TRIGGERnometry - June 19, 2026


Live Reaction to Makerfield By-Election with Dan Hodges and Julia Hartley-Brewer

Where Islamist Terrorism Really Comes From - Ed Husain The British State Hates its Own People - Dr David Starkey

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 3 minutes

Words per minute

173.4

Word count

10,990

Sentence count

150

People

Guests:
Brewer
Also mentioned:
Nigel Farage Andy Burnham Keir Starmer Brexit Rupert Lowe Makerfield Julie Margaret Thatcher Nigel Farage Rob Kenyon Andy Byrne Manchester Labour Matt Goodwin Robert Jenrick Andrea Jenkins Lucy Connolly David Cameron Rachel Reeves Andy Miliband Northern Andy and 16 more

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In the first episode of the new season of Trigonometry, we re joined by journalist Dan Hodges and broadcaster Jules Hartley to talk about why the UK is screwed up, and why it s time to go back to sleep.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:03:16.400 Something had gone structurally wrong with Britain.
00:03:20.880 We are a state which has turned against its people.
00:03:24.540 All three parties of the right are realizing that they're not dealing with a series of
00:03:30.660 separate problems.
00:03:31.960 You're dealing with a single central issue, which is that the British state has stopped
00:03:38.360 working.
00:03:39.080 We are genuinely, I think, at a moment, I would argue, of a national crisis which is comparable only to the First and Second World Wars.
00:03:48.340 There has to be a reunion of the right, and that the only basis for that reunion is policy.
00:03:55.340 But they're fighting each other. And I despair.
00:04:01.660 If Britain survives, why did you say that?
00:04:05.980 Because I think it is possible that it won't.
00:04:09.080 hello everybody and a very warm welcome to trigonometry the only show on youtube where
00:04:22.720 you're going to get an underwear advert followed by an interview with an eminent historian talking
00:04:27.520 about why britain is screwed uh we're joined tonight to analyze the uh by election make a
00:04:32.840 field by election which andy burnham overwhelmingly won by two brilliant uh broadcaster julia hartley
00:04:38.900 brewer and journalist dan hodges welcome to you both uh wonderful to have you on uh dan uh before
00:04:46.420 we go to julia you were on the ground uh during the by-election talking to people there uh what
00:04:52.340 did you hear what did people say to you and why do you think andy burnham secured the overwhelming
00:04:57.700 result that he did well i think there are a number of things i mean andy burnham won the
00:05:05.780 by election because he was Andy Burnham not because he was Andy Burnham the Labour candidate
00:05:11.580 I mean I as he said I mean I spent the best part of a month up there and if you like the Burnham
00:05:19.040 effect was was real um roughly half of the people in the constituency seemed to know Andy Burnham
00:05:29.180 personally and the other half thought they knew him personally and it was noticeable yesterday
00:05:37.220 just sort of being outside polling stations I had people saying to me I voted reform I had some
00:05:44.040 people saying I voted restore and then I'd have people saying I voted for Andy so firstly there
00:05:52.800 was a very very it was very clear there was a very strong personal vote for him and I think that
00:05:59.920 that will be significant moving forward because I think it does raise questions about the extent to
00:06:05.680 which the obviously incredibly successful campaign that was waged by him in Makerfield
00:06:11.760 can be transported to other parts of the United Kingdom. I mean the other obvious factor was
00:06:19.600 that this was a by-election that to all intents and purposes was a was primarily a referendum on
00:06:25.760 Keir Starmer and as we know the people of Britain have made their their minds up about Keir Starmer
00:06:31.580 months and months ago and you know Andy Burnham's strategy of saying vote for me
00:06:37.560 today and I'll get rid of Keir Starmer on on Friday or basically next week
00:06:42.400 was obviously very successful at the ballot box and as we can see it playing out today seems also
00:06:47.760 to be successful in terms of broader politics um but the other thing was and i you know i'm sure
00:06:54.660 we'll get into this i think first i i think there was also an element of that this was a referendum
00:07:01.200 more broadly across the constituency on nigel farage his offer and reform's offer and i think
00:07:12.280 what we've seen cemented in in in maker field is something that we we've seen and i think we've
00:07:18.120 seen developed developing for for a considerable period now which is the shine is definitely
00:07:25.240 coming off nigel farage and reform and coupled with that we are now starting to see
00:07:33.720 quite organized quite sophisticated quite active anti-reform coalition that is developing
00:07:42.280 in constituencies across the country and i think that has also has very significant implications
00:07:48.660 for our politics moving forward well to your point the left was almost the left wing vote
00:07:55.360 uh was almost entirely given to andy burnham in this election the greens got nothing the
00:08:00.360 lip downs basically didn't even register from what i could see on the different charts etc
00:08:04.200 but i was going to ask you you talk to a lot of people when you're on the ground what what
00:08:09.240 surprised you the most hearing from people uh just talking to ordinary people who were voters
00:08:14.580 in this constituency well i'll be honest i wasn't i wasn't massively surprised because i thought
00:08:21.480 i mean i wasn't one of the people who thought you know this was a this was a nip and tuck you know
00:08:27.040 going to be a tight by-election i i from you know the first few days i was there it it seemed to me
00:08:33.980 there was a there was a strong move behind Andy Burnham I mean I think what surprised me was
00:08:42.240 to all intents and purposes at the beginning of the contest if you walked around the constituency
00:08:49.620 and obviously I'd been walking around similar constituencies just a few weeks before in the
00:08:54.940 local elections it kind of had the feel of a what I would call a traditional reform constituency you
00:09:02.340 You know, all the issues that, you know, you've obviously articulated on this programme and we've all talked about before about, you know, post-industrial, northern sort of working class British decline. 0.83
00:09:15.160 It's all there in Maker Field.
00:09:18.540 You know, you walk around sections of the constituency and you see significant areas of the constituency which have, you know, union flags hanging from flagpoles, etc.
00:09:28.640 um and when i first uh arrived there it seemed to me this was as i say you know fertile ground
00:09:36.420 for reform and indeed you know to all intents and purposes reform were maybe favorites for the seat
00:09:41.840 but as i said it became clear sort of quite early that the burnham factor the inversion of
00:09:50.960 the sort of vote for me reforms vote for us ditch starmer message was very potent but also
00:10:00.440 and it it was something i did start to pick up in the local elections as well
00:10:04.900 there are now serious issues for the reform project and the nigel farage project
00:10:11.020 julia dan has already touched on this but let's talk about reform because
00:10:18.760 that is a very disappointing result for them isn't it well Nigel Farage issued a statement on x saying
00:10:27.140 just that but I mean it's one point worth making they got 35 percent of the vote I mean that I
00:10:33.340 don't think that's what most people would regard as a disappointing result in a by-election I mean
00:10:37.800 it was an extraordinarily big vote for Andy Burnham but bearing in mind that the two leading
00:10:42.700 candidates, Andy Burnham and Rob Kenyon, for the reform were basically standing on exactly
00:10:49.100 the same platform. Vote for me, get rid of Keir Starmer. The thing about Andy Burnham was he was
00:10:55.020 offering to do it rather sooner than Rob Kenyon could do. I think genuinely, with all due respect
00:11:01.740 to Daniel, he was regular on my show as well, I've known him for many years, huge respect.
