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00:00Unless you haven't noticed this, Keir Starmer has resigned and we're going to talk a little bit about
00:05what it's like being in Downing Street and the mood around these big moments because it is
00:10very heightened indeed and then we're going to cross the road and talk about the mood in the
00:14other camp, the Burnham camp, where it all looks very jolly just now but of course we want to talk
00:19about the lessons that Andy Burnham can learn from Keir Starmer on how to make a success of
00:23what is most likely going to be his premiership and our categorical what you have to do now
00:29advice to make sure this isn't a complete cock-up in the future. No pressure. No pressure. I'm Helen
00:34McNamara, the former Deputy Cabinet Secretary. And I'm Cleo Watson, former Special Advisor to Theresa May
00:39and Boris Johnson. And this is In The Room. Okay well I think yesterday Helen was an all too familiar
00:48sight now in British politics. We saw... Do you mean podium guy? Yeah he was looking good. He's been
00:56keeping it tight in the last two years. He has not aged. No he hasn't, he looks phenomenal. Same
01:01ditto Larry the cat obviously. So Keir Starmer resigned yesterday and he gave quite an emotional
01:07statement particularly talking about his family, his wife and his children even though he had the very
01:14very annoying spectacle of Steve Bray who people are becoming increasingly familiar with because he's been
01:19at it for about 10 years playing Ode to Joy from the street in the background. Should we just quickly
01:24watch that clip?
01:25I shall spend more time on the most important job. Being the best husband I can to my fantastic wife
01:33Vic who has been a rock by my side through good times and bad. And being the best dad I
01:40can to my
01:42beautiful children who are my pride and my joy. Thank you very much.
01:49That is such a hard watch. It is isn't it? I don't want to see any more Prime Ministers crying
01:53on the
01:54steps of Downing Street. I know could we could we stop that?
01:58Could we put a pin in there?
01:58Yeah. And you just know they've had this long weekend holed up in checkers whilst they just
02:03well it just becomes clear that support is seeping away. He hasn't really got a fight on his
02:08on his hands. It's just a it's just a pretty grim spectacle actually because he's not going
02:14for any particular reason. People have just decided we don't want you after all.
02:19I do think there's there's something kind of of an epic poem quality about the fact that
02:23he even had to do that. Yeah. Right. So it it's not as much as we've been laughing about
02:29podium guy and this being the nth Prime Minister we've seen stand on the steps of Downing Street
02:33and make a similar speech. There's no reason why it has to be done like this. It was perfectly
02:38possible for Keir Starmer to instead record something you know get it get a journalist in
02:43perhaps even record something in Downing Street. This whole kind of humiliating theatre is entirely
02:49made up and it's optional and there's something I don't know it feels to me but like
02:53you can also tell Steve Bray and the music to stop. The police could have done that. Is this
02:58something characteristic about this sort of passive governing that we've got into or habitual or
03:02some somehow somebody else is in charge. It was everything about that too. It's not nice to see
03:07that it shouldn't have happened wasn't necessary even if he had to resign there are better ways of
03:11doing it and it's that ritual humiliation where all of the journalists from all over the world
03:16basically are yet again seeing us do this to ourselves as a country. Yeah so if it's a hard watch
03:21from the outside let me tell you it is very hard from the inside. So Helen's right what you can't
03:26see is Keir Starmer is facing an enormous bank of cameras and journalists. I mean I can't believe
03:32how you would fit 300 into that space. It's not a wide street and it's it's just absolutely crammed
03:37with people and they're all sort of penned in clicking away madly. You can hear helicopters above
03:43the street and obviously you can hear people on Whitehall including Steve Bray making noise but
03:47for the people inside the building you know you've worked with this guy for two years you've seen
03:52the pressure he's under you've seen him making terrible mistakes some of which you've assisted in
03:57and you're watching on TV as something is going on in the street outside it's it's even when you know
04:03it's coming which is what we experienced with Theresa May it is still so so difficult and then the
04:09strangest thing is you go back to work because the country has to keep running and you go back to
04:15your desk and your phone stops ringing because people don't think you're the future anymore
04:21and that is quite topical isn't it because what ended up happening is people just went across the
04:26road where Andy Burnham had arrived from Manchester. I'm sure people have seen so Andy Burnham arrived
04:32and there were two news helicopters following his train his great arrival into London the King of the
04:38North is here and this proper circus there's a circus around Keir Starmer leaving there's then a circus
04:43about Andy Burnham arriving and we had him sworn in as the MP for Makerfield there were some moments
04:49of light relief in in that too but he was on the on the steps in Westminster Hall with this
04:56enormous
