Julia Hartley-Brewer

we all know and and frankly a lot of the sensible people in all of the political parties there are some that don't have many sensible people except that these are all the things that need to be done but they won't do them now if he is if he is as popular as dan believes he is if he really does have this charisma and this ability and that that can be enough and he's got this vision he does have a plan if that is all the case then he will do some of the things that you were just mentioning and i've been mentioning earlier in the podcast

And he'll be able to do them by saying to his backbenchers, look, I know we care about people on wealth.

We don't want to take anyone off wealth.

I know that we want to spend more on the NHS.

I know we want to do this and that.

And I know we care about the environment, but we need to do X, Y, and Z because this is what the country needs.

And it may not be what we feel like we like now, but we can do it.

Now, a strong leader could do that, could drive that through, would be able to push that through, have the powers of persuasion.

I don't think there's any evidence that he does have that.

And one of the things that I think really did it for Keir Starmer was this U-turn after U-turn after U-turn.

Not only did he not believe anything he said, even speeches he gave, the Island of Strangers speeches, apparently he didn't even believe, hadn't read it.

You know, he didn't believe anything he said.

He didn't have a plan.

But also, crucially, whenever he came up against pretty much any opposition at all,

He did nothing about it.

He just went, oh, okay.

He slumped back into his corner and he gave in.

Now, the first moment when Andy Burnham tries to do anything that is vitally economically or security-wise necessary, and he gets pushback from a large number of more left, the backbenchers largely being more on the left, those backbenchers who thought he was their great white hope, the moment he buckles, that first time that he buckles,

He's finished because all of his backbenchers will know, right, we've got another pushover.

We can prevent this stuff from happening.