Lewis Goodall

conservative 2019 moment where Andy Burnham is Boris Johnson you've basically got a deeply unpopular Prime Minister and you need someone who is perceived to be from the outside with not much association with that government's problems and demerits who can genuinely come in provide a sense of insurgency and say I am fresh I am new I am different and only Burnham can do that so if you wait for that to happen

and they are going to try come hell or high water to make it happen, then your position, Streeting, is lost because there's no way you win it with the members.

The downside, of course, is, as you say, Millie, that the worry for Streeting is that he ends up in a position where he's considered to have been disloyal, that he's not forgiven.

And more importantly still, if he stands now, Rayner, who clearly would prefer to wait,

for Burnham to come in and stand, will feel compelled to stand against him.

And at that moment, all bets are off.

At that moment, it becomes a proper, hugely factional, bloody civil war for the control of the Labour Party, where, by the way, you can't even guarantee for sure that Starmer himself won't stand in that ensuing Labour leadership election.

And he'll try and do what Corbyn did when he was challenged by his MPs, which is to take his case directly to Labour Party members, of whom, frankly, at this point, because the Labour Party has stopped telling us, we don't even know how many of them there are now.

So that constituency would then be deciding, or that electorate, selectorate, would be deciding the fate, potentially, in a three-way contest between...

Raider, Streeting, who knows?

Maybe even Starmer, that it would be chaos.

And I think there are a lot of Labour MPs and what Streeting will be thinking is, will Labour MPs and members forgive me if I ignite and start that process?

No.

That would have been a gutsy move for Starmer today, would have been to say, well...

hint at the idea that he would allow him to do so.

But of course, where he stands... Yeah, try Wales.

Yeah, try Wales.

Try absolutely anywhere.

Indeed.

So I think what is changing, though, I agree.