Ailbhe Rea

And then they had this weird kind of funereal slash wake atmosphere and it went on and on for hours and hours.

And there was Keir Starmer there and he was there the whole time.

And there was also his wife and children and they were playing on the trampoline and everyone was drinking and then they were jumping and dancing.

And it was a...

People who went described just a really kind of strange atmosphere of just sort of, this is the end.

I can't believe this has happened so quickly.

But also it's inevitable, kind of teary, emotional, happy, everything all at once.

Quite an extraordinary evening, actually.

He's still stationed in this whips office, right?

Well, yes.

I mean, I think they would have to be in the process of trying to get nominations in order to do that.

Yeah, we need more Catherine West, don't we?

Yeah, so they'd have to do that.

And even that, I know that at the moment, everyone's ruled themselves out apart from Al Carnes.

Mm-hmm.

And I think he's, I mean, like everyone was assuming that anyone like Darren Jones, who still was having their kind of name floating around and not preventing that from happening.

It was about job negotiations, obviously, and getting that meeting with Andy Burnham so that they could have a discussion.

Alcarnes, you know, he obviously wants a debate, but whether he'll actually go and seek nominations once the MP nomination window is open is a different matter, I think.

I mean, we will see, but

I mean, nobody thinks that anyone but Burnham could get the 81 nominations required.