04:57crowd of MPs behind him looking sort of gleeful in a kind of party-ish sort of excitable and the
05:05compare and contrast between these images of all these gleeful and also slightly frightened looking
05:10and worried looking MPs standing behind Andy Burnham and cabinet ministers there was a lot of
05:15cabinet ministers there Rachel Weaves was there Ed Miliband was there the chief whip was there I
05:21mean everybody turned up and you know this is not standard practice when Labour win a by-election
05:26people were trying to claim that that like after a by-election it's totally normal to assemble
05:30half your parliamentary party on the steps of Westminster Hall it's like I have I've never seen that happen
05:35before and you do have to think it does make you question the judgment that who in Andy Burnham's
05:41camp thought it was knowing that actually what the focus of everybody else would be would be looking
05:46at this slightly broken Keir Starmer who whatever people think about him most people think he's not
05:52you know he's not a bad man to your point about has he done anything particularly menacing or awful that
05:57people think is terrible not really and it's kind of graceless to immediately have then this picture of
06:04all these gurningly cheerful MPs and and ministers yeah you are still Keir Starmer's ministers by the
06:11way looking totally gleeful when they've just done that to their own guy like there is sometimes just
06:17a complete inability to see how a normal person would looking at these two photos think what on
06:22earth are you people doing yeah this is what you've done to one of your own I completely agree it's
06:26a
06:26really ugly part of politics actually that you know there's a different train on another platform I
06:32don't quite know where it's going but I'm going to hop on because I want to keep my job I
06:36want to get
06:36a new job and I'm hearing that Louise Haig who was a member of Keir Starmer's cabinet and then
06:42she lost her job for lying about a phone theft in a previous job she's holding the pen on the
06:50list
06:50which is this list of the jobs that different Labour MPs want in a Burnham government I mean that is
06:56not
06:56news to gladden the heart right I hate that list so I remember there had been one during the leadership
07:03contest between Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson someone held one in the Johnson camp and um it
07:08basically went missing can I correct you on that there were more than one list oh no so whoever's
07:14got the lists but this is going to be a kind of burn and brush with reality he doesn't have
07:19200 jobs
07:19to give so all those people who've turned up for a lovely photo with him you know there'd be trouble
07:25ahead because he can't give everyone what they want and as I understand it he's a guy that likes
07:31to make people happy but not only that Keir Starmer hosted drinks last night in Downing Street with his
07:36wife to say thank you to staff and to the wider team I thought that was a really nice touch
07:40it was
07:40really nice it was and I got a little bit of trouble yesterday on Twitter because I said I think
07:45it was disappointing that the team in Downing Street were told that he was going to make his
07:49resignation speech by the number 10 chief of staff and not by him personally which is what
07:55Theresa May did for us she corralled us all together and told us and then she went outside
08:00incidentally she then spent the next few weeks having individual coffees with all her special
08:04advisors it was really nice we you know before that I didn't know her incredibly well we had a
08:08lovely chat about shoes it was great um sorry a little a little pin in that but there were a
08:15number of Labour MPs there you know this is not a slam dunk for for Andy Burnham we'll be talking
08:20about problems he might be coming up and what he should prepare for later on but he by no means
08:26has
08:26the entire Labour Party behind him not least in Parliament so a little something to think about for
08:31the people in that photo so just looking ahead a bit for Andy Burnham uh Labour's National Executive
08:38Committee it's one of those organizations people won't really have heard of but they're going to
08:41get to know it in the next couple of weeks have said that they will open nominations for a new
08:46leader on
08:47the 9th of July who's gonna stand do you think Cleo who's it gonna be I know it's just impossible
08:52to
08:52say if there are no other contenders other than Andy Burnham then he will be in position
08:57most likely the following week which is incidentally the weekend of the World Cup final it could be
09:03quite a big deal for him and that would make him if it is him the seventh Prime Minister we've
09:08had in
09:0810 years or the fifth in four years depending on how you like to do it neither of which is
09:14a great
09:14stat I would say uh so there is this question still of whether there will be a contest for uh
09:19who
09:20should be the next leader of the Labour Party and therefore Prime Minister and it's fair to say that
09:24Andy Burnham's camp have been out there saying well actually they would rather a long handover and
09:30Andy can become Prime Minister in September there was quite a lot of briefing from the Keir Starmer
09:35camp which is well good luck with that because you wanted it you've got it here you go and also
09:41why
09:41should why should Keir Starmer hang about all summer um I think it's slightly indicative of not really
