545. Burnham Beats Reform: Britain’s Next Prime Minister?

Has Andy Burnham’s huge victory against Reform in Makerfield shown the Labour Party how it can beat Farage? What does this defeat mean for the right, and how tricky will the coming months be for Andy Burnham? What does the Tory victory against the SNP in Aberdeen mean for British energy policy? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. __________ Enjoy Rory and Alastair’s interview with James Cleverly by searching ‘Leading’ on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube. Go deeper into the world of The Rest Is Politics by signing up for our free newsletter HERE, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis and weekend reads from Alastair and Rory. Join The Rest Is Politics Plus. Start your free trial at therestispolitics.com to unlock exclusive bonus content – including Rory and Alastair’s miniseries – plus ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, exclusive newsletters, discounted book prices, and a private chatroom on Discord. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. Stop overpaying for energy. Switch at fuseenergy.com/politics and get a free TRIP+ subscription. Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It's risk-free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee ✅ __________ Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [email protected] __________ Social Producer: Emma Jackson Video Editor: Josh Smith, Kieron Leslie Assistant Producer: Daisy Alston-Horne Producer: Evan Green Exec Producer: Chris Sawyer General Manager: Tom Whiter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Alastair Campbell?

  Labour have won the crucial by-election in Makerfield and they have won it big. Nearly 25,000 votes for Andy Burnham, 55% of all ballots cast. These are normally words that would delight the leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister Keir Starmer. But it was in effect Andy Burnham's application to the Labour Party to oust Keir Starmer and put him into Downing Street instead. So, does this thumping victory, won in an area where reform battered Labour in the local elections in May, spell the end of the Starmer premiership? How has it come to this and what happens next? Also, what does the big win for the Tories in Aberdeen South against the SNP

• 0:44Alastair Campbell?

  mean for the UK and Scottish government's policies on energy? It was quite a night in British politics.

• 0:52Alastair Campbell?

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• 0:54Rory Stewart?

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• 1:45Alastair Campbell?

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• 1:55Rory Stewart?

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• 1:57Alastair Campbell?

  And I must thank NordVPN because on my Grand European Tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go.

• 2:10Rory Stewart?

  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creve and of course the thing flashed up saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN and it was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying if you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks.

• 2:33Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think, are you not already sort of proud of me that I managed to do this? Or should I say Fiona managed to do this?

• 2:40Rory Stewart?

  I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/restispolitics. That's nordvpn.com/restispolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 2:56Speaker 02

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• 3:34Rory Stewart?

  Welcome to The Rest is Politics with me Rory Stewart.

• 3:38Alastair Campbell?

  And me Alastair Campbell. So Rory, Andy Burnham has won and he has won big.

• 3:43Rory Stewart?

  Amazing. So just to put it in context, this is the by-election in Makerfield.

• 3:50Rory Stewart?

  And this was prime Reform territory. So two thirds of voters in this constituency had voted for Brexit. And in the local elections, very recently, just a few weeks ago, Labour were 20 points behind Reform. So Reform could have won this seat comfortably. But Andy Burnham has won this with a 20-point lead. He's increased his party vote share by 10. And this is something right against the national trend. So as you, I'm sure are going to get on to Aberdeen South, as you mentioned, is now Labour went down 19 points and it went down 18 points in Arbroath, but it went 10 points up in this constituency with Andy Burnham. And he basically wiped out

• 4:35Rory Stewart?

  the Greens, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives. The Greens, Lib Dems got about 1%, Conservatives got about 2%. And even Restore and Reform together wouldn't have been enough to beat him. So it's looking very, very strong. There are some caveats around the corner, but pretty strong. Back over to you.

• 4:52Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I think a lot of the, when you talk about the two Scottish by-elections, which were caused by former Westminster MPs winning seats in the Holyrood Parliament in the recent Scottish elections, I think a lot of tactical voting going on there and a lot of tactical voting to stop Reform in Makerfield. But listen, I was talking to people in the campaign last night, and even late on, they were, they were very confident Andy Burnham was going to win, but they were worried that a win might be tainted if Restore votes, the far, far right party, ate into Reform, the just right, very right wing populist party, and that became a deciding factor. But it wasn't needed because, as you say, 55% of the vote meant they didn't get near. I'll be checking a few historical footload story.

• 5:36Alastair Campbell?

  You've got to go back to the time when I was one year old, Torrington, 1958, Mark Burnham Carter won for the Liberals for a bigger differential turnout from a general election to a by-election.

• 5:48Rory Stewart?

  What does a differential turnout mean? Sorry?

• 5:50Alastair Campbell?

