If Andy Burnham wins, what next?

The New Statesman. We are recording this about 48 hours from the result of the Make a Feel by election. I'm Will Lloyd, Deputy Editor of the New Statesman. This is the politics show and I'm joined by Alva Rae, our political editor. We have spent quite a lot of time in Make a Feel in recent weeks. Alva, you were there to interview Andy Burnham. I was there to write the cover story of this week's magazine, so we thought it was going to be a time for us to compare notes. We've arrived in very different moods. I think, well, it's interesting. So there's two stories, I think. There's a political story. It's like a pure, high politics moment with like real political maneuvering. And then there's the kind of social story that I've written about this week. But let's start with the high politics. If Andy Burnham wins this by election, what do we think he's going to do? To explain the different moods, so people just don't think there were moody people. I guess it's like because of the way you've just framed that. I guess I am unapologetically incredibly excited for the result of the Make a Feel by election and the entire fallout as basically anyone who loves politics or follows politics will be. Obviously, some people will be kind of despairing if they think that this is completely the wrong course for the Labour Party. We'll talk about that. And some of them will be listening. But in general, I think people are interested are just incredibly excited for a really dramatic time in politics, probably. So I've come back from Make a Feel excited, going back tomorrow. You on the other hand have written a brilliant cover story for this week's magazine. And when we were chatting in preparation for this earlier, I'd think it's fair to say that you were sort of, you were a bit more downcast than I was. I'm quite concerned about the country. No, it's not that it's my job to be concerned about the country. But it's all the fire jobs. Yeah, I think I'm not saying that Make a Feel is uniquely poor or uniquely depressed or uniquely angry. There was a pollster who said as this by election sort of gotten to gear that they felt as if it was actually quite a good proxy for Britain. And so I've written as if Make a Feel is a proxy for Britain. And I do get out of this office and I do speak to people not in big cities and they are quite angry. And I think we all know that, don't we? Because it's been ten years since Brexit, we know that people are angry, they're depressed, they're happy with the direction and nothing ever really seems to change. But, politically speaking, something might be about to change, right? Which is that if Byron and Wins, what's he going to do? Well, this is the thing in terms of just the high politics. This is just, I mean, as you said in your piece, basically, you know, all of the high parable and the sort of all the superlative. So you can't do them enough really when it comes to this by election. Like this is completely unprecedented by election where someone basically aims to become Prime Minister. And so you've asked the key question that basically everyone is asking, which is, I mean, you've said what happened immediately, but I guess the bigger question is, right, if you actually win this by election, how do you then go about becoming Prime Minister? Like, what is his game plan? Yeah. I've been in Westminster all morning and that's what everyone is talking about, and speaking to people for weeks about this. And I think if you'd asked me a week or two ago, I would have said he's going to move immediately. The markets are open at 8 a.m. on Friday morning and they will want some kind of clarity that you don't want the pint of tumble or borrowing costs to rise. And for this to be the kind of chaotic backdrop to a possible Barnum leadership bit, that would be terrible for everyone, terrible for the country of borrowing costs to go up because you just spend more on paying off debt rather than on anything else. Be awful if Keir Starmer stayed on, it would be terrible for whoever became labour leader. And it would be just a dreadful start to whatever Andy Barnum would want to do. Yeah, it'd be the man who crashed the economy. Before he's even actually had any control over the economy. And it could just be the slightest movement and people would be saying, you see, this is like the, this is what instability does. Yeah. I think that's all still a risk. But definitely, you know, people around Andy Barnum were thinking of that. You know, it's not like they are oblivious to the possibility of movements in the markets or anything like that. Not that they have spelt it out in those terms, but more like it's just a fact, markets open 8 a.m. Friday, how will they respond to events? Yeah. I don't think they would suggest for a second that Andy Barnum is going to cause any adverse movements. Of course, nothing, of course. But I think that, you know, there was a sense that he should strike while the iron is hot. Why would you bother waiting the weekend? Why wouldn't talks just start on Friday? I'm kind of talking, so like talks about, is Keir Starmer going to step down or is Andy Barnum, does he have to announce leadership challenge? I think, I think like, well, again, I