Henry Zeffman

speaker

1,893 appearances 15 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 13 Sep

Henry Zeffman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 15 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 5.

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Newscast · The Starmer-Burnham Defence Handover · 28 Jun 2026 podcast

There is a slightly odd element to this, by the way, which is that...

the House Commons won't be sitting anymore.

So they rise for their summer recess, six or so weeks break, the Thursday beforehand.

So I was speaking to one MP the other day who has reasonable chances, I think, of being appointed to Andy Burnham's government, who said, as a minister, who said, I've booked a flight for the Friday, which is the day the leadership handover happens, but not the prime ministerial handover.

So I don't know if they'll be cancelling it in the hope of being appointed, but...

I mean, you know, I doubt anyone's hearts are really going to bleed for MPs, but they had been expecting that everything would end then.

But also, it just does mean that unless they extend Parliament sitting by a week or so, which they can do, it does mean you won't see Andy Burnham at the dispatch box as prime minister until he's been prime minister for about six weeks.

You won't necessarily have him addressing Labour MPs, telling them this is what I'm going to do.

So it's a slightly odd time to take over.

But then it might also mean that he can spend the summer going out around the country.

And we know that as prime minister, he wants to spend much more of his time generally in Manchester in particular, but also, I'm sure, around the country in general.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think a lot of people in the Labour Party are waiting to see what Andy Burnham's big few things that he announces in his first few days would be that make people go, oh,

This is different.

Perhaps an intervention on the cost of living in some form.

I think that's sort of near certainty, but whatever it would be, I don't know.

But yeah, I think those are crucial days, crucial days that he will be doing without Parliament.

Perhaps that makes it easier, as you say, because he can communicate sort of more directly to the nation from that press conference room or elsewhere without having to refer to people as right honourable gentlemen and ladies.

No, look, I think beyond the defence investment plan, government has slowed down deliberately because an edict has gone out to say they can't make new policy because of the interregnum.

So I actually suspect it is going to become a quieter period on the government front.

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