Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
Well, Keir Starmer is still fighting to stay on as British Prime Minister as he meets the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, this morning. One of his likely leadership rivals, the pressure continues to mount on the UK Prime Minister as growing numbers of MPs within the party call for him to resign.
I'm joined now by Channel 4 presenter, Matt Fry, who has, like all of us, been watching this unfold all week, Matt. So, Wes Streeting was in there this morning for 16 minutes now. I see the pictures of him walking out of Downing Street now. They're being replayed again and again. He looks pretty stony-faced, but we don't know what happened, do we?
Well, most DHS delivery men spend more time in Downing Street than West Street did this morning.
Chapter 2: What challenges is Keir Starmer facing as Prime Minister?
So it either tells you that he was sacked by the Prime Minister, although you would have thought that by now we would have heard wind of that, or that he, you know, it was a glove in the face, as it were, a leadership challenge. The thing that we thought he was going to do yesterday and bottled out of.
So you're in this extraordinary position where you have a politically crippled prime minister who presided over an historic, not just defeat, but implosion of the Labour Party to reform in much of England, to plight Cymru in Wales. Wales had been ruled by Labour for longer than David Attenborough has been alive. And now Wales is no longer ruled by Labour.
I mean, these are all extraordinary changes. Plus, of course, the challenge of the Green Party in cities like London. And what does Keir Starmer say after all this? He says, I'm going to get on for another 10 years. And we all thought when he said that at the weekend that he was just deluded.
But that is the message, more or less, that he repeated to the cabinet yesterday and still seems to be repeating. And by the way, it seems to be kind of working because there are now 100 Labour MPs who've signed a letter pledging allegiance to Keir Starmer. The few friends he has left have been deployed on the airwaves to kind of fight for him. Nick Thomas-Simmons, the paymaster general,
which is quite an intimidating title in itself, and his closest friend was on the radio this morning saying that he will definitely fight the next election. And he said this minutes after 11 Labour-affiliated unions, and they're enormously powerful in the Labour movement, said, no, he won't be fighting the next election. So you've got a very messy situation, precisely the kind of mess
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Chapter 3: Who is Wes Streeting and what role does he play in the leadership dynamics?
that the government said it would want to avoid because it's the kind of mess that the Tory party subjected us to over and over again.
But there are problems facing all of his potential challengers, aren't there? I mean, we have Angela Rayner with her tax issue and we have Andy Burnham who doesn't have a seat. And Wes Streeting doesn't seem to have the support of the Labour Party members. I thought his announcement of this meeting was really clever, by the way, last night. He just said he was meeting the prime minister.
We got no details as to how it was going to go. So full focus on West Streeting. And maybe that was strategic, like flying a kite.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, West Streeting definitely has a power instinct. I met him when he was a young MEP in Brussels. He's smart. He's impressive. He's ambitious and he's in a hurry. And the hurry has been accentuated by the fact that if there was a contest between him and Andy Burnham, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manchester, who does, as he said, they call him the king of the north.
Well, the king of the north has been scouring the land to see if there's a seat available for him to run in. And it's not that easy, right? And we'll talk about that in a minute. But so Andy Burnham would probably defeat West Street if there was a contest between the two of them. which is why West Street has to get a move on. So I frankly think if he doesn't do it today,
he probably hasn't got the names that he needs. He needs 81 MPs to back him specifically. There are about 100 MPs who don't back Keir Starmer, but not all of them are in favour of West Streeting. So if he doesn't have those numbers, and if he doesn't think he can get to those numbers, he'll probably bottle it and wait for a more open contest later in the year.
And as you said, Andy Burnham needs a parliamentary seat. That does awfully help, doesn't it, in this system? However... Find a Labour MP who's willing to give up their seat to Andy Burnham. One, that's not that easy.
And secondly, imagine if you're Nigel Farage and you've got Andy Burnham, who is the most likely man to lead the Labour Party, who is really very much more popular in the land than Nigel Farage is. Andy Burnham running for a seat wherever it may be, that becomes the proxy for the next general election. That is where the next general election will be won or lost.
And Nigel Farage and the Greens and everyone else will throw everything, including the kitchen sink, at that by-election. to make sure that Andy Burnham doesn't win and gets humiliated.
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Chapter 4: How are Labour MPs reacting to Starmer's leadership?
Not great, is it? I mean, my kids would love it, right? But it's not a great message to send to the heartland of
not particularly and then in the middle of all this you have King Charles going in to make the King's speech there was some reporting last night that suggested that the palace had said can you just leave us out of this well how do you leave him out of it he's got to walk in there and face all of this well Not for the first time, though.
It's been an awkward couple of years since 2016, really, hasn't it, for the monarch to walk in in the midst of political turmoil?
Well, you know what, I mean, the thing is, yes, but, you know, this is a monarch who's just delivered, you know, the best speech of his life to, you know, Donald Trump, you know, and it was a very, it was a velvet-gloved fist in his face and Trump didn't even notice it. He thought it was just one litany of flattery and it was quite the opposite. Stuart liked it, didn't he?
Oh, Rod, Stuart loved it. Yeah, everyone loved it. It was an amazing speech. And it was the perfect speech that someone like King Charles should deliver. Because it was, you know, principled, you know, it was charming, it was full of criticism, but not so much so that, you know, they would chop his head off. Or indeed end the so-called, you know, wonderfully special special relationship.
However, for him to go into Parliament and sit there and read out a speech written by someone else and everyone knows someone else has written it, that is absolutely fine. He is speaking for the government and not for himself as the monarch. So he is literally just a vessel of pomp and circumstance. And the whole thing will be like some sort of absurdist
in a Jacobean drama, you know, where people arrive and say things they don't really mean. And everyone knows the score. So I think that's okay. In fact, if anything, Claire, you could say that pomp and circumstance is the one thing that holds this country together at the moment. You know, we cling to the coattails of the king, you know, as he wanders into the Palace of Westminster.
The bigger issue is what happens, you know, once the king's speech has been delivered, you know, does it actually mean anything? There are going to be 32 new laws announced. And will any of them ever get enacted? by a government that is essentially or a prime minister who is a dead man walking.
I mean, no one in their right mind, you know, if they're not on very heavy medication, believes that this guy will outlast, you know, the autumn leaves of September and October. And imagine the next party conference. Is he really going to stand there and rally the party in October in Blackpool? I don't think so. I mean, listen. I don't think so. I'll leave you with one thought, Claire.
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