09:46understanding in a way that worries me what power really is because the notion that you can have a
09:51Prime Minister sitting there for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks not being able to
09:55take decisions yeah shows that you're not really understanding or taking very or taking sufficiently
10:00seriously what to govern really is because it is to decide and to choose and those things need doing
10:06indeed more on that later more on that later uh so there is suggestion still that there might be
10:10Darren Jones podcast favorite uh so Darren Jones is wait for it the chief secretary to the Prime Minister
10:18currently um so that means he's actually the most senior minister in the cabinet office
10:23um Darren Jones apparently has had a lot of phone calls from people asking him to stand this really
10:31reminds me of the kind of Tory years of this going on where you'd have people popping up saying
10:36you know I've taken soundings from colleagues and I am willing to put myself forward such is the
10:41amount of pressure upon me from colleagues to ask me to stand forward because I'd be such an excellent
10:48leader and you think do you remember we did that we did that event at the Neville Holt Festival at
10:51the
10:51weekend and one of the audience did ask me if I would like to be Prime Minister and that's probably
10:55about the same number of calls they didn't ask me there was like someone's a clown I'd imagine that
11:02we were on we're level pegging me and Darren on the number of people that want us to be Prime
11:05Minister
11:05um and then Al Cairns your favorite still still in there fighting yeah yeah someone who has
11:13ruled himself out of course is Wes Streeting aka Wesley Snipes he did a little statement on Twitter
11:19yesterday very soon after Keir Starmer gave his resignation statement essentially laying out why
11:26he'd be an excellent chancellor he bottled it before he even began I know well he obviously didn't have
11:31the numbers it seems pretty obvious doesn't it and he said we should all get behind Andy and he
11:34doesn't want a lengthy leadership contest we should just crack on now I don't know whether that is you
11:40know I get so paranoid about this stuff I don't know whether Darren Jones and Al Cairns might be
11:44outriders for Andy Burnham trying to stretch something on for a little bit or whether Wes Streeting you
11:50know that was that was very quick to come up his little um it's almost like he'd written it before
11:56shocking isn't it but is that coordinated or is that just something he took the plunge on and thought
12:00I'm not gonna be able to beat him what's happened to Angela it's a good question do you not remember
12:04there were these sneaky talks going on between Andy Burnham and Angela Rayner a few weeks ago but
12:09we've not seen we've not seen a sign of her I hope she's just on Brighton Beach with a bottle
12:14of
12:14rose chilling out so Cleo let's spend a tiny moment on how on earth have we got here how has
12:20Keir Starmer
12:20gone from that massive majority to standing crying in Downing Street in two years okay well I'm going to
12:26put on my little nerd hat here for a second and hit you with some numbers Helen go for it
12:29we're going to
12:30have chats with stats um so although people talk about this big majority in 2024 for Keir Starmer
12:37he did get lots of seats but in terms of the popular vote he actually got quite a lot fewer
12:43than
12:43Jeremy Corbyn did in 2017. That is not how it's described I would say. No of course not because um
12:49you know he they like to talk about this big big majority in his mandate but it's actually shocking
12:55how many members of the Labour Party have got majorities in their own constituencies of well
13:00under a thousand I mean we talked before about how where streeting has I think a 600 majority
13:05paper thin it's interesting how this translates actually in comparison with reform who have in
13:10some ways the opposite problem according to the the polls they're on 29 percent they've got a massive
13:16amount of support but as we've seen with the last five by-elections they're struggling to turn that
13:21into seats and that is largely all down to Morgan McSweeney who is a kind of campaigning powerhouse
13:28unfortunately he was not involved in planning for government which is what we're going to come on
13:32to shortly I think the other thing to really keep in mind here is we talked earlier about how Keir
13:39Starmer is not um he's not hated for anything specific people don't necessarily think he's a bad
13:46person they tend to just think he's bland which amazingly in kind of British culture does seem to
13:52translate to to hating someone because there's not enough to him to grip onto and there's the really
13:57interesting stuff out of Ipsos Kieran Pedley who's well worth following explains how Starmer was on minus 19
14:06as a kind of public approval rating before he even came into Downing Street but then he hit a minus
14:1166
14:11which is I mean that is not good that's the lowest uh rating that a prime minister's ever had since
14:19Ipsos started measuring this just by comparison Kemi Badenock at the moment is on a kind of all-time
14:25high on minus one so we don't tend to give them a massive amount of credit at the best of
14:31times
14:31but I think it just goes to show he's never really had the base support or approval that you might
14:36think
14:36and what comes up again and again is that voters never felt that they understood what Keir Starmer
