Where Keir Starmer went wrong | Wes Streeting interview

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The best cabinets have been where there has been a real debate about direction and values and ideas. The tragedy is I can probably count on one hand the number of times that's happened. And I think, well, what's the official cabinet doing if it's not bringing values and political judgement to everyday policy discussions and decisions? When we're streeting resigned from cabinet in May, it put an end to months of speculation. It turned out the former health secretary did one carestarm as job. Since then, the defence secretary John Healey and the armed forces minister Al Cairns have both resigned over the defence investment plan. Carestarm's leadership is looking more and more precarious and that's not to mention Andy Burnham's campaign in Makerfield. In the days leading up to the by-election, West Streeting came into the new statesman Paul Coste studio for an extended interview with our political correspondent Ethan Croft. In the conversation you're about to hear, streeting speaks candidly about the reasons he left government, his views on Carestarm's leadership, and what he believes Labour needs to do to reverse its ailing fortunes. He's also surprisingly complimentary about his potential future leadership rival Andy Burnham. Here's Ethan. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. He's not going to be able to do that. My resignation is at the I can't tell you how much I loved being our country's health secretary. I'm extremely proud of what we delivered in the time that I was in that post. I had a wonderful team with me of ministers, special advisors, and officials. We built a really strong and dynamic team. The results speak for themselves and we've been delivering some of the fastest falls in NHS waiting list for 17 years. It was a programme of both investment and modernisation that's beginning to bear through. I wouldn't state it any more strongly than that beginning to bear through. There's still so much more to do. But I found every single bit of it rewarding and there aren't many people who can say hand on heart that they love every bit of their job and I loved every single bit of my job and I did not resign lightly. But I did so because I genuinely think unless we change we're going to hand this country to a very dangerous form of nationalism that we haven't seen in Britain for decades. I am worried, I should say, I'm frightened actually, of the prospect of a country that is led by Nigel Farage and Reform. We see it with the rising tide of racism in this country and the way in which people who don't look like us have been made to feel there's an open racism in this country we haven't seen for decades. And I think Reform seeks to sow division and profit from hatred. And there are two choices for this country. There is a politics that is based on division, fear, resentment, grievance and there is a politics of hope, possibility, patriotism and seeing in each other what we have in common, not simply the things that divide us and the things that we disagree about. And so there is that's quite a fundamental battle of values as well as ideas and it's what elevates I think the responsibility of the Labour Party beyond the usual political battles we fight with the Conservative Party because as much as I've spent my entire political life fighting the Conservative Party and could spend hours in this interview talking about their failures on austerity, why they're outlook on the economy is wrong, why the damage they do to public services is severe and why we shouldn't give them the chance to do it all over again when we've barely begun cleaning up the mess they left behind. They are nonetheless a mainstream party of the right and we are now in an age of extremes and we have to show that mainstream centre-left politics can deliver and I actually think this is a moment for Labour and this is a moment for social democracy. When you take a step back and look at both the challenges facing this country, the challenges facing the world particularly in the context of this industrial revolution, the fourth industrial revolution, the AI revolution that is going to change every aspect of work and living. This is Labour's time, this is a social democratic moment and we have to demonstrate that the party that was founded in the aftermath of the first and second industrial revolutions to balance the interests of Labour against capital then has an extremely relevant purpose now in an age of automated capital to protect the interests of working people, to make sure that this revolution is one that works in the interests of the many not just the privileged few that spreads power wealth and opportunity, that is a social democratic mission and challenge and it's one that we need to rise to. Is it not the problem for Labour, the real challenge for you or indeed anybody who succeeds in the case of armour that it's falling apart so quickly? I mean the revealed preference to an outside observer of the Labour party now that the Prime Minister's authority is basically collapsed is that you can't fund defence, you can't make sort of welfare cuts which the Treasury deemed to be necessary, the public support for the party has collapsed. I mean the right-wing case against the Labour party now is look at what they've done in two years, they've failed, the economy is not recovering at the pace that they said it would under their government, things are not going well. I mean how do you kind of wrestle this back? That's the really big challenge because if you get into number ten, your interest is going to be full of horrible questions, horrible problems. So how do you kind of prove the doubt is wrong? So let's be clear about the existential challenge facing the Labour party and then let's talk about what we do about it because I actually, and it's not just because I've always been a glass half four optimist, I genuinely think there's a way out of this but it all hinges on how we respond to this moment. So firstly the existential crisis for Labour. Whenever we find ourselves in opposition it is usually because of one or a combination of three questions about Labour. Do you have the right leadership? Can you be trusted with the money? Can you be trusted with our security? And if the answer to any one of those three questions is ever no, Labour loses. And because of the crisis we face this week, people are questioning whether we can be trusted with defence. If we make the wrong choices now, people will question