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00:00On Monday, Andy Burnham will enter Downing Street in what has turned out to be one of the least
00:04dramatic leadership contests in history. But when he walks in, two things are going to tell
00:08us more than almost any speech. Firstly, what's the team he's assembled around him? And secondly,
00:13how smooth the handover itself looks from the outside. The cabinet tells us what kind of
00:17prime minister he wants to be. And the transition tells us how quickly reality is going to catch up
00:23with him. This week, podcast favourite Shabana Mahmood has emerged as the frontrunner for
00:27Chancellor, while other big jobs in Burnham's top team remain unresolved, at least for now.
00:31So today we're asking, who's in the running for the big jobs? What do those choices tell us? And
00:37what actually happens in the hours between a prime minister leaving number 10 and another one walking
00:42in? A lot more than you'd think is the answer to that. I'm Helen McNamara, the former Deputy Cabinet
00:46Secretary. And I'm Cleo Watson, a former Special Advisor to Theresa May and Boris Johnson. And this
00:52is in the room. If we want an economy and a country that works for all people and places,
01:02which to me should always be at the very core of labourism, then it requires a new path to the
01:10one we've been on for the last 40 years. The government I lead will confidently lay that path
01:17out starting next week. That was Andy Burnham making his first official speech as Labour leader
01:23earlier today, where he promised to be a leader in all places. As we've said many times, it's not
01:29just about one guy, even Andy. There are teams within teams. The one we're all familiar with is
01:34the Cabinet. And the biggest job in the Cabinet is the Chancellor, because most simply, they hold the
01:37purse strings on all of the Prime Minister's plans. Now, Shabana Mahmood, as Helen says, one of the
01:42faves as a podcast, has emerged as the front runner for the role of Chancellor. Yeah, Shabana was a
01:48shadowed junior Treasury Minister 10 years ago. And I don't know if this has annoyed you just as much
01:53it's annoyed me, Cleo. I imagine so that already she's not even started. She's not a day one in the
01:58job. And there are some commentators saying that she's just going to be a puppet of number 10. I
02:04suspect those people have not, in fact, met Shabana Mahmood, or in fact, understood the proper
02:09dynamic of what it really is like between the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, even at the
02:14best of times. I agree. But also, it's a misunderstanding of how you think number 10
02:19works. To say things like, the economy is going to be driven through number 10. There aren't
02:24actually that many people in that building. There's a reason the Treasury is a very powerful
02:29force, because it employs literally thousands of civil servants, experts in their field. And it's
02:35just not a good use of the skills of someone like Shabana Mahmood to not use her properly.
02:43I was really surprised to see that. And I also think it just, if you're going to characterise
02:48her as a puppet like that, it really doesn't help, actually, that she's a woman and she'll
02:52be the first ethnic minority woman to hold that post. And then to have this idea that she's
02:57not really in charge anyway, is so undermining and damaging. And if I were any of the Labour
03:04women MPs, I'd be furious to see it.
03:06Absolutely. And I think one of the things that people say about Shabana Mahmood when
03:10she arrived at the Home Office, which is one of the reasons that we think she's great,
03:14is that she didn't spend a few days reading her way in and thinking about things and having
03:1984 meetings and wondering about life. She just got in really clear, this is what I need
03:25to do on migration. This is all I'm focusing on. I am doing this. Here we are. Let's go.
03:29And is really good at taking decisions, really tough, really clear, listens to people, takes
03:35advice, but then gets on with it. And actually, you know, that's that those are all great
03:39strengths in a minister.
03:40Yeah, which is exactly, not to pull the receipts on you, but you've said this on the podcast
03:45a while ago about the Chancellor is someone that does have to project massive amounts
03:49of confidence. And, you know, we talked on Tuesday about how Rachel Weaves is sort of
03:57showing her personality a bit more now. And she was she made this joke about, you know,
04:02for incumbent, don't cry on national television. But the markets responded extremely badly to
04:08when that did happen to Rachel Weaves. And I think the fact that the rumours, the strong
04:14rumours that the Chancellor is going to be Shabana Mahmood and that the markets have rallied,
04:18the pound has risen and our borrowing costs have gone down is a really good sign that, you know,
04:23aside from the fact that she is just a very good minister, the markets who everyone was
04:29terrified would respond badly to the wrong kind of pick, obviously are going with her so far.
