[0:00]One week, Kirst lost his deputy prime minister. The second week, he had to fire his ambassador to Washington, DC. So, in this episode of Newscast, the BBC's daily news podcast, we're going to
[0:11]ask what is actually going on in number 10 Downing Street. Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio and we're going to look back at some of the big events at Westminster this week.
[0:21]Of course, the biggest one was Kirstma, the prime minister, sacking Lord Mandlesson, Peter Mandlesson, as the ambassador to Washington DC. All of this happening on the eve of Donald Trump's
[0:33]state visit to the UK next week. What is intriguing about this story is where it has gone. You're hearing lots of whispers in Westminster about the role
[0:43]of a guy called Morgan Mweeny. He's not exactly a household name, but he is the prime minister's chief of staff and has been by Kier Starmer's side ever since he became leader of the opposition all
[0:55]through the election. And people say he's been the real kind of author, if you like, of what Starmerism really is. So the focus has turned on to him because he was involved in Peter
[1:07]Mandlesson's appointment as ambassador. So that's the background. Let's dive into the details now and see what we've learned this week. and two people who've been observing it with their magnifying
[1:17]glasses because that's their job are here in the studio. Sienna Rogers is deputy editor of the House magazine. Hello, Sienna. >> Hello. >> And before that, you were at Labor List,
[1:27]so you were immersed in everything that happened in the Labor Party, weren't you? >> Yes, for many years. It was deeply painful. >> Happy memories? >> Uh, no. >> Okay. And also Patrick Magguire, who's
[1:38]now chief political com commentator at the Times. Hello, Patrick. >> Hello. Um, and you've written a column today kind of summing up some of the stuff that's happened this week. What was your kind of thesis for your column? What was kind of like the like the
[1:49]central thought? >> The central thought was Peter Mandlesson sort of embodies the essential incoherence of this Labor government because in opposition we'd constantly
[1:59]hear, oh, Peter Mandlesson, the old Machavel from the new Labour years, he's pulling Karma strings. He's his crucial adviser. And that was never really true.
[2:09]What was true is he was close to people like Morgan Mcweeny, Karma's chief of staff and other key aids around him. But it was in that difference, you know, he never really had a hotline to the prime
[2:19]minister. The prime minister has long been suspicious of Blairits like Peter Mandlesson because they never really hid their sense that he wasn't up to the job they had done. And that sort of pick and
[2:30]mix approach, you know, you have aids over here who think this, you've got a leader over here who might think something, but we don't really know what it is. everyone's trying to drag it out of him
[2:40]has sort of played out in a way that's more damaging than any scandal which is just this Labor government and this prime minister in particular doesn't really know what it stands for you know
[2:51]one day it's new labor one day it's old labor or blue labor you know it looks to the soft left then it speaks the language of the right on immigration um you know it acknowledges new labor has failed and then imitates it almost beat
[3:02]for beat in presentation >> because what was the phrase you wrote it's the stars government is something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Yeah, exactly. That's and that is that's the fundamental
[3:12]problem. It's not coherent. There's no >> And Peter Mandlesson >> always resent tid or resents, you know, he's still alive. He still does. >> Uh, you know, resents the idea that he
[3:24]was just the spin guy, that new labor was all about spin and presentation. Obviously, it was very good at that. But what it was built on and Mandlesson started this work in the 80s under Kinnick was thinking about Labour's
[3:35]policy from first principles totally remaking it and only then being able to communicate it clearly in a changing world. And that is something Kia
[3:44]Starmmer's Labor Party has never done. So is your your kind of your big argument that that Mandlesson represents a certain kind of bit of the Labor Party
[3:55]and a certain kind of governing and a certain way of viewing the world and how you wield power and Starmmer sort of adopted a bit of that but he's also adopted lot lots of other things and actually really to succeed you should
[4:06]choose one. Yes. Exactly. And he and he and and he didn't learn its fundamental lesson. Now, that's not to say if you did a mandolsonian review of policy from first principles, you might not end up
[4:17]with a with a a menu of policy options that might lean one way on this or another on that. You know, Rachel Reeves of the Treasury would say, "Look, I'm uh deregulating