whether we can be trusted with the money. And I think the country just sent us a resounding verdict on leadership because what unites the results in Scotland and Wales and local councils across England in very different parts of the country with very different sorts of political opponents in the forces of nationalism was that the SMP, Plied Cymru and Reform all successfully turned those elections into a referendum on this government and this Prime Minister, even when in Scotland and Wales, they're electing different governments in different countries of the United Kingdom. And so what do we do about it? The first thing is how we conduct ourselves as a party and how those of us who aspire to lead the party in the country conduct ourselves will tell the country whether we can be different to the conservatives. There is a future in the coming weeks and months, which is divisive, creates wounds that don't heal and becomes bitter, personality-driven and factional. And there is an alternative way which sees a leadership contest as being one among friends who broadly agree, share the same values, the same outlook, but might have substantial differences over policy and want to wage a battle of ideas. And engage that battle of ideas in that way, which is open and generous to each other and helps the Labour party to come through this stronger, not weaker, and in a position where we can all unite behind whoever emerges. I've seen the way in which some colleagues have referred to Andy Burnham, for example, as if he is some kind of dangerous radical leftist who can't be trusted to run the country. That's not the Andy Burnham I think I've seen as mayor of Greater Manchester, it's not the one I've worked with as a health secretary, it's not the one I remember from the last Labour government when he served in a cabinet. So let's start respecting each other and respecting the qualities that each of us have, and respect the fact that there is a battle of ideas to be fought, and let's fight it in that principled and substantial way. And then more broadly, what does that battle of ideas need to do? Firstly, I think it needs to set out a real vision for the country and then a plan to get us there. My driving purpose in politics has always been to make sure that more kids from working class backgrounds like mine have the same choices and chances and security and opportunities those from the most privileged backgrounds. And the thing that I think is broken in Britain over and above everything else is that for the first time in our country's history, the next generation are set to do worse than the last. And what is striking about that is that it's not just kids from the poorest backgrounds, like I grew up in, that are feeling that it is those from often comfortable middle class backgrounds who are also feeling the squeeze. And we're seeing a whole generation of people in their teens, their 20s, their 30s, who are feeling all of the pain and none of the gain. And social democracy has to answer the challenges they're facing because it is a fundamentally a challenge of broken markets, the housing market, the higher education sector and the market. And the fact that they are being saddled with debt on unfair terms, the fact that they are effectively living as children into their 30s, still living in the spare room of their parents, not able to put down roots, start a family, have kids. Renting feels as hard as an out of reaches, home ownership, which feels like a desperate pipe dream. You look at where Labour lost in some of these council seats, a common factor there where we're losing to the Greens, with a number of people in their 20s who are voting. So I think that is the fundamental challenge that we need to answer. And if we're not leaving this country better for the next generation, then what is all this for? Ask any good parent, any grandparent, why, what's the purpose of life? People want their children and their grand children to do better than they did. So there's something quite fundamental here. So how do we get there? Well, we need a Britain that grows and grows together. And pre-Iran, there were some signs of the economy moving in the right direction, on interest rates, on inflation. But I think we've got to be honest with ourselves that when we said that growth was a number one priority, we didn't actually follow through in practice. And if the housing market is broken at the moment, the jobs market is going to look increasingly broken as it's hit with this huge revolution in AI. So I think this is a big moment for our economy. And the objective for social democrats is to create a Britain that grows and grows together. And to recognise that yes, the distribution of wealth and opportunity and power matters. But so does the creation of it. And I think that for the Labour Party we've got to be as serious about wealth creation as we are about wealth distribution. And we've got to be clear that you need both growth and fairness. These go hand in hand. There are big dividing lines here, or to our left and right. The Greens don't really believe in growth. They're content to redistribute and ever diminishing number of gains and returns. And I think that is the road to nowhere. And we've seen that actually with Zach Polanski complaining that food is too cheap, for example. I mean, how out of touch can you get when there's an affordability crisis in this country? But to our right to create the conditions for growth, you need an active state with the right policy solutions. The Conservatives don't believe in that kind of state. So I'll be setting out an argument for how Britain can grow and grow together and how we achieve growth, what my theory of growth is and what the political economy of the Labour Party ought to be. And then some of the policy solutions that derived from that. We're going to take a short break. Get all of our political analysis, including polling from Ben Walker and reporting from the ground in Makerfield by becoming a new statesman subscriber. Get your first six weeks for six pounds. That's just one pound a week. Go to newstatesman.com/sixweeks to subscribe today. Join the new statesman and special guests in person at Politics Live on Tuesday, 30 June in central London. Our flagship one day conference addresses the most important topics in UK and international politics. We'll tackle questions like how can the UK become a global leader in clean energy? How can we boost trade and investment in post-Brexit Britain? And how can technology and innovation help our public services deliver for communities? Now