  The increase in the vote. In a by-election, as opposed to the parliamentary election, it's normally lower in a by-election. This is considerably higher. So he's driven out people who didn't vote last time round. And then to go back for a rise in the actual numbers for a by-election candidate standing for the party of government, going up on this scale, you've got to go back to Labour, Kevin McNamara, Hull, 1966, a year more remembered for football rather than politics.

• 6:20Rory Stewart?

  The two things you're saying there is that apart from the actual results, the two norms in a by-election are usually, or sometimes fewer people turn out than turn up for a general election. And usually in by-elections, there's a tendency to vote against the party of government. It's often a protest vote. So if you were just running it normally, you would have looked at three things. You would have said, well, it's a by-election, probably government, anti-government, probably lower turnout. And then you would have looked at the local elections in May and you would have said Labour was trailing 20 points behind Reform. And remember, of course, in the background is this by-election, Gorton and Dent, which they didn't let Andy Burnham run in and which Labour lost. And, you know, there were a lot of people at times saying, oh, there's nothing to say that

• 7:03Rory Stewart?

  if he had run, if the NEC had allowed him to run, he really would have won. I think the evidence, I would suggest, points to the idea that he probably would have won big there too. Back over to you.

• 7:13Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, so I think the exam question that is keeping quite a lot of Labour people awake at night is who can stop Reform? And the stat of all the different stats we can look at that they'll be looking at most closely is this one, 23% swing from Reform to Labour since May in the seats that Reform took from Labour in those local elections. And as you say, Andy Burnham more than doubling Labour's share of the vote. And this seat, by the way, I'm indebted to Peter Kellner for this, I'd forgotten this, but this seat was the sixth, had the sixth highest Reform vote in the last general election. So I guess what MPs are seeing and thinking about this morning

• 7:54Alastair Campbell?

  is this, that there is a way to stop Reform. I've always felt that there is to, but they're thinking Andy Burnham may be essential to that way. So the pressure. On Keir Starmer is huge, there's no doubt about that. The, you know, numbers matter in politics. Polls come and go, but these are real numbers. And the truth is Andy Burnham has done better than expected. So then we ask, what happens now? And the truth is, nobody knows. I've talked to a lot of people, I've talked to a lot of the key people. Um, as late as Wednesday, Keir Starmer was gathering in MPs and telling them, whatever the result, if there is a challenge, I'm going to fight it. His one public response so far is a social media post, we're recording this,

• 8:39Alastair Campbell?

  uh, you know, in the morning of, uh, after the by-election. Is a social media post saying voters chose Labour's campaign of hope and optimism over, over division and hate. But of course, if you've been to Makefield, you might see that at all the billboards, at all the posters around there, it doesn't say Labour, it says Andy. So all depends now what these key figures decide to do. I don't believe Andy Burnham wants to make that challenge. But he will make clear, if they do have a conversation, that he's got the numbers if that is needed. And the truth is, you know this in politics, MPs can be very herd-like. Those, those numbers are likely to be growing. I don't think he'll do, I very much doubt we'll see him much over the media, other than maybe

• 9:23Alastair Campbell?

  going for a run or having a pint or whatever he might do. Uh, because he'll be waiting to see what unfolds, the same as everybody else. So key to this Keir Starmer's reaction, key also Wes Streeting's reaction, but I think to some extent, I suspect this takes Wes Streeting pretty much out of the game. And if I had to put my life on it, I think Andy Burnham is, could be there by conference.

• 9:46Rory Stewart?

  Okay, and conference is October, right?

• 9:49Alastair Campbell?

  It's late September, last week of September, yeah.

• 9:51Rory Stewart?

  So, really big news, I mean, that's a new Prime Minister for the UK. Something that again will puzzle the world because Keir Starmer won a really big majority, looked like he could sit there for five years and, you know. Britain's going through prime ministers at a kind of Belgian Italian rate at the moment. But I think the logic of this, and obviously MPs can behave in very illogical ways and Labour MPs can behave in illogical ways like anyone else. But if I keep coming back to two drums that I've been banging. The first is Keir Starmer cannot win the next election. The guy, for his many merits, there are many things that are, you know, likeable about Keir Starmer. He's just no good as a prime minister. He's not a winning phenomenon.

• 10:36Rory Stewart?