think people are going to be like, "Oh, I'm going to run Andy Barnum back a few weeks ago, just to talk and not spell out what they meant by it." But what I, in fair from that, would have been Andy Barnum goes and has a chat with Starmer himself. Yeah. But actually, that's all irrelevant. Well, because the state of play recording on Wednesday is that Andy Barnum's team say there are no plans for an immediate challenge. Okay. So, actually, I think that Keir Starmer is positioning and some of the maybe wider chaos of the past few weeks, which on Healey Resignation, Alcarns' Resignation, and just a bit more thinking and strategising on the Barnum team, means that I think that they are hoping that other people move for him and that it's either cabinet resignations or you have a stalking horse like a basically a horse-streeting, doing your dirty work for you, in a sense, by triggering a leadership contest, or you actually just hope that movements like that prompt Keir Starmer to resign himself, even though he's given no indications that he would do that at all. Well, even this morning, he came out and said, "It was almost sort of, it was quite embarrassing." He said, "You know, Ukraine means I can't really stand down, I need to continue to be Prime Minister." What does Starmer say when he's doing? What's he playing at? He's fighting until he can fight no more. And you know what? I am feeling a bit vindicated because I do say this every week on the podcast. And I have been saying it for ages on a different podcast that shall remain nameless. I said, "Keir Starmer is determined to fight. He's not going to go anywhere." You've been forcing us in its January, actually. But the person I was on with, notice respect, and I've said, "Do you really believe that?" And I said, "I do, actually, even if other people in the Labour Party think that's mad." That's just the best account of his state of mind that I've had from multiple sources close to him. But I think everyone has just not really believed it because it is starting to look to a lot of people a little bit crazy, a little bit in denial, like he's in this bunker and he's just clinging on. But I think he does intend to fight it. And for all the reasons that we've sort of repeated at Nal's Yam, that he thinks it'd be bad for the country, that the Tories sort of turned inward, kept changing leader. It looked really unserious. It brought a lot of instability, that Labour needs to show it's different to that. Yeah. Can I test a biographical theory out on you? Someone sent this to me. Keir Starmer, if you look at his life, has never lost. He's just, you know, come from that village in the south, father's a toolmaker, and he rises up through grammar school, all professional life. It's just a series of Keir Starmer winning and winning and winning and winning. He's very competitive. He gets to number 10. He's idiotic Tories. He's cast them out. He's won the biggest landslide since Blair. And then it hasn't really worked in some respects. And someone said to me, he has a decent read on him that he can't accept losing. And it's not really about anything more than just, he's just not used to it. And that's exactly like Rishi Sunak, who had had a glittering career of just pure success. A great marriage. Yeah. My brother Rich is winning the world. But just, you know, he'd had this like perfect career. I've been, you know, was he head boy? I think he was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's a similar type, really. They're not dissimilar. Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer in that regard, until they take on this incredibly difficult job and they find that they struggle in it and become incredibly popular. I like that theory. And I also think, I've also been thinking about this because I was on holiday last week. This like kind of occurred to me. I think that the people who become prime minister, I'm sure there are exceptions that people will write in about it. But the people who become prime minister have a sense that they're destined to become prime minister. And Andy Burnham has that. Definitely. You know, when you look at how he's tried to put, he wears it lightly, if you look, he's tried twice before. Yeah. And he's not given up on it. He really believes he can do it. Nigel Frash, if you speak to the team around him, they really feel like, you know, he nearly died in a plane crash. He nearly died three times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, he's sort of destined to make it to number 10. There's a way that the people around Nigel Frash speak about this being his destiny. Yeah, totally. And then when you apply that secure starmer, I think most people didn't think that was his destiny. But the one person who did was care, starmer. So I really think that he always believed that he could do it. And he was right in terms of winning 2024. And so that thinking still applies. I think he still thinks that he can, if he can tough this out, and then economic indicators start to turn around. