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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Page 94, the Private Eye podcast.
Hello and welcome to Page 94. Do not adjust your set. This is a special one-off podcast because of the big news this week. Andy is away because he's preparing to run for the Manchester mayoralty on a platform known as Hunter Murrayism. More details on that as we get it. But for now, Britain has a new prime minister in waiting.
Andy Burnham, who won a resounding victory in the Mayfield by-election and has caused Keir Starmer to resign. I am joined, as ever, by Adam McQueen, Ian Hislop and guest star Matt Muir to talk over the big events of the week. Ian, I want to start with you. You watched Keir Starmer's resignation speech. On a scale of 1 to 10, how moved were you?
Well, I was very moved because it was Monday morning and we get to press Monday afternoon.
Not only did he time it in time for Private Eye Press Day, he actually timed it in the middle of the Private Eye editorial meeting. So there was a pause as we all went and watched it on our telly and then sort of reunited tearfully to say, right, what the hell are we going to do now?
We're recording one day in advance of it landing on newsstands. Did he get the cover?
He did get the cover, but only in the picture of a gilded coach coming into London with the headline, Andy Burnham travels to London. It was a coronation joke, which we were lucky to get. And then underneath it, it said Britain sheds a cure. Surely tear.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of Keir Starmer's resignation?
I thought the best thing that he said was when he went, I've spoken to the parliamentary party about whether or not they want me to lead them into the next election. And I've accepted their answer with good grace.
All 400 of them spoke with one voice. So he said in his speech, the hard work of change was with a singular purpose, not power for power's sake, but to change Britain for the better. So the hard work of change was with a purpose which was change, which sort of tells you everything about the past two years, really. This lack of there's no there there, fundamentally speaking.
It was a noun soup, but I, in a way, I think it maybe was the best speech he's ever given. Not least, it was blessedly short. It had three main points, right? Basically, you've all told me to sod off and I'm in fact sodding off. I would ideally like there to be a contest, not a coronation. Yes. He won't get that one.
And the other thing was, he both did a sort of forward jab at Andy Burnham by saying he sort of essentially was opening nominations for this long period.
Yeah.
But also there was a backwards jab as well at I was the one who transformed the Labour Party. Mm-hmm. It was, what was it, electorally, financially and morally bankrupt. Given that so much of his rhetoric during his time in office has been about putting party behind country, country first. It was a very Labour-y speech.
It was, I changed the Labour Party and now maybe Labour will go on and win a second election.
But that was the bit he was good at.
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Chapter 3: How did Andy Burnham's victory affect the political landscape?
That's the strange thing about it. He was a very good leader of the opposition and he did sort out the party, which was in a terrible state. And then he sort of got into power and didn't seem to know what he wanted to do with it.
I mean, it's part of the general feeling that I know a lot of the electorate do seem to have. The political class currently has become addicted to campaigning rather than governing. And that's sort of been part of his downfall.
Can we have a moment to say the one unifying thing that swept through the country yesterday as everyone watched that statement, which was annoyance with presumably Steve Bray playing the Ode to Joy in the background?
Chapter 4: What were the reactions to Keir Starmer's resignation speech?
Yeah.
Adam, I sense you've got feelings about this.
Well, I had two feelings about it. One was just shut up, just pull his plug out. For God's sake, enough, we get it. I know it's the 10th anniversary and everything. But the other one was, God, it's a banger, isn't it? The Ode to Joy. Really good as anthems go. Right. It's up there with Zadok the Priest, definitely.
But that's a very football-y now. I think if people would have thought that was a sort of World Cup reference if they played Zadok the Priest, don't you think?
I think Coronations was Zadok the Priest, but maybe that's just the circles I'm moving.
Ooh, get you.
I had it sung at my wedding. And so the class hierarchies of the podcast team are revealed.
Enough handle chat. It is handle, right?
Yeah, OK, good. I had it sung when playing George III in The Madness Of, but there we go. Oh, brilliant.
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Chapter 5: What are the main criticisms of Keir Starmer's leadership?
The sentences were long. In they went. And that's a bit of a Tory response.
But he did it.
It proved that he was capable of doing things.
Chapter 6: How does the political class view campaigning versus governing?
But the overall failure is, I think, one of nerve. It's not saying we're bust, but I will do the best I can in the circumstances. It's not saying, why on earth would I appoint Mantleson? It's not taking any of the bolder decisions.
Hang on a minute, so you're about to be mean about it again? Yeah, I was going to say, it didn't last long, did it?
Chapter 7: What role does Nigel Farage play in current political dynamics?
Oh, yeah. And in conclusion... Oh, yeah, sorry.
Matt? I mean, this is a little bit of a... still a negative one, but harking back to right at the beginning of his prime ministerial career, if you will...
cast your minds back to the um the scandal about all the freebies that you were getting remember this is also mean yeah yeah but the thing is you think he looked snappy i mean you know what the duds were beautiful um but no i think it was a good thing because it once again shone the spotlight on donations to political figures and the possible benefits they can know and when we were talking about this earlier um adam very musically said um the star war so farage could run
And, you know, whilst obviously the 5 billion crypto donation story would have been one anyway, you do think that possibly there is... Did you say 5 billion?
That is a story.
That's interesting. Just to be very clear, it was one level of magnitude less than that, a mere million.
I'm going to give him credit for driving anti-Semitism out of the Labour Party and also really purging what I'd see as a kind of crank tendency of the kind of people who do Facebook posts about false flags. You know, he set that as a moral mission.
He said one of the things that he didn't reverse, and he was saying that during his campaign for leader in 2021, that he thought that Corbyn had messed up on that. And he really followed that through to the extent of expelling Corbyn from the party, which is an extraordinary thing to do to your immediate predecessor, who was incredibly popular within the party.
And he did it efficiently and he did it quickly as well. I mean, that was essentially what Neil Kinnock's job was over sort of 10 years in charge of the Labour Party. He was getting rid of militant and the trots and the tankies and all that kind of element. They came back in and were purged, to use the phrase, very, very quickly and effectively by Starmer.
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