[4:27]XY Z to drive growth, which is progressive, right? That might seem contradictory for the Labor Party, but there's an internal coherence to it." instead that this Labour party hasn't learned that fundamental lesson about
[4:38]thinking about what it stands for, what the world is, how it's changed from first principles. Instead, it's been all positioning, all tactics. Yes, there's an electoral strategy, but in terms of ideology and what it stands for, it
[4:49]hasn't really picked any option. And that just leaves you totally rless. And that's not being driven by the prime minister as it was by Tony Blair to say nothing of the people around him as was the case with Peter Mandlesson. you
[5:00]know, very influential but not the guy driving that change and embodying the project. Ditto Gordon Brown, you're just going to end up directionless and prone to be blown up to an even greater extent
[5:11]by scandals like this one. >> I mean, we've gone straight into the deep political philosophy stuff, which I mean is very enjoyable, so we may as well keep pursuing it. Um, Sienna, what's the what's the big thing you think has been revealed about how this
[5:22]government works by all the stuff that's happened this week and maybe the stuff that happened last week as well with Angela Rainer? I don't think it has been that revealing in that I think Patrick and I have been saying the same things
[5:33]for a very long time which is th this all all of the kind of failures we've seen from this government so far go back to when Kama was first elected as Labour
[5:44]leader we know just from then that he didn't have a base in the parliamentary Labor party and that has that has some advantages agility
[5:55]um flexibility >> and basically That's because he came to politics quite late. He had his own sort of way of doing things. He wasn't part of like a big group. He hadn't come up through the trade unions. He didn't have
[6:05]loads of mates who were of the same sort of ilk as him. >> Exactly. So, it was really difficult to kind of place him. Most people thought he's basically a Fabian kind of from the
[6:16]middle of the party. Not really soft left, but yeah. Middle Fabian. But he hasn't. You can't really say that he's taken kind of Fabian values and pulled them through in terms of policy. So I think that that would be
[6:27]>> and are kind of like a think tank but also like a tradition of how you view the world. It's a sort of >> Yes. Exactly. Like um contribut contributory principles for example very
[6:38]important to the Fabians. There is a whole kind of policy set there a mindset that you'd come from that I don't think has been particularly evident in this government. So you can't really say that
[6:50]he didn't he I mean he had this kind of obviously he was DPP for a long time. um he wasn't like many of the other kind of
[7:00]Labor MPs, candidates um coming from that kind of particular section in the Labour party where he had the kind of reliable base and because of
[7:10]that Morgan Mweeni sort of picked him and he has made up for the kind of vacuity I don't think it's unfair to say
[7:21]at the center of the Kstama project but I think what we're seeing more and more is that you cannot rely on a labor
[7:30]organizer who is very skilled in many ways good political political instincts in many ways but you cannot rely on him to
[7:40]provide the heart the core of the whole government it's too much to put on one man and yes he's made this extraordinary mistake I would say with Lord
[7:50]Mandlesson's appointment um it seems they did ignore multiple warnings from very credible figures and less credible.
[7:59]>> Um, it's it's a mistake that shouldn't have happened, but why did it happen? And if we look at that, it's because Mweeni is being relied upon far too much. >> And Patrick, just explain why this story
[8:11]about our ambassador in Washington seems in Westminster to be very quickly morphing into a story about Kirst's chief of staff, Morgan Mcweeni. Well, as Sienna was saying there, it's not a
[8:22]secret in Westminster that Morgan Mweeny and Peter Mandlesson are close politically and have been close. Personally, Peter Mandlesson, look, in the first book on the Labour Party I
[8:34]wrote with Gabriel Pogrin, there's a quote from Peter Mandlesson in there saying, "Whoever invented Morgan Mcweeny will get their place in heaven because in Peter Mandlesson's eyes, Morgan Mcweeny was the guy who saved the Labour
[8:44]Party from Corbinism more than anybody else." And that is the key link between Peter Mandlesson and Downing Street Morgan Mweeny and other people to be fair to both of them. Peter Mandlesson's been around a long time. So have many of
[8:55]Karma's aids and members of the cabinet. So he's a very familiar figure, but that relationship is a key one. You know, bouncing ideas off each other, dispensing strategic council in no means
[9:06]sort of saying this is, you know, Peter Mandlesson wants this, Morgan Mween, you tell Kia to do this. It's not like that, but it's a, you know, it's a discussion about ideas and politics and where the Labour Party is going right and wrong.