04:35Very encouraging.
04:36It turns out Andy, even Andy is in hock to the bond markets when it comes to his Chancellor pick.
04:42Who knew? Who knew?
04:43Yes, not so good. One of the things I have been thinking about, though, is you said a while ago
04:48that the reason that she, you predicted actually, that she would be a very, very good Chancellor.
04:55She's the kind of pick that you would go for because you want someone clever, well regarded and
05:00tough enough. And another person who has said in the past, hell yes, I'm tough enough, is Ed Miliband.
05:07And I was thinking about if I were running one of the attack teams at Conservative headquarters
05:14or Lib Dems or Reform or wherever, the reason Shibana Mahmood is such a good appointment is she's really
05:20hard to get purchase on because she's done a great job with Home Secretary.
05:24But Ed Miliband has got a well-documented series of quotes you can use about him, or at least lines
05:30you can use. So he was known as Red Ed during the 2015 general election. We've all seen the picture
05:35of him eating that bacon sandwich, which, you know, all he was doing was eating, but it didn't look
05:39and feel competent. It was amazing how much traction it got at the time. And also, the public,
05:47by and large, are moving away from a lot of the net zero agenda that he's most passionate about.
05:53So all these crises have the same ultimate cause, our dependence on fossil fuels. And all of them,
06:01and all of them have the same solution, low cost, homegrown, zero carbon power for our country.
06:08We talked on Tuesday about how he was allegedly willing to kind of put all that to one side in
06:16order to become Chancellor. I don't think that's great either from a sort of principal's point of
06:21view. But Shibana Mahmood is a curious character because she's had such a strong record at the Home
06:27Office. She's very difficult to sort of land a punch on. And you can bet your bottom dollar that for
06:34every other cabinet appointment, obviously, including the prime minister, these teams will
06:39be working on sort of dirty dossiers on all of them. What is the best way to undermine them,
06:45attack them? Because both writ large in the media and in election cycles, and in the House of Commons,
06:52when you have the different debates, you want to try and land the best possible punches.
06:58And I think one of the advantages of having Shibana Mahmood in the Treasury is that Pat McFadden
07:05comment that, do you remember I said would go on every leaflet? It was a text that he'd sent to
07:10Peter Mandelson saying, all my meetings with Labour MPs are people telling me to tax people more in
07:18order to spend more on those on welfare. And it's going to be very hard to make that case with
07:25her.
07:25And I'd expect, by the way, talking of welfare, that Pat McFadden's to stay in his job,
07:29actually, and that the combination of Pat McFadden staying at the helm of DWP,
07:34which has got two massive political things for Andy Burnham. Firstly, being able to cut the welfare
07:39budget, which they're going to have to do. He's made all the signals about doing, but
07:43we already know that that's really tough with Labour MPs. So finding a way to navigate through that
07:48is difficult. And you sort of need somebody with Pat McFadden's credibility, acumen and kind of
07:53calmness to see that through. And he'll be a great partnership with Siobhan and Mahmood.
07:57And then the second thing is this really genuinely massive problem of NEATS. So of young people,
08:04Alan Milburn did this big report earlier in the year about what do we do about the fact that
08:08vast numbers of young people are not in education or training. And they are, you know,
08:14apartment for the future of our country. We talked the other day about how it would be great
08:17if Andy Burnham's decision making was located around people under 30, not people over 60,
08:22that actually this is another kind of problem of our age that, again, a combination of Pat McFadden
08:27and Siobhan and Mahmood might well be able to fix. The other thing I'd say about Siobhan and Mahmood,
08:33which I admire, is I think she's quite lucky and she's good at politics. So if you think about,
08:39she was the Justice Secretary when she came in. She wasn't the Justice Secretary when there was all
08:43that stuff about jury trials and all of those, the reform and the abolition of jury trials.