14:44stood for and I think that has come up again and again there's just a sense of vagueness that isn't
14:50a
14:50sense of delivering change and once you start understanding that's how voters feel every decision he's made
14:57you can see through that prism and it does all feel very very negative and sort of sepia toned I
15:04suppose
15:04yeah and you said um it's really interesting you said all-time high but that that's in our modern
15:09era right we used to have prime ministers that were actually in crew and positive yeah positive
15:14might you know positively appreciated by people but that's true of recent times is that
15:18most of the sentiment is negative and it's just how negative which is damaging about our democracy
15:24and politics in general
15:27what other lessons could he learn from what Keir Starmer's experienced in the last two years and why
15:32he's leaving Downing Street now I mean a lot but let's start with uh I imagine that the atmosphere
15:41in the Burnham camp now is a mix of two emotions both neither which were probably very helpful
15:46one is the sort of euphoria and excitement and as you get close to actual power it sends people giddy
15:53and a bit mad we've both seen that a lot and you can probably see that in the way people
15:56will be
15:57and the second thing is fear uh which is you know sometimes the worst thing that can happen to you
16:02is you get the thing that you wanted and uh and you're not ready and you're not ready and I
16:07think
16:07we have to recognize that there are real kind of there's rhymes of history in this situation so
16:15there's both does anybody believe that Andy Burnham is more ready to become prime minister than
16:20Keir Starmer was in 2024 I don't think so like are there massively mature transition plans has he got
16:28a really clear idea about exactly who's going to do which job you talked about this this rumour that
16:36Lou Haig who is the former transport secretary who's the woman who for those of you who watched the
16:42speech that Andy Burnham did to thank his constituency and his constituency workers and campaign team
16:49she was the person who introduced him at that event she is apparently as you said going around asking
16:55MPs what jobs that they want that's almost the opposite of actually what you should be doing
17:00um and there is a bit of another so there's the echo of kind of we've seen that before that
17:06movie
17:06doesn't work very well and then also an echo not a very helpful one of Gordon Brown becoming prime
17:12minister where you have somebody who's really wanted to be prime minister so Andy Burnham has stood for
17:17election of the as a leader of the labour party this would be his third or fourth third or fourth
17:23yeah time third time third time I think that he will stand for election this is the one that he's
17:28going to third time lucky for him um but uh has he actually got a plan for what he would
17:33do as prime
17:34minister one of the things I have found really striking and I don't know enough to know whether
17:38this is just a this is how our political class is now or it's a particular labour party problem
17:44is uh they feel to me extremely intellectually incurious about the business of governing
17:50so the people that I've met don't have a really clear template in their heads of what does good
17:56governing look like they don't have a consistent version even of their own history of kind of
18:00actually we want to be like Wilson in the 60s or Blair in 1998 or Callaghan in what they don't
18:08they
18:08don't have a kind of collective memory of what being a good prime minister or a good labour government
18:12is and they are surprisingly I would say given the amount of stuff that is published about
18:17the actual mechanics of governing and how what makes politics work they're kind of
18:21sort of just not interested in it as far as I can see but then they will complain when they
18:25get in
18:26that there's no handbook for being a minister how do you do it and you think well you've
18:29you've got tons of time to prepare I think it's such an interesting combination that one the idea
18:35exactly as you say of cart before horse with Lou Haig putting together this list of the jobs that
18:40MPs want versus how they're actually going to govern because when you talk to people about
18:44these jobs what you want to be able to say is that's very interesting that you're interested in
18:48being housing secretary these are the these are the five priorities I want to happen are you
18:54comfortable with that that's what I want you to deliver because I'm not going to be having these
18:57stupid infights about you know it's my way or the highway and this is the agenda that I want and
19:02this is what we're going to follow but I fear that what I'm hearing anyway from from stuff coming out
19:09of
19:09the Andy Burnham camp at the moment is he's having these chats with people where they say things
19:13like yeah this is what I'm thinking on transport or education he's like yeah cool man that sounds good
19:18note that down somebody and I think oh no are we about to sleepwalk or sleep run into a similar
19:26situation that we've just had do you know I wish we were sleep running because that's the other
19:30thing that I'd say I think the pace is miles off so uh and it's quite hard to describe this
19:36to
19:37people who've not had the experience of working right at the heart of power is the amount of stuff
19:42that you have to do in any given day and the amount of decisions you have to make you haven't