[9:17]And so when Sue Gray Morgan's predecessor is chief of staff, now Baroness Gray of course um was in Downing Street, Peter Manson's name was not on the short list for ambassador
[9:28]when there was that change over in or coup or whatever you want to call it. Last October, there was a change in approach from number 10. There was a new resolution to find not a career diplomat
[9:39]but a politician who could navigate the choppy waters of a second Trump presidency and Morgan Mrini there's no denial that he was instrumental in
[9:49]getting Peter Mandlesson the job and hindsight it's 2020 yes the links with Epstein were known at the time not to the extent they were now didn't stop Peter Mandlesson you know being widely
[10:00]interviewed and featuring on many outlets and giving advice to you know loads of people Right. And uh so Peter and also was the EU trade commissioner there was that was that was the sort of
[10:12]case they were making in government at the time. Um but given how this has unfolded and given the existing narrative what we've just been discussing now about Morgan Mween is the
[10:23]key guide. Morgan Mween is providing the politics. Morgan Mweeny as the real driver of Kia Star's train as it were. This is all reverberating back onto
[10:34]Morgan Mweeny. Now about that I'd say uh two very short things. The first is this criticism is a hardy perennial. You know there are lots of Labour MPs are uncomfortable with the general direction
[10:43]of the Labour party and sometimes fairly sometimes unfairly pin all those sins on Morg Sweeney. The second thing is, and this is >> because it's a way of criticizing the prime minister without criticizing
[10:55]personally being disloyal. >> Exly. Exactly. Exactly. Right. Critic criticizing the prime minister is career threatening or career ending. Criticizing Morgan Mweeney is not. You can sound off about the chief of staff.
[11:05]Say he's not really Labor. Blow off some steam. That's fine. But it saves you the career threatening risk of criticizing the prime minister. And also in just saying this isn't the Labor Party,
[11:16]absolves you from saying, "Well, this is what I think I do. this I would do this what I how I think we should navigate all this difficult stuff you know it would be better if you know we were just more leftwing that that's the sort of
[11:27]that's the sort of thing so that's not saying there aren't criticisms to be made or mistakes haven't been made it's just a very easy thing for people to do in this scenario and um Sienna in terms of the Mandlesson story do we think it's
[11:38]kind of over now um or is it going to morph into a campaign by people to remove Morgan Mcweeny and also I noticed that the conservatives are trying to keep the Mandlesson thing going and the
[11:49]Lib Dems have joined in too. All sorts of talks about using tactics in parliament to get documents from the recruitment process released. Do you think it's going to have a longer tale?
[12:00]>> Well, I can I can see them trying to use the kind of tricks that Kama used in opposition. Yeah. Very very well. Those kind of parliamentary tactics. And actually this week has been significant
[12:10]in that chem perhaps more revealing than about the Labour party. She this is her best week uh as Tory leader. She did really well at PMQs. She kept her
[12:20]questions very focused on on Mandlesson. Didn't use that scatter scatter gun approach. >> Does the prime minister have full confidence in Peter Mandlesson?
[12:30]>> Mr. Speaker, let me start by saying the victims of Epstein are the forefront of our minds. The ambassador has repeatedly expressed his deep regret for his
[12:40]association with him. Uh he's right to do so. I have confidence in him and he's playing an important role in the UK US relationship
[12:50]>> and uh she understood that she has a real utility in terms of using yes she doesn't have very many MPs but she's still the opposition party and using
[13:01]that >> uh to really put pressure on the prime minister. So I think that's interesting and yes of course they will all be wanting to continue the Mandelon discussion for as long as possible. I
[13:11]mean, her first scalp was Angela Raina and then Mandelson. So, they're going to keep going. >> Although, can the Tories really claim credit for getting rid of Angela Raina? I mean, I was on holiday that week, so I
[13:22]wasn't as steeped in it as you guys were, but to me, it seemed like it was the newspapers that that made the running on that benefited from that. >> Yes. And with Mandolson, it was Labour
[13:31]MPs. I mean, MPs were texting in going, "This is absolutely infuriating. we've got one credible thing which is you know our record on violence against women and girls and we can't get rid of that you
[13:43]know all of those kind of things is really the PLP and the media is lots of factors but of course BNO will be saying this is one thing she can hold on to as a kind of success that she's had >> just rewinding back to the to earlier on
[13:54]in the week um what was the moment where the kind of collective wisdom was oh Mandlesson's got to go because it switched very quickly from he's doing a great job in Washington he helped cement
[14:05]the the unlikely friendship between Starmer and Trump. He got the what they call a trade deal, which people say is actually not really a trade deal, but it is some kind of agreement. Um he's hosting these great parties with tech
[14:16]bosses and then when was the when did the switch get flicked? >> Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's an important point by the way because as I wrote in my column, you know,
[14:26]Westminster's collective wisdom has a habit of shamelessly overcorrecting and I think this is a particularly shameless example. >> In other words, going in massively in the other direction. >> Yeah, it's a huge overcorrection, right? because nobody was saying, "Oh my god,
[14:37]what an insane appointment." when people being invited to those parties or mand. >> Yeah, Morris Plasman was to be fair, although he's never >> the Labour peer who's credited with creating this thing called Blue Labor,
[14:48]which is a much more kind of like right-wing version of Labor. >> He is never afraid to go against the grain to be fair to Morris. Uh but yeah, no one's no very few people uh in the in the mainstream of of Westminster were
[14:59]saying that then. But I think the what set this off was on Monday when court disclosures released entries from the now infamous birthday book Gileain
[15:11]Maxwell compiled for for Jeffrey Epstein and we saw the profane poem written by Donald Trump. But we also saw >> and this was in the early naughties when he turned 15.