08:49That must have started, that work must have started while she was Justice Secretary,
08:52Secretary rather, but she wasn't at the scene of the crime for the fallback of that. And at the
08:57Home Office, all sorts of work was done obviously pre-election and actually at the election with,
09:02after the election with the vetkeeper on the, on how do you reduce migration. And she inherited a lot
09:07of that and then absolutely put her foot to the floor. So she's been able to, in two quite big
09:11and
09:11complicated jobs, both not get the blame and get the credit. And I obviously think 10 out of 10
09:16for that. Let's hope she's able to bring that to being Chancellor as well. Although I'm slightly
09:21nervous that you started going back and quoting what I've said before. So this could be a terrible
09:25episode in two years time when we're like, oh Siobhan, it's going to be so great. My economy is in
09:31the
09:31tank. But no, let's not, let's not manifest that Cleo. There have been a lot of questions about why
09:37Andy Burnham is not doing a big reveal of who his cabinet picks are today. Can you just tell
09:43the uninformed why that is? Two things, actually. One, it's really brilliant exercise and playing
09:50of power. So one thing I think we can say for the Burnham team is they have definitely got this,
09:54that actually, why would you be doing anything other right now than keeping everybody hanging on
10:00a pretty short string, so that they are amazingly grateful when they find out that they've got the
10:05job. And if they haven't got the job, actually, at the point, at that point, it's too late, you're
10:11hitting the ground running, you're going. And all those people have been disappointed are starting to
10:14think, well, hold on, I need to be ready for what if and what next. So it's very good politics
10:19and
10:20power play. Well done. It's also, more importantly, constitutionally appropriate, that the person who has
10:27to be consulted before any minister of the crown is appointed is, surprise, surprise, the crown.
10:32So there will be a proper process on Monday, whereby the first person who approves the
10:39appointments, now of course, this is a constitutional nicety, it's not that the king now or the queen
10:43before him was sitting there thinking, are you really sure that's the right person for the security
10:47minister job? But it is a constitutional propriety that has to happen. And it's, these are ministers
10:52of the crown and appointments that are made by our monarch. There you go, Cleo.
10:56The cocks of my heart are warm. I should have stood up for that. I should have stood up, I
10:59feel.
11:00I know, I should have had my hand over my heart. There's one just last little thing. Well, it's not
11:05little because it's incredibly important, but people obsess over who the cabinet appointments are going to
11:11be. And I just wanted to briefly discuss the number 10 team, because some of that has been
11:18revealed. Obviously, James Purnell is going to be his chief of staff. And then there's a slew of other
11:22very impressive people who will be taking on different roles. But I've got, I've just got a
11:27couple of thoughts where you have things like a director of communications, a director of news,
11:35and a director of strategic communications, potential confusion there. There's a director of
11:40political strategy, there's a political director. And I'm intrigued by this, not because I think
11:48there necessarily will be problems, but you end up having a lot of overlap. What does long-term
11:53and short-term really mean if you've only got two years or three years max to a general election?
11:59And so long as everyone is really communicating well with each other, there'll be no problems.
12:04But otherwise, there can be a bit of a bum fight. Everyone says, well, I'm a director of whatever.
12:09I should be in the morning meeting. And unless, you know, particularly once you get into that
12:14building, when you're all shuttled away into funny different rooms, because, you know, it is a
12:19couple of townhouses knocked together. It's not a modern working environment. There can be friction.
12:25You're absolutely right. And you and I have both been guilty of the crime of inflating job titles to
12:30make somebody who's otherwise a bit sad happy. There's always a bit of job title chicanery.
12:35What really matters to your point is it's very clear who is making a decision. And if you're a poor,
12:40beleaguered civil servant in this environment, which of these political masters actually matters?
12:45So to the decision that you've got to put to them, because that's the bit that gets really
12:48confusing. And I am an absolute, like it makes my skin itch, those email chains with like 400 people
12:55copied into it. So there is a really, really bad habit that's endemic in Whitehall and has got worse
13:01as you get more and more people is this kind of endless copying and not enough hard accountability.
13:07You kind of need to know who's the guy that's going to sign off, whether we can say this or
13:11that.
