Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, this is Podsafe UK. I'm Nish Kumar.
And I'm Coco Khan. This week, Keir Starmer is off to visit longtime frenemy China. The last prime ministerial trip was eight years ago.
Chapter 2: What are the implications of Keir Starmer's trip to China?
So what is he hoping to get from it this time around?
And it's been another week of political maneuverings. Suella Braverman joined the conga line of Tory MPs heading towards reform. Meanwhile, Andy Burnham struggles to make his move from the streets of Manchester to the heart of Westminster. Political journalist Zoe Grunewald is here to help us understand it all.
plus the school reforms which could make life for some of the most vulnerable pupils even harder.
And reform mayoral candidate Leila Cunningham's latest promo features a penguin and mountains in East London. Does it make any sense? You'll need to keep listening to find out more. There's a lot to be said about Keir Starmer's leadership style and demeanour. And I'll be honest with you, very little of it is good. This is a man who can make damp cardboard look charismatic.
But this week, he's given us all a gift. An image of what might be the worst Burns Night celebration on record. We can see a sort of blurry Keir Starmer in the back of the shot. But gloriously in focus is a can of Iron Brew, three tea cakes, three caramel wafers and three caramel logs, all from Tunnock's. It's hard to know. Is this paid promo?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is the Labour Party doing SponCon?
I know they said that they were struggling to afford the elections that they've got to fight. That's why Andy Burnham can't stand. But are they now brought to you by Iron Brew and Tunnock's tea cakes?
Well, we absolutely have to bring in political journalist and podcaster Zoe Grunewald, friend of the show, I think is a formal title. Friend of the show, surely. To make sense of this very important moment in political social media history. Welcome back and what?
Yes, I think he's going to get a tummy ache if he eats all that.
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Chapter 3: How is the Labour Party's leadership perceived amid internal conflicts?
Is there something going on? Must we know about this?
Okay, on to more serious matters. The Prime Minister has arrived in China on a massive visit, more than 50 people from the business world to a country we would normally hear described as a threat. This is a really complicated diplomatic needle to thread for Keir Starmer, right? Because the UK government is talking a lot about the threats posed by China.
It's something that comes up in the House of Parliament a lot, but also they are the kind of trade powerhouse in the world right now, Zoe. How complicated is this for Keir Starmer?
Yeah, I think it's very, very complicated. I think there's a few things here. There's firstly the question of what does Keir Starmer want to get out of this visit to China? So I think ultimately, if he can come back with the least amount of drama possible, that in itself would be a win. I think what he wants is some economic wins. More sort of diplomatic normalization.
So this idea that the UK can communicate with China. It doesn't have to be this big deal, which I think is, you know, that's pretty wishful thinking, considering there's a lot of hawkishness, which, you know, you could argue is pretty reasonable amongst UK MPs and the UK public. There's also all the concerns over human rights violations in China.
Obviously, they still have Jimmy Lai, who is the Hong Kong British businessman who is still imprisoned in China. And of course, there's also the question of the US. He has to somehow walk this tightrope of trying to get closer to China for economic reasons without evoking the ire of the toddler in the White House. You know, that is very, very difficult.
Isn't this approach already drawing the ire of the toddler in the White House? I was under the impression that, especially because of this super embassy that's being granted to China, that there's already been murmurs about, you know, if we get closer, that there will be hell to pay. What does it mean for our prospects of economic growth if we end up getting tariffed again by the States?
This is the big question, right? Because I think it was always difficult to try and get closer to China, even without Donald Trump, who is this kind of episodic man who literally will do things on the flip of a coin. He is so, you know, he's so just motivated by how he feels in that moment.
I was thinking about, you know, this relationship between managing Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, and it kind of reminded me a bit of wedding planning. In that you kind of have to make everybody, you know, especially in a blended family, right? You kind of have to make everyone feel included. You have to make them feel valued. But every seating plan could be an insult.
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Chapter 4: What concerns are being raised about special educational needs reforms?
It's Goldilocks. It's Goldilocks.
He's gone to China for a Goldilocks porridge.
I think if he can come back with some investment and no ire from Donald Trump, he'll chalk that up as a win.
Obviously, as a human rights lawyer, it hurts to imagine that he doesn't care about this.
But what can he actually do? I think that's true. I mean, we are deeply economically entangled with China already. Our supply chains, you know, our clean energy technologies, our consumer goods. We have this relationship with China. Whether we like it or not, the question is, how do we use it, right? And I think because we are feeling very...
unstable because of our relationship with the US and how that has changed because we've distanced ourselves from Europe. There is this kind of consensus, I think, that we have to be realistic about that. But you're totally right.
Does that realism come at a cost of ignoring our national security, ignoring the human rights violations that are going on, and ignoring the fact that any relationship we shore up could massively damage another relationship that could then inflict pain on us economically? So it is very difficult to start with.
OK, let's move on to that complicated relationship that you've just alluded to, Zoe. The latest fatal shooting of a peaceful protester by Border Force officers in Minnesota has caused a huge amount of anger and it actually seems to be having an impact on ICE operations in the state.
There's been endless tributes to the victim, an ICU nurse called Alex Pretti. His family called him a kind-hearted soul, a hero and a good man.
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Chapter 5: How does the UK education system impact children with disabilities?
So we'll include a link in the show notes.
After the break, are all the Tory MPs jumping ship to reform, really making it more electable? And what will the King of the North do next?