[15:20]>> Yes, exactly 2003. And we also saw over I think a do dozen pages a a sort of handwritten sort of quite abstract well it wasn't abstract the pictures were sort of Peter Mandlesson and Jeffrey Epstein and
[15:32]various people a handwritten note from Peter Mandlesson to Jeffrey Epstein which included the words yum yum uh about >> best pals
[15:41]>> yeah best pals uh we love you um and and that sort of why that was significant was because Peter Mandlesson had always stuck to a very deliberate line which
[15:53]was he and he regretted ever being introduced by Jeffrey Epstein by Gileain Maxwell and also which he emphasized in every interview um the harm that Jeffrey
[16:04]Epste had done to young girls that I think gave the impression that he might have been you know a sort of part of Jeffrey Epstein's broad circle of acquaintances >> like lots of people were
[16:14]>> yeah like like you know like Bill Clinton and Senator George Mitchell and you know basically name any American luminary in public life in the last 50 years. Um, but that sort of opened the
[16:25]our eyes or opened sort of people's eyes to a a degree of intimacy that I think lots of people hadn't quite clocked or hadn't been laid out in Peter Mandlesson's own words because we'd seen
[16:36]emails from Epstein about Mandles Mandlesson, but we never seen it set out by Mandlesson himself quite like that. And then these things have an an almost unstoppable momentum. Then it became
[16:46]what more is there to find? Bloomberg uh got a load of emails from Mlson to Epstein between the two of them again from the court disclosures which emerged overnight on Wednesday. Peter Manson did
[16:58]>> well this is the interesting thing about the timeline. What I hadn't quite grasped until yesterday Thursday um is that Bloomberg had got hold of all these emails including the bombshell email where
[17:09]>> Mandlesson said to Epstein in 2008 just as he was about to go to jail you've got to fight this. It's so unfair. They got hold of that on Monday and had approached Peter Manderson in Washington
[17:20]on Monday and he'd acknowledged receipt of the emails but not given them a statement or answered any of their questions. And then he does the interview with Harry Cole from The Sun on Harry Cole Saves the West on kind of
[17:30]Tuesday night. And so he's trying to obviously get get ahead of the stuff that he knows is coming. I regret very very deeply indeed carrying on that
[17:40]association with him for far longer than I should have done and I regret very much that uh I fell for his lies. Uh I fell
[17:51]and accepted asurances that he had given me uh about his uh indictment, his original criminal case uh in Florida. Like very many people, I took at face
[18:03]value what he said. Yeah. And then Harry Cole publishes that email um where he does say, you know, you have to fight for early release. And I think that was
[18:13]the moment the opinion really switched in in the PL, >> the parliamentary labor party. But in the middle of that was Prime Minister's Questions. So the the the birthday book
[18:23]came out on Monday. The Harry Cole interview was a few days after that. Prime Minister's question time was Wednesday midday. And then the email saying, "Oh, you should fight. I don't
[18:34]approve of your you being um convicted was Wednesday afternoon. >> Yeah. At that point and then number 10 got sight of the rest of the Bloomberg emails that evening. I think at that
[18:44]point opinion in Downing Street shifted. It went from a sort of look this is known already. This we already knew this. Yes, it's embarrassing but this is a very important job. We've got a state
[18:55]visit next week which Peter Mandlesson has spent a lot of time organizing. He you know by the nature of his job he's very plugged into the administration. And there's also a tech deal with the US
[19:04]that they're announcing ne next week. So understandably they were reluctant to blow all of that up particularly given the Donald Trump dimension all this right. Donald Trump's position is that the birthday book is forged.