13:11That's it. That's all I really need to understand. And who's the person to invite to this meeting?
13:16And while I really love the short term, long term distinction, as in, it will be rather a good thing
13:21if there were people who worked in number 10 who were thinking beyond this afternoon.
13:25Very good. Where's that timeline go? So if it's short term today and next week, and is it this year?
13:33Is it long term 10 years? And how do you decide who to come? Do you have to have the
13:37short term
13:37person and the long term person in the same meeting on energy policy? How do you decide
13:43practically who's doing what? So I think some of this can be beautiful on paper, but needs to be
13:48really hardwired in practice and personality with who is actually in charge.
13:53Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, one of the things I have great sympathy with is that I've seen
13:59suggestions of factions so far within the projected number 10 Burnham team. And,
14:06you know, I think before I started working in government, I'd have thought, oh, gosh,
14:11how awful that all at loggerheads. And now I just know that often isn't true. So the constant
14:18line in the media when I worked for Boris Johnson was that there was a big rivalry between the vote
14:26leave faction and the former mayoralty office faction. And it just wasn't true. We got on
14:35really well. And there was no fighting like that. But there was someone or a few people clearly trying
14:41to cause mischief. And it's so unhelpful, so undermining. And they've got to put a stop to it
14:47immediately.
14:48It's also really interesting that there is very, very little briefing coming out of the
14:52Burnham camp at all. I think it shows a really healthy amount of discipline slash fear that
14:58actually you're not seeing a great deal of speculation. Now, whether that'll hold through
15:02next week, it's really interesting. But you're already hearing quite a lot of the journalists
15:07that we now know saying the really annoying thing is you can't get anyone to talk to you. And actually,
15:11if you are that disciplined, and if right at the top, you can't get anyone to talk to you,
15:16then it's very difficult to start genuinely credible stories running about what's going on. So
15:21that too is a sign of strength.
15:27So we're sat here today on Friday talking about transitions of power. And everyone's focused on
15:33Monday when Andy Burnham will become Prime Minister. The actual transition of power obviously happened
15:38weeks and weeks, if not months ago, in terms of who were people who wanted to be near the guy
15:45who
15:45was going to be in charge, who were they talking to? And that hasn't been Keir Starmer for some time
15:49now. There was obviously a period of time where it might not have been Andy Burnham, it could have
15:53been West Street, it might have been Angela Rayner. There were other kind of centres of power in the
15:58Labour galaxy. But right now, it's been Andy Burnham, and then it's been James Purnell. And then it's
16:03been the people that everyone knows are their people for some weeks now. So power shifts a long
16:09time before actually even the Prime Minister notices, I think.
16:13Can I trouble you to walk us through what the that sort of transfer window, bit of footy knowledge
16:22there? How that actually goes? What's going to happen to Andy Burnham on on Monday? And what's
16:28going to happen to Keir Starmer?
16:29Well, we interviewed Peter Hill, who was Principal Private Secretary for Theresa May and Boris Johnson
16:35for our summer series of podcasts about lessons from number 10. And one of the things I hadn't
16:41realised was that we've talked a lot before about how, if you're a civil servant in number 10,
16:46you have this really weird day on the day that the Prime Minister's changeover, where you're saying
16:51goodbye, and it's very emotional, and you're saying goodbye to your old boss. And then you've got this
16:55amazing kind of pivot on your heels to get ready to welcome in all these super excited people who
17:01are coming to work in number 10 for the first time, and then a new Prime Minister and a new
17:05top team,
17:05and you're kind of go, go, go. I had forgotten until we heard Peter telling us the story,
17:11that if you're the Principal Private Secretary, so that is effectively the most senior civil servant
17:16who works for the Prime Minister and is at their side in everything, that the Principal Private
17:21Secretary goes in the car to Buckingham Palace with the outgoing Prime Minister,
17:25gets out of the car, and then has to kind of scurry round to be ready to get in the
17:31car with
17:31the new Prime Minister coming back to Downing Street. So hats off to all those Principal Private
17:37Secretaries who've done that. Not easy. Yeah, it's a weird split to the day, isn't it? That on the one
17:42hand, it's tearful and goodbye and thanks to everything. And then an almost immediate,
17:49hello, welcome. It's quite manipulative. So what about the other civil servants? So the Principal
17:55Private Secretary goes off and might be away for maybe an hour, do you think, at Buckingham Palace?