let's return to Ethan Croft with West Streeting. If you do become Prime Minister, you've already floated the idea that you might step down the the employer nix increase from the original 2024 budget. That was pitched as a budget for growth and in fact it was more of a budget for the NHS. You've given a huge amount of money to play with partly through those tax rises. But you might step those down, but you're also going to face the next fiscal event will be the first at which the OBL takes into account the effects of the Iran War. Obviously with the spring statement, they said that they weren't given the appropriate time to do that. That's going to be a real crunch moment. So I just wonder how you think it's going to be possible to weather that without being forced into really tough choices straight away. Then Keir Starmler's authority was destroyed and large part by the May 2026 local elections. May 2027. We're going to have this huge round of local elections in which Labour is going to face the high watermark places that it won in 2023 when it was polling so far ahead of the thing. It's a really whoever comes in next is going to have a really tough first year. So what's the kind of way to see my answer? Two things. Firstly, that means that in a leadership debate, we can't just have an auction of the most popular and expensive policies. We'll be doing a real disservice to each other. We've seen that a little bit around the Waspy Women pledge where they were let down twice. The Conservatives let the Waspy Women down. Then Labour had it in our 2019 manifesto. We weren't elected and a lot of Waspy Women were disappointed that it wasn't in our last manifesto and we've not done it. I think the worst thing we could do is make a promise that we then couldn't keep again. And I think that's why Andy Burnham was really clear about ruling that out. I mean, my approach has always been, you might not always agree with me, but you'll always know where I stand. And I can appreciate that Waspy Women will hear what I've got to say as someone who wants to lead the late party and be disappointed. I'd rather disappoint you now and be upfront with you now. Then say something to get your vote and then do something else after I've got it and portray that trust. So that's the approach I'm going to take. I always think honesty is the best policy. And I think we've got to be really careful because I also know that the outlook on the economy is worse than people often assume. So it's not going to be an easy 12 to 18 months for the country. So we've got to be upfront about that. So then you have to say, well, okay, what will we do? And how will things be better as a result of the choices we make? And this is why we've got to be serious about. going for growth and making it genuinely the number one priority for the government. Because when you get growth into the economy, it means you can put more money back into people's pockets and I do think we've got a very heavy and historically high tax burden in this country and we've got an imbalance between taxes on workers and taxes on wealth and we need to address those imbalances. It also becomes easier to invest in public services with the proceeds of growth. So my theory on growth is quite simple. How do you grow an economy? You push the frontier of innovation and actually Britain's got a good starting point on this. We punch way above our weight in the world. We are the European superpower on AI and actually science more broadly. We are just below the United States and China and way above our competitors in 4/5/6/7 place. It's not an unassailable position but it's a great place to start. So push that frontier of innovation. Secondly, you then got to take the best to the rest. You've got to diffuse that innovation across the long tail of the British economy so that you unleash productivity gains that create more growth. And thirdly, you got to invest in your foundation industries. And there is a big opportunity through reindustrialisation, whether that's investing in our defence, investing in our energy security and the race to renewables, whether that's investing in new data centres. There are good, decent, well paid and sustainable jobs, many of which will be in parts of the country where those million unemployed young people live, particularly young men but also young women. And though you've got jobs and opportunities right there, so that's the theory of growth. So then what might some of the policy solutions look like? First of all, talent. In order to punch above our weight in the world, whether that's on AI, financial and professional services, creative industries, you've got to be open to talent. Yes we need to control our borders. Yes we need to deal with the boats. But we should also send a message that Britain is open to the best talent, especially at time when the Trump administration is fairly anti-science. We should be going at that actively recruiting. Those scientists, those technologists in the states who have the potential to be the next Nobel Prize winners and get them here in Britain and scout the rest of the world. So I go harder on a global talent program. I'm to get 20,000 of the most talented people in our country here working in Britain help in create our growth. We also need more mobility within our labour market. So European Union has always talked about freedom of movement across Europe. I think we should be talking about freedom of movement within the United Kingdom. We've got a load of people, often start working in quite unproductive firms by the way, which is kind of dragging down the sort of competition you need to create more growth and productivity in the economy. You've got young people who can't afford to live in places where good jobs are, who can't and workers of all ages who haven't got the transport links to get to decent jobs and opportunities. So we've got to be much more ambitious on creating opportunities for people to move around and live and find decent housing in places where jobs and opportunities are. And on house building, you know, the number of kids living in temporary accommodation has gone up by 11% since this government came in. Those are kids who don't have a decent council flat like the one I grew up in and I wasn't that decent, but compared to temporary bed and breakfast accommodation that kids are living in, damsel up better than that. Whether it's building homes for workers or homes to house our kids, if local authorities were building at the rate of Milton Keynes, we could solve the housing crisis, but they're