[19:16]>> So you know the star is going to receive a president having sacked his ambassador on the basis of stuff he found out from the birthday book and the emails. And then here's someone with even bigger questions to answer about Jeffrey
[19:28]Epstein. So that's really tricky. But yeah, by Wednesday it was clear to a lot of people in Downing Street and in the broader government, you know, as Sienna says, MPs were up in arms. 50 more than 50 of them told the chief whip up with
[19:39]this we will not put. Um, by that point, it was clear that he he had to go. And that's what happened overnight. But I mean, isn't there some merit, Sienna, to Starmer's argument or the argument that Starmer's friends would put, which is
[19:50]that he was waiting to get more information because actually the birthday book, as distasteful as people found it, wasn't wasn't a crime in itself. I mean, of course, Pete Mandel
[20:02]has not committed any crimes here. I'm being rhetorical. It's like actually the the emails did not exist for everyone to see at the point at which the prime minister was defending Peter Mandlesson.
[20:12]But why didn't they why didn't they read why didn't they know about those emails and why weren't they I mean as you say not much it's really about optics isn't
[20:24]it when you read those messages in the birthday book and then you read the email it's like a you just it's sort of sickening it's it's weird it's creepy it's sort of disgusting to read um but
[20:35]we already knew the facts which were he continued some kind of relationship with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction that was already known. And why was that not a concern until this week? Why does
[20:46]it take being kind of repulsed by some handwritten words and an email to push them into action? >> Well, and it was notable that Downey
[20:57]Street's line after Mandlesson was sacked was pretty nonsensical. It was the prime minister was, you know, hadn't realized that he had thought Epstein was innocent. Basically, it was like, well,
[21:09]hang on. Yeah. >> You already knew that he had stayed at his house after his conviction. So why is it okay if he was friends with him? If he knew he was guilty. >> Well, no. Isn't Couldn't you argue there's a different I mean, we're we're
[21:20]getting really into the weeds here, but um couldn't you argue there's a difference between going and staying at the home of somebody after they've served a sentence and done their time. I mean, people are allowed to be
[21:31]rehabilitated and you can be friends with them after they've been rehabilitated. The thing that that was different was the email. >> That's true. That's true. It's that's
[21:41]another way of putting it. And as a a good lawyer, maybe Stalmer uh saw it that way. Um are there similarities between how the Mandles Mandlesson thing played out and the Angela Raina thing
[21:53]played out? >> Great question. Um I think yes cosmetically in that but I think
[22:04]this is essential of all political resignations or sackings you don't want to happen initially. Karma burnt through a lot of his uh already pretty into the
[22:15]red overdraft of political capital in Angela Raina's case giving a very extravagant defense of her and in Peter Manslson's case giving a very public defense of him. Um and that is why I
[22:26]suspect you know as the front page of the times this morning by my colleagues notes allies of Peter Mandlesson say he feels illreated by the prime minister because it's basically the prime minister will defend and defend and
[22:37]defend you. Say he's got full confidence in you and then all of a sudden >> turn on you. >> Yeah. Turn on you big time and in Peter Mandles's case sack him >> which which is reminiscent of Boris Johnson which is exactly the kind of
[22:48]thing that they do not want to be reminding everyone of. That's what brought down Boris Johnson is, you know, well, more specifically, sending people out to defend something that you then back down on and doing that repeatedly
[22:59]is the best way to ensure that your ministers don't back you anymore. >> Uh, we're not at that point, but you know, it's it's corrosive in terms of the mood of the parliamentary party. I'd
[23:11]also say that the kind of common thread with Angela Raina and Peter Manderson is this the kind of ethical dimension which is more difficult to talk about but it's
[23:22]about the fact that K star is seen as you know a decent guy whose main kind of pitch is he can't walk by injustice and
[23:32]not say anything and he with both of these things I think there is an ethical dimension to them that people felt very uncomfortable that he's supposed to be
[23:44]the rules guy and yet he had to wait until the ethics adviser told him the thing was wrong before he acted in the Raina case and then he had to wait until his MPs and everyone else came to the
[23:55]conclusion it was wrong to act in the Mandlesson case. >> I completely agree and that is the big political risk for for the government. You know why is reform eating its lunch destroying the Tory