18:01And then great fanfare, helicopters following the car on the way back to number 10. In the meantime,
18:09the special advisors have all been hustled out if they're on the way out and they've come on to the
18:15street if they're on the way in. What happens to the Prime Minister, the new Prime Minister and the
18:21civil servants? So the new Prime Minister stands on the steps of Downing Street, traditionally makes
18:27their speech. The speech really matters because that's not just what they say for the telly on the
18:32day. It ought to be their marching instructions for the whole of the public sector and their kind
18:36of opportunity to really set parameters. And particularly for Andy Burnham, would you say,
18:41because he has not come in on the Labour manifesto? Definitely, he sort of has to set out his personal
18:47manifesto. He did that for Makerfield. The United Kingdom is not Makerfield. So what is he going to
18:52say on Monday morning, which is going to set the kind of pattern for him as Prime Minister, tell us
18:58a
18:58bit more about who he is, and give us a bit of what does a Burnham Prime Ministership really look
19:04like?
19:05And I hope we'll see a lot of that. And then he turns on his heels, walks through the door,
19:10all the clapping people, like political team and civil servants, welcome him in to the building,
19:17straight down the corridor. Hello, hello. No time for like massive amounts of chatting,
19:21no time for everything else. And you can sometimes see the political team almost get whiplash because
19:26what's happened then is, you know, the civil service side, thanks very much. You're our guy now.
19:31You're the Prime Minister. So you sort of have to come into our world and here we go. And it's
19:38starting off with cabinet appointments. And we've speculated about the people, but the actual
19:44organisational effort that has to go into those appointments is pretty extraordinary. And it's
19:51exhausting because you have this huge operation within Downing Street of, do you remember the old
19:57rolling chain, the rolling email chain? Oh yeah. And headsets? Oh yes. It's a military-esque
20:03sort of precision operation where you have everybody timed to perfection of the point in which they're
20:08supposed to arrive at Downing Street, how they're getting to Downing Street, walking up the street,
20:12coming in, having the conversation with the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has to be ready to give
20:17them their instructions. It's a very powerful moment, as I think we've talked about before. It's this
20:23really intense moment where a new minister will think, OK, this is what the boss wants from me.
20:27This is how I'm going to do my job well. And then they get off and they have their horrible
20:33conversation about their own propriety and their ethics and whether there are things about them.
20:39This is their sort of last chance saloon for telling the government that actually it might not
20:44be the best idea to appoint them because there might be some skeletons in some closets or some
20:48issues that need to be managed. And then when you've got the blessing from the propriety and
20:53ethics check, the appointment's been made, then in a way it's like children leaving the nest. Then
21:00the minister's gone, they're off and they're into their department. And that's again when you quite
21:05often see the political team in Number 10 thinking, hang on a second, we've been having all of these
21:09conversations with this person who's been part of our team and then they've abandoned us, they've gone
21:13and there they go off into their department to do their thing. And you do that on rinse and repeat.
21:18I think on the day that Boris Johnson became prime minister, I think we appointed, we went through
21:24the appointments of more ministers in a day than had ever been done before. We did the whole of the
21:27cabinet and we did most of the ministers of state and even got into some of the junior ranks and
21:33we
21:33kind of called it a day at some ridiculous time of night because that's part of one of the things
21:38that
21:38you want to do is really project that you're in office, in power and governing right from the off.
21:44And he has to do quite a lot of firing as well, doesn't he? Because there are people who are
21:49going
21:49to lose their jobs.
21:50Yes. And there's a choice to be made there, right? I mean, with all of these conversations,
21:54there's a choice to be made. What is it that the prime minister does? What is it that his chief
21:58of staff does? What is it the chief whip does? Who is the person who has those conversations to
22:03to land the messages? What happened when Boris Johnson had to effectively start by
22:09sacking Theresa May's cabinet? Because obviously, people have jobs until they don't have jobs.