  His net popularity is terrible. He can't make a speech. He doesn't have any clear definition. I can't find anyone in any meeting I go to who can tell me what his economic policy is, what his growth policy is, what it stands for. So my analogy has always been, look, with Keir Starmer, it's a losing proposition. The ship's heading into the iceberg. Now, getting off and getting on the lifeboats may not work. Andy Burnham may not work, but there's no serious alternatives of staying with Starmer. And the second thing I think we've been saying is that if Burnham wins well, and he's won really well here, it's answered the number one big question in politics, which is, can you take on reform? And, and what I love about it, to, to sound like a bit of an Andy Burnham fanboy for a moment,

• 11:21Rory Stewart?

  is that he's not done it in the way that some of the people advising the Conservative Party would have said is the only way of beating reform. He's done it with a pretty decent, straightforward campaign. He hasn't done any crazy. I mean, there's lots of temptations. If you're taking on reform in a constituency, I imagine the pressure on you to think, well, I can just, you know, I can sound a little bit more right wing and radical. I can steal a little bit of reforms language here. I can surprise people because I can count on my Labour vote and I can bring over reform by. He hasn't done that. It was a pretty sunny, I mean, sorry, on the ground, it felt very nasty, but the way Burnham's conducted himself. Has been pragmatic, progressive, laid back, and he's won big. And I think that's

• 12:05Rory Stewart?

  the recipe for British politics. I think what Starmer got wrong was that he lost that sense of being a happy warrior. He lost the sense of being able to communicate well, having a sense of hope, and that actually Morgan McSweeney was the kind of worst of all worlds if what he was doing is saying the way to beat reform is to on certain issues sound like a kind of mini reform without being able to sound the more optimistic notes back over to you.

• 12:30Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I mean, I guess, look, Keir Starmer will have a lot of deep thinking to do in the next few days and will doubtless be talking to all sorts of people. And he'll probably be feeling very, very angry. And he can be, he can get very angry, Keir. And the thing is that, you know, he's probably thinking, I led the Labour Party to a landslide victory when they told us that we were finished, and they said that we could never do it, and I did it. The economy actually was beginning to pick up a bit until Donald Trump did his stupid bloody war in Iran. Reform have made their numbers rise on the back of small boats and immigration. And actually, we've done some pretty tough things, and we're getting the numbers going in the right way, the National Health Service numbers going the right way.

• 13:13Alastair Campbell?

  There's lots that he can point to. The trouble is, as you say, when you're out and about, and I'm the same as you, are always talking to people about what they think. And even people who have often benefited from Labour government policy changes aren't even necessarily aware that they have happened. And that is, that is a sort of political communications issue. The other reason he'll be feeling angry, but this works both ways. And I think, you know, because obviously, a lot depends now on how these two deal with each other. The fact is, there is an extra no trust between them, and that is a problem. And that's a political failure. I remember quite a long time ago, being up in Manchester. Uh, I mean, it was after Keir Starmer became leader, but before he became prime minister.

• 13:57Alastair Campbell?

  I remember seeing Andy Burnham and him saying, oh, God, the way these guys operate, if you, unless you're a hundred percent echo everything they say, you get stuff through the press, blah, blah, blah. Keir has talked to Keir Starmer's people and they'll say, bloody Andy Burnham is impossible to deal with. Anything you do, he trims a little bit this way, trims a little bit that way. But the truth is that trust has broken down. Now, I think it is possible, you know, we talked about this and, and I think I got it wrong about the, the Gordon and Denton thing, when I actually thought I could see why Keir Starmer was getting the national executive to block Andy Burnham from standing. I think it's possible that back then, he might have been able to say, Andy, you show you can win, win, come in and I give you a big job in the cabinet and then let's see how

• 14:40Alastair Campbell?

  things go. I'm afraid I think the process around then is the reason why Keir Starmer apparently now having said to Andy Burnham, why do you come into the cabinet? If you get into the, in, in back into parliament, Andy Burnham in basically is making clear, no. And in his acceptance speech, he had this line, you know, we'll get no second chance. Um, now that's a deliberate way to, to accept, you can't change your prime minister every five minutes like the Tories did, but he's basically saying, I am your second chance. So this really is hard, brutal politics now. He's going to arrive in parliament on Monday, he's going to take his seat. Does Keir Starmer sit in parliament for that?

• 15:24Alastair Campbell?

  Uh, does he kind of, you know, smile happily? And of course, he's, he's not bound to set a timetable for his departure, but that is basically what Andy Burnham and those who are supporting were going to be asking for.

• 15:39Rory Stewart?

  Two things that I was thinking when you were talking, as you say, he blew it by refusing to let him run in Gordon and Denton. I mean, again, it's a classic sign of the sort of McSweeney mindset going wrong. I suppose the cliche there is kind of mafia cliche. If you're going to strike at the king, right, you must kill him. So if you've tried to exclude and destroy Andy Burnham and stop him coming in once and you failed, you can't then hope to control him when he comes in the second time. I think the other thing is that all those stories about anger sound absolutely identical to Joe Biden. I mean, almost phrase by phrase what she said there, you know. Number one, you know, I was the guy that beat Donald Trump and I'm not going to give credit for the fact that I brought the Democrats in.

• 16:25Rory Stewart?