[24:07]party and in a position where you know Nigel Farage could conceivably be prime minister at the next election. Yes, immigration is a big issue but it's also this public revulsion at the political
[24:18]clash uh class and the total disappearance of trust in mainstream politics. I mean the details of both these scandals uh and controversies basically could have been written to
[24:28]vindicate Niger Faraj's critique of the political class. You know, one of them by their own admission maintained a friendship. Yes. Which they've apologized for and profoundly regret with one of the world's most notorious
[24:39]pedophiles and the other appears to have engaged in some financial chicainery that other people normal people couldn't have done. All while karma maintains
[24:49]this slightly sanctimonious claim of ownership to what few ethics are left in politics. It's that sort of disconnect and that sense of um everything you described Sienna which is a huge
[25:00]political problem for the government and Karma himself. >> Um in the midst of this have you seen any evidence of the reshuffleled cabinet doing stuff? >> There hasn't been much space for that has there because there has also been
[25:12]>> I mean they must have been going to work. >> Yes. Yes. There's been this um deputy leadership election of course. So this is the the kind of secondary thing we've been talking about this week. Um, you
[25:22]know, at the beginning people really I had so many people saying, "I want Shabban. I'm a mood to do it and yes, of course she can be home secretary and running for the deputy leadership at the same time." I thought, "I'm not sure
[25:33]she's going to run the risk of losing." And >> why did so many people want her to run for the deputy leadership? >> Because she's seen as having very good political instincts. I mean, basically that her reaction to the sentencing
[25:43]council issue. Uh, I don't So this was the idea when the sentencing council were like, "Oh, judges should commission more pre-sentencing reports to look at the background of PE where people have
[25:54]come from and that maybe they'd get a different sentence on the basis of that background >> that they would get a presenting report if they met certain criteria and that criteria excluded certain things and
[26:05]included other things and people are unhappy." Well, like race, but wouldn't include, for example, being workingass or something like that. >> Anyway, don't have to get into that, but people really She squished She squished
[26:16]that really quickly. >> She squished it really quick. >> A new word, squished. She squished that very quickly. >> She squished it. Yeah. Um and other things. She's just seen as like sensible, decisive, and had a difficult
[26:28]brief and and did well in it. >> Um so people really wanted that hap to happen. That didn't happen in the end, I think, kind of predictively, but instead we've got this race between Bridget
[26:37]Phillips, the education secretary, and in the end Lucy Pal um which is interesting. a week ago was the leader of the House of Commons. >> Well, exactly. So, recently sacked from
[26:48]government. So, I'd say like overall this isn't the worst that the contest could have gone for number 10 because you've got two people, one in government, one only recently sacked from government who doesn't hasn't
[26:59]expressed that much in her pitch yet. That might change as she starts to talk to members. Uh but there there wasn't that much criticism of the government there. Well, it's interesting because the the first person out of the gate was
[27:11]Emily Thornbury who went on Laura's show on Sunday and basically massively slagged off the government straight away before she'd even officially entered the contest. So, actually, that's an example of how it could have gone much worse from the the Downing Street perspective.
[27:22]>> Well, Emily Thornbury appears to have overshot somewhat and she also was seen as being too critical of the other candidates. She went straight out the bat and started criticizing Bridget Phillipsson over the send reforms and
[27:34]that was seen quite badly by some MPs. So I you know if the if there had been more time and the the kind of process wasn't so truncated and also of course
[27:45]those early reforms that Kama made when he was opposition leader he changed the rules to massively increase the threshold that they need to get in terms of MP nominations. If none of that had
[27:56]happened, maybe the race would have turned out differently. But um but yeah, Morgan Mweeny had one success over the last week, which was he has proven right in terms of those rule changes and how
[28:07]he crafted um the situation for this exact eventuality and one failure. >> And I mean, where does Lucy Powell sit in this this this race? Because I've seen lots of people saying, "Oh, she's
[28:19]actually like Andy Burnham's sleeper agent in the cabinet." And now she's gonna be basically whenever you see Lucy Powell saying something you should just imagine it's Andy Burnham the mayor of Manchester.