00:11:05.260 I think this is classic Westminster bubble, completely over-interpreting a vote, which was
00:11:11.260 clearly a he talks normal he wears a t-shirt not a tie not sure that's going to go down very well
00:11:18.220 in number 10 for a lot of voters um he you know is a nice guy he's got charisma he's you know
00:11:23.980 Andy Burnham you know he he he did a great job as a you know basically sort of you know waving
00:11:30.380 the flag for the north for Manchester in particular obviously during lockdown when the the the
00:11:34.940 Westminster classes were forgetting how hard life was in all the various tiers and lockdowns for
00:11:39.420 people outside London and there's loads of appeal there the thing everyone forgets is
00:11:45.500 is that you know he wasn't offering anything other than change now that's what Keir Starmer
00:11:51.820 offered in 2024 in July that year we were coming up to that two-year anniversary and we didn't
00:11:58.220 get much detail in his manifesto we've got even less from Andy Burnham people weren't voting for
00:12:03.500 anything they were voting for Andy Burnham that doesn't mean they were rejecting reform
00:12:08.300 the idea that reform won i think all nine seats that were up for grabs in the local council
00:12:14.060 in only in may just a few short weeks ago but suddenly no they've decided they've got no time
00:12:20.700 for reform and nigel farage and it's all over they've peaked it's over it's now back to the
00:12:25.820 two-party system i think frankly there's a load of noises but julia but it must be a concern
00:12:31.820 surely because this is the second by-election that reform have come up short well you've got
00:12:37.580 I mean, again, ostensibly this is a Labour safe seat if such exists anymore.
00:12:43.740 Would realistically another Labour candidate that wasn't Andy Burnham and wasn't someone who could
00:12:49.260 be the Prime Minister in, who knows, a few days, a week's time, a few months time,
00:12:53.740 would that Labour candidate, whoever they were, would they have been able to beat reform?
00:12:58.300 And that's it. I think that's a very big question. And this is why this wasn't a victory for Labour.
00:13:04.460 this wasn't a defeat for reform this was a victory for the candidate who can get rid of
00:13:09.820 keir starmer who in this case happens to be andy burnham this is the same as look remember in 24
00:13:15.340 that all the the gushing i mean the the oozing of joy from a lot of the mainstream broadcasters
00:13:20.940 when they were reporting the election result this amazing you know four hundred uh um and three i
00:13:26.380 think it was on the day uh labor mps this massive majority if you kissed on on you know less than
00:13:31.980 34 of the vote it wasn't a vote for kir starmer and labour it was a vote against the tory governments
00:13:38.780 and their failures so again i just think i think people can massively over interpret what this
00:13:44.620 means on this given day people voted to get care starmer out i'd have probably voted for andy burn
00:13:51.660 burnham in makerfield if i'd had a vote well there you go dan sorry go ahead france well
00:13:58.060 Well, you know, there's obviously a lot of things to pick up there.
00:14:02.680 I mean, I think, as I say, Julia is right that it wasn't necessarily
00:14:06.160 an endorsement of Keir Starmer's Labour Party.
00:14:12.060 There was, though, a very strong sense amongst the people I was speaking to
00:14:15.480 that Andy Burnham represented a sort of return to a Labour Party
00:14:19.560 that they personally can feel much more comfortable with.
00:14:23.860 and you can argue whether or not you know Labour won or Andy Burnham won I mean I don't think you
00:14:30.000 can it's quite clearly a very significant personal triumph for him but the one thing that you we can
00:14:35.820 also be clear on is in a seat that you know Julie is talking about you know popular Westminster
00:14:42.400 opinion conventional Westminster opinion over the last month has been this this was a by-election
00:14:49.880 that was on a knife edge, that if Andy Burnham was going to win,
00:14:56.880 he was probably going to be, because he was gifted the seat
00:14:59.920 by Rupert Lowe and Restore, and the reality is reform
00:15:05.180 got a pretty big shellacking here.
00:15:07.300 You know, they didn't even come close.
00:15:10.500 I mean, I saw, I mean, I tweeted it before.
00:15:13.120 I saw Matthew Goodwin earlier saying, you know, this shows,
00:15:16.020 you know, again, shows reform can, you know,
00:15:18.120 run the establishment parties right to the line i mean i mean as i said i mean you know reform
00:15:25.280 weren't even in the picture when andy burnham got across the line and i i think the issue is
00:15:29.980 you know again i i talked about this before you know i do think reform you know we are
00:15:36.820 starting to see a pattern developing i mean remember let's just sort of invert the the the
00:15:42.020 the issue for a second keir starmer is i think by common consent one of the most unpopular prime
00:15:47.680 ministers in British political history. I mean, his approval ratings are on such a negative level
00:15:53.620 that they're off the charts. Win midterm. Governing parties never win by-elections midterm.
00:16:03.740 We came out of a backdrop of local elections in which, you know, Labour were routed.