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Trust the plan. - Trust the plan, but that actually, then the actually labor shows that it can govern differently to the Tories and start to build on this 10 decade national renewal. I think he really believes that there's obviously clearly a stubborn side that people in number 10 are observing. - Yeah, yeah. - But. - Let's talk about someone else who also feels the hand of history on their shoulder, as clearly has a sense of, I'm destined to be prime minister, which is where's treating. Now, what have you been hearing about him? And possibly a potential deal with Andy Barnum, is that something else that's been floating around? - Oh, yeah, so this is the big, but we're basically we're in like rumor land at the moment because everyone who's fascinated by politics is just thinking, how should Andy Barnum play this? Even the people who are really lost to Kirsta, are game playing it with each other and with me. You know, how would you maximize your chances? And actually a lot of people say you go immediately. And so it's very interesting to me that Andy Barnum's team are saying that that's not his plan. But I think that things will happen without maybe Barnum himself having to instigate them. And I think that obviously where's streeting is a key part of that. That he could trigger a leadership contest as soon as the weekend. We should say that this is not, you know, this is not double sourced from sources, supposed to waste. There's very much speculation because the whole of the Labour Party is speculating. - It's true. - It's nonstop, isn't it? - That I've had, you know, from like Labour advisors and ministers, you know, people in the loop all saying everyone's talking about whether there's been a Barnum streeting deal, whether basically where's is the stalking horse. He gets to say face, you know, he does a bit of a leadership contest. You know, goes over the top, but then he ends up sort of rowing in behind Barnum and getting a good job. You know, some speculation that he could be made defense secretary, which I'm sure John Healey and I'll Collins wouldn't enjoy. (laughing) Or, you know, another person, another journalist suggested to me that the economics speech that straighting made the other day was less about making a leadership pitch and more potentially a pitch for chancellor. Before we go to break, let's talk about that because I think there was an expectation that, you know, when we get through the by-election and say Burnham wins, then he wins a leadership contest that his friend Ed Miliband would then be made chancellor. And you asked him about this, didn't you, when you interviewed him? Or you spoke about Miliband with Burnham, and what did he say? - And I've asked people close to Burnham about this as well. I've got to say, it feels like it's a touchy subject because I think that, you know, this obviously, this all sort of goes what's saying, all the caveats, team Burnham don't want to look complacent. We are the people countering ahead. - Yeah. - So, you know, making a huge assumption here that he actually does win. The labor camp are increasingly confident, but, you know, the people around Burnham, I think, are partly nervous about talking about any of this just because they haven't wanted to look like they're taking voters for granted. - Totally. - And they shouldn't because, you know, haven't we both been there? I mean, it's not, it doesn't feel like it's gonna be a Burnham landslide in Megfield, to me. - What? - I'm less sure on that, but actually, but just on the point of Ryan, who's going to be his chancellor, I think that that's a conversation that people around Andy Burnham have really not wanted to have, which, and I think that that is, dare I say a bit indicative of the fact that we don't really know what Andy Burnham would do fundamentally, if you don't have a sense of who a leader's chancellor of B, I think that makes them a little bit more of a black box. - Yeah, absolutely. - So it's been this assumption for ages, as you say, that Ed Miliband of B, Andy Burnham's chancellor, and yet during the bi-election, Burnham has kind of distanced himself from Ed Miliband. I really gave him an opportunity during that interview when Ed Miliband had just been attacked by Tony Blair. - Yes. - I gave him an opportunity to talk in glowing terms about Ed if he wanted to, and he just said he hadn't made up his mind on North Sea oil and gas. He said, "Oh, look, I have supported Net Zero as mayor, but I have to say he didn't sit with much enthusiasm." And then I said, "Oh, you know, you know why I'm asking, right, the speculation about whether you be your chancellor, whether you sort of sign up to his economic program, a question along those lines." And he just said, "Oh yeah, well, Ed is a friend, but he didn't really comment on the economic vision." - He's a friend, you can be a charge of the British economy. (laughing) - And I get the impression that it's really quite a conscious decision to not row in behind Ed on North Sea oil and gas. So if Miliband were to be chancellor, I'm not sure it's guaranteed that Miliband would get his way on North Sea oil and gas for a start, but actually maybe Ed Miliband is gonna find that he is disappointed, but I think there's already a sense that Miliband put his career on the line to say that Andy should be allowed to stand before. And I think everyone forgets that because Wes Streeting sort of kind of said that