  Number two, the only reason this thing is going wrong is because of these MAGA guys. Number three, you know, they're getting support because of immigration, but I'm doing stuff on immigration, you know, I'm almost identical to Republicans on immigration. All that is understandable, but the reason it sounds like Joe Biden is it's the anger of somebody who is trying to cling on when the party and the country knows they can't win the next election and they need to be got rid of. And their anger is that people aren't being grateful towards them. But that's not legitimate in a football manager or a CEO or a prime minister. You're not there for the gratitude, you're there to win. And you can't win.

• 17:07Rory Stewart?

  And like Biden, the longer this dude clings on, the worse, because once you've lost it, there's no point being a sort of lame duck prime minister or president.

• 17:19Alastair Campbell?

  How do you feel looking in on it with the notion that they could replace Keir Starmer as Labour leader and therefore as prime minister without any contest at all?

• 17:31Rory Stewart?

  I believe in contests. I mean, I think that's one of the things that went wrong with Kamala Harris. She never got a chance to really show whether she could beat it. The country never really felt there was any contest. I think Theresa May coming in with a coronation was awkward. If you remember with that run after Boris Johnson fell out, Andrea Ledson fell out and she basically just came through. I'm less worried than you are by this idea of people knocking bits off each other. I think it can be quite healthy. That's my counter example. So when I was running against in that leadership in 2019, of course, everybody in the Conservative Party was saying, could you, leadership candidates, stop attacking each other? This is very bad for our brand. Everybody hates us attacking each other.

• 18:15Rory Stewart?

  But the reality is that Boris Johnson came out of a pretty brutal campaign where we were all knocking bits off each other and won big. And I think people sort of understand that that can happen. So

• 18:27Alastair Campbell?

  Let me jump in there then, Russ. So if you were, if you were sitting in a room with Keir Starmer now and you were, you were his best friend, would you be saying to him, he should stand in that contest, even if he thinks he might lose? And if you were West Streeting's best friend, would you be saying to him, look, Andy cannot come in and just have a coronation. At least somebody like you has to stand and offer a different vision for the Labour Party. Would you advise him to do it?

• 18:53Rory Stewart?

  I think the, the latter probably makes more sense because if the story is that Keir Starmer can't make it, making him go through a painful campaign pretending to run when nobody believes he, he should be Prime Minister doesn't make sense. I think West Streeting's story is a good one because presumably that's what your friend Tony Blair would like to see. I mean, I guess that's what his letter was about. There is another story that Labour needs to get its head around, and I think Andy Burnham needs to answer, which is, is there a radically different economic policy that a centre-left party could pursue? Could they have a different energy policy? Could they have a different tax policy? Could they

• 19:31Rory Stewart?

  have a different innovation policy? What calls is he going to make on tech, non-doms, energy, foreign policy, all this sort of stuff that, that Blair thing was trying to stir up? So I, I don't, I don't like the idea that somebody, and I also think that some, that there's nothing for Burnham to be afraid of. He's on a winning streak. I'd take the risk if I was him because it looks sort of slightly pathetic to just be crowned. And I'd certainly, if I was Burnham, be saying, bring it on. I'd love to have the debate. I don't want to be crowned. I'd like people to run against me.

• 20:07Alastair Campbell?

  I don't think that's where he is. I think he thinks that the, that, I think his view is probably that in a way, this contest that he's just won and the scale of the win. Is more significant for the country than a debate, internal debate that could tear the party apart and get people to say crazy things because they're appealing to a different sort of electorate. So it's a kind of risk, it is a risk both ways. And also what's interesting, when you were going through all the sort of policy on this, policy on that, will he change this, will he change that? I know a couple of times the Conservatives got away with resisting the pressure of saying, look, if you change your Prime Minister, you have to have a general election. We shouldn't underestimate the pressure that there will be and with a, with a media that

• 20:49Alastair Campbell?

  is going to be, the, the, if, if Andy Burnham does replace Keir Starmer, the massive hostility of most of the right wing media to Keir Starmer translates automatically. The sort of Russian propaganda, et cetera, operations that have been running and of which we've learnt more in, in recent times, they're going to transfer. So he's got to have in him, he's obviously got confidence. I agree with you about the nature of his campaign. I'd have been very tempted running that campaign to have taken all sorts of lumps off Reform. Really tried to have made Farage and crypto and all that stuff, really tried to get in there and he resisted all that. But I think in getting democratic legitimacy on the back of one by-election of 60,000 voters, whatever it is, is, I think it's a stretch.

• 21:34Alastair Campbell?

  So, but you know, if I, again, if I had to put my life on it, we're living in such unpredictable, volatile times, but my money at the moment probably would be if he is going to be Prime Minister in the next few months on a, on a coronation. My son Rory's just sent me a thing that Betfair has him 94% to be the next Prime Minister.