00:16:12.780 and yet as i said again in a major parliamentary by-election reform didn't even come close now i
00:16:20.800 think you know in a moment we can get on to the the broader structural issues that this by-election
00:16:25.360 threw up reforms broader strategy how reform tried to deal with restore reforms candidate selection
00:16:33.780 again but the reality is you know i've seen this you know again with respect to julia i've seen
00:16:42.680 lots of people from reform trying to dismiss this reform can dismiss it if they want and reform can
00:16:49.900 just say oh well you know it doesn't matter it was Andy but it was the Andy Byrne effect yada yada
00:16:54.040 but as I said that there is a fundamental thing that we're starting to see happening now
00:16:59.480 I mean you said about how the left were united against uh against uh reform in this in this
00:17:08.600 by-election but there was also there were also significant elements on the right that were also
00:17:13.480 arranged against reform obviously there's the restore issue what struck me though was the
00:17:19.160 number of concern now obviously there's not a huge conservative vote here but what was very clear was
00:17:24.520 that that there were large numbers of conservative voters who were basically you know again they said
00:17:31.640 it to me on the doorstep look never voted labor in my life don't mind andy andy burnham dislike
00:17:38.200 keir starmer but i'm not going to have reform representing me in this sea and that's conservative
00:17:45.000 voters that's not why is it why is it what is it about reform that conservatives are not going to
00:17:50.920 go for in your well i think this is i mean this is a much broader conversation that i i hope i hope
00:17:55.400 we can get on to but i think well let's get on to it now well okay before you go along there because
00:18:01.880 i do want to go back on something up there about you know this is like a you know governments don't
00:18:06.200 win by elections i mean certainly in mid-term we've got this much of an unpopularity particularly
00:18:11.960 for the leader but of course i don't think this was uh effectively a government party candidate
00:18:18.600 winning the people who voted for andy burnham the popularity he has is because he's not the
00:18:23.480 government he's the anti-government labor figure he's he's the mayor of management he's almost
00:18:28.360 he's almost completely disassociated from this government he can criticize their policies
00:18:33.080 he's completely safe he's not responsible for any of the decision makings any of the u-turns
00:18:37.240 uh any of the abject lack of any activity to do anything he's he's not being treated as a
00:18:43.560 a representative in any way of this government he's being treated as the alternative to this
00:18:48.440 government which is why i don't think that thesis quite holds tight julia i think you make a good
00:18:53.560 point but i think there's one thing i'll object before you jump in dan which is i think it's
00:18:58.120 fair to say i don't know some people are saying reform have peaked i don't think you can tell
00:19:03.400 until the whole electoral cycle has run its course of course but you do see them staying flat in the
00:19:09.480 polls and occasionally dipping you see them you know there may be people within reform who try
00:19:14.180 and put a brave face on it but i saw a clip of nigel farage saying he was disappointed and then
00:19:19.360 also making an appeal to restore voters saying guys come on you if you want a party that's on
00:19:24.820 the right to win elections vote for us so clearly i think it's fair to say that the shine is perhaps
00:19:31.840 slightly coming off and what i'm keen to understand from both of you and dan jump in first is why is
00:19:37.960 that well i mean i let's let's let's go back i mean firstly just to pick up your point there is
00:19:44.380 no ambiguity here polls go up polls go down if you look at the polling averages in september of
00:19:50.420 last year reform broke 30 percent in the polls and we all remember that because that was the
00:19:55.500 moment when people were talking about you know a reform majority government was possible
00:19:59.980 from that moment on reform have been in been into a relatively steady decline to the point
00:20:07.520 they're now back down to about 25 percent in the polls and i remember last september having a
00:20:12.320 discussion with a number of senior reform sort of figures and they explained to me that they
00:20:19.020 had a strategy for if you like taking reform on to the next level and it was essentially threefold
00:20:24.920 firstly it was to to modernize professionalize the party get rid of some of the the cranks the
00:20:31.820 loonies the the overt racists who had sort of gravitated towards the reform brand the second
00:20:39.000 thing was a very very specific policy which is reforms internal polling showed that whilst
00:20:44.620 Nigel Farage is very popular amongst men he's much less popular amongst women and to put it
00:20:49.980 simplistically reform have a have a woman problem and the third thing was that they were going to
00:20:55.320 start to need to set out a serious policy program and prospectus for government and that was kind of
00:21:04.280 what the backdrop was in the run-up to their party conference I think it was in October that
00:21:10.220 year I might be slightly wrong about the about the day and I remember turning up to that conference
00:21:14.920 and generally being interested at seeing how this this program was gonna with you know this new
00:21:21.820 sort of new reform was gonna play out and frankly it was a bit when I got there it was a frankly a
00:21:30.300 bit of a circus so you had and I don't want to rehash sort of the old arguments but I'm just
00:21:35.980 literally saying what I observed so you had the situation where Lucy Connolly who had just been
00:21:42.480 you know got out of jail for saying you know tweeting about burning down hostels and etc etc
00:21:48.740 was literally on stage and fated like she was Mother Teresa you had a guy up there who'd been
00:21:55.160 bussed over from the states who was talking some anti-vaxxer who was talking about that you know
00:21:59.740 how the king had got cancer from some sort of vax sort of some vaccination program you had
00:22:07.500 i think it was sarah poochin who who had to be i think almost physically stopped from walking onto
00:22:12.900 stage dressed in a union jack burka and andrea jenkins came on the stage singing singing a song
00:22:20.800 or whatever and and the point was this whole sort of modernization we're taking ourselves to the
00:22:29.200 next level we're going to be a serious party it kind of didn't happen and when I dug down and
00:22:36.020 asked people what it why wasn't it happening what became clear for me was for reasons I still don't
00:22:43.220 quite understand Nigel Farage and the people around Nigel Farage were becoming spooked by
00:22:52.260 what they saw as some sort of nascent sort of threat from Rupert Lowe and whatever you call
00:23:02.420 the new right or the faction that Lowe represent. And that instead of sort of embracing, moving
00:23:10.180 forward and trying to embrace the country as a whole, they were instead adopting a policy of
00:23:14.700 trying to neutralise that faction. And that, to an extent, is kind of what we saw replicated as
00:23:21.960 well in Makerfield. So we had this initial poll that came out right at the start of the campaign
00:23:26.140 which had obviously restore on 7%. In that poll it seemed to be like it could be the difference
00:23:33.560 between reform winning and reform losing. But for the next three weeks of the campaign
00:23:39.580 reform stopped trying to talk to the people of Makerfield as a whole and instead spent all their
00:23:49.400 time just talking to that seven percent of restore voters trying to plead with them bully them beg them
00:23:59.720 into into into voting for restore voting switching from restore to reform we saw increasingly
00:24:08.200 sort of aggressive messages in relation to obviously the backdrop of you know some of
00:24:14.680 the issues so the appalling death of henry novak the appalling scenes in belfast the riots in
00:24:20.520 belfast belfast what was broadly an attempt to outflank restore on the right and convince
00:24:28.280 restore voters you know nigel farage and reform were as hardcore on these issues as as restore
00:24:34.920 were and the broader attempt to engage with the electorate the wider electorate and electorate
00:24:41.080 by the way that as we now know was was broadly lining up behind andy burnham went out of the
00:24:45.640 window and i think that is kind of part of the problem that we're seeing replicated nationally
00:24:52.360 for for reform and farage at the moment and julia what have you got to say to that do you broadly
00:24:58.760 agree or yeah i i agree with an awful lot of that i mean certainly what happened at the reform
00:25:03.400 conference was utterly bizarre i mean some things you could never sort of unsee or unhear uh you
00:25:09.480 you, but it troubles me to this day. Look, there's no question at all, you know, reform have been
00:25:16.300 very focused and very rattled by restore. There's such personal animosity between Nigel Farage
00:25:22.660 and Rupert Lowe. Although, again, you know, this isn't unusual territory for Nigel Farage.
00:25:29.000 He is a man who has made a lot of enemies over the years, and there's no question at all, reform is,
00:25:34.180 You know, there may be many other figures like Robert Jenricks and the Zia Yusuf and Richard Tice's, but fundamentally, it is a one man bang in the sense that what Nigel Farage says goes.
00:25:45.760 It's his party and what he says goes. And a lot of people won't put up with that.