19:47got time
19:47to be kind of well I wonder about this and I think about this and maybe I'll get around to
19:51it
19:51and there is just this amazing disconnect between we've known this was coming you know we've known that
19:58the end of Keir Starmer was going to come at some point Andy Burnham has known he was going to
20:02be
20:02at some point the candidate for the most likely candidate I mean he was pitching for it nine
20:07months ago so so where is the pace and the urgency and the ruthlessness about the planning and and
20:14delivery and I think that is a that's the thing that bothers me it's a bit it's a bit gentlemanly
20:19and having a nice time a little bit not enough get on with it but also the clock is ticking
20:23when you
20:24outlined last week what it actually means to try and get stuff done now before the next general
20:30election we're two and a half years off from the next general election give or take I think we've
20:35got roughly three and you just think my goodness I hope he's got a good 100 day plan from day
20:41one
20:42because that is essentially the period he's got to really get anything done to persuade people to
20:47stick with the Labour Party at the next general election and do you have a do you have a strong
20:52enough sense amongst you and your team of what has gone wrong because if what you think is what's
20:57gone wrong is it was Keir Starmer and it would have been fine if it was me then here we
21:02are again
21:02well that's what Keir Starmer thought exactly you know so you don't want the evil toys you want me
21:06I'm a good guy and it'll be fine because it's me and I've got faith in myself and if that's
21:10the
21:10pattern we're in then this is going to unravel even faster than two years I would have thought so
21:15the reality is the default is he's going to fail that is I mean it's it's tough to hear it
21:21but I
21:22think it's totally true and the data bears that out so everyone is very very excited at the moment
21:28that Andy Burnham has won 55 percent in Bakerfield and he's been a very successful electorally
21:33successful anyway mayor of Manchester but Labour as a party are currently trailing third in the
21:39national polls having won a majority two years ago I mean people should really sort of let that sink in
21:44because it's very very concerning and his whole pitch to Labour MPs which we talked about on Friday
21:51our emergency pod is that he's an election winner and he can save their seats at the next general
21:56election and Labour MPs are going to have this moment of euphoria exactly as you say where Burnham
22:02comes in and it's all fresh and new and they think you know our big problem was Keir Starmer just
22:07couldn't communicate but actually very very soon Burnham might be in trouble people might say you know
22:14he says yes to everybody or he doesn't have a proper plan and the public will see through this really
22:19really soon I don't think it is priced in enough that he could be gone within a year that being
22:24said
22:25that could just be a very kind of sceptical person who's been shaped by the last couple of
22:29conservative governments literally hearing the scar tissue well and I don't say it with any joy but the
22:36default is that he's this isn't going to work and if you think about the thing that he's been very
22:41successful as the mayor of Manchester he walked into that job and before him there had been
22:46literally decades of really good effective leadership on the political and official side
22:51and he walked in and was able to make what he could of that he is not walking into a
22:57situation
22:57which has had decades of really effective leadership on the political or official side sadly so it's a
23:04really different challenge. All right well let's try and end on a more positive note what what advice
23:09could you give him what should he be doing now or from day one in office that could stop this
23:15happening? So I don't want to be gloomy either who wants to be gloomy and I do think there are
23:20things
23:20that can be done even if he only has a matter of weeks even if he becomes the prime minister
23:24on the
23:2417th of July which is what like three weeks away. Yes I think tick tock Andy. I mean to imagine
23:30that
23:30somehow magically in three weeks you're going to muster up a completely coherent program for government
23:34have put everybody in the right jobs have managed all this stuff like no you're not. So it's a
23:39question of really hard focusing on what are the things that really need to be done. I would
23:45shockingly try to focus on this as if it's a job and a team so writing the speech that he's
23:50going to
23:50give on the steps of Downing Street and the reason I've started with that is that one of the things
23:55that people will say is a criticism of Keir Starmer and I know that my former colleagues in the civil
24:00service feel very strongly is they haven't don't feel like they've had an anchor or a grounding of
24:04like what is the purpose of this government what am I here for and the exercise itself of whoever he
24:10needs to bring into it of actually writing that script if you remember Theresa May's version of
24:14this. I do remember it hung just outside her office. Literally framed outside her office. If you were waiting
24:18to go in for a meeting you could like refresh yourself with what she wanted to do. I mean unfortunately
24:23because of you know our friend Brexit happy anniversary everyone. To those who observe.