maybe Andy Barnum should be allowed to stand in Gortner and Denton, but it was sort of mainly Miliband who said it, and Miliband again, who told Kierstahmer that he should go privately. And so I think maybe even if that's not as clear as with people from the outside, I think maybe for people close to Ed Miliband as a sense he's already put a lot on the line for Andy Barnum. So it's not just this question of will Ed Miliband wield the knife will he resign from cabinet in the next few days? I think there's a sense he's already kind of done quite a bit for him. Interesting. And maybe in the end he just ends up staying at Desnes and finishing that program. And Andy Barnum has his own ideas, but I think that that would be quite a shock to people around Miliband. Interesting. It would be one to watch if all those things happen, which we think might or might not happen. She's got a big way of going, let's take a quick break. Welcome back. Let's talk a bit. OK, so for listeners, let's paint them a scene of Stubbshow Cross working men's club, which is in Ashton & Make field. And it's like any working men's club you've ever been to, apart from something that's been happening during this biolaction, which is that if you go there, it has become Andy Barnum's HQ. And whatever day of the, I mean, even as we're speaking, there will be Labour MPs in there. There'll be Labour staffers in there. There'll be people who used to work for Gordon Brown being up there. Labour adjacent kind of journalists have been up there. I saw quite a famous Cambridge academic in there during the exotic bird auction last Thursday. And this is where Andy Barnum, well, it's hard to, you know better than me, but like Andy Barnum's team are there. So who are the key people you've written about this a bit? I'm so glad that you started on Stubbshow Cross because I'm obviously obsessed with it. Yeah. And I've ended up not writing as much about the play based on the feeling and the working men's club side of things as I had intended to, but you captured it beautifully. It's, it's a, it's like a community and social club now, but yet it's a working men's club. It's proper Labour. Like if, yeah. Proper old school working men's club. I sent you the timetable of what they do every night. Exotic bird auction on Thursdays, two-pind entry. Everyone's amazed to hear about this. That it is literary and auction of live exotic birds. Like parrots and. Amazing parrots. I was very tempted to buy a parrot, but I was told it was a bad idea for me personally to have only parrot for some reason, but fine. I think, yeah. I can actually see it. I love to. I know, we're besides the point. Well, you know where to go if you want one. Yeah, totally. Stubbshow Cross. But it is this, but I actually, we're not just being silly here, it's kind of actually worth dwelling on for almost a minute, but this is the context that you do get between 50 and 100 older not very well off Metin, arriving at Stubbshow Cross on Thursday evenings to bid tiny amounts of money on parrots and other live exotic birds for them to take home to their living room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where they have a whole, you know, what's the collective line of exotic birds, I'm sure? No idea. No idea. But, you know, then they have darts. They have bingo, they're men's mental health openings. Yes. It's this kind of quite unusual relic of a time that's passed for a lot of communities, I think, that working men's clubs have really declined. And this is one last surviving one, which is kind of thriving, actually. And I think there's something kind of poetic about the fact that that is where Andy Burnham's campaign, HQS. He's giving this idea of I can sort of bring labor back. You know, so much of Andy's campaign is about appealing to like the better angels of people's nature. It's about like being together, it's about collective action, it's about you know, don't lose the faith, like the Labour Party is still a Labour Party, it's still a party for working class people to achieve like social and political change. And yes, it's so telling that that would be the HQ. It's so unlike any sort of shop front anonymous building that is the typical bi-election campaign base. So there's that kind of poetic, beautiful working man's club context to it and the surroundings, it's surrounded by fields, it's really, really lovely. But then there's also just the, just if you if you're interested in just the sheer paradigmics of politics, there's something amazing as you say about going to this quite unassuming venue in Ashland Maker Field and having a sense that this is where everyone goes to kiss the rain. The cabinet ministers are going up there trying to get a private word with the big man. They discover they actually can't get Andy Burnham alone in a room without one of two important people who will come on to sitting in with them. They're kind of trying to get clarity about their futures, but they're not really getting it. And I just sat there and watched because it was like it was like seeing such a primal thing of politics, which is just the interpersonal relationships with people and the way people can block people from achieving interpersonal goals. And it was like right there in