00:25:50.320 He would say his instincts are better than other people's on this front.
00:25:54.020 That's why he's been, let's be honest, the most successful politician, influential politician, I should say, of his generation in terms of Brexit and what he's done.
00:26:01.840 However, yeah, they're definitely rattles. But one of the reasons why Restore has been able to
00:26:06.560 win so much popularity, and was winning people over in Makerfield, is because of Nigel Farage
00:26:13.600 and Reform's attempts, which we've been seeing, to become more a government in waiting,
00:26:20.560 not a protest party. Here are some policies, lining up people which they, I think in a rather
00:26:26.480 silly way, call shadow home secretary, shadow chancellor, their spokespeople. They haven't
00:26:30.800 got spokespeople for lots of other key roles, like education as well, Bravman, but defence
00:26:36.960 and other issues, they haven't yet got those spokespeople properly in place. But to try and
00:26:41.200 have sort of a platform of policies, some specifics for people to actually talk about.
00:26:47.120 And those have been coming out pretty fast and furious in recent weeks, far quicker than
00:26:53.120 what we've been seeing from the Conservatives. So part of that move from reform to sort of
00:26:58.320 appeal to you know middle england to the people who would have voted labor voted for boris johnson
00:27:05.040 in 2019 to get brexit done those people who angry with the tories but just want any government that
00:27:13.360 isn't um a labor government or god forbid a labor green coalition and and they're trying to sort of
00:27:21.040 professionalize themselves now with varying levels of success as we've seen but crucially part of
00:27:27.600 doing that makes them look a little bit more sort of establishment than Rupert Lowe and what he's
00:27:33.540 doing and some of the let's face it very very unsavory elements who support the Restore Party
00:27:40.840 including the likes of you know the Tommy Robinsons and some as has been publicized a lot in the last
00:27:46.640 few days some you know blatant neo-nazis let's call them what they are I mean you know the left
00:27:52.700 has been throwing the term far right out at anybody who voted for brexit or or isn't you know
00:27:58.300 a full-on climate change hysteric so um that that that phrase that those two words have lost their
00:28:04.220 meaning but i mean genuinely far right and as everyone knows elections in Britain are like in
00:28:11.340 Europe aren't won at the fringes they aren't won on left and right not by socialists not by you know
00:28:16.700 the fascists they're one in in the middle and and that has its own problems because then you're too
00:28:24.220 like the tories you're not you're not radical enough you're not you know progressive in the
00:28:29.660 true sense the word enough and i can see that happening but i don't think that reformer have
00:28:34.860 peaked as such i think we are in we are in the middle midterm doldrums of for the love of god
00:28:41.900 what is going on when is this going to end when are we going to not have to see or hear this awful
00:28:47.740 man starmer ever again why don't you guys get on with it i hear people all the time on on the right
00:28:53.100 wing with the tories or reform saying why isn't there a general election why didn't why isn't he
00:28:58.140 forced out not understanding clearly you know how parliament works but i i think that just as with
00:29:05.340 by elections and with local elections we've seen the voters minds get focused at that time and yes
00:29:11.900 get tactical voting from the left absolutely and you'll also get tactical voting on the right and
00:29:17.740 the main issue that comes up i think on the right now is will there be a coalition of some sort will
00:29:22.540 there be some sort of either either just a you know you stand in that seat we won't really make
00:29:28.700 much effort in that seat but leave us this seat over here kind of just quiet behind the scenes
00:29:34.620 unofficial deal between tories and reform are they in a position both of them to make that deal
00:29:40.220 quietly or you know even if it's not even stated uh you know to in in written actual words or on
00:29:47.260 paper and that there is likely to be many think a coalition from the tories and reform after any
00:29:54.300 general election i i think that i've been in i've been in this world for a very long time watching
00:30:00.380 this very closely as as dan has as well and i remember in 2010 when we had the announcements
00:30:07.740 when we had the coalition government between the libs and the tories it's the end of two-party
00:30:12.300 politics in 2015 um david cameron one of the majority and then you know there's all over
00:30:18.460 and it's all going to change and then and then we had boris johnson in 2019 well a massive majority
00:30:23.500 he's going to be in two terms by the way another very charismatic successful mayor only lasted two
00:30:31.340 years imagine that um and then again you know it was the end of it was the end of uh you know all
00:30:36.700 these different coalitions it was back to two-party politics and it changes again i think that voters
00:30:42.460 and our country are in and political parties are in so much flux right now i think there is no i
00:30:48.620 don't think you can predict what happens in a week's time let alone the idea we can picture
00:30:52.940 what's going to happen in two years time i d i think that is i think that's a fool's errand i
00:30:57.180 really do speaking of predicting things francis sorry let me just jump in on this one point uh
00:31:03.420 because we it's something i wanted to say you talk about predicting uh i actually looked at
00:31:08.620 the prediction markets calci is the partner that we use and talking about what all of this means
00:31:14.140 for the country i mean looking at the odds of keir starmer still being prime minister uh by august
00:31:21.660 and september i mean we're looking at the high 90s here you can see that 89 percent uh if he goes
00:31:28.140 before august 1st and 86 he goes before the 1st of september uh keir starmer departure being
00:31:35.660 announced and the other one i looked at as well is if we can pull that up is the probability of
00:31:40.780 who is going to be the next prime minister and andy burnham is on 92 so it seems that prediction
00:31:47.340 markets wise are effectively convinced that keir starmer will be forced to leave and he will be
00:31:55.100 replaced by andy burnham now the question is what do we know about andy burnham and what will his
00:32:02.460 premiership do to the country well that's the crucial thing isn't it i mean we again harking
00:32:07.740 back because there are so many echoes of the 24 general election because you know him on the front
00:32:12.380 cover the words change and we never really found out really what that change was going to be too
00:32:19.020 I mean, I'm still two years in. I'm still not quite sure what their plan was. It would transpire
00:32:25.260 after he sacked his chief of staff, Sue Gray, because her job was to come up with a plan for
00:32:29.500 the first 100 days, that there wasn't a plan. Now, one of the things that is, to a certain extent,
00:32:34.300 holding the Burnham camp back right now, there's a lot of talk, they don't want cabinet ministers
00:32:38.220 to be designing, they want the prime minister to sort of come to his own realisation, this 0.96
00:32:45.100 incredibly resilient man who's actually just pig-headed and stubborn and arrogant that 0.93
00:32:49.980 actually you know you're gonna have to go go with some dignity for the love of god right
00:32:54.460 so the key thing is though if he goes very quickly burnham then has to take over very quickly and
00:32:59.740 burnham doesn't have a plan if you watched his speech that he gave you know often after winning
00:33:04.940 last night at three o'clock in the morning the speech he gave this morning uh on the stump
00:33:09.740 thanking everybody there was zero substance i mean nothing dinada zilch nothing there at all i mean
00:33:17.980 you you could you be chasing down policies in the wind for him he doesn't have any policies and this
00:33:23.980 is the problem with him he he has although he okay he's got a t-shirt he's got good head of hair he's
00:33:28.700 got pretty eyelashes and he's and he's an it is a nice bloke i mean he's genuinely he talks to him
00:33:33.820 and he's someone you're quite happy to go to the pub with whereas you're the thought of spending
00:33:37.420 five minutes in Keir Starmer's company fills anyone normal with horror imagine getting stuck in a lift
00:33:42.060 with him and that is a that is a big factor of his popularity but he's very very similar to Keir
00:33:48.380 Starmer and that he doesn't as far as we can tell other than a wishy-washy you know we're told soft
00:33:54.860 left he's he's fairly hard left actually but a wishy-washy social justice wouldn't it be nice
00:34:01.580 if people weren't poor tax the rich a bit blah blah i mean there's lower buses yes we all want
00:34:08.220 those other than that genuinely i don't think he i don't think he believes in anything i don't think
00:34:14.060 he has a plan i don't think he exactly like kia starmer knows why he wants to be prime minister
00:34:20.780 what he wants to be prime minister to do he talks about change the same way kia starmer did two
00:34:26.780 years ago but at no point are we hearing what that change is going to be bearing in mind
00:34:31.500 He's going to have not only, as he said, signing up to the same fiscal rules as Rachel Reeves,
00:34:36.220 even though I'm not entirely sure.