[28:30]>> Well I was about to say I was about you you cut my joke off to the knees when you said where does she sit? I was going to say next to Andy Burnham. Now I I look I know you're a geek Adam and
[28:41]newscast listeners are proud geek. So let me employ uh a comparison I used in the times earlier this week. An analogy from US political history. So listeners may remember or may not remember. I
[28:52]mean, not all them are that old and I imagine very few of them from Alabama. But in Alabama in the 1960s, there was a very notorious governor called George Wallace who was constitutionally barred from running for a second term, but was
[29:03]hugely popular, wanted to maintain his control in Alabama. What did he do? He ran his wife Lerene instead and she became the governor. Uh, and she uh and you know, then she sadly died and then
[29:14]he took back control. Um, some people suspect Nanny Burnham is doing the same thing here. you know, Lucy Pal is his proxy in this contest. Now, I do think that's unfair to Lucy Pal who has lots
[29:25]of experience in Labour politics, has been around for a long time, uh, you know, has obviously served in the cabinet, etc., etc. >> Was that Milliban's chief of staff leader? >> Exactly. Exactly. So, she is, you know,
[29:35]she has a long pedigree in Labor politics. But what is clear is Annie Bernham's intervention last Sunday. He said, I want to see someone like Lucy Powell, Louise Hagen, this race. He set
[29:46]up this group called Mainstream which has really given the government a kicking and Lucy >> yeah they put out a very very pointy statement yesterday about the story >> very punchy stuff. >> Yeah. Accusing you know Ktor of trying
[29:57]to advance the interests of one faction within the Labour party. So Andy Bernham's gloves are off. Now that's not to say Lucy Powell is his placeholder but she's close to Andy Burnham. She
[30:07]might advance some of that critique. As Sienna says, she doesn't have a huge amount of bandwidth to say everything the government's done in the first year is wrong because she was a loyal member of the cabinet until last week. >> She have a bit of latitude, but she'll
[30:18]be backed by Andy Bernham and Andy Bernham will be able to go to places she won't and say we need a northern voice. We need someone who isn't in government to be an honest broker for the members.
[30:29]So that relationship I think is going to be really really key and they could be quite a very a dangerous combination for Karma because I think Lucy Powell is often underrated as a political operator not least because she got well over 100
[30:40]nominations when there are other people around Karma who basically thinks she's a bit of a joke and she's proven she can organize out organize other candidates with bigger names and and bigger media
[30:51]profiles. That that was my takeaway last night when we just finished recording the episode and the final tally of nominations had come in and we were trying to we're all frantically counting how many give us the numbers each
[31:02]candidate and I was surprised how many how many nominations Lucy Powell got. I was like oh she's more popular amongst her colleagues than you might have imagined. >> She did really well. She clearly
[31:12]understands Labour MPs because she knew exactly how to pitch it because they found some of the other pitches. uh they had this Hustings, this online private Hustings um and they found some of the
[31:24]other ones just too critical or full of cliches or whatever. There were various complaints, but yeah, she she knew how to run that campaign. So that's testament to her kind of skills there.
[31:35]Um yeah, I think it's it's really interesting this whole is it a proxy war between Karma and Bernham. Obviously, that's the story that all Westminster journalists want it to be cuz it's more
[31:46]interesting than what the deputy leader race has actually turned out to be. Um, but >> what two men competing against each other rather than the two women that we've actually got competing against each other. >> I mean, to be to be fair, I think it's
[31:58]more about the fact that Andy Burnham has set up this group and they are being so critical uh in a way that Lucy Pal probably won't be, but um the kind of
[32:08]mechanics of it. Lucy Pow, if she does win the deputy leadership, she will get a seat on Labour's National Executive Committee, the ruling body, >> which when I was going back and reading the Labour Party rule book, I suddenly
[32:20]realized that's why it's such an important role. It's not like, oh, if the prime minister falls under a bus, you get to be prime minister because that's that's not how it works. It's actually being there at the top table setting the rules for things or
[32:32]adjudicating on who gets to be a Labour candidate. >> Exactly. So, the NEC oversees things like candidate selection processes. Of course, that is Andy Bernham's route in
[32:41]to the PLP and then perhaps becoming prime minister. Obviously, now Labour MPs are really discussing how would that really work? Would is he waiting for a
[32:51]vacancy? Is he even considering coming in and being a challenger? But then also in order to get a seat, I mean, yes, a Manchester MP would have to stand down
[33:01]um and kind of present this bi-election opportunity, which is perfectly possible, but Andy Bernham would have to take a huge risk in running against Reform, who are obviously doing incredibly well.