not. So I'm a big fan of devolution, but if you're not meeting your housing targets, let's take back control to the centre and get Britain building in those places where we need new homes. I'm all in favour of nature and I've done a lot of that in my own boroughs, a counsellor before I became an MP. But have we got the balance right, you know, to build 150 homes or more in this country, have to an environmental impact assessment in the Netherlands. It's 2000 units, 2000 homes. Like why are we slowing ourselves down with our own rules and regulations? We've also got the worst of all worlds where we put barriers in place for developers through a whole load of bureaucracy and we don't even, as the state and as local authorities, appreciate or get a return on the real value of that land in terms of property, you know, the value of the land going up when you've got planning permission to build properties. The law exists for us to do auctions of land that would enable local authorities to take a return on the value of that land with planning permission. Why aren't we using it? It reduces bureaucracy for developers, gets a better return for local authorities to invest in the council homes and public services that people need and often the driver against new development is the concern about will there be the GP practice, will there be the local infrastructure? So we can deal with some of those concerns by getting the housing policy in the right place. And those are just, you know, global talent to recruit the best talent from around the world, like those three things I mentioned to get Britain building on house building again. Both of those things would make a real difference to having the talent we need in the right places to get the economy growing again. I mean, there are other things that I could mention too that would get Britain growing, whether that's science, research and innovation, infrastructure, investment, closer trading relationship with the European Union. There are plenty of pro growth levers we can pull. We've just been too timid and we haven't done it and we've not treated growth as a number on priority, leaving Britain overtaxed and people underpaid and feeling the pinch. So you're saying to me that the kind of the defence might be that you might have to take on quite a lot of sort of vested interests. I mean, it might be now worth talking a bit about your kind of record as health secretary because obviously you did resign on the day when you had that really good news about waiting times. And you mentioned that in your resignation letter. But obviously it wasn't all smooth sailing. You face down quite a lot of strikes from the resident doctors. You kind of abolished or at least started the abolition of NHS England, but then the government's kind of been struggling to kind of make that happen in good time. You've also been criticised by people on the left who instinctively didn't like the association of US tech firms with the NHS and private involvement in public services. Would the West Streeting Premiership actually be quite a kind of a bit, a lot of butting heads and locking horns? I mean, it sounds like you'd actually probably wouldn't be particularly smooth sailing. You have to face down vested interests. You have to do that. And you know, our cons gave an example of this in terms of the defence investment plan. And as I was reading his analysis and talking to him before he resigned about some of the vested interests and professional blushes around the M.O.D., I thought how strikingly similar the Ministry of Defence and our armed services are, the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS. And what Jim Mackey, the chief executive of the NHS and I were doing together, was facing down some of those producer interests, some of those vested interests to champion the goal that we all wanted to see, which was an improving NHS, that backed its frontline staff to deliver better services for patients and liberated staff from the bureaucracy, the dead hand of bureaucracy that holds them back. Very similar. So there's a whole public service reform agenda there, which I think is desperately needed because it does the right combination of improving services for the public. That is what public services is ultimately about. But also freeze up resource at a time when we are hard pressed to invest in the staff and the frontline and the quality of service that people expect. But you know, there are similar vested interests around House Building, there are similar vested interests around migration, there are similar vested interests around our trading relationship with the European Union, there are vested interests everywhere. And your job as politicians is to confront those vested interests, to advance the national interest. And that is absolutely the leadership that I'm prepared to show. And the tragedy is I look around the Labour Party, in the Parliamentary Labour Party, there are loads of our ministers and loads of our bat benches who have the same instincts and have felt actively discouraged from generating new ideas or being prepared to go out and make those arguments. So I absolutely think that that is part of the challenge. And I think to be honest, and. I had this before where, you know, with the NHS England abolition, if I tried to do that by committee and had taken it to the whole cabinet or taken it to a much wider group than the very small number of us who are working on it, I think people said, "Oh, you don't want to do that." That'd be really unpopular and it would be really difficult. Actually, it's the most popular health policy we announced during my time as health secretary with the public and with frontline staff because they love the NHS, they love the people who work in it, they're desperately anxious about its future and desperately dissatisfied with the service or be it patient satisfaction was improving. But they do think it's over managed and there's too much bureaucracy and they're right and they were delighted to see the Prime Minister making that announcement and delighted to see us seeing it through and it will continue to happen. It was a wrench leaving but James Murray, my successor, is going to see it through. He's committed to that reform. Karen Smith, the Minister who helped develop the bill and is seeing it through, is more than capable of driving that change through. And there are two of my brilliant special advisers still there in the Department of Health and Social Care now working for James Murray. So the plan is there and the right team is there, it's