00:34:38.540 I gave that Newsnight interview the other day that he actually knows what they are.
00:34:42.960 But also he's going to have exactly the same backbenchers that Keir Starmer has,
00:34:47.960 the same backbenchers.
00:34:49.200 You haven't got a clue how the real world works, how to run a business,
00:34:52.680 who think that you should put taxes up on businesses.
00:34:55.580 And this mythical group of very wealthy people who aren't paying any tax
00:34:59.780 and won't leave the country if they can, if they put those taxes up,
00:35:03.780 who think that we should spend more on welfare, not less,
00:35:08.000 and who frankly don't feel too sure about us either borrowing more, taxing more,
00:35:13.220 or doing any version of any cuts in any departmental spending
00:35:17.840 to fund vital, vital money on defence.
00:35:22.500 He's just going to be, he's going to have a bounce in the polls,
00:35:26.580 I've no doubt at all about that,
00:35:27.860 and he's going to be able to communicate better but fundamentally a few months down the line
00:35:32.720 he's going to be in exactly the same predicament as Keir Starmer is where he's going to be and we
00:35:37.700 already seen him flip-flop Andy as he was in the first two Labour leadership contests he ran in 1.00
00:35:42.500 in 2010 and 2015 he does U-turn after U-turn I'll help the waspy women 10 billion pounds of 0.93
00:35:49.220 taxpayers money should go to these women who had to retire a bit later oh no I've changed my mind 0.97
00:35:53.460 We can't afford that. That took, I think, two days for him to U-turn on.
00:35:57.820 We are literally into Keir Starmer, Mark II, in a T-shirt.
00:36:05.560 I mean, I think I thought what was interesting is I thought you can't we kind of just saw there with with with Julia,
00:36:13.900 Julia's criticism of Andy Burnham, a sort of a replication of the problem reform have just had in Makerfield,
00:36:21.740 which is Andy Burnham's opponents at the moment don't really know what the best line of attack is on Andy Burnham.
00:36:28.700 So we had there simultaneously, he's basically exactly the same as Keir Starmer.
00:36:35.660 He doesn't know what he believes in, but he's actually somehow a creature of the hard left.
00:36:43.300 And the last time I heard, I saw, and I'm by no means going to broaden this comparison,
00:36:49.600 But the last time I saw sort of people struggling to sort of get a handle on how to criticise a politician was when the Tories were trying to deal with Blair and couldn't work out whether or not to say he's this slick, slimy, sort of deceitful operator who doesn't really believe in anything, or he's actually secretly as hard left and dangerous as the hard left.
00:37:16.880 if you remember the whole demon eyes thing that was going on and there's a bit of that there's
00:37:21.680 a bit of a sort of a demon andy sort of sort of confusion i i i think just don't come on
00:37:30.240 no but but i mean no but but do you know what i mean i mean literally people are telling me
00:37:37.760 but people people are simultaneously saying to me andy burnham doesn't believe anything he's
00:37:42.400 always flip-flopping he doesn't believe in anything and then simultaneously saying he's
00:37:46.080 actually almost as hard left as jeremy corbyn now the two cannot be the two the two can't be right
00:37:51.860 that but but just just to just to step back onto a couple things in terms of the broader
00:37:58.460 conversation we've been having the conversation we'll be having moving forward there is one thing
00:38:03.380 that we know for certain about andy burnham right which is he is not keir starmer and before we get
00:38:11.420 into any discussion about you know have reform peaked what's going to happen with labor can
00:38:17.780 chemibad not bring the Tories back to life the one thing we're going to have to wait for
00:38:23.820 is Keir Starmer's removal now you were talking about the the you know the predictions everything
00:38:31.100 I'm hearing this evening if Keir Starmer doesn't announce on Monday stepping down or Tuesday or
00:38:36.640 Wednesday stepping down I'd be amazed but so I think that's the sort of time frame we're looking
00:38:40.460 at we're looking at now but the key thing is Keir Starmer is such a unique distorting prison
00:38:47.300 within British politics because he is so unpopular he is so despised we will all have had the
00:38:54.820 experience Julie will have had this you I'm sure will have had this you go around the country you
00:38:59.880 go anywhere north south east west red wall you know metropolitan wherever Keir Starmer's names
00:39:08.420 comes up and it is met with ridicule boring on hostility and hatred that I personally haven't
00:39:15.920 seen before I haven't seen it at this level and I frankly can't properly quite quite rationalize
00:39:23.360 so it's only when Keir Starmer goes that in a sense the picture will will clear now the other
00:39:31.160 thing is I completely understand the criticism there's been of Andy Byrne and flip-flopping
00:39:35.760 but the point is Andy Burnham did exactly what Andy Burnham needed to do in that by-election
00:39:43.240 so if you remember when the by-election started off and I remember having this debate at the time
00:39:48.680 the initial thing was the by-election has been going 24 hours it's already been framed
00:39:53.400 framed through the prism of Brexit and his support for Brexit that's a disaster for him
00:39:59.260 make a field Brexit seat it's a disaster and I remember saying at the time no it's not because
00:40:07.500 this he is not going to get sucked up into a national sort of campaign in what is basically
00:40:15.180 going to be a very very localized campaign in terms of it's Andy he's from here his kids go
00:40:19.700 to school here etc etc etc he was very skillful in my view in ensuring that he didn't get sucked
00:40:26.720 into a huge debate on Brexit or a debate about his economic policies or his debate about his
00:40:31.080 foreign policy or a debate about welfare policy he basically just wandered around saying you know
00:40:36.400 and I'm as Julia said I'm Andy I'm a nice guy I'm from here you like me don't me and people said yes
00:40:41.900 now that does not mean that that is the Andy Burnham we're going to get in government because
00:40:49.880 the other thing is and this is where I completely disagree with Judah about that he's just like
00:40:53.860 Keir Starmer for good or for real I mean I know because I used to work with him Andy Burnham has
00:41:00.600 been in politics his entire life Andy Burnham was a was an advisor he was a Labour MP he was
00:41:07.380 Chief Secretary of the Treasury he was a Health Secretary he's been a successful Labour Mayor of
00:41:12.300 Manchester he's just won you know the most important by-election in British political
00:41:16.880 history right he is not Keir Starmer he is not a political dilettante he is not someone who
00:41:23.320 doesn't understand politics and what is necessary to succeed in succeed in politics and he does
00:41:30.240 have something to use that terrible phrase something of a political hinterland now he's
00:41:34.920 been on a political journey certainly when we were working together i was saying this somebody the
00:41:40.380 other day he was even more new labor than than i was but the reality is andy burnham is astute
00:41:47.120 enough to understand that what what worked for tony blair in 1997 is not going to work for andy
00:41:52.240 Burnham and Labour in 2027 or whenever and he has enough political experience I think
