Emily Maitlis

He's been around a long time.

I just don't think that he would have done this because he's got his eye on what Andy Burnham's next government might look like and how he might fit into it.

I think this is just born of the frustration of what I've heard from so many government ministers now saying that he just can't take a decision.

He's, you know, on the defence thing, he thinks that it ought to be for the ministers from different government departments to sit amongst themselves and come up with a conclusion and just present it to him that we've sorted this out.

It's all right.

We'll get the extra 13 billion for defence by doing this, that and the other.

It's always going to be driven by the prime minister.

And I think it shows his lack of political deafness, his inability to manage relationships.

And this thing that I keep hearing is that Keir Starmer never talks to anybody.

He never has a kind of, you know, look, let's chat about what this problem is and how we're going to solve it and what's the best way.

He reads briefing papers, but doesn't talk to anyone.

And I think that this is just political ineptitude on a grand scale of what has happened, that you end up with John Healey deciding, I can stand it no longer.

And I suspect that John Healey, you know, he had the confidence of his other cabinet colleagues.

They speak very highly of him.

He had the confidence of the MOD.

He had the confidence of the defence industries.

They all thought he was doing a good job.

So I've got to say that I think when Andy Burnham comes in, I wouldn't have thought...

that John Healy would have been the first for the high jump if Andy Burnham is trying to clear out Deadwood and is trying to make spaces for some of the people who he thinks he owes favours to.

I would have thought John Healy would have been one of the safest people to remain in that job, given the sensitivities of NATO, the international framework for things at the moment.