• 21:55Alastair Campbell?

  That, that means Rory, that you don't want to, don't do a Kamala Harris style bet on that one, please, just don't, just don't do it. You mentioned there, the, the other thing that I think is really significant out of this by-election and which won't, I don't think, get the, maybe the debate that it, that it should. I've been saying to you for some time that I think we are through peak Reform. And I know that's country in turn to because they keep coming top in the polls, but I think Reform have a ceiling. And I think some of this stuff, I think the money stuff has damaged Farage. I think the Russia stuff does damage Farage. I actually think that the Jenrick, Braverman, Zahawi, these Tory retreads

• 22:38Alastair Campbell?

  coming over and suddenly being the big figures in the, in Reform. And as if we're so stupid as to hear John Jenrick talk about immigration when he was the Immigration Minister responsible for some of the disasters that he now says are disasters. And an interesting thing, we have James Cleverly on leading this week. I, I noticed him, he last night posted a couple of bi election, council by-elections in Essex, which Reform won in the local elections. They've had by-elections presumably because the candidates have thought, oh, I didn't expect to win, I don't want to do it. And they've now lost and they've gone back to the Conservatives. So I think this is really bad for, for Reform. Farage will do his usual thing. I bet he goes to ground for a bit. He'll hope all the focus is on Andy Burnham rather than him. So let's take a break and when we come back, we'll talk about this election in Aberdeen

• 23:23Alastair Campbell?

  South, very, very interesting Tories beating the SNP. And also we'll maybe focus on some of the challenges that Andy Burnham would face if he does replace Keir Starmer. Absolutely. Looking forward to talking about it after the break.

• 23:36Speaker 03

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• 24:37Speaker 05

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• 24:57Rory Stewart?

  Welcome back to The Rest of Politics with me Rory Stewart.

• 25:00Alastair Campbell?

  And me Alastair Campbell and we're talking on this Friday morning after three by-elections, two in Scotland, one in the north west of England, which may, may be a step on the road to a change of occupant of Downing Street. But Rory, Scotland was interesting too.

• 25:16Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, so one, one story that you could have got, looking at the election we just saw in Makefield, is that the Tories were wiped out. They got barely 2% of the vote. They lost their deposit, I mean, the Greens and the Dems too.

• 25:31Alastair Campbell?

  I'd love to know how many of them voted for, how many people who voted for those three parties at the general election voted for Andy Burnham, I bet it summed it.

• 25:37Rory Stewart?

  There was a lot of Tories going over to Andy Burnham, which of course, for somebody like me who actually believes there's a huge constituency for quite gentle, progressive, thoughtful politics and the centre ground, Andy Burnham's hugely cheering. And I think the Tories should be really worried. I think this is where Burnham may prove that he can attract, in a way that Starmer couldn't, a lot of the centre right voters over. If the Tories continue to try to chase, chase the reform on the right. So you might have looked at that election and you could actually say, this is the death knell for the Conservatives. This is the moment at which they become like François Hollande's Socialist Party in France, or this is the moment where the Canadian Conservatives are wiped out because it's so bad.

• 26:21Rory Stewart?

  And then, as you say, up in Aberdeen South, astonishingly, the Conservatives just won a seat against the SNP, turning around the general election results and Kemmy Badenoch's net popularity rating is going up. And again, there's going to be a huge debate within the Conservative Party. Some people will say it doesn't matter what her net popularity rating is. Look what happened in Makerfield. She got no votes. And of course, many people will say it doesn't really matter for Scottish Conservatives. And other people will try to spin it as a positive result. But it's partly about energy too. I noticed, and I'm going to push back on this because I, I, we keep having this conversation, but um, our mutual hero, Janus Garstura, the wonderful Norwegian leader,

• 27:05Rory Stewart?

  has just come out saying he wants to drill in the Arctic. And he's quite rightly said, listen, this is completely crazy. We're talking about energy security. We can't rely on Russian gas. We've realised because of strata form moves, we can't rely necessarily on Middle Eastern gas. We don't want to be completely in hock to Donald Trump's gas. And we need gas, desperately need gas, because in most countries, unless you're lucky enough to have huge amounts of hydro, you need gas to back up your renewables. So we need to drill for sovereign reasons, not price reasons. This is what's so irritating about this discussion uh, with Ed Miliband. It's not about the gas price, it's about sovereignty. It's about having your own supply.

• 27:48Rory Stewart?

  And, and I think that's basically the argument that's been run in Aberdeen South successfully by the Conservatives against the SNP, with Labour collapsing.