front of you and you could just sit there and watch it. Yeah, yeah, amazing. And just I'm just I'm just about the journey that and just the way you would see as you say, just so many Labour MPs and advisors, interesting people, you sort of came with academic. I think that just this sense that I really, really hadn't and then I have written a million times that that's like the the real Labour centre of power. It's one of the centres of British politics. Yeah, right now that is the centre of British politics that plays. And in a way it's sort of more relevant than number 10 in terms of where decisions are being made. And I just felt that shift, you know, the kinds of the kinds of faces I saw when I was there were just telling their own story. Yeah, yeah. Some people are just thinking, well, if this goes to the next Prime Minister, well, do what I can see if I can get a job. Yeah, see what's going on. So you ask me to paint a picture of the people. Andy Burnham, top man, goes what it's saying. Yeah. And Kevin Lee is Burnham's longest serving advisor. He's worked with him throughout the Manchester Marloty. He's known him a long, long time. Then the other kind of two key people are Louise Hague, former transport secretary who resigned in 2024. Yeah. The first resignation from Starman's government. Yeah. Big moment. And then Annelise Mitchell, who is the Labour MP for Noesley. And I wrote the column in last week's magazine about both of them because the between the two that they are the political leads, they are basically running Burnham's campaign. Yes. And again, for me, there was just this sort of poetic justice. Let me quote what you wrote. So both of these women were working for Starman initially, or I don't know, less than a year ago or originally was in there quite early on in his leadership. And you say the women once burned by Kirsten and Morgan McSweeney are now at the heart of the operation to remove him. So there is a kind of poetic thing happening there. Well, just that I think maybe it this applies in slightly different ways. I'm sort of there are lots of parallels between the two women, but obviously they they each have their own story. But particularly with someone like Louise Hague, when she was in cabinet, people briefed against her a lot. It was really making sure that she was not afraid that she might soon be out of her job. And that was before her historical fraud conviction came to light and she resigned. There was just a sense, you know, she took the fight to P&O said that she a boy caught it. And she got a very public slap on the wrist from number 10, which Angela Rainer didn't get. And you know, people made it inside her's number 10 inside her's made it quite clear. Privately that she wasn't afraid for it that they were frustrated with the settlement that she'd made over train drivers pay or train staff pay. The you know, she was quite routinely undermined, I would say. I don't think she would dispute that that was the way she was treated. She's been she was really the first and most prominent person to say there's a boys club, the bridge, they're like all these horrible briefings against women and cabinet and so on. And and then she left and she or her friends felt that she wasn't treated very well that you know, I wrote this in the column, you know, Starmer was made fully aware of the circumstances around that fraud conviction at the time. That's what her friends say. And so they think there was a sense that she'd been thrown under the bus. Sorry, transport secretary. But so I think that there's a real sense when you then you're up in Stubbshall Cross. This is like a thing Labour MPs say. Yeah, yeah, from neither camp, from both camps kind of just from across the everybody they say it's just sort of amazing and fascinating and I'm just so ironic to see people who maybe had a part in some of those briefings against her or people who weren't nice about her behind her back. No kind of going and having to suck up to her to get a job. Yeah, she is. She is. She's all flipped around. It's all flipped and she's just holding so many of the cards that you know, she people have assumed rightly or wrongly because we don't know what the final form of Andy Burnham's team would be if he made it to number 10 or whatever. But people just have assumed in the Labour Party that Louise Hague is the person to talk to. She's feeling all these requests for jobs and things from people who maybe weren't so respectful of her a year or two ago. Well, let me so when I was in Stubbschall Cross working with the community club, there is a bar and then there's a room which is closed off to sort of the general public and that's where the by-election Burnham's team were in there and there was a door in which was closed. A door into that like key nerve centre of Burnham World who was sitting outside the door. Louise, she was just sitting there and it was like if you wanted to go in you'd go and speak to her. And I thought wow, again, that's like a pure politics thing, isn't it? Literally a gatekeeper. Yeah, yeah. And then the other gatekeeper is Anilis Midgeley who is the political lead. She brought Louise Hague onto the campaign. So under two kind of sharing control equally. I mean, I'm sure people