24:29She didn't get to do all of those things but it was tremendously useful as a civil servant that
24:34didn't spend any time with her really when she was prime minister at the beginning or anyone working
24:39in government could actually look at a thing and say right so if in doubt we should be doing this
24:43sort
24:44of thing rather than that sort of thing. It might also just suit him. He's a communicator and to really
24:49ground him in his own words. He doesn't like to although he's had to row back on quite a few
24:54things
24:54he said recently. He likes to be a man of his word and to have it in black and white
24:59like that and to
25:00think you know what are the promises I really want to deliver beyond the vagaries of we must row the
25:04economy. This is the thing it's going to be really hard work to get this speech right because the
25:09temptation is like a lot of platitudes you know where there is discord let me bring peace. You and I
25:15had the
25:15delight of seeing the Ed Stone people might not remember the Ed Stone but in the closing days of
25:21the 2015 general election one of the amazing plays from the Labour Party was to carve a gravestone
25:28very big gravestone. It's huge with very little on it. Which was going to stand in the Downing
25:33the Downing Street garden was going to be erected as a reminder of what Ed Miliband was going to be
25:38there for and his government and one of the commitments on that was an NHS that had time to care
25:43yeah which is sort of a lovely idea but it's it's exactly the sort of thing that Andy Burnham
25:48needs to avoid in this speech it needs to be both big enough and clear enough that it explains the
25:55direction and the purpose of his government like what does he actually care about and it needs to
25:58be guidelines for how all the people involved in making the decisions that are going to be nowhere
26:03near his desk can use as a handy template for if in doubt do x rather than y. There are
26:08some really
26:09good examples of this through the ages if in doubt copy and paste you know you can find something but
26:15really really really sweat that speech and use that to effectively create the framing for your
26:20government and the alternative is unfortunately a series of milestones and how many different
26:26milestones and pledges and resets as Keir Starmer had in the last two years or ill thought through
26:32policy announcements which you'll then have to go back on so it is not an easy challenge to in this
26:36period of time that we're setting him to write this speech really well but I would have that as
26:41sort of thing number one great and probably you know of equal slightly it probably is equal importance
26:48actually he's got to get his core team right so what have we seen repeatedly in our sorry tale of
26:55prime ministers not working very well recently is he needs to make sure that the people who are going
27:02to be with him in Downing Street he knows he's going to be doing which job and they know that
27:06now
27:06yes so one of the mistakes in the Starmer transition into power in 2024 is that you had people in
27:13the
27:13Labour Party literally standing in Downing Street watching the prime minister who didn't know if they
27:18had a job they didn't know what their job was going to be and the amount of anxiety and uncertainty
27:24that that created and you had no time at all to work on the team dynamic so and this is
27:29going to be
27:30you know this is straight out of my catalogue of unpopular and ideas that no one's going to pay
27:35any attention to but he should identify that core team he should make sure he understands what jobs
27:40they're going to be doing in Downing Street and they should spend time together in these next few
27:44weeks of focusing on how they're going to work together how they're going to get the best out of
27:48each other what are their strengths what are their weaknesses and you sort of have to really treat
27:54the prime minister the person who's going to be prime minister a bit like a sun god in these
27:57in these circumstances you have to really think about you will all be it doesn't matter who you
28:02are how long you've known him possibly with the exception of his wife and children but everyone
28:07treats you differently once you've got real power everyone does he's not Andy anymore no anyway you
28:12saw him in his you called it you saw him in his suit and tie yesterday um he's arrived how
28:16are you
28:16going to make sure your dynamics work how are you going to make sure that people can say no to
28:20the
28:20prime minister what are your different kind of roles within the family around him i would say if you've
28:26worked you know i hope somebody has at some point worked with a coach or somebody you can help in
28:31any other circumstance you'd have a professional person with a new team who are doing a really
28:34important job to help them to work on how they're going to work together and that honestly i cannot
28:39tell you how important that would be yeah so if you think about david cameron's team before when they
28:46came into office they were so practiced at working together they knew each other well they'd had a long
