00:01so as a number 10 advisor particularly with Theresa May we had quite a few by-elections we
00:06had five where we got punched in the face although only one of them Breckin and Radnorshire was a
00:13kind of conservative loss this is obviously much more significant for the Labour party and
00:20Keir Starmer because this was his sixth safest Labour seat in the 2024 general election so as
00:26losses go come third it is hard and what tends to happen is you come in on a Friday which
00:32is always
00:33a weird day in number 10 actually because Parliament's not sitting often the PM's not
00:40there he's often in his constituency or has gone to checkers and it's normally quite a useful day
00:46to read things you should have done during the week and instead they'll be coming in they'll be
00:52a cup of coffee baking sandwich probably applying some deodorant because most of them won't have
00:57gone to bed or had time to shower and they'll basically be thinking bunker mentality they
01:04won't want to come out yet and say anything until they absolutely have to so you tend to
01:09shove out a cabinet minister or the party chairman in our case or some friendly MPs who can say you
01:18we've got lessons to learn but you know I still stand behind the prime minister and then there's
01:25a lot of hand-wringing and feeling disappointed particularly because quite a lot of the noise
01:32coming out of Labour was that they might just squeak it which they obviously have not the prime minister
01:38will have to eventually emerge and he'll say a variation on disappointing set of results we have to
01:45learn lessons here and people aren't understanding that my plan is working yet and we have to try
01:51harder and the bulk the buck stocks with me because I'm the prime minister and I take full responsibility
01:58um on behalf of the Labour Party for this disappointing set of results isn't that in these circumstances
02:05I'm just writing is this a resignation effectively if he says that isn't it yeah it's definitely starting
02:11the clock but I think it is a clock that ultimately gets you past May anyway because I know there's
02:17lots
02:17of chit chat about um we've got to get rid of him now May's going to be terrible but if
02:24you are a
02:24potential leadership candidate you don't want to oust him now so that your first electoral test is also
02:30a complete thumping in May because it's not just him it's the entire Labour brand has taken a whack here
02:37for example I have been told very confidently that Robert Jenrick in September was considering
02:45not actually going to inform but making a move against Kemi Badenoch and trying to become leader
02:49of the Conservative Party and there was a big debate within his team about whether you want to do this
02:56now or whether you want to wait until May because nobody wants their first electoral test as a new leader
03:02to be an absolute thumping um in your in your first poll so he's in a weird way he's safe
03:09he's safe
03:09for now but that isn't actually that helpful because it does begin to spell his doom I mean just to
03:16contextualize this a little bit um it's very very bad news for Labour but it's actually bad for all three
03:23of the main parties so Labour the Conservatives and the Lib Dems did not get 30 percent of the vote
03:31in
03:31Gorton and Denton between them I mean that is astonishingly bad the Conservatives for the first
03:38time since 1983 did not get their deposit back because they they scored so low the Lib Dems are
03:45the usual kind of party of protest barely featured is there anybody is I mean okay so I mean that
03:54does
03:54sound bad for all three parties is there anybody who's really benefited from this other than the Greens
03:59I guess who else is a winner today well I know a lot of the chat was um Andy Burnham
04:06could say that
04:07if if Labour lost he should have been the candidate but I think they have lost so emphatically to have
04:12come third like this I mean really miles away from winning that I I don't really think he can claim
04:19that
04:20it would have gone differently if he'd been the candidate I think had they just been squeaked by reform or
04:25the Greens that might have made a difference the the reform should be feeling pretty good because um I
04:31mean they stood no chance here in 2024 and um I'm sure they'll be making plenty of hay with accusations
04:40of electoral fraud and family voting and misdeclared expenses and so on they seem to love all that
04:45um so I don't think they'll be feeling too bad either because what Nigel Farage cares about at the
04:51moment is being able to say the Conservatives aren't relevant at all which in Gorton and Denton
04:55that is certainly the case and that the Labour government is failing and nobody likes them
05:01well in Gorton and Denton that is definitely the case
05:05and do you think this is good for those in the Labour Party who are arguing that the Prime Minister
05:10should tack further left um I think it is a very good opportune time for them to make that argument
05:18because he's got two very new uh chiefs of staff he doesn't have a director of communications
05:25he does not have Morgan McSweeney running his Labour HQ electoral winning machine so he is quite
05:33vulnerable to MPs being crossed with him MPs trying to get what they want and you know Helen we you
05:40know
05:40I was just saying that the atmosphere today will be depressed baking sandwiches hoping to slip out to the
05:46pub at midday to sink a pint to make themselves feel better certainly doing a ring round they'll all
05:51be manning the phones trying to steady the ship with um you know every special advisor will have
05:56a list of Labour MPs to ring to say hi how's it going yes not good but you know the
06:01plan's working
06:01wait for the wait for the spring financial statement next week from the Chancellor everything's working
06:07out but by Monday you know this is where your role is as former Deputy Cabinet Secretary comes in
06:13you and I might have had a chat about oh you know our interim reshuffle board I think we're going
06:19to
06:19have to rebalance it and perhaps we're going to have to bring in some left-leaning people and reflect
06:24this result we talked in our first episode Cleo about the awfulness of organized tweets in support of
06:31the Prime Minister do you think we're going to see more of that today over the weekend yes there will
06:36now
06:36be a very depressing operation between the whip's office and all special advisors in number 10 to divvy up
06:44the full list of Labour MPs everyone will have people they know perhaps they are you know the the spad
06:51for
06:51education in that case you've got a particular group of MPs you speak to all the time because they
06:56are interested in that brief you now need to shore up support for the PM quite often that involves public
07:03declarations of support and that means the kind of depressing tweet level um that you know the
07:09immediate concern for the political team and number 10 is to just hold the PM's position steady over the
07:16weekend because MPs speak to each other they're not in parliament you can't eyeball them they'll all be
07:21getting phone calls now from the from various whips some cabinet ministers will make calls as well
07:26and special advisors to just hold everybody steady whilst at the same time the political team will
07:34also be thinking without launching another reset and another set of milestones or markers do we have
07:41to have a bit of a rethink on our political strategy do some of these MPs have a point to
07:46the to our
07:48episode this week which is all about current Labour staffing scandals one of the things that will
07:54certainly be coming true in feedback from current Labour MPs to their whips and to spads is you guys
08:02have to get a grip on these scandals it's having a real impact for us we do not like being
08:06associated
08:07with people who investigate journalists and support paedophiles and for goodness sake you've got to squash
08:13it now and we've got a few ideas on in the room this week about how they could get on
08:17and do that
08:19you
08:22you
08:22you
08:22you
08:23you
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