listening think how long can that last? I think it can last if it's just a by-election campaign. But in general, I feel like when people share top jobs, people end up asking, well, who's the real person in charge? But it seems to have worked and everyone insists that they share responsibility completely equally and they're working pretty closely. And Anilis Midgeley is the less well known of the two because she wasn't a cabinet minister and didn't have this big resignation and just hasn't had the kind of coverage that Louise Hague has had. But she's just as interesting as Louise Hague. And I don't think that that will last for very long. Like she is rapidly becoming. I mean, she's been a very influential person in Labour for a long time, but she's becoming a famous one, I think quite quickly. It was a great line in your piece where one of the sources says she's a rainmaker in a Labour party. So tell us a bit about that. She has been behind so many of the developments that we've all watched play out for the Labour Party and government. So many big and small in different ways. So on the sort of positive united side, the workers' rights bill, for example, she was only in Starmer's office for a few months in opposition before she was basically forced to buy Morgan McSweeney and his allies. And then she went off and worked for the trade union congress and then she stood to be an MP. She was only in that office a few months, but it was her who said, hey, I think maybe we should try to do a new deal for working people. You know, we should come up with this sort of refreshed package of workers' rights for the 21st century that tackles the gay economy, that thinks about the real condition of working people's lives. She got the ball rolling on that with this big trade union background and that has become a really big pillar of what Labour has done in government. You know, Angela Rainer took it on, number 10 didn't want to talk about it for probably its first year in government, but then discovered it was popular with reform voters and I Labour does talk about it even though some businesses aren't that fond of it. CBI doesn't love it. CBI doesn't love it, but Ann Lee Smith, she was the sort of progenitor of that plan with the trade unions and she was also, as a Labour MP, she's been quite key in pushing it behind the scenes. That's just one. Hillsborough Law, she's been, you know, Keir Starmer made that pledge before he entered government that he would bring in a Hillsborough Law within 100 days. That slipped when he got it in and it was Ann Lee Smith's lady, along with Andy Bartonham, who really, really put the pressure on Keir Starmer to deliver it. She's been a really key go between between government and the Hillsborough families and she's really maintained those relationships. So already those are quite two big things that they're Labour Government has been doing that she's been quietly involved in behind the scenes. But then also the welfare rebellion was actually her in large part. Josh Simon stepping down to make way for Andy Barnum, that was Ann Lee Smith's late. And I think that there would be others, you know, because she has never really sought the limelight. Small. She told this friend that you can either, I'm not going to do this guy's accent. You'll have to imagine someone full of personality and character saying this with a sort of ironistic expression. You can either be a good fixer or a famous fixer, which is obviously a bit of a lesson to someone like Morgan McSweeney, who ended up becoming such a famous fixer that he almost eclipsed the principal in Kierstheim. And so she has really always issued the limelight. And I think probably as long as things happen, I don't think that she cares about getting credit for them. And I think I wouldn't be surprised to find out more and more about other things that she has quietly been involved in behind the scenes of the past few years of Labour Government. She has these incredible relationships across the Labour Party and with the Trade Union. She just really understands the parliamentary Labour Party. And so I think probably, I've mentioned things that she's been involved in making happen, rainmaker. But I also wouldn't be surprised if she's been involved in making some things not happen. And calming things down, avoiding certain rebellions. She's just a really, really heavyweight fixer, operator, political to her fingertips. She's an incredible character. That hasn't been covered so much in Labour politics, but who is about to, you know, we started it. Even just, you know, I didn't have enough space in the piece because she was sharing real estate with Louise Hague and we were giving the context of the Barnum by election. But you could write a profile of Anne Lee's made she just on her own. Yeah. Like she's from the poorest constituency in the UK, no Slee, on the Arts Grants of Liverpool. And grew up on an estate there, worked in the Beatles shop, got given free tickets to be does gig by Paul McCartney. Wow. Because he, he just saw these like poor working class girls who could never afford to go on, on their own. She had this career as a DJ, as a music journalist. She used to organise these club nights and Oasis used to go. Wow. And she. Barnum