00:42:01.280 over the next few weeks and months to put forward something that will resemble certainly
00:42:09.240 when set against you know what Keir Starmer presented something that is a coherent political
00:42:18.120 program and political narrative now this is also where I agree with Julia that however does not
00:42:26.000 mean that any of the myriad problems that we're all aware of and that you've articulated obviously
00:42:31.400 on this program and will continue to articulate suddenly magically go when Keir Starmer goes and
00:42:35.980 Andy Burnham if it is Andy Burnham comes in but I all I'm saying is I don't think it is right to
00:42:44.820 say look he didn't say anything about what he was going to do in government in in the makefield by
00:42:49.020 election so it's because he hasn't got a clue what he's going to do no I think I think that's
00:42:53.620 too simplistic a criticism I'm not saying that there's just no evidence that he has thought
00:43:00.300 about a lot of these issues and there are there are things that you know I mean and obviously he
00:43:04.840 touched on very interesting in his speech this morning that one bit hint hint of a policy that
00:43:10.860 touched on was that it was unfair on people of Makerfield to have migrants being sort of dumped
00:43:17.580 you know these these mass contracts where Serco turns up and pays double the same double the rent
00:43:22.220 anyone else can pay therefore they get all the local properties you get you know streets of HMOs
00:43:27.420 there was a hint well that that was wrong and it was unfair he didn't actually offer a solution to
00:43:32.780 that I don't I don't think that you know I think he ran a blinder of a campaign no doubt it's all
00:43:37.820 about that but the trouble is and he's got this long history as a successful mayor as a cabinet
00:43:44.060 minister but he was a cabinet minister you know under tony blair when there was loads of money
00:43:48.860 and he had a very very astute leader and he wasn't held to account personally as being being a mayor
00:43:55.580 being a backbench mp being a cabinet minister are all completely different from being the prime
00:44:00.620 minister to governors to choose you have to make choices there are a heck of a lot of very very
00:44:07.100 tough choices that are about to be made and he said he's going to bring change but he's also
00:44:12.460 going to stick to the starmer manifesto offering change but we don't know what kind of change that
00:44:17.340 was supposed to be either and he's doing it as i say with the same backbenchers and with the same
00:44:22.380 fiscal constraints and realistically what can he get done when the things that most need to be done
00:44:31.260 the things that the majority of people who frankly paying any attention at all, no need to be done,
00:44:37.580 spending on defence, cutting welfare, dropping net zero, are things that I think we can be very,
00:44:42.620 very sure he's not going to be able or willing to do. The fact that Ed Miliband has been touted
00:44:48.860 as a likely candidate for being Andy Burnham's Chancellor, I think is a bit of a giveaway there.
00:44:53.980 Andy Miliband is a climate hysteric zealot. He makes Greta look moderate and normal on this
00:44:59.900 issue. He is one of the main reasons why we are heading into oblivion when it comes to our energy
00:45:07.660 policy, industrial policy, our inability to pay for defence. It's a massive national security
00:45:14.140 issue now, the net zero issue. Anyone paying attention knows that that was always an insane
00:45:19.180 policy. It's a particularly insane policy, given the current global situation that we're in right
00:45:24.940 now but can just pick up on that i mean again i think that's an example of what i'm talking about
00:45:32.060 so we've already got you know andy burnham has been an mp i think for like what five hours now
00:45:38.220 five or five or six hours now julia is already criticizing him for it for the fact that he's
00:45:44.240 appointing ed milliband as his chancellor i've seen it i've seen ed milliband touted as his
00:45:53.660 chancellor i've also and i've written it myself i've also seen it talented that he may and i
00:45:59.580 think this chills this terrifies me even more frankly that he may he may well retain rachel
00:46:05.340 reeves as his chancellor to to to to reassure them i've seen people talk i've seen reports
00:46:11.340 that yvette cooper might be his chancellor i've seen i saw a report that lou he was going to be
00:46:16.540 his chancellor as i'm saying now i am not saying for a moment if ed milliband is brought in as
00:46:22.940 chancellor all of britain's problems will be solved but what i am saying is once again the
00:46:28.400 criticism of andy burnham is a criticism that is not at the moment rooted in anything that andy
00:46:35.400 burnham has actually said or done or even close become even even even close
00:46:41.100 julia sorry let me jump in here because there's one thing i want to address we're getting very
00:46:47.640 westminster-y here and i want to come back to the country a little bit and i think one of the most
00:46:51.820 important things is dan you are very eloquent about what andy burnham is not but i think the
00:46:57.420 issue julia raises which is an issue i think for all of us and i and i look at this conversation
00:47:02.160 and it stands out to me is i don't know what andy burnham stands for and i don't think anybody does
00:47:10.120 so i'm not saying look i i i mean danger of slipping into sort of becoming andy
00:47:16.480 spokesman on this program but let me try as well that's true that's why we brought you on let me
00:47:21.720 articulate it in a sort of a broader in a broader context and one that i think we will all we will
00:47:27.320 all grasp it seems to me and you know i you know watch a lot of what you you both talk about i think
00:47:35.180 we would all probably agree that one of the fundamental sort of fissures in british politics
00:47:42.460 in British society is the fact and you know we were talking about the Julie was talking about
00:47:48.360 the success of Nigel Farage and reform is that over the last 10 20 30 years we have had a politics
00:47:57.240 that has been shaped by a small I'm going to be slightly simplistic here but let's roll with it
00:48:04.220 a small sort of Westminster clique elite whatever what have you that has governed in a way that a
00:48:11.940 significant section of the British electorate primarily if you want to call white working class
00:48:21.420 lives outside of the the big traditional metropolitan heartlands particularly in the
00:48:27.320 north of England what has become badged primarily as Red Wall Britain has was basically cast aside
00:48:35.640 and was viewed by both of the main political parties as at best as expendable and at worst as
00:48:44.320 an obstacle to the great liberal sort of progressive Britain that the two parties
00:48:53.140 wanted to build. Now, if you're looking for Andy Burnham's identity, whatever criticisms you have
00:48:59.800 of him, Andy Burnham is someone, and we saw this in Makerfield, we've just seen this in Makerfield,
00:49:05.640 is someone who's, if you like, political identity over the past five, six, seven years has been
00:49:13.860 shaped firstly by engaging with a constituency outside of that metropolitan elite and more
00:49:23.060 broadly as someone who is rooted and, you know, it will become, we'll all get bored with it in
00:49:28.840 a year or a couple of years time, you know, Northern Andy, all that sort of stuff.
