Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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As soon as you're into make or break speech territory, it's always break.
That hurts. In the speech is a start. I think people don't want words, they want evidence of action.
Chapter 2: What makes Keir Starmer's speech a 'make or break' moment?
If he wanted a square fight, you know, go and choose a reform seat.
I think you've got to be a bit careful changing leader.
You can't fatten the pig on market day. If Wes has the numbers, he will go for it today.
The election results last week were tough. Very tough. We lost some brilliant Labour representatives. That hurts. And it should hurt. I get it. I feel it. And I take responsibility.
But does he? Does he get it? Does he feel it? And does he really take responsibility? More importantly, can he convince his party and the country that he does?
This was billed as a make or break moment for the Keir Starmer premiership. But no sooner had he sat down that more Labour MPs were calling for him to go. Is it already all over for Keir Starmer? Welcome to the News Agents. The News Agents. It's Maitlis. It's Lewis.
And the Prime Minister waited the weekend to give a vision to his MPs of how he intended to respond to that shellacking that we saw last week, where in so many places across the country, the Labour Party was destroyed, was completely wiped out at local government level. He said that he would not walk away from what he described as the battle for Britain's soul.
But as I said, almost as soon as he had sat down, we had more Labour MPs saying that in one form or another, they felt that the Prime Minister ought to step down, or at the very least, ought to set out a timetable for his resignation.
And at the time of recording, just gone 2 o'clock on Monday afternoon, more than 50 Labour MPs of just over 400 had in some way indicated that they wanted him to go.
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Chapter 3: How are Labour MPs reacting to Starmer's leadership?
Yeah. And instead of kind of turning that into an action or a move or just a beautiful piece of... of rhetoric. He just stood up and said, this is no time for instrumentalism and we need to be bolder and we need to place labour at the heart of Britain, at the heart of Europe. And you're still kind of sitting there scratching your head going, yeah, where? Well, where? You know, where is the thing?
Where is the move? Where is the bold? Where is the... And then he sort of fell back onto what he quite often does, which is the why. I think we're past why. You know, people want to know why their living standards are lower. No, they don't. They get why. We don't need to hear about COVID. We don't need to hear about the war in Ukraine. We don't need to hear about Ukraine.
We want to hear about what's going to change now, now, now. The urgency, the change, the move, the big, massive idea that is going to get us to the next place. And I think that was still missing from the speech. And so anyone who said afterwards, Oh, that really, yeah, kind of really sorted things out. I honestly think was kind of kidding themselves.
Yeah, I think the Prime Minister made two big mistakes over the course of the last 72 hours. One was to allow the sort of speculation about the speech to build up. You know, as soon as you're into make or break speech territory, it's always break. Nearly always break. Certainly for most politicians.
Certainly, really, I'm afraid for Keir Starmer because it's very hard to see what in one speech Keir Starmer could have said about himself or about what he intends to do that we didn't already know. You know, he's been around for a long time. We know who he is. He can't change overnight.
We don't need to hear the family background anymore.
Yeah, indeed. You know, these are... Well-sung songs, I think, from Keir Starmer. Yeah, this is now about the country, right? Yeah, and look, and this was a speech also aimed squarely, I think, let's be honest, it wasn't at the country, it was at the Labour Party and it was at Labour MPs. Now it's about his internal survival right now, so perhaps that isn't surprising.
But, you know, the thing about this speech was is that, in a way, it was classic Keir Starmer in that he said the sort of crux of the speech was to say that what we really need is an argument, an argument... to take both to Nigel Farage and to Zap Polanski.
Something around which the whole of the Labour Party can cohere and can understand that this is what we're about and take that argument to the country. No one in the Labour Party would disagree with that. It's something that the Labour Party has been yearning for, crying out for, deeply desirous of.
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Chapter 4: What historical context is provided about leadership changes in the Labour Party?
And so I guess, you know, that is something he can point to and say, I'm going to do that. But that is not, I mean, that's great. And, you know, I don't think there's any young person in Britain or Europe that would kind of diss that as a great move. But it doesn't actually get us to the big question, which is our growth has massively suffered as a result of Brexit.