• 27:56Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, and again, probably, I think tactical voting there as well. The Labour vote did collapse, but I suspect a lot of, look, Labour, or in Scotland, Labour always want to kick the SNP as hard as they can. So I suspect there will have been tactical voting there as well. I think the tactical voting issue is probably going to be, and this is maybe a consequence of this five, six party politics that we're now in, that people are motivated often as much as, if not more, by who do I not want to win as who I want to win. There's no doubt Nigel Farage has his following, but he has a lot of people who cannot even begin to stomach the idea that he might actually become Prime Minister.

• 28:37Alastair Campbell?

  And I think that's a very powerful motivation to vote Andy Burnham, even if you're a Tory. And then I think there was a bit of that in. In Scotland, but there's, listen, there's no doubt the Douglas Lumsden, the Conservative candidate and he and Kemi Badenoch went up there a few times as well. They were fighting on a kind of oil and gas. You know, we've, we've taken enough damage to the oil and gas industry campaign.

• 29:01Alastair Campbell?

  Labour were never going to win this. This has always been Tory SNP battleground, but it will make, I think, both UK and Scottish government. Understand that the politicisation of this debate is, you know, has the potential to be a problem. We should say, by the way, to our listeners, we're doing something a bit different on Question Time next week. Because Roy and I have been arguing a lot about energy policy recently. We're going to have on for a special Question Time, a wonderful guy by the name of Dan Jurgensen. He's Danish, but he's the European Commission Energy Commissioner. He knows the energy world inside out, so we're going to be looking for your questions over the weekend and then doing that next week. But yeah, no, the, listen, there's no doubt, big focus today will be on Andy Burnham and Makerfield.

• 29:45Alastair Campbell?

  But I, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Kemi Badenoch, if she isn't already, is on a flight to Aberdeen to try to get the focus. The focus on that. And then the other one in our both was an SNP SNP hold.

• 29:58Rory Stewart?

  Is it the case that actually both Reform and the SNP have basically been damaged by scandal? And money. I mean, that part of the story here is that the fallout of this. Extraordinary revelations around Peter Morrell, the former CEO of the, the SNP and. Husband of Nicholas Sturgeon about him. Stealing party funds and spending it on his own cars and watches and coffee machines and things. Damage them, or is that not, not the story in Aberdeen itself?

• 30:30Alastair Campbell?

  I, listen, I don't know. I didn't, I didn't go there, but I, I, I saw one of the SNP leaders being asked that and, and he was very, very dismissive. I think they felt this was more the SNP. I think there is a bit of an aftershock to the, the fact that amid all this scandal. The SNP won the Scottish election so comprehensively. As you and I have often said, after not being that good as a government of Scotland and Scotland's public services. So I don't know is the answer, but I do I do think the kind of chipping away at Farage with the media that doesn't really focus on these scandals in the way that it would if it was a a Labour politician or in Scotland, an SNP politician. I think it is chipping away. I I actually think the Russia thing is beginning to trouble people um about Farage and you know, the fact that

• 31:15Alastair Campbell?

  um they don't, they didn't even come out and condemn the the Russian involvement in the attacks on Keir Starmer. Kemi Kemi Badenoch did. Um, what you said earlier, by the way, about Morgan McSweeney, Labour Strategy, Burnham v and Starmer vis a vis Reform. I wonder if this isn't the moment where Kemi Badenoch also has to understand or face up to the idea that actually for her to think that it's all about competing on the Farage Rupert Lowe's base is not the way to build a bigger base than she than she now has. So we'll see on that. Roy, one other interesting, interesting observation, which I think you'd be particularly interested in. So we're in Paris at the moment because we're about to go and do an interview with Gabriel Zuckman, the tax guy.

• 32:00Alastair Campbell?

  Um, but I was just thinking, Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande, all were mayors before going on to be president. Edouard Philippe is currently a mayor and he may be the guy who's the sort of main contender against the Rassemblement National. And Sheinbaum in Mexico and Renzi in Italy. I just wonder if there's another important thing here is that the mayor or the the the mayor, elected mayors that, you know, we brought in, that that has become a new independent power base outside of the Westminster

• 32:40Alastair Campbell?

  world, that if you're big and bold and ruthless, which clearly Andy Burnham has showed himself to be, then that's a different route into the top. I thought that was, I think that's quite interesting.

• 32:51Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely. And of course, the first person to spot this in British politics was Boris Johnson. Because what he discovered by being mayor is that he could show that he could, and Andy Burnham does this too, you can be, choose when to be loyal and when to be disloyal towards your party. Because in the end, you're putting your own city first. And that allows you to basically uniquely in your party, lay out a completely independent platform. You are also able to get things done or come across more as a CEO in a world in which everybody feels that ministers are totally paralyzed by process and law and nobody's sure who's in charge. You can be out on the ground.