28:51time in opposition they had and like i don't want to you know i i'm sure they'd be appalled to
28:55imagine that i think that they had some help with their leadership coaching because we like to
28:59pretend that everyone just was born to rule but i don't really know why the labour party are
29:03also pretending that they can do these things naturally i think this is part of though um i think
29:09we do fetishize the leaders the prime minister and and i completely agree the whole team is very
29:16very important and and not just the team itself because you know certainly the kind of interpersonal
29:22workings of the johnson administration were difficult but when we were all pointed in the
29:26right direction because we were incredibly fearful about what would happen otherwise and i'm talking
29:30about that period of august 2019 to december 2019 we all understood what needed to be done
29:35we had one key objective which was to get brexit done followed by three or four public services
29:41leaders based priorities everyone understood what needed to be done even with some of the friction
29:47of just how people got on with each other and stuff that didn't really matter when the plan was
29:53extremely clear i think having decent and competent people who get to know each other and feel like
29:58they've been kind of blooded together in in the fires together is so important because when the
30:04going gets tough you need them all to be able to communicate with each other and you know what we
30:09didn't
30:09have so much of his direction after the 2019 general election so when covid came people started remote
30:14working and that kind of thing just a lot of the team fell apart but if the burnham camp treats
30:21the next two years as we treated that first kind of four months after johnson came in they've actually
30:26got a pretty good shot i totally agree and if you think actually he's just come hot off the heels
30:31of a
30:31really effective campaign the other hard thing is to quote that classic mario kumo thing the reason it's a
30:37classic that you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose is because it's actually true so you may
30:43have this incredible set of people who've been campaigning with you and winning the campaign they
30:48might not be the right people to help you with your governing in prose so what do those people look
30:52like and this isn't a question of just like oh we'll just fling in which is sort of what kia
30:57starmer
30:57has done it's just flinging more and more people in a slightly confusing way to do jobs that sound
31:01like they're a bit the same yeah they have to be really really rigorous who is the person who's
31:05going to be the guardian of how the prime minister spends their time who is the person who's going to
31:10be the guardian of how the prime minister is interacting with these backbench mps who is
31:16the person who's going to be the guardian of relationships these are all things that are
31:19and i mean hopefully as soon as access talks the cabinet secretary and her team can it's lovely
31:24saying the cabinet secretary and her team by the way um can can actually uh help because this is the
31:30sort of thing you know the civil service has seen some of this stuff before there is some sensible
31:33stuff written down i know because i read some of it but you kind of there is some like really
31:37really useful things about actually how do you get these things done and then the next thing i
31:41would do is i would basically all these people who are asking for a job or going around and
31:47all these mps and ministers i would literally say to them i'm totally open both every single
31:53member of parliament you tell me what your reflections are on what we have got wrong not what
31:57keir starmer got wrong but we have got wrong in the labour party in the last few years and you
32:02tell
32:02me what you think your constituency needs i can't promise to deliver all of it but i really want to
32:07be able to listen to every single mp it's a golden opportunity for you to find out who's good amongst
32:13your mps amongst the people you don't know about let them give them some homework to do and secondly i
32:18would turn to every single person who served in the government whether that is for the labour party
32:23whether it's a special advisor a former special advisor and particularly ministers and cabinet
32:28ministers and ask them the same question like what is it that you think has worked what are the
32:32things that you've done well what is it that you would change and i'd give them for ministers i'd
32:37give them that task in two directions i'd say like what do you think in general as a member of
32:41our party as somebody who believes in our progressive growth goals etc etc but also looking at your
32:47department what would you do differently i really do agree particularly on speaking to mps about this kind
32:52of thing one of the big grievances that mps used to have the whole time certainly when i worked in
32:57government was they felt that the center wasn't listening to them and they had all these great