22:14There's not like a hiatus. The Home Secretary will be the Home Secretary. Quite important that
22:17the Defence Secretary is the Defence Secretary until you ask someone to stand aside and then
22:22that somebody else is going to be appointed. I remember one of the things at the end of Boris
22:27Johnson's first day when we were kind of looking back at what happened and doing a bit of a wash
22:31up,
22:32him saying that the conversations he'd enjoyed the most were the ones with the people that he'd
22:37fired because they were so gracious and lovely about it. The gracious and lovely people were the
22:43people from Theresa May's cabinet who were stepping aside and the slightly less gracious people were
22:48the people that he'd appointed to jobs, which I think boded for the future.
22:52What do you think, just having just been around for some of these, both for normal reshuffles and
22:59transfers of power, what do you think this sort of cardinal sin or big mistake can be?
23:04It's a moment when it's the kind of professional, professional civil service really comes into its
23:09own because you definitely have to do a sort of king is dead, long live the king moment. And both
23:15your new ministerial boss and their political advisors are hawkish about you looking like you still
23:23feel like you're working for the last person. So you have to be so disciplined with yourself
23:27of not talking about, it's like an ex partner, right? It's like no one wants to hear how great
23:33a boyfriend the last guy was. No one's interested in that. So you have to be super sensitive about
23:40not doing that and not assuming the pattern that the new minister will fall into the pattern of the
23:46old one. So you really go out of your way when you're forming those early relationships to be
23:51very sensitive to don't give them the tea the way the old person liked the tea or it's all of
23:57that
23:57dynamic stuff. Make sure you're asking them questions about what they like, really learn
24:02their preferences really early on. And then you make sure that they never see again the thing that
24:07they didn't like. And you have to almost really overdo the signalling that this is your place and
24:14your whatever. And I have seen civil servants really get that wrong, either insufficient cleaning out of
24:19the old guy's stuff. Or telling new ministers sometimes, I did actually want to see somebody
24:24do this, that it was much better. Because what the other guy used to do, you're thinking, no,
24:31this is a disaster. Please don't say that. It doesn't matter. Whatever this person thinks is now what we all
24:37think.
24:38I have been given a list of questions for you. And I just need to do a bit of an
24:42explanation here.
24:43Because each question has a song title by the band The Smiths attached to it, which I believe is
24:52something to do with Andy Burnham, but I'm not totally sure. And these song titles are written
24:57in italics. And I thought they were just, I thought Vicar in a Tutu was just a weird expression. I
25:02didn't
25:02realise it was a song. So bear with me. So on day one, heaven knows I'm miserable now. When does
25:09the
25:09Prime Minister have the really scary initial security conversations? And does he get nuclear
25:14codes? So he will have started some of those scary conversations and they will continue as part of
25:19Prime Minister's life. He does not get the nuclear codes. That's not really how it works. The very
25:24hard thing that he does have to do, or Prime Ministers have to do, is decide what instructions
25:29to give our nuclear submarine commanders on what to do if they cannot make contact with the UK
25:36after a nuclear attack. So every Prime Minister writes letters that are sealed and sent and put
25:43into a safe on a nuclear submarine and the commander of the nuclear submarine would open those and it
25:48basically says whether to attack in revenge or not. And none of us know and will ever know what
25:55are in those letters. Well that leads us nicely on to panic on the streets of Whitehall. When does
26:00Andy Burnham really start to realise he's Prime Minister, he's in charge, there's only scary things to
26:05come. I suspect his first day will involve some difficult decisions because not everybody will
26:09be happy with their appointments and he's going to make some, he's going to have some unhappy people
26:13as well as some happy people. And in my experience there's a point when suddenly they realise they are the
26:20person and that's it now. Okay, back to the old house. What do ex-Prime Ministers do after they leave
26:28number 10? Where do they live? Do they just retreat to lick their wounds? Do they pick a weird hobby?
