Sienna Rodgers

Parliamentary security could not cope with it.

They were putting up barriers and getting really, really stressed because it was... All the journalists were there.

We were all there.

All the MPs were there.

There were a lot of them, hundreds and hundreds.

But also...

Special advisors, aides, visitors in parliament were hearing, or we might see Andy Burnham, so they were all piling into Westminster Hall.

There was a serious need for crowd control.

And then there was this sort of building anticipation and what entrance is he going to arrive from?

And when he came in, there was almost a sort of Mexican wave.

And there's sort of like eruption through the whole building.

And there was, I mean, there's been a lot of this behind the scenes in the Labour Party in recent weeks.

But the power play and just the human politics of people trying to get to the front of the photo to be near Andy Burnham was hilarious.

Like Angela Rayner arrived quite conspicuously.

conspicuously late with a whole posse behind her and marched straight to the front Rachel Reeves straight to the front Steve Reid who's you know been quite critical of Andy Burnham in recent weeks he was there reasonably near the front campaign team is it true there was a cabinet minister crying yes I put that in the new statesman um cover story this week um

I guess I can't speak for them.

But I think they were sad tears, even though they still turned up for the selfie.

So I think there was a bit of confusion as to the thinking behind that, because there wasn't actually an obligation to go and welcome them.

Andy Burnham there and I think especially with really senior cabinet ministers you know you can assume that they're off doing something terribly important and that's why they can't make it but yeah the emotions were running really high that day and you know just over the road in number 10 there were lots of quite tearful meetings I gather I mean that's probably not surprising to anyone listening but a lot of tears and then about half past four they cracked open the wine and went out into the Downing Street garden and drank until the early hours and

And I think probably few people could blame them.