seats to tonight's game.
- [40:10]
Stephen Swinford
What?
- [40:10]
Patrick Maguire
I won floor seats. You did?
- [40:12]
Stephen Swinford
I've been calling for 13 months. Wait, Chris. Yes, I finally did.
- [40:17]
Patrick Maguire
Gonna wear Men's Warehouse. They've got today's looks for any occasion,
- [40:20]
Stephen Swinford
and I need to look like a celebrity.
- [40:22]
Patrick Maguire
Don't want to stick out. Exactly.
- [40:24]
Stephen Swinford
They've got Chill Flex by Kenneth Cole, Joseph Abood, and a tailor at every store for the perfect fit. Congrats. You can stop calling now. Not a chance.
- [40:31]
Patrick Maguire
Hit any look for every occasion at Men's Warehouse. Love the way you look.