26:35Oh, I don't know about former Prime Minister's hobbies actually, that's a good question. They do tend to
26:40have to go and live somewhere else for a while, so in an indeterminate location because they have
26:47quite often left office in a hurry so haven't got a plan. There's probably somebody living in their house
26:52so usually some generous benefactor or friend will let them go and live in their house for a bit
26:58while they work out what the hell they're going to do with the rest of their life.
27:02Okay, please, please, please let me get what I want. Oh yeah, I know that one. Yay!
27:10Maybe we should be singing them, aren't you?
27:13How soon will lobbyists, colleagues, former colleagues start badgering the new PM for things
27:20they want? Oh, weeks ago. So that's already happened and I sincerely hope he has taken the
27:26advice to change his phone number. Vicar Inututu, is there a dress rehearsal for when the new Prime
27:33Minister arrives? No. I guess we've had so many recently. So many. So it's funny, in 2015 we did have
27:42to remind ourselves of all sorts of things because it had been a while since we'd had a new Prime
27:46Minister
27:46from the civil service side. I don't think that's the case these days so I'm afraid the files are not
27:53even dusty. Cleo doesn't know any of these Smith songs. The joke isn't funny anymore. Cleo, tell us
27:59about PMs moving into their new homes and if you know anything about what they might think about the
28:04previous inhabitants. Yeah. Well, if you recall, when Boris Johnson and Carrie Johnson moved into
28:12the flat that Theresa and Philip May previously lived in, they called it a John Lewis nightmare.
28:19And they did some quite expensive decorations. Then when Jeremy Hunt went in, because he went into
28:25their flat, he talked about gold wallpaper. So there were some interior design choices not
28:34everybody agreed with, put it that way. Also, John Lewis nightmare, I didn't agree with.
28:38I know. There's no such thing. Sounds lovely. Fancy.
28:44So Monday, Ben's first day at big school, what's your advice?
28:48Oh, gosh. I mean, he must know the building a bit already just because he worked in the Blair and
28:55Brown years. But it's a whole different thing when you're in charge. You've got to know where the
29:01loos are, obviously. And the urinal that was there back in... Oh, yeah.
29:07It's gone. It's gone, baby. Don't pee in the waiting room.
29:10No, they won't like that at all. That's good advice.
29:14So that's gone. You've got to go around the corner now. And I must say, get down to the
29:18cafeteria and befriend the ladies who work there. They're so nice. And at the end of the
29:23day, they quite often give you discounted things that won't last overnight. I want 13 sausages
29:30in a day. Insatiable.
29:34Do you think the Prime Minister will be down there in getting the discount sausages at the
29:38end of the working day? Maybe you will.
29:40Maybe you will. Well, we've got to pinch the pennies where we can.
29:45My advice is also going to be to do with food, but perhaps not 13 sausages levels of food,
29:49which is, it's very easy on these really big days to forget about your hydration and your eating.
29:56And you get very nervous and then you realise it's got to nine o'clock and you haven't eaten
30:00anything. So being Prime Minister is a marathon, not a sprint. So look after yourself, actually.
30:06Yeah. And make tea properly. Make tea properly.
30:09Oh my, don't get me started on that. I can't, I can't bear it.
30:12Tell the people what the future Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland said.
30:17He said that when making a cup of tea, he puts milk in the cup with the tea bag in
30:24order to
30:25moisten the bag were the words that he used. He did acknowledge himself that that would cause
30:30some controversy and he's right about that.
30:33And he's not afraid. He's not afraid of controversy. I like that.
30:36I mean, more so than I thought, to be honest. I thought he was a people pleaser. That is the
30:41least people pleasing thing I've ever heard.
30:43More on this as it comes.
30:45Thank you for listening to this episode of In The Room. Remember to follow us on a podcast
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31:10This podcast is part of the Independent Podcast Network and produced in association with Next
31:15Chapter Studios. The executive producer is Rod Ardahali and the producer is Sam Durham.
31:21A special mention to our content editor, Maya Anushka and our video editor, Vali Raza.
31:25Thanks for listening and we'll see you on Tuesday when we'll finally be able to see what Andy
31:29Burnham's real cabinet picks are.
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