And that's not going to move the dial fundamentally on opening up businesses to trade internationally. It's not helping us with the immigration problem, which has gone up since Brexit. It's not helping us sort of staff our hospitals, which has gone down since Brexit. And it's not helping us grow as a country. Right. So, you know, yeah, maybe you're right.
You know, he's not going to go anywhere near the red lines. But but actually, there's many in his party who are desperate to hear him go sod the red lines. I got that wrong.
So that's in the red wall, I think, who would be. Deeply, deeply suspicious of the idea, because, you know, is the Labour Party's response to what we just saw where Nigel Farage is on the march again to turn around and go, OK, well, what we need to do is reopen.
Well, actually, one thing I think he did get right was he attached blame to Farage in a way that they haven't done properly. That was probably the strongest part of the speech. that Farage told you Brexit would make you richer and it didn't. If you remind people that Farage said it would bring down immigration and it didn't.
Like one of the problems that they've had, frankly, is not pinning Brexit firmly enough onto Farage and his new incarnation, the Reform Party, strongly or often enough. I mean, that that is a kind of a really silly schoolboy error that they could have avoided because it's, Yes, people are in the kind of red wall saying we feel terrible. Well, of course you feel terrible.
Of course things have got worse. It's got worse for all the reasons that you were told it would after Brexit.
Well, I mean, I absolutely agree that that argument has not been made sufficiently strongly. And it was the strongest part of the speech, because ironically enough, that was the bit where the prime minister was taking his own advice, providing a story, providing an argument and speaking in the sorts of primary colours that his opponents do.
The problem is, is that that has happened, as you say, Emily, all too infrequently up to now, as Linton Crosby, the president.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of Catherine West's challenge to Starmer?
That's the spreadsheet.
Correct. And therefore that the sort of analogy, the closest analogy is this is a sort of.
conservative 2019 moment where Andy Burnham is Boris Johnson you've basically got a deeply unpopular Prime Minister and you need someone who is perceived to be from the outside with not much association with that government's problems and demerits who can genuinely come in provide a sense of insurgency and say I am fresh I am new I am different and only Burnham can do that so if you wait for that to happen
and they are going to try come hell or high water to make it happen, then your position, Streeting, is lost because there's no way you win it with the members. The downside, of course, is, as you say, Millie, that the worry for Streeting is that he ends up in a position where he's considered to have been disloyal, that he's not forgiven.
And more importantly still, if he stands now, Rayner, who clearly would prefer to wait, for Burnham to come in and stand, will feel compelled to stand against him. And at that moment, all bets are off.
At that moment, it becomes a proper, hugely factional, bloody civil war for the control of the Labour Party, where, by the way, you can't even guarantee for sure that Starmer himself won't stand in that ensuing Labour leadership election.
So there's even a scenario... Because he has told us that he's not going anywhere for 10 years.
And he'll try and do what Corbyn did when he was challenged by his MPs, which is to take his case directly to Labour Party members, of whom, frankly, at this point, because the Labour Party has stopped telling us, we don't even know how many of them there are now.
So that constituency would then be deciding, or that electorate, selectorate, would be deciding the fate, potentially, in a three-way contest between... Raider, Streeting, who knows? Maybe even Starmer, that it would be chaos. And I think there are a lot of Labour MPs and what Streeting will be thinking is, will Labour MPs and members forgive me if I ignite and start that process?
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Chapter 6: How did Sadiq Khan assess the effectiveness of Starmer's speech?
The challenges are living standards are going backwards, not forwards. The challenges are a lack of investment in public services. The challenges are business downsizing rather than increasing the payroll. One of the ways to address that is to help create wealth, jobs and prosperity. One of the ways to increase and improve living standards is to make sure our economy is doing better.
What has been the biggest stumbling block to our economy over the last 10 years? And I speak as somebody who's been mayor now for 10 years. The biggest stumbling block, notwithstanding London being a great city, we're getting lots of investment in, whether it's Anthropic, whether it's OpenAI, whether it's Google, whether it's JP Morgan, I could go on. It's been us being outside the European Union.