going to happen. But we need to see more of that on the public service reform agenda. And we also need to see that in the economic reform agenda and in the growth agenda. And this is classic social democratic space and this is where the Labour Party is at its best when you realise that you have to be both pro-wealth creation as well as pro-wealth distribution. And when you realise that growth and fairness are not in competition, government and business are not in competition, employer and workers do not need to be in competition, then you get the economy motoring, then you have a shared national agenda. And on something like welfare, for example, I think Pat McFadden has actually done a brilliant job in recent weeks to lift the welfare debate out of the hole it was in, which let's be honest, was a crass cost-cutting exercise by Treasury with a policy agenda retrofitted to it through no form of Liz Kendall's hastened to add, who knew what the challenges were and many of us shared those concerns. Pat has turned the welfare reform agenda into a cause, a righteous cause, got a million young people unemployed in this country, we've got to get them to work, it's in their interest and in the national interest. So I think there's a potentially exciting agenda there, that's necessary. But is it sufficient to meet the challenges of the 21st century? I don't think so yet, because where I would take it to the next level is to say, okay, we're at the foothills of this industrial revolution, this AI revolution, which is already beginning to disrupt the labour market and is putting current jobs at risk and not just blue collar jobs but white collar jobs too. So how does government and how do we as society respond to that kind of labour market disruption and dislocation? Well, I think we should be looking to Denmark and their model of Danish fleck security, which they have built over more than a century by the way, which says that you get government, business and trade unions around the same table in partnership and together you negotiate the future of work. And that does mean more flexible employment rights for both employers and for workers to recognise that you need more flexibility in a dynamic labour market, accompanied by better social protection. So if you lose your job, you've got a stronger set of income protections and then you've got active labour market policy. So that you're investing in education, skills, lifelong learning when people fall out of work, there's more active and rapid support to get them into work. I think that kind of approach is going to be more necessary against this backdrop of industrial revolution on a pace and scale we haven't seen before. Now six years ago, as a relatively unknown backbencher writing pamphlets in my spare time, I proposed a good work commission very similar to the low pay commission where you'd get employers and trade unions around the same table with government to work together to negotiate the future of work. I think that's, we should see welfare policy in that space. Of course we want to bring the welfare bill down. No one wants to pay the price for failure because we haven't supported people into work and providing them with good jobs and opportunities. But I think we've also got to see the bigger picture. We've got to see this through the lens of both growth and fairness and actually start to involve businesses and trade unions together much more actively in the development of welfare policies, labour market policies and the growth agenda and that's the kind of approach that I would take. Let's take one more short break. Listen to our podcasts, add free on the New Statesman app, search New Statesman in the App Store or Google Play Store. The government wants to start a new year in 2013. It's a common topic for shops to be able to make a lot of money to work with. It's also a common topic for shops and front-end shops to be able to make money from the market. If the shop has a lot of money, it's a common problem. It's a common topic for shops and we want to make money from the shop. Aloyda, ilo, mine, en coquello, Shopify, puste, gom, sievostol. What are your tickets now at nsmg.live/events? And here's the final part of Ethan's interview with Wes Streeting. It's interesting you mentioned some of you've written six years ago, ideas that you're picking up now for this kind of leadership challenge you're preparing. I just wonder, you came into Parliament in 2015, the same election as Kirstaamat, there's a picture of you both on the House of Commons benches as kind of freshers. You've made clear you have these ideas, you have this obviously, this self-belief in your ability to sort of break through various deadlocks and stuff. But what do you think you understand about politics that he doesn't? What do you think you've learned in the last 11 years about how to do politics that Kirstaam has failed to learn clearly in your assessment of him? All sometimes deride those of us who have longstanding political experience and call us career politicians. As if politics is unlike any other profession and it is a bad thing to have built experience, I think it is a strength to be honest that in my early 20s I was leading a national organisation in the end of the NUS. I cut my teeth in that environment, having to learn how to lead people, to manage people, to make arguments, to prosecute change. I came through local government. I was in opposition. We led Labour to our first ever majority in the history of the London Borough of Redbridge and I served as the deputy leader of the Council and the Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing. I gained experience through doing that. As a member of Parliament, I came in and the Labour Party went through a very difficult period and I didn't always endear myself to the leadership of the Labour Party at the time. I thought the anti-Semitism and the Labour Party while other people ducked for cover. I stuck my head above the parapet and I was prepared to speak up and make arguments as a conviction politician. Whether it is that experience of coming through the NUS or local government, whether it is the people in the parliamentary party who have had experience as trade union officials or people, and this is usually the worst attack you can level at someone is, "Oh yeah, they were one of those terrible special advisers." Well, actually, they're in my experience bloody brilliant and capable and committed people without whom politicians wouldn't be able to be effective. So of course you want breadth of experience and I