Chris Mason

look, you've not done the job.

This is really difficult.

It's easy to chuck ideas in from the sidelines.

Oh, and by the way, if you were doing the job, much of the fundamentals would be exactly... All of the fundamentals would be exactly the same.

So, yeah, I think he...

clearly sees a frustration, not just in the political predicament that he's in, which you would if you were him, but I think he sees, there's an element of him suggesting a certain shallowness to some of the critiques that come his way.

And also the critiques have kept on coming from those potential challengers.

I just noticed Wes Streeting's social media, which is very active all the time, is particularly active this afternoon, and he's saying two things.

One, how come if there's not enough money for defence, the government has today announced £4.5 billion to spend on walking and cycling over the next five years?

Intriguing, because I think as a health secretary, Wes Streeting probably would have welcomed that, because that...

gets more activity into people's lives which is potentially good for the nhs and then the other thing he's talking about is well the prime minister said to you chris that defense is his number one priority recently number one priority was economic growth so have we now got two number one priorities which is a criticism that starmer's faced before i've had too many priorities

And I noticed that the final four words of the West Streeting critique, there's quite a few, isn't there, posts here, but it says, make choices, decide, lead, which I think is a pithy way of saying that the Prime Minister hasn't done any of those things and that West Streeting, he argues, would were he the Prime Minister, which gets us back into this kind of shadow leadership contest, which has been underway for the best part of the month now.

And of course, if Andy Burnham was to enter that leadership contest, first of all, he'd have to win the Makerfield by-election, which is in a week's time.

He'd have to beat Robert Kenyon of Reform UK and the many other candidates who are standing in that by-election.

And you can see a full list of them on the BBC News website or listen to a previous episode of By-Election Cast, where you can hear celebrity guests reading the whole list of candidates.

anyway back to Keir Starmer then Chris you got him on the records to say something that his allies have let it be known a bit for the last few weeks and I'm sure Keir Starmer himself has said personally to a lot of people but hasn't said it to the nation which is he will stand and fight if there is one of those leadership contests

Yeah, and so there's been a consistency to what he has said and his team have said going back months, I think even before Christmas, they were making that clear.

But what's changed as he has been saying that are the circumstances.

And clearly the circumstances have sharpened in terms of the potential likelihood of exactly that scenario.

In other words, a leadership contest.