Now, the fact that we're gonna have a general election in three years time, give us the opportunity in that general election to have in the manifesto a promise to rejoin if we win the general election. In advance of the general election, we've got to recognize nobody expected or foresaw President Trump would impose tariffs.
Nobody expected or foresaw there'd be this war in Iran having an impact, not just on people's lives in the Middle East, but having an impact on people's lives in the UK. So things have changed since the general election in July 2024.
So you would say no referendum needed?
So the referendum in terms of rejoining the European Union is the general election. We believe in parliamentary sovereignty. One parliament can't tie the highs of a subsequent parliament. We're not the USA or other republics across the globe. We know that because one parliament chose to repeal the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
We know that because of the steps taken in previous governments in terms of changing what a previous parliament has done.
So you would like, is that right, to see the cabinet now essentially saying we are the party of rejoin. Should that be the message that the cabinet take out onto the doorstep from now?
No, that's the point when you get to in advance of the general election. The point now is to address the challenges people are facing across the living crisis. Living standards going backwards, not forwards. What is the future of our country outside the European Union? And I think those are the sort of questions people are asking. Look,
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Chapter 7: What are the main criticisms of Starmer's approach to leadership?
And by the way, it also extends to the chancellor. and others in the cabinet as well, they've got to understand that unless there's big change, we'll be rejected in a bad way at the next general election.
Can I hear what you're saying on the need for a change of substance? But still, it is important. The personnel is important. Do you think that Keir Starmer is the best person, even with some of that change, to lead the Labour Party into the next general election?
But I think there's still three years to go. It's just the reality of a five-year parliament that, you know, the rhythm means that you need to make sure you deliver during that five years. The problem is people's expectations are for there to be delivery sooner rather than later. And notwithstanding the achievements I've talked about, the renters' rights acts, the workers' rights acts,
improvements around childcare, improvements around breakfast clubs.
You don't. Like much of the rest of the party, you don't think he is the person to lead the party to the next election. You just don't.
Well, look, the speech today is a start. Words have got to be backed up by action.
I noted something else in the speech, which would be quite interesting to get your thoughts on. You're the mayor of London. We saw in many parts of London, not all, but many parts of London, the Green Party doing extremely well in certain boroughs, depriving the Labour Party or taking control away from the Labour Party of boroughs the Labour Party has long controlled.
In the same breath in that speech, Keir Starmer referred to the Greens under Zach Polanski and Nigel Farage and reform, basically saying that they are all forces of extremism Do you think talking about the Greens in that way, in the same breath as Farage and Reform, is a mistake?
Yes. Look, I'm somebody who saw over the last 10 years and I campaigned in all three of my elections to be a mayor for all Londoners. I'm regularly asking people who vote Reform or vote Green or vote Lib Dem or vote Conservative to lend me their vote. And I'm certainly persuading people who vote Labour to to leave their homes and vote for me.
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Chapter 8: What strategies does Khan suggest for improving Labour's appeal?
We can say that. And you aren't doing a referendum and nobody could say, oh, they've just upended the referendum and made us go back to a referendum and tell them again because actually they won't get the chance to say tell them again. You either vote for them or you don't. Don't let them tell us again. Don't let them. Don't do that. Just do it. And so I suppose...
That is the boldness that maybe people this morning were looking to hear from Keir. Now, there's a million reasons why he couldn't say that. It would break his red lines. There's people, as we know, in the North West who are heavily Brexit voting who wouldn't like that at all. But actually, at this point, I think what... Sadiq Khan is saying is do something. Do something.
It's almost like a slap round the chops. Like, wake people up. Tell them something that they haven't heard before and let them either run towards it or away from it. But at least you'll know.
Right, well, we will be back tomorrow, presumably with the same Prime Minister.
Who knows?
Who knows?
We might be up all night.
That's the excitement. We'll see you then.
Bye-bye. Bye for now.
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