00:49:32.340 but he is somebody who does understand and engage with the broader problems of what i would broadly
00:49:43.440 call red wall britain and and i was at his sort of victory rally thing today and he came up with
00:49:48.280 something which if he follows through on it i actually think could potentially be have some
00:49:53.280 significance which he said is everything that we now need to do as a party has to has to has to
00:49:58.720 passed the Makerfield test which is is what what a Labour government is doing is it going to
00:50:03.880 directly not not indirectly through some sort of Blairite or sort of Thatcherite sort of trickle
00:50:09.100 down thing is it directly going to benefit people here in Makerfield now I'll be honest I haven't
00:50:15.020 heard that from a Labour leader before Boris obviously tried to articulate something along
00:50:22.820 these lines and obviously was was in the short term was actually very successful in trying to
00:50:27.080 articulate a vision. So that is where I would give, if you want to look for Andy Burnham's
00:50:33.120 political identity, that's where you start. However, again, this is where I agree with
00:50:40.020 Julia and I'm sure yourselves, it's one thing to sort of have these things like the
00:50:45.060 Makefield Test and Manchesterism, et cetera, et cetera. But to overlay that template onto
00:50:51.280 the political reality of a country that has no defense has no borders has a welfare crisis has
00:50:58.800 a pensions crisis is is obviously some on of a complete different order but equally those are
00:51:06.080 the issues that will be confronting the country if it whoever became whoever replaced keir starmer
00:51:11.280 not just andy burn but that's the problem isn't it julia we're going to need a leader to come in
00:51:18.560 and for want of a better comparison, be it Margaret Thatcher, be it Margaret Thatcher
00:51:23.320 of the centre, of the right or of the left. And you're looking at Burnham and maybe this is just
00:51:28.280 a surface level analysis, but I don't think he's got the spine in order to tackle that
00:51:33.880 and go against his own party, which is what he's going to need to do and risk a whole load of his
00:51:40.540 MPs and supporters hemorrhaging to the Greens. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. And look, I want
00:51:46.660 to make it very clear. I like Andy Burnham. He's a nice bloke. He's someone you can actually
00:51:52.440 spend time with. And I think his heart is probably in the right place. I mean, all politicians
00:51:56.200 are ambitious, aren't they? But as you say, I don't think, and I'm not 100% sure right
00:52:01.700 now we have anyone in any party that has both the beliefs and the drive and the ability
00:52:09.800 to push those through but also to create the coalition the wider coalition to make that
00:52:16.800 happen in our very sort of you know his majesty's government the opposition uh dynamic we've got in
00:52:24.140 parliament um because i think that is very very difficult we do need i mean almost you know a
00:52:29.220 national unity government to deal with all the big stuff to say look we all know and and frankly
00:52:35.600 a lot of the sensible people in all of the political parties there are some that don't
00:52:40.000 have many sensible people except that these are all the things that need to be done but they won't
00:52:44.860 do them now if he is if he is as popular as Dan believes he is if he really does have this
00:52:51.000 charisma and this ability and that that can be enough and he's got this vision and he does have
00:52:55.880 a plan if that is all the case then he will do some of the things that you were just mentioning
00:53:01.520 and i've been mentioning earlier in the podcast and he'll be able to do them by saying to his
00:53:05.760 backbenchers look i know we care about people on wealth we don't want to take anyone off i know that
00:53:10.960 we want to spend more on the nhs i know we want to do this and that but we and i know we care about
00:53:16.160 the environment but we need to do x y and z because this is what the country needs and it may not be
00:53:22.320 what we feel like we like now but we can do it now a strong leader could do that could drive that
00:53:27.680 through would be able to push that through have the powers of persuasion and i don't think there's
00:53:33.440 any evidence that he does have that and one of the things that i think really did it for keir
00:53:38.640 starmer was this u-turn after u-turn after u-turn not only did he not believe anything he said even
00:53:44.720 speeches he gave the island of strangers speaks apparently he didn't even believe hadn't read it
00:53:48.640 you know he didn't believe anything he said he didn't have a plan but also crucially whenever
00:53:53.200 he came up against pretty much any opposition at all he did nothing about it he just went oh okay
00:53:59.520 he slunk back into his corner and he gave in now the first moment when Andy Burnham tries to do
00:54:05.760 anything that is vitally economically or security wise necessary and he gets pushback from a large
00:54:13.520 number of more left the backbenchers largely being more on the left those backbenchers who thought he
00:54:19.360 was their great white hope the moment he buckles that first time that he buckles he's finished
00:54:25.600 because because all of his backbenchers will know right we've got another pushover we can prevent
00:54:31.200 this stuff from happening and there are an awful lot of people labour party members not so much
00:54:36.080 the voters they're much wiser labour party members um and and many on the back benches of that party
00:54:41.360 and quite a few frankly in the government bench as well who who genuinely think that this stuff
00:54:46.560 doesn't need to be done and you know they are going to be they're going to be realistically
00:54:53.120 they're the ones who are going to be Andy Burnham's enemy not Kemi Bates knock at PMQs asking her six
00:54:58.320 questions not reform in local by-elections in the Red Wall the real enemy that Andy Burnham is going
00:55:03.680 to have to face down is his own backbenchers. But just to pick up on on what you said and also the
00:55:10.160 the point you make because you framed the question as Andy Burnham is going to be seen by Labour 0.92
00:55:15.440 backbenchers as the man who can neutralize sort of polanski and the greens obviously there's an
00:55:21.200 element of that that's not why andy burnham is about to become elected leader of the labour
00:55:27.040 party and prime minister we we saw it yesterday we we saw it this morning at the at the rally we
00:55:33.200 saw it in makerfield andy burnham is the reason why keir starmer is being thrown out of the balloon
00:55:39.840 two years after winning a 400 majority is because Andy and replaced by Andy Burnham
00:55:47.360 is because in the eyes of Labour MPs Andy Burnham has one job and it's not to save them from the
00:55:52.860 Greens although there's a component of that his primary job is to save them from reform
00:55:57.580 and Nigel Farage Andy Burnham rightly or wrongly this morning across the Labour movement is seen
00:56:05.760 as the Farage slayer now whether he is or he isn't we're going to find out in obviously in the next
00:56:12.580 few months and years but that's what to the extent he's going to have a mandate from anyone