coded all of this. She's like Barnum's Labour coded. Yeah. Well, just, she's just this kind of, but also just in a way this is, this should be classic Labour party because then she went into, into trade unions, rose up, became this kind of phenomenal trade union organise that she's political director at Unite and, you know, I wrote more in the piece, people who go off and read it. I won't, won't go into, go into all the details. But, you know, she was in Lemma Classica's Unite but did something differently, didn't like always work with, didn't, didn't just take directions from Jeremy Corbyn's team, prevented Tom Watson from being a stewardess deputy leader, for example. There are other examples where she just stood her grind and was more of a uniting Labour figure than anything else. She just had this like incredible trade union background was briefly on Starmer's team could have been an asset for all the reasons we've discussed, good at bringing people together, making things happen, did not, you know, I think Morgan McSweeney identified hers and enemy pretty quickly. Someone said to me that Morgan always has to have an enemy. He's one of those guys. And one of those guys, and she, she was the enemy for a bit before she was pushed off it. Then she was off of the trade union congress and there and up she popped again. I think just she was, you know, the, the Starmer team would still have been working with her at the trades union congress, but I think they probably still underestimated her. And up she popped again when she won the selection to be the MP for a nose lay or to be the Labour candidate in nose a this incredible safe Labour seat, one of the safest Labour seats in the country. The Labour MP there had served for four to five to eight years and was retiring. So this is prime political property. And she wasn't the Starmer office favourite. That was Ryan Wayne from the TBI and she just outmaneuvered them, won her selection by a huge margin and boom, now she's a little rampant. And yeah, and now she's fixing potentially for the next prime minister. And has and I would say her talents weren't massively used at any point by a care starmer. Obviously she was briefly in his office and then left. But even as an MP, she's obviously helped with things like Hillsborough and workers' rights, but she's a huge talent and wasn't given a ministerial job immediately, for example. And look, she's just I maneuvered them. I should say actually, I don't think that Louise Hague or Aronnie Smidchley are thinking of this in the same terms that I am. But you can see the drama of it. You can see the flipping and the sense of things changing, which is apparent in this room, just in the physical geography of this room. Like I would imagine that they are not spending long thinking about, oh, hi, hi, isn't this funny that these people who you probably briefed against me once are nice sucking up to me. I'm sure that because the stakes are so high in Make a Field, I could feel that when I was there, that they just have bigger fish to fry. I wouldn't say that what's motivating them is revenge or proving a point, but it's more like look what happens when you don't make use of certain people or their talents, particularly with Annaly Smidchley, where there was no sort of complicated resignation or anything that she's just always been available to help the Labour Party. And they didn't really take her help and my burn and mistaking her help. We're going to take a quick break now. Remember you can listen to the new States from podcast ad free by downloading the new Statesman app. I'm picking up some of the excitement there is in the Labour Party. You know, when these trains got from Houston and everyone's up in Stubbshaw across people, there are people who speak to in there who really think that Andy Burnham wins this by election and the Labour Party can kind of be reborn. But there's another side, isn't there? And these are Labour people as well who will tell you that they feel as if they're watching political suicide on folding in front of them. What's that view like? Have you picked that up as well? Yeah, even just today, from the same people who are happily game playing, oh, what should Andy do to maximise his chances if I were here in my ward, strike while they are in his heart, etc. Yeah, yeah. It's like one part of your brain can enjoy the political strategising and the other half that feels loyal to Keir Starmer can just think that this is completely the wrong move. I think that some of these people think that the obvious worry or the thing to put to them is it not too late already, like the toothpaste is out of the tube. Yeah, yeah. After that week where Streetsing resigned, Josh Simon's resigned to see for Andy Burnham and you know, now with John Healy resigned, I don't know if there is a way of going back to just having Keir Starmer as Prime Minister. I mean, let me just, you know, in Makerfield, if you knock on someone's door and maybe even if they've got an Andy Burnham sign outside that door, anywhere in the constituency and you mention Keir Starmer's name, the response is genuinely visceral and people really don't like him. I was telling you earlier, I met somebody who dislikes Starmer so much that