Alistair Campbell

He's done a good job in Manchester.

I'll get him in.

And I would also argue, so Al Carnes, for example, is a very good example of where Keir Starmer did reach out beyond the Labour tribe.

But I think it's possible to make the case that he maybe should have thought

Can I get David Miliband to come back?

Can I get Alan Milburn to come back?

And there was something in that, and the control freakery is certainly sort of part of the kind of narrative against Keir Starmer.

But I think on this one, I think it's much, much more complicated than the way that maybe it's been projected.

And if you look at the polling, it says Andy Burnham should be allowed to stand.

Well, fine.

But then you also do have to at least weigh up in the judgment.

The idea of, let's just say Nigel Farage fielded a really strong candidate for Manchester mayor, and let's just say they won.

That's a disaster for the Labour Party and for the country.

So you've got to weigh all of these things up.

So what they've decided, I think, is that the considerable short-term hit that they've suffered and the sense of Andy Burnham now being an even bigger figure,

as a sort of antidote and an opponent of Keir Starmer, they've decided that is better to live with than the prospect, one, of a guy coming in and you just have endless, when's he going to make his move, when's he going to make his move, when's he going to make his move, or a reform win in Manchester.

They are considerable factors that I think they were right to weigh up.

Look, I think he's in a really, really tough place.

And to have gone so quickly from a three-figure landslide majority to this sense of people are having those sorts of conversations.

So I think he's in a really tough place.