Alastair Campbell

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?

And

And I think they were doing pretty well on that until the Iran thing.

That has set them back.

But this politically today, West Streeting, clearly it's damaging if you lose a health secretary.

But when the country is in the state that it's in, when the public isn't yet, I don't think, fully educated about the full nature of the threats that we're facing...

I think when your defense secretary resigns and when it's somebody who is actually seen as so loyal and seen as so reliable, that is pretty devastating.

But I don't think he thinks he is going anytime soon.

And he's made that clear.

I think the other thing that I was hearing... Sorry, Alistair, explain that.

Yes, I don't have any doubt that he thinks that.

And the reason I think he thinks that is partly because of this thing that I've been saying to you, that there is this feeling amongst pretty large sections of the public, is the Labour government going to go exactly down the same track as the Tory government and just keep changing their leaders when times get a bit tough?