• 33:32Rory Stewart?

  And I think that when politics is riven by lack of trust, your best route is probably being a mayor because you are actually out on the ground endlessly meeting people, interacting with them on the street, they're seeing you face to face. And you can be non-political. I think that's the final thing. I mean, the genius of Boris Johnson and his better incarnation as the mayor of London before he became this catastrophic prime minister was that he often was quite non-political and quite liberal and quite funny. And Andy Burnham is really interesting. He is all about getting away from the Westminster Games. He's been extremely sort of non-tribal.

• 34:17Rory Stewart?

  And and I think people already respond to that. So I'm really cheered up by the the Andy Burnham phenomenon. The question is, is he going to be able to hold on to what he's found? He's a much, much better mayor than he was a member of the Westminster Parliament. And the question is, has that changed him permanently? Or is he going to revert back and be sucked back into the Westminster game? Or can he keep some of that confidence and energy?

• 34:41Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And what and what will Lindsay Hoyle say if he turns up in Parliament with a with a black vest on? I mean, that could be. I think are the rules still that you have to wear a shirt and collar and attire?

• 34:52Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, you do, absolutely.

• 34:53Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. I think the other the other couple of points on Andy maybe to end on. And also, I I've just been somebody's just sent me Nigel Farage's reaction. I'll give you that in a minute. It's interesting. Are you there saying he's very non-tribal and et cetera, et cetera, and non-divisive? But in a way. Those people who feel very, very loyal to Keir Starmer are going to be sitting there thinking, how can you even say that? He's exploited divisiveness and tribalism to, you know, to get where he is.

• 35:21Rory Stewart?

  Explain that to me. Explain that to me, because I suppose I'm talking as a non-Labor tribal member. I'm not picking up with him as sort of particular nastiness towards Tory voters. I remember when we were interviewing Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Richard Phillipson before the election, I got a real sense that these were people who were very, very uncomfortable with Tories. Whereas when I interviewed Andy Burnham, I didn't feel that at all. I felt he was good humoured, he was quite sort of broad minded, he was able to. So, so, so why does, why does he seem tribal within the party when he doesn't seem tribal outside the party?

• 35:54Alastair Campbell?

  Well, no, it's not that he's tribal, but he's, you can't say he's not divisive when his whole, his whole strategy at the moment is to find a way to get rid of the Prime Minister, which the Labour Party does not do historically. Let's just say he does come in and let's say he does become Prime Minister. As you say, he'll want to make a mark. He'll have to, he'll have to work out the balance between I am change, but not pushing it so far that people say, well, hold on a minute, that's not in Labour's manifesto, you need your own mandate. And the other thing he'll do to signal change is to make cabinet changes. He would do that now. That creates enemies, that creates division, that creates.

• 36:32Rory Stewart?

  It's, I think it's, I think it's fine. I think he has to be change. You were right about that with Rishi Sunak, that the stupidest thing for Rishi Sunak was not to distance himself enough. And again, my least favourite politician Boris Johnson managed to do that. He came in and he became absolute change and he just leant into that. Totally redid his cabinet. People like me walked out in disgust and horror. He took the party in a radically different direction and he did it successfully. Now, it turned out that he was defeated by his own lack of focus, lack of morality, lack of clarity. But what he did prove is that people want change and Andy Burnham needs to have change. And the worst thing that Andy Burnham could possibly do.

• 37:18Rory Stewart?

  Is, you know, keep Rachel Reeves as Chancellor, keep Bridget Phillips in an education. I think if he was bold, and this will be really difficult for him, but I think it would be very interesting to move Ed Miliband to another really serious, great office of state position. Maybe out of energy would signal something interesting.

• 37:37Alastair Campbell?

  Well, Ed, I don't have any doubt at all that Ed would like to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. There's no doubt about that at all. But what the reaction to that would be, on verra. But the other, the other thing, and talking about Chancellor of the Exchequer, of course, don't forget, you know, if there's going to be a budget in the autumn, there's not going to be an economic miracle between now and the autumn. It's going to be pretty tough. Added to which, some of the process is already underway. There's already kind of some of the preparation for that. So, look, it is going to be really, really fascinating. It's all depending, in the next bit, on Keir Starmer's actual reaction. I don't just mean a post, I mean what he's actually thinking and actually planning and thinking he might do. And then, and then the others.

• 38:20Alastair Campbell?

  And of course, MPs and ministers are going to be chattering away to each other all over the weekend.

• 38:25Rory Stewart?