00:56:17.600 and I personally have written about this today I mean I think there should be a contest within
00:56:21.580 the Labour Party rather than the coronation but either way the extent to which Andy Burnham is
00:56:26.760 going to have a mandate from his party to do anything it's going to do one thing and that's
00:56:31.140 to defeat Nigel Farage. Now, obviously, he's going to have a lot of problems, to put it
00:56:40.040 mildly, dealing with that. But the majority of Labour MPs understand you do not defeat
00:56:45.660 Nigel Farage by articulating an incredibly liberal view on open borders, or by reopening
00:56:55.160 the Brexit argument. Now, it's not to say there aren't people within the Labour Party
00:56:59.060 who do want to see those those arguments articulated but certainly for the first six
00:57:04.580 to twelve months of a burnham premiership those people will find themselves put pushed to the
00:57:09.620 background if burnham can present himself as as i said someone who can be an antidote to to reform
00:57:18.500 and what i think part of what he will do there will definitely be some in some sort of areas
00:57:23.140 a shift to the left but as we've seen within reform there are elements of reforms policies
00:57:29.380 particularly on the economic side which themselves are quite left ring left wing and kemi badnock has
00:57:34.420 obviously you know done a good job in uh you know articulating critiquing critiquing that
00:57:40.340 so this idea that andy burnham comes in and he's just going to be another starmer liberal lefty
00:57:47.540 that's not going to be his job at the beginning his job is going to be save us from farage and
00:57:52.900 there is an appreciation firstly Andy Burnham appreciates this this himself and the people
00:58:00.020 around him do and also a number of Labour MPs they may not like it but they understand that
00:58:05.060 if they if they do want Andy Burnham to see off Nigel Farage there are certain things Andy Burnham
00:58:11.140 is going to have to do and say that maybe they wouldn't normally feel that comfortable with
00:58:16.420 and certainly they weren't going to let Keir Starmer get away with when Keir Starmer had
00:58:20.340 popularity of minus 44 if andy burnham can rent retain any sort of national popularity and can
00:58:29.380 demonstrate any sort of bounce in the polls at the moment and can in any way narrow the gap between
00:58:35.140 labour and reform then he will he will get a bit of breathing space from his party if he messes it
00:58:41.380 up they'll take his head off but in the short term they'll give him in the short term they'll
00:58:47.620 give him the benefit of the doubt he'll get the breathing space but as soon as he has to make a
00:58:52.740 decision he's going to upset one side or the other and any decision yeah but as i said that's what
00:58:57.940 happened but that's what having the breathing space is he will have he he will be given the
00:59:05.540 opportunity initially if he wants to take it to deal with some to take some difficult decisions
00:59:12.740 And in the short term, Labour MPs will suck it up and see how it how it works out.
00:59:17.760 Now, obviously, if subsequently, you know, if we're sitting here in 12 months time and Andy Burnham is at minus 44, but, you know, personal rating in the polls and Nigel Farage is on 40 percent, we're going to be having the conversation about who replaces Andy and Andy Burnham.
00:59:35.140 but the idea that you know Labour MPs are going to pounce on him immediately and say right you've
00:59:40.800 got to do this you've got to you've got to do that if he does secure the Labour leadership
00:59:47.720 he will have a honeymoon period it won't be a long one but he will. That's one thing the honeymoon
00:59:52.580 period would be different from Labour backbenchers from the voters I mean voters don't expect things
00:59:56.920 to change immediately a lot of people you know may not know much about him you know as we
01:00:02.280 following him closely don't know much about what his policies are but again I simply don't accept
01:00:07.760 that actually that honeymoon can last very long because there needs to be action and when there
01:00:11.480 isn't action he will be blamed for that and when there is action he cannot please everybody all
01:00:15.720 the time and it's very easy when you're the mayor of Manchester to sort of please all these people
01:00:20.180 all the time and you know it's you're not being held to account for you know what money's being
01:00:24.900 spent on defense what money's being spent on health what you know whether the trains run on
01:00:28.760 you're literally not being held responsible for every single thing that happens in the country
01:00:33.800 which what was what happens to a prime minister and and i don't think he's going i just don't see
01:00:39.840 anything from all the things that i think are good about him i don't see anything in there
01:00:44.740 that suggests he is going to be able to withstand it he will do it trust me on one thing and andy
01:00:50.360 burnham has been around politics long enough to know the difference between mayor and manchester
01:00:55.260 and being prime minister of the united kingdom he knows that difference that's a totally fair
01:00:59.900 point but i think uh we've got one minute left i think the point that i agree with julian is this
01:01:05.020 the reason you you mentioned that it's inexplicable to you the hatred and animosity
01:01:09.260 that exists in this country towards gear starmer who let's be honest i don't think most of the
01:01:13.420 public know what he's done he hasn't done anything that they would regard as terrible actually
01:01:18.940 there's not if you said to the ordinary person what is quite a few things they think i don't
01:01:23.740 i don't know about that allowance for elderly people come on a lot of people still talking
01:01:29.740 about that two years my point is bigger than this which is i think the country is in a very bad way
01:01:36.140 in the way that you've actually both articulated and that is where people's frustrations come in
01:01:41.660 kia starmer has borne the brunt of that because he has been in power during the time that that
01:01:46.380 situation has continued to get worse all the previous tory prime ministers before him were
01:01:51.980 also deeply unpopular boris johnson had a very brief period that ended during covet and thereafter
01:01:58.220 and so my point is andy burnham may be a very nice chap who may develop some policies who may
01:02:04.060 get a honeymoon from the labor party but ultimately dan final word to you for literally 30 seconds
01:02:09.660 don't you think he will become keir starman not because he's like keir starmer but because any
01:02:14.700 labor prime minister currently is going to become deeply unpopular because of the situation the
01:02:19.500 the country is in 30 seconds no i don't think he'll become keir starmer if andy burnham fails
01:02:24.340 he'll become even less popular than than keir starmer but that is not that failure is not
01:02:32.340 currently preordained there we go julia hartley brewer dan hodges thank you so much for a great
01:02:39.260 conversation really appreciate you joining us on this friday evening i'm sure our audience have
01:02:43.560 loved this thank you so much for being here thank you
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