Jen Williams

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.

If you're a prime minister who...

a doesn't want to fall on his sword b is trying to avoid falling on his sword c is maybe thinking maybe i actually i am going to have to the one thing you're really not going to want to do is do it in such a fashion as to allow your biggest enemy in politics to come back and take your place especially having already tried once to stop him so i'm interested to in the coming days to understand what exactly number 10's idea of

trying to ensure that mechanism is not there for him, looks like.

But I guess ultimately it will depend on the strength of feeling within the Parliamentary Labour Party.

And I think that is what we're waiting through Friday into Saturday to get a sense of.

And whether or not there are more people like Dave Watts, and whether bigger figures, more household names than Dave Watts, and also the sheer numbers of people who turn around and say, enough's enough, we need Andy Burnham.

I think the, you know, in terms of a seat, I think, yeah, the intention seems to be or have been a seat in Merseyside.

If you look at the results in Merseyside, I mean, the place to kind of point to is Holton, which is like Wigan.

All the Labour councillors lost their seats to reform.

The key one today there will be St Helens, which is the one that gets talked about a lot as a potential Andy Byrne in by-election seat.