look around the parliamentary Labour party, it is abundant. There is so much talent. So much experience of life, of different professions, of affecting change in one way or another. There's a wealth of talent there. But you've got to be able to translate life experience and your professional experience outside politics into governing effectively, making arguments, making choices. And being the sector of state health and social care, it was like a weird combination of first and foremost having to be a gladiator. You have to go in every day and you're usually fighting something or someone who's trying to get in your way and you have to overcome arguments to affect change. You have to be someone who gives clarity of vision and direction and you have to set out the plan so that people know the direction they're going in. And with Jim Mackie, the NHS Chief Exit, we did that and we gave people clear marching orders in the system to put in the right direction. But you also have to, as a sort of a political leader, you have to be comfortable of drawing in different perspectives and different points of view and different personality types so that you're open to being tested and challenged and you genuinely hold your ideas up to scrutiny so that people can keep their ties on. That's how you avoid mistakes. And that's the, you know, I'm as a character, you know, people will see the person who's out there making arguments and debating and taking on my political opponents, but there's also a side which is open, inclusive, willing to be challenged, willing to have ideas tested and willing to think again if people are making convincing arguments, you're going to get it wrong crucially before you go out and announce a policy which has been one of the other challenges in this government. I mean, look, sometimes it's brave to do a U-turn. It's brave to say we've got this wrong, we're going to do things differently, but you can't do it all the time. And I didn't mean it in an unkind way when I did a speech, the Institute for Government about how we do public service reform and I referred to the girth program in the NHS get it right first time. And I said, look, I think the government could do with adopting that approach, get it. I didn't mean it in a cruel way, but I did mean it in a challenging way that we have made to many mistakes and had those ideas being put forward for scrutiny, like winter fuel with the original sin of this government dropped out of nowhere. People didn't understand why and what it was for, what was the purpose and what was the end goal, what was and what were the values that underpinned it. There have been other examples too where we've charged ahead without involving our parliamentary colleagues, without gaining their experience and perspective testing things. And then I've had to U-turn. And it's led to a situation where there are lots of people, particularly in your profession, who increasingly characterize the parliamentary Labour Party as if they're incapable of making difficult choices and they just want to tax more and spend more or they can't do welfare reform or they don't want to. It's such a gross caricature of the parliamentary party. They do want to make those choices. They want them to be the right choices. And they want to know that if they're out there making the Labour case and taking on some of those difficult arguments, they're not going to find the next day that the government's U-turned and they're left out there on the field making the arguments looking daft because they were sent out to make the case that the government itself didn't believe in. So there's lots that needs to change about leadership, about policy and about the culture, about the way we build on the strengths of the whole team. And that the Labour Party has a choice itself. We could descend into petty factionalism. Or we can recognise that the different tribes and political traditions of the Labour Party have historically been a strength. They provide, you know, it is I think the Labour Party, the ultimate progressive alliance. It has been for more than a century. Take the NHS, born of an idea that was put forward by the great Liberal, William Beverage, given meaning and expression by Atley and Bevan. You know, that is the fusion of the best traditions of liberalism, social democracy, and democratic socialism. That is the Labour coalition. And that I think is a coalition that when it gets its act together and when it brings the tribes together and overcomes petty factionalism, it changes the country for the better with big bold ideas. And as I said in my speech to progress a few weeks ago, just after I resigned, this is a country that is still capable of doing big things. And in the aftermath of the Second World War, it's the rubble and the ruin. We didn't choose between the defence of the nation and the health of the nation. We recognised the two were linked. We founded NATO, created our nuclear deterrent and built the National Health Service. So when it comes to the defence of the nation and the health of the nation, you can do both and we still can now. You know, we think about the imagination that came with the creation of the BBC. We could have followed the American model and just said leave it to the market. We didn't. We created a public service broadcaster. But again, another great British institution. What does the BBC of the 21st century look like in this online social media information and disinformation age? How do we take the pen back from the tech Brolygarks and write values into the fourth industrial revolution and into the future of online communication and interaction? I think that's where we need to elevate the current political debate from. Because I feel like sometimes we're in a race to the bottom and just trying to scrap over a ever diminishing returns. And that is a model for managing decline, not beating a path to a better and brighter future and a fairer future. And I think there's one thing that we can do, you know, myself, Andy, other people who aspire to lead the Labour Party or to be part of the leadership of the Labour Party or to support the Labour Party and its strengths. So from your grassroots members and supporters, right through to your parliamentary party, your cabinet, your leadership. I think we've got to elevate the quality of the debate and the vision and give this country its hope back and we still can. In terms of the mistakes that were made, which you mentioned just then, when Labour First came into government, obviously one of the problems, I think a lot of