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Chapter 6: What are the risks associated with the government's proposed SEND reforms?
consternation, whatever, I think things could start to descend very, very quickly into acrimony. I can imagine there being lots of public spats about power grabs, about do we really want someone like Robert Jenrick becoming Chancellor or Home Secretary when he's got the fingerprints of all the mess of the previous government behind him.
So I think this is going to be very, very difficult for Nigel Farage to control. And you have to remember, Nigel Farage is not very good at people management. So... juggling all these egos. I mean, Leila Cunningham said of Jenrick, she didn't want Robert Jenrick in the party when she was asked just a few days before he joined. In my opinion, this could explode. And what were her reasons?
Because he had the failures of the previous Tory government, you know, because he oversaw the immigration system that they view as, you know, having failed. And Suella Braverman is another example of that. You know, she has a lot to answer for in Reform's view when it comes to the failures of the previous Conservative government.
But I'm sure she thinks she is well deserving of a senior position in a Reform government. There are lots of people circling Reform UK. Right. GB news presenters, you know, commentators who think, hmm, maybe I could have a shot in a reform.
I mean, I'm sure there's a few monkeys throwing their shit at people who are watching them in a zoo, thinking, oh, I could have a go at one of these reform seats.
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Chapter 7: What solutions can be proposed for the SEND crisis in education?
I don't know. I mean, you know, think about how many times we spoke about Suella Braverman on this podcast. She is synonymous with cruelty, particularly at foreigners. I think there's loads of people who will like that, who want, essentially, people who aren't nasty people. to foreigners. And then, obviously, they can say, well, they have governmental experience. I don't know.
I think it might be a stronger move than we think.
I don't disagree with you. And I think it actually tells you something about how reform views its own appeal. You know, this is a party that defines itself, not really on what it's offering in the country. I mean, I can't really think of what reform's flagship policies are, apart from just being very, very heavily anti-immigration.
The flagship policy is get them out.
But there's no, like, vision of what it wants Britain to be. This is a party that just defines itself by grievance. and in opposition to things. And I think kicking the Conservative Party is a key part of that. It wants to destroy. It wants to destroy the Conservative Party.
And so every time it gets figures over from the Conservative Party saying, the Conservative Party is dead, you know, give it a good kicking, that plays into those voters who say, do you know what? I want to just, you know, destroy things. I'm not happy. I want to destroy things too. I want to put a boot into the establishment. And I think that's why there is some appeal to this.
And one of the things I would say is I found it very interesting. I don't know if you saw the Conservative press release after Sue Ella Braverman's defection, where they were pretty unpleasant. They said... It was always a matter of where, not if, Suella would defect.
The Conservatives did all we could to look after Suella's mental health, but she was clearly very unhappy, which is an extremely low blow, very unpleasant. I think this shows you how nasty politics is getting because... The Conservatives almost want to play into that. We can be cruel and unpleasant too. If that's what voters are looking for, we can do that.
It's government by trolling, which takes us on to the Gorton and Denton by-election. So on Tuesday, as Zoe's already alluded to, GB News presenter Matt Goodman was unveiled as the reform candidate for this by-election, but it wasn't long until his links to Manchester were being questioned in this clip shared by the Labour Party.
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Chapter 8: What is the current state of political maneuvering in the UK?
Except, of course, you need to think of this decision in context, which is that Keir Starmer has been constantly plagued with accusations of ruthless control over the party for his own and the people around him's sake and not for the good of the party or the good of the country. And I think whatever the rules are about abandoning your mayoralty halfway through, The optics of this are terrible.
Andy Burnham is a popular, autonomous figure. He has a track record of delivering for the people of Manchester. He has experience in government. Equally, local members were cut out of the decision. Andy Burnham has public trust. He's widely liked, which if you're looking at Labour MPs or Labour politicians, there aren't many of them that are widely liked. So it's not good for Keir Starmer.
I think it makes him look weak. it makes him look like he's putting his own interests above that of the party. And I was talking to MPs over the past few days. They're not saying if Keir Starmer goes, they're saying when he goes. The thing they're all waiting for is a viable candidate and a handover that looks... coordinated and friendly rather than like a coup.
And I think a lot of people thought that Burnham was their best bet of doing this. You know, at least they'd get someone in who was widely liked, who they think could take the fight to reform. Keir Starmer has cut that off at the knees. And I think this is going to happen, whether we like it or not. Keir Starmer's going to go. Now we don't know who the candidate is or when it's going to happen.
At this moment in time, I'm not really sure how I feel about it, but I... this is a very small sample size, but when the news broke that Burnham was putting himself forward, I received a few messages about it from my friend who tentatively felt excited.
And that's quite a rare feeling, I think, for people who have voted Labour, who tended to, well, certainly in my friendship group, those who did it, did it, sort of crying at the ballot box. And that feeling of something getting better, I just wonder if that can be found any other way outside of Andy Burnham.
Okay, so there's been a bit of chatter about Angela Rayner since Burnham has been blocked, right? Because this is all about trying to field a candidate for the soft left. And I think the reason why we're talking about that a lot is because I think the thing that feels like it's missing from the Starmer government, I mean, there's a lot of things missing, but in terms of policy is...
those kind of soft left labor values, you know, redistribution, returning to progressive instincts over things like immigration. I think now people are trying to find a candidate to coalesce around. And there is definitely a raft of MPs who would like to keep West Streeting out. So they want to find a soft left MP who can do that. Angela Rayner is coming back in the fray as a potential.
She's got the ear of the unions. She's strong. You know, she's a good communicator. She's done a lot of the good sort of more progressive stuff of this government, like the Workers' Rights Bill.
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