Oliver Wright

But on the other hand, you know, the polls of Labour members show that he is such an overwhelming favourite that anyone who goes up against him is taking a big risk and the chances are that they will not succeed.

So if you're aware of Streeting, you've got a hard call to make.

Do you...

Go for a campaign in the belief that you might be able to turn things around, or do you try and do a deal with Burnham, get a particular cabinet job, get jobs for your supporters in return for not challenging him?

And those are the sort of calculations that he's going to have to make now.

No, that's right.

And yeah, there is no love lost at all between Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham.

Starmer has felt for a long time that whenever his leadership was under threat or weakened, particularly actually when Labour was in opposition and struggling against Labour,

uh the conservatives that andy burnham was there from the sidelines sniping making um unhelpful comments at party conferences and you know there is there's absolutely no love lost between between the two men and i think it part of the way in which starmer did his speech was to sort of highlight look this is what i've done this is my legacy um you know what comes after this is up to someone else but yeah this is this is what i think i've achieved

They are.

But, you know, let's see where we get to.

I mean, you know, we're in this sort of strange world where, you know, there's only sort of seven points of difference between all the main political parties, including the Greens, actually, the Conservatives, Labour, Reform.

the Greens, all are between sort of 19 and 25 points in the polls.

So everything is extraordinarily unstable in terms of where public opinion is.

So, you know, and the general election is probably, you know, two, three years away.

So I think it's much, much too early to be making any kind of predictions.

Well, as you say, the Cabinet is meeting as we speak, and we have these words from Sir Keir Starmer at the top where he made clear that

Despite more than 81 Labour MPs so far calling for him to go, set out a timetable for his departure, that did not constitute a leadership challenge.

He is saying that under Labour Party rules, 81 MPs have to back a particular candidate.

And that hasn't happened.