people say now, is that Kirstalmore was a bit dishonest when he ran for the leader. Now you've said you want to be honest, even if things are unpopular that you say you're happy for Labour members to know what you think. The other thing which people say that the Starmer leadership black was a kind of intellectual project. I just think, I mean, you've been quite clear there and a lot of things you want to achieve. But you know, you look at Farage and people often say, you know, his inspiration is sort of Enoch Powell and that sort of side of politics. You look at Camille Bade-Knowl she says it's Thomas Sol and that kind of American conservative or libertarian influence. I just wonder if you have a particular, or you know, Blair's got Anthony Giddens or Thatches got kind of Hayek. Do you have a particular kind of school of thought which you're coming from or a particular kind of like philosophical basis to your arguments? Is there anything, does West Ruting go that deep or is it more of a kind of practical thing? I've always kind of seen myself as being from the revisionist tradition of Labour's history. And you know, I look back to, you know, your Tony Crosslands who I think is that, I mean, that book, The Future Socialism is just like utterly seminal. And what's striking about it is still, you know, it doesn't feel dated even in the third decade of the 21st century. I mean, there are some things that, you know, the world has completely changed. I think there's some fundamental values that kind of underpin it. I would also, you know, I'm a mainstream social democrat. I do think though that we, the strength of the Labour Party when we've got this right is that you do draw from the rich intellectual tradition. I don't, and this is where I think there's a difference between being an ideolog and ideologically informed. And I think, and I've always had a kind of an openness to different arguments and have been interested in ideas. But you can draw from and you can do a bit of cherry picking, you know, and our H-Tornies kind of ethically. Christian socialism speaks to me and my values and my faith. Derbin's realism, I think, is a big part of our social democratic tradition. But I also, if I think back to my kind of great Labour predecessor, Nye Bevan, you know, that that cabinet was stronger for the fact that alongside, yeah, at least in your bevins, you had Bevan and that kind of radical challenge. And, you know, I look around the cabinet table that I sat within. And I do see similar heavyweight characters. And, you know, I look at, you know, let's let me just pick out a couple of people who are not entirely from my kind of Labour tribe. Shabbana Mahmoud, she kind of is a, I think, a torch bearer for the old riot of the Labour Party, that kind of, you know, West Midlands, kind of Labour First, kind of industrialist background. But I think she's got a very kind of rich intellectual depth underpins her work. Ed Miliband, a torch bearer for what people kind of characterises Labour's soft left political tradition. Like the guy is always fizzing with ideas. And I think the tragedy, if I think back to the sort of quality of cabinet debate that we've had, when I've been sat around the table over the last couple of years, the best cabinets have been where there has been a real debate about direction and values and ideas. And there's this weird distinction, which I don't think used to exist until the coalition where they had to have like official cabinets and then political cabinets and the Tories and the Lib Dems would split off to go to their political cabinet meetings. There is this distinction now in government between the cabinet and political cabinet. And I think, what's the official cabinet doing? If it's not bringing values and political judgment to everyday policy discussions and decisions. So I do think that that is part of where the government has gone wrong is it doesn't encourage ideas. It almost it's almost disincentivised or discouraged them. And I've heard that a lot. I a new Labour MP came to see me the other day and she's someone who didn't expect to win. She's Labour to the core. She's been involved in the party in different ways over many years. And she said to me, this is the most boring job I've ever had. And my jaw hit the floor. I love being a member of Parliament and I miss government. But you know, I've been felt quite liberating on the bat benches and I've always loved being the member of Parliament for Ilford North. It's my home and I love serving it. There's plenty to keep me busy with. I'm really busy. And I thought, what's going on? And I said, how would you mean it's boring? And she said, I've got loads of ideas. I'm a policy person. And I feel like there's no point in suggesting ideas because people don't want to hear them. And if there's legislation going through and I think it needs to be amended in a certain way, you're treated as like heretic or disloyal if you want to amend legislation. So she said, I feel like I'm going through the motions and you know, I think she's sort of seeing being a member of Parliament as actually being a performance art rather than being a changemaker. And I found that a little bit soul-destroying. And I don't think that's a reflection on her. I think it's a reflection on the culture that we have. And it was a culture that began with timidity and opposition. For reason, I understand, which is you want to show that you're credible, you want to show you can be trusted with the money, you're always worried if you fly a policy kite, your Tory opponents will find the most expensive price tag slap it on and say, there's an unfunded spending commitment. So caution takes over. I understood that. But that culture has carried into government. So we disincentivise and clamp down on ideas and to our detriment, you know, take Josh McAllister's private members bill on banning mobile phones and schools. The zeitgeist of every parent WhatsApp group, something that has actually become a dominant policy discussion. What do we do to keep kids safe online? We could have lent into that as a government. We could have said, great idea. Let's explore that. Josh, make your argument. Let's get Labour MPs out there discussing it. Let's discuss it with our constituents. Run those discussions with your parents and toddler groups like go to do school visit with kids and, you know, talk to people on the doors. Instead, he was told this was really unhelpful. He was told to water down the ambition told he wasn't being a good team player. What does that do for new MPs to say that