Jen Williams

It was no secret for a long run up beforehand, but nothing could prepare you for the emotional impact of how terrible that was.

And then everything just went on fire and,

And I wonder whether the emotional impact of actually having somebody demonstrate that they can be reformed might be something that then kind of concentrates minds and actually sort of eases his route.

I completely agree with you, though, Jim, that, like, you know, it's really personal between Kostama and Andy Burden.

Like, really, really personal.

So he is not going to make way for Andy Burnham unless it just becomes impossible.

And he absolutely has to.

And can I ask you, what is the source of that sourness?

I've written something, which probably will have run by the time we go out, that sort of traces a little bit of the history of this.

I think it probably goes back to Andy Burnham not initially agreeing to back him in 2020 for the leadership.

Although he did in the end.

And then subsequently Andy kept sort of making these interventions that just kind of kept making Keir Starmer's life difficult, right, from 200 miles away.

So when Keir tried to sack Angela Rayner in May 2021 and made a mess of it and Angela ended up having a promotion off the back of it.

In the middle of all of that, Andy Burnham kind of came out and went, I don't support what he's doing here.

I don't think that was forgotten.

I think a series of party conferences in which Andy Burnham comes along and sort of has a little circus around the edge and comes out and sort of needles him and says things that are disloyal and then afterwards goes away and sort of says, like, well, I don't understand why anybody thinks that I'm being disloyal.

I think, you know, these things built up.

There was a joke that Keir Starmer told about him a couple of years ago at Number 10 Christmas Drinks that I think went down very badly here.

And that has kind of continued.

It's a joke about football.