33:02ideas and even if you're not using any of it having these meetings where people in policy or in your
33:09headquarters for the campaigning team are listening is really really worthwhile because they want to
33:15vent somewhere and it's much better even if 90 percent of it is useless actually that it happens in a
33:21kind of direct internal way rather than mouthing off to the times or the observer or whatever
33:26definitely and force them to actually say what it is that they would do because i think one of the
33:31other cultural things we've seen in this government and the way the labour party have operated since
33:35they've been elected is it's always somehow somebody else's problem that to actually do the
33:39hard stuff so you know it's not our fault because it was the nasty tories who did this or it's
33:45not
33:45my fault because it's that other minister or it's not my fault because the chancellor you have to
33:49kind of force people to say okay what is it that you would do because to govern is to make
33:53some hard
33:54choices so my fourth thing is use the liminal space so you've got some time between right now
34:00today to the point in which you become a prime minister there are three things that i would get
34:05people to do firstly i would ask every single mp every single member of parliament to tell me what
34:12is it they think the lay parties got wrong in the last few years and also to say what do
34:16they think
34:17needs fixing in their constituency what is where do they want to be at the point of the next election
34:21it's got two advantages firstly everyone feels listened to secondly you might get some really
34:26good ideas the next thing i do is i'd say anybody who's been a minister anybody's a cabinet minister
34:32junior minister served in the government tell me what it's been what's worked what's not worked
34:37what you do differently and do that in two ways firstly one as a member of the labour party and
34:42as the
34:42wider government and secondly thinking about your department what would you do what should we be
34:47doing what should the priorities be you'll get a massive amount of incoming on this you'll be
34:51overwhelmed with uh with information and advice and thoughts from everybody but actually i would be
34:57completely open to that because it will also tell you who's really interesting that you might
35:01have overlooked what's the issues that you're not thinking about yet and it's just an opportunity
35:06to start governing in that much more open transparent generous community way that andy burnham has said
35:13he wants to govern like well start doing it now so helen in our very first episode in february
35:19we were giving some advice to keir starmer at the time and if i remember we said dance like no
35:25one's
35:25watching i.e govern like no one's watching just be braver and hire a psycho and um i don't want
35:31to rule
35:31those out for andy burnham now but could you just quickly summarize then your four bits of advice for
35:38him going forward to really try and make a success of this absolutely nail down what the point of your
35:44government is in a way that you can say on the streets of downing street and people can keep on
35:48referring back to thing one thing to decide who your core team are who are your people have you got
35:55the right people in the right jobs identify that really quickly and tell them so they start behaving
35:59like that now third thing actually behave shock horror like this is a professional piece of work
36:05that needs doing in a normal way so maybe have a transition committee maybe get some hr help maybe
36:13have a coach that can help you and your team to work together and establish good patterns of working
36:19behave like it's a normal job possibly um the fourth thing i would say is get other people to do
36:26loads
36:27of work for you so ask your mps what the answer is ask your cabinet ministers your junior ministers
36:32your special advisors your former special advisor what the answer is and ask business charity sector
36:38focus groups voluntary sector think tanks whatever you want have the most generous way of turning the
36:45question out from yourself into the world and then see what you get back and our last general bit of
36:50advice for everybody is stay hydrated honeys drink because it's hot out there five liters each
36:56don't drink five liters you'll die thank you for listening to today's episode remember to follow
37:01the show on your podcast player and leave us a five star review if you enjoyed it and please do
37:05email
37:06us with your feedback and questions we've loved getting the mail so far we are at in the room at
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37:21podcast
37:21at instagram we are at in the room.pod this podcast is part of the independent podcast network and
37:27produced in association with next chapter studios the executive producer is rod adaharley welcome and
37:33the producer is sam durham and a special mention to our content editor maya anishka our video editor
37:39vali raza and our videographer dan faber thanks for listening and we'll see you next week stay cool
37:44you
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