if you've got good ideas that you're being disloyal? So I think as I say, when you take a step back, you look at the big picture, you look at how the Labour Party is performing at the ballot box and you listen to what our voters and former voters are telling us on the doorstep. Ultimately, the challenges are many mistakes we can list as well as our achievements, but it ultimately comes down to three things, which is leadership, having the right policy and platform and project and thirdly, having the right culture. And on all three of those levels, I don't think we're doing well enough. I don't think we have effective leadership. I don't think there's a clear political project vision direction. And I don't think we've got the right culture. And so to all those people who say, well, you know, probably the government doesn't communicate effectively. That is absolutely true. But there's a reason why we've had umpteen Downing Street communications directors. And it's not because they've all been rubbish. It's because the communication only works. The style only works if you've got the substance. If you've got the leadership, if you've got the clarity, the vision, the direction, the project, that is what needs to change. And it's why the debate about what comes next has to be that. The who is actually a second order issue. And I say that as a person who wants to lead the party in the country, it's the what that matters. And so when there are people who say to me, well, you know, could you work with Andy Burnham or would you consider supporting a another candidate? My response is always the same, which is the who is secondary to the what? Let's set out our stalls. Let's set out our ideas. Let's set out our visions. Let's let's have a battle of ideas where arguments and policies and priorities are tested. Let's do that in a way that builds the political culture that we need to see in the Labour Party. And let's show that leadership is not just about the individual who holds the title of leader. It is about how we show collective leadership. And I think if we get this right, it can be the makings of the Labour Party. It can be transformational in terms of what we're able to deliver over the next three years. And it will see us to a second term and beyond. Get this wrong. And I think it is existential for the Labour Party. And that is why ultimately I left the government. And finally, if your gamble doesn't pay off and you don't, and becoming Prime Minister or even a cabinet minister in a future government, would you be content to return to the back benches and play your role as the. Yeah, I'm not going to take my bat and ball away and sulk. And you know, I'm. Yes, today. I. I took part in the debate about the legacy of Joe Cox. And there are a few things that I thought as I was sat there and I was listening to others and thinking a lot about Joe and the kind of person she was and the example and the challenge that I think her. more in common agenda sets for us. And I thought a few things. One, I'm really glad that I'm able to contribute to the debate as a bat bencher at this moment in time because if I was sat on the front bench as a government minister, I wouldn't have been able to. I would have just. And I really wanted to pay tribute to Joe and. But I just thought, you know, being a member of Parliament is a privilege. And I. I've loved. I've loved it over the last 11 years through the highs and lows and it is a privilege. And I love representing my community. So the idea that, you know, members of Parliament and being a member of Parliament is not a privilege and a massive opportunity to be a changemaker. I. I don't buy. So I'm. I love being a member of Parliament. Secondly, as I sat there, I thought. Life is precious. Joe's not with us. I had a brush with cancer. Life is precious. And the third thing is make every second count and recognize that the challenge she sets for us in terms of that more in common approach to life and politics. It's not. It's not actually a soggy sentimental agenda. It's a really hard one because it acknowledges that we are different, that we do have differences. But there is also more that United system divides us. And how we conduct ourselves and how we do politics really matters. And by the way, the challenge for politics is. And politicians is when you say that, people say, "Oh, but what about the time you tweeted this or what about the time you said that was that more in common?" And the answer is no, but that's what. You know, we're aspiring to be better. and to do better as people, that's life. But I think there is a different way of doing politics and a different way of using the talents of our whole team and uniting the Labour Party, which isn't the unity of the graveyard where everyone has to be robots and all power it from the same script, but it's about drawing from the breadth and talents of the team and the breadth of ideas and the intellectual inheritance of the Labour Party. So, bizarrely, as we sit here today in a very difficult week for the government and for the party, after what have been an extremely difficult few weeks, and if we're honest, a difficult couple of years, I actually feel optimistic and hopeful about the future and not pessimistic or defeatist. And whatever part I am able to play, whether that is now as a bat bencher, whether that is serving in government again, or whether indeed that is leading the party and our country, I will play my part because I think this is existential, not just for Labour, but for the country. I left the government because I didn't want us to give this country to Farage. There are dangerous forces of nationalism at work. Only Labour can face them down, so we have to be the best version of ourselves. And I want to play my part in building that culture, that platform and that leadership, and that is a collective endeavor. No one personal political tradition has a monopoly on wisdom, and that is the spirit in which I'm going to approach the debate about the future. Good note to end on. We're streaming thanks very much. Thank you. You've been listening to the politics show from the New Statesman. I'm a new shakhelean. We're streaming was speaking to Ethan Croft. You can read Ethan's write-up of this interview in the New Statesman, or online at newstatesman.com. This episode was produced by Christoan. The Russian government has been working on the world for two and a half years. Some of the news is that the government is trying to make the world's biggest technology. 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