  Final one for me, I just, just sort of worried about this Starmer reaction point. Because if it's inevitable, you know, let's say you're Rory's right, and there's a close to 100% chance that Annie Burnham's the next Prime Minister, then presumably, ideally, Starmer would be gracious and cheerful and supportive. And there's nothing to be gained by him being grumpy, bitter, angry and chippy about the whole thing. I mean, it may be inevitable, given his personality and the situation, but it's not really in his interests, Labour's interests or the country's interests for him to approach it like that.

• 38:55Alastair Campbell?

  But he, that, that he may think that he would be better. He may think that.

• 39:02Rory Stewart?

  I'm sure Joe Biden thought that he'd be a better president than Kamala Harris.

• 39:06Alastair Campbell?

  Well, that's right, maybe that illustrates, illustrates your point. And of course, we now have a situation where neither of them are. My point is, look, you, you've been in politics, you know this, don't, never rule out the, the kind of. There's something different to most people inside the politician that makes them not always see things in a way that a conventional wisdom might be forming to see them. And that's that's just why I think we're we're still in kind of nobody quite knows what happens next territory. What is beyond doubt is Andy Burnham has taken a big bold risk. And also the other thing to remember, or you don't forget, there's now a by-election for the Manchester mayoralty.

• 39:46Alastair Campbell?

  Andy Burnham, who will be enjoying his triumph today, what he can't do is then be held responsible for something terrible. And I don't think he will. If Labour get their act together on the back of this, I think Labour should be able to to find the right candidate and to hold that. But not a given, far from a given. Let me just tell you, I said before we go, Rory, and we go and talk to Gabriel Zuckman. Should we do it in French or English? Which do you prefer?

• 40:12Rory Stewart?

  You're definitely going to do it in French, House.

• 40:15Alastair Campbell?

  I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. So Nigel Farage has said he is disappointed. Well, that's good news. And he's urged some of his supporters who defected to restore to think again. You see, that's him acknowledging that tactical voting.

• 40:29Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, but this was this was a speech written assuming that the only reason he didn't win was because of a restore. And of course, the great thing is that even if they'd combined their votes, they wouldn't have beaten Andy Burnham.

• 40:38Alastair Campbell?

  Yes. So he goes on. What really happened here was it was vote Burnham, get Keir Starmer out, which of course was our campaign message late leading up to the locals on May the 7th. So we were slightly, get this, very French, hoisted with our own petard. As for the Reform vote share, well, I thought we'd get 18,000 votes. We got just shy of 16. So I'm disappointed, no question about that. So there you are. I think that's good that he's disappointed because I think deep down, maybe he knows that there is a way to beat Reform. And he's just taken a bit of a beating. And don't forget, they're lost in Carefully. Uh to Plaid, they lost in uh Gordon and Denton to the Greens.

• 41:22Alastair Campbell?

  Uh and now they've lost to Labour. So it underlines that point I made earlier. There is a very large body of opinion that thinks the idea of Nigel Farage being Prime Minister is truly horrific. And we have to try to stop it.

• 41:34Rory Stewart?

  Well, very good luck, I think, to Andy Burnham is my view at the moment. And because whatever my views are on uh British politics, I would much rather we had Andy Burnham as Prime Minister than Nigel Farage or Rupert Lowe. And I think a lot is riding on this. Can he be the Mark Carney? Can he be the figure of the centre who brings people together, stands for democracy, stands for compromise, stands for persuasion against these increasingly disturbing and brutal populist parties? And and I mean increasingly disturbing and brutal. I don't care that everybody listening to me who's on the Tory side is now flirting with Reform. Look at the

• 42:16Rory Stewart?

  kind of stuff that these people are posting. Look at what they're saying. Look at people like Elon Musk getting in behind them. I think there is an incredible opportunity if Burnham holds the ground to unite people and inspire people again. And I was so sad that Keir Starmer failed to do it. And he failed to do it because they were too small minded, they were too Labour, they were too bitter, they were too anti Tory, they were too ungenerous in the way that they talked about things. Burnham really, I think, can do it, but he's just got to hold on to the Burnham of Manchester and not become the Burnham of sort of 2010 Westminster.

• 42:53Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, and and and also, in the end, it is about ideas. It's three years. It's a long time. He's going to inherit, if he becomes Prime Minister, all the difficult challenges that Keir Starmer's had. But I think, you know, there's, you cannot take away the fact that he's done the big bolting and on a what is going to be a complicated journey. It's uh this stage has without doubt paid off. Okay. And just before we finish, Rory, bitter housekeeping. Given we've done this Make a Field episode today, who funds Reform, episode four, which was due out today, will be out next Friday. Sign up at therestispolitics.com to catch up on the first three episodes and be ready for episode four when it drops on Friday. And you may or may not be pleased

• 43:37Alastair Campbell?

  to know, a lot of it is about Nigel Farage and his funding. See you then.

• 43:41Rory Stewart?

  See you there. Bye bye.

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