they wouldn't say his name. He was kind of like Lord Voldemort and it was just that man. That man is ruined in this country. That man did this. That man did this. And it does make you think, you know, regardless of how you want to look at Starmer's time as Prime Minister, it's very hard to imagine someone who's that unpopular fighting another general election. You know, it really is. To round off that thought on what are the Keir Starmer loyalists thinking, they're still determined to fight. I think that it depends on exactly who you speak to, but I think that Simon, their heart of heart is no, that it's not going to work out for Starmer. I think summer, thinking, oh God, what happens if I have to work on the Keir Starmer leadership campaign? Yeah. Like what will that look like? You know, I think that there are probably lots of people who think that this is the wrong move for the Labour Party who don't think that Andy Burnham has enough substance or enough of a plan. Who think this is all quite crazy? Who worry about handing too much control to Labour MPs when they feel like they've put in work for years to contain some of the Labour Party's less helpful instinct? Yeah. I think that is the perspective, but maybe the train has already left the station on that. Does it feel like it has? It feels like it has, but I think it's a, I mean, I've said this to these people, I think it's a perfectly legitimate view for people to think, Keir Starmer is the elected prime minister. Why should he make way for this man coming down from Megafield, who's a student of dialection, who's just decided he should be prime minister? It's crazy to change leaders. I think that all of that is a really legitimate perspective. It feels like things are moving without those people and Keir Starmer isn't long for number 10. But I thought an absolutely valid way of seeing politics right now, even though the reason this is happening is because of exactly what you said. Like Labour politicians experience Keir Starmer's unpopularity on doorsteps all the time. Yeah, and his deep unpopularity. I suppose one of the things that maybe a Burnham fan supporter, someone working for him would say is that he does politics differently. And when I was reporting in Megafield, I kept speaking to people who work with Andy Burnham, people who were very senior in, you know, Wig and Council, or two women I met who ran a food bank, and Andy Burnham had sort of helped them get funding. And when they reopen this food bank, Andy Burnham shows up, may have greater Manchester. There's no ribbon to cut, but Andy Burnham insists on pouring the tea for everybody there. And he made a very big point of pouring the tea first for the 97 year old mother of one of the women who ran the food bank. And that kind of personal touch, that really that lodges in people's brains. And they they didn't call Andy Burnham, Andy Burnham or Burnham, they said, Andy, and the way they talked about him, I could tell that they were both sort of worried about him. They felt very personally connected to him. And that's his style of leadership. So when you speak to people in the council, they'll say, it's all listening, it's very personal. You said something interesting to me earlier that if he becomes prime minister, he can't go and do you can't go and portee for every undecided voter in the country. Or yeah, and the way I was with him and he was trying to meet every undecided voter. And if they weren't in, he was leaving them opposed it, no. And I mean, I think I did literally say to him, well, you're not going to be able to go out and meet every voter in the country. And you know, you won't be able to have that personal connection with everyone. And I think that that's so interesting that that was a thing that you were talking about with people and that I was also conscious of when I was out with Burnham because it comes through very, very strongly in Europe, but also anytime I go out door knocking and make a field or anywhere else over the past few years that just that feeling of complete disillusionment with politics, with the political class, with journalists, with the London elite and court marks, just this complete sense of like lack of trust is break on in the relationship. And Andy Burnham has been someone who's sort of managed to overcome it as a municipal politician. But if he enters number 10, can he sustain it? He was really strikingly relaxed when he was like, oh yeah, you know, I haven't waved doing politics. And yeah, I thought it's just not something that worries me. He said, but I think I've said this before on the podcast, reform a really confident that within a few months of him becoming prime minister, if he does, that they can cut him down to size and that they can make him as they put it just another Westminster politician. So that is the challenge for him for the Labour Party for politics in general. I can you have a politician who can you can keep people with him. Yeah, and start stitching things back together. Alva, thank you very much coming in. Thanks for having me. I would see you've been listening to the politics show from the new Statesman with me, Will Lloyd and my colleague Alva Ray. This episode was produced by Robler Mayor and Bieber Kang.