[33:12]>> Um, also, would there be any sort of local resentments about Andy Bernham just being given this seat? I mean, there would be a real contest there. certain that nobody would be letting Andy Burnham having have an easy ride in
[33:23]order to come in because that wouldn't be in the interests of any other leadership contenders in the future. I mean, this is all very premature, but this is what people are talking about at the moment. >> It's fun to speculate though, isn't it?
[33:34]Um, let's speculate on where Kier Starmer actually is. I just realized before we started recording, I haven't seen him like not that I hang out with him very often. I don't mean in person, I mean on the airwaves um since Wednesday.
[33:45]>> He's not recording. >> That's quite unusual. No, it is. It is. Um, yeah. I I I don't know. >> Yeah, >> it's it's a Friday. Maybe he's on his way to checkers. Maybe he's doing some
[33:57]like constituency business. I don't know. I mean, and it's quite strange that he hasn't appeared in public once. You know, sacking the US ambassador is a big deal. It's a really big deal. Like,
[34:07]it's not the sort of thing, >> you know, prime ministers often do. It dominated the headlines today and will dominate it, I think, really until he says something. Unless you don't really
[34:18]like the system that kind of forced you to sack the ambassador in the first place, then maybe you're not going to play to it. >> No, but political judgment is about biting your lip and,
[34:29]>> you know, or your tongue. Actually, not biting your tongue, you know, gritting your teeth. There you go. That's the right thing. >> Gritting your teeth and then speaking. >> Yeah, exactly. that that's that's that's
[34:39]the correct uh orthodontic metaphor, >> you know, and then saying, "Yes, I know this annoys me, but it's politically important that I say something because this will just run and run and run. There'll be more criticism of Morgan
[34:50]Sweeney as well, which is destabilizing for the for the prime minister ultimately until the prime minister is frank about what he knew and when and gives an explanation." He's going to have to do that at some point. >> I mean, and also, by the way, ideally,
[35:02]he needs to do it before the state visit. Otherwise, when there's the press conference, what is every enterprising lobby journalist gonna ask about? By the way, you know, do you think it's awkward about the whole Epstein, Mandlesson, Donald Trump thing? He wants to move on
[35:14]and wants the lobby to have had their fill by them. >> And and just quickly before we wrap up, Sienna, actual news today from the ONS, the GDP figures which show the last three months the economy grew a bit, but
[35:24]one of those months it was it was zero. Yeah. And actually, that's yet more pressure on Rachel Reeves and the buildup to the budget. >> It really is. I mean, we knew during the general election campaign when Labour
[35:34]kept talking about the kind of magic growth tree that this was very unlikely and so it has come to be. They're in real trouble and there are a few flash points coming up. Obviously, there's
[35:45]conference but there's quite that's quite a controlled affair these days. It's not very exciting unfortunately for us journalists. But then there's also the budget and if the budget doesn't inflict enough damage then there's the
[35:57]May elections. So this next 6 months is really testy for this government. >> What we're going to hear from Rachel read in that budget next month and you're already hearing it from her uh is
[36:07]all about growth right that is her reputation and thus staked on that one word key cabinet appointments you know you were talking about that earlier Pat McFaden's now leading the department for
[36:18]working pensions but basically they're now calling it the super ministry for growth Steve Reed the environment >> because that's work and pensions and skills. Yeah, Steve Reid moving from environment to housing. Again, all about
[36:29]growth. Emma Reynolds, the new environment secretary, is going to be deregulating in the hope of driving growth. There's lots more the government could do, but what it has done thus far clearly hasn't had the impact they
[36:40]hoped. And they, as Sienna says, they're running out of time before a big and potentially apocalyptic uh electoral judgment on their performance so far. And it might be too little too late.
[36:51]>> Although, let's be honest about next week. Donald Trump is coming to Britain. That's like >> that's the story. >> He is He's like the size of the sun and all of the things we've been talking about are like the size of Mercury in comparison.
[37:03]>> Labour's any sea. >> Exact. Exactly. So that's what I've learned from covering Trump for all these years. It's like he just blotss out absolutely everything else. So I wonder if the world might feel very
[37:13]different kind of next Friday. But let's see. Sienna, thank you. >> Thank you, >> Patrick. Thanks to you, too. Pleasure.