Alastair Campbell

on the current state of affairs.

It should not take the resignation of an honorable man for the realization to sink in that we need this defense investment plan as soon as possible.

So he is respected, but he's also a pretty canny political operator, John.

No, it could be.

Look, if I'm thinking a bit cynically, has he had a conversation with Andy Burnham?

Has he had a conversation with Street?

I don't know.

I don't think so.

Well, hold on though, Rory.

Only if they come in and are able to say, we are going to be spending a lot more than Keir Starmer was going to spend.

And then they have, they then have to have the conversations that Rachel Reeves and others have been having with the other ministers to say, that means taking this from you.

And of course, where the Tories are zeroing in,

inevitably, is on welfare.

The event I did with Mick Mulvaney, the guy who was chairing it, we were just chatting beforehand, and he said, look, I think people have got used to this government.

And by the way, it was another, I did another of my show of hands, yet again, a majority that wanted Keir Starmer to stay, but we'll part that for now.

But he was making the point that he felt that the point at which people in his world started to lose a little bit of confidence was actually the welfare vote,

when the government was trying to get through the welfare changes and a backbench rebellion forced it down.

So all of these problems, the problems that John Healey set out today, the problems that others are setting out, if somebody replaces Keir Starmer, they're going to be in their in-tray from day one.

So the same choices are going to have to confront us.

So we're then back to the question that you and I have talked about basically since day one of this government, is how do you get the economy going again?