Jen Williams

Sheffield, worth watching today.

Leeds, worth watching for similar reasons.

So I think the green picture will probably crystallise later on Friday.

Yeah, I think the speech that he was supposed to be giving Friday morning, and that cancellation might be more

cock up than conspiracy, to be honest.

Never underestimate the kind of sort of background vibes of chaos around what is not really a particularly big machine, if you can even call it machine, right?

So, I mean, I don't know.

Maybe there was something more complicated going on there, but I don't get the impression that there was.

My sense is actually that the Burnham plan has been to largely keep his head down over this weekend.

And clearly there may then be outriders like Dave Watts who are going to go out and say like, oh, it's terrible, isn't it?

And he needs to go back to parliament.

So fundamentally, he needs a bit of space in order to set out or clear or organise his path back to Westminster in order to do this.

And I thought it was interesting that John McDonnell actually came out and said Keir Starmer should be allowed to stay on for a bit.

It shouldn't go straight away because that would plunge us into chaos.

And of course, that appears to be the thinking in terms of how would we secure a return for Andy Burnham.

We need to make sure that we buy ourselves enough time to ensure that he can get back.

So there's that aspect of it.

I mean, one note of caution that I would sound that seems to quite often be overlooked is just the sheer animosity that Keir Starmer has towards Andy Vernon.

I know it sounds obvious.

I think I've said it on the podcast before, but I think it goes beyond political rivalry.