Q&A special: Burnham's coup, his future cabinet and "duplicitous" colleagues | The News Agents

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Manchesterism.It's kind of like New Labour on steroids.Starmer himself wasn't versed to some of the dark arts when he claimed that Jeremy Corbyn was a friend and a colleague and then mysteriously enough he wasn't a friend and a colleague a few months later.It's been brutal and it's been brilliant.

I mean, you know, you may not like Andy Burnham, you might be upset about what's happened to Keir Starmer, you might think what is wrong with the Labour Party, but just as an act of political assassination It's hard to fault it.

The Starmer again tried to invoke quite dark vision of what Farage would mean.

Whereas if you'd had the numbers you'd have gone for it and you just didn't have the numbers you're a busted flush.Welcome to a special question and answer edition of the News Agents and what has been a hugely momentous week.Prime Ministerial special Q &A.No, we're talking about the weather.Oh right.We're talking about the weather, and the first question is from Michael T. Ruffo in Eastbourne.

People love the weather.I've noticed every news outlet, other than yourselves, has been talking about the weather this week.So I just wanted to get your views on it.

We're not the Weather Channel, Michael.

I know Lewis is a big fan of himself.I'm sorry, of the summer months, and is often posting selfies taking a stroll on a lovely warm evening.But do you think this week has been too hot?Nope.Next.Welcome to the News Agents.

The News Agents.It's John.It's Lewis.And before, sorry Michael for maybe not treating your question with the seriousness it deserves.The only time I actually think it's too hot is when I'm sat in the studio because one Emily the Duchess matelist decides to turn up the thermostat to about 26 degrees on a regular basis and with being about 40 degrees outside, not completely ideal, but given it's boys only today we've turned it right up.We've turned it right down.

Wala cats away.Also before we start I want to make a personal apology to the people of Derbyshire because on Wednesday's episode I, we were talking about - Error wash.Yes.You said earwash.I said earwash.And I thought, do I correct you?

And I was going to correct myself, but I bored myself even thinking about doing it because I sort of, as soon as I said it, I sort of knew it was wrong.I knew it was error wash.Anyway, about no fewer than genuinely about 94 people have contacted me in a state of I would say ranging from amusement to actual fury about it.So I would like to apologize directly to the people of Erewash for mispronouncing the name.And as a bit of compensation, I will be providing special facts about Erewash throughout the course of today's episode to make up for it.

Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?Luke could turn this into a full confession session.

No, I pay enough to all my multiple therapists and so we'll leave that with them.But yes, facts about Erewash coming up.Something to look forward to.

I can't wait for this episode.Sandra Randall has been in touch.Do you think that the relentless 24 -7 news cycle is part of the reason why Prime Ministers no longer survive full terms in office?How can any PM achieve anything in such short time spans?Even a great politician will struggle with competing interests, backstabbing and the media with their own agendas.

Well look, this gets to the heart, Sandra, of a question that I see a lot online, it's directed at us a lot online, I think we get it, and actually a lot of accusations that we're sort of part of it, which is this idea that we are sort of part of a kind of voracious media pack that wants to engineer drama, that we sort of feed, sort of vulture -like, leech -like off political drama, and that in some way we seek todestabilise Prime Ministers and we've got kind of addicted to that kind of sugar rush of the post -Brexit period.And look, I think that I can understand, I can understand why some people feel that.And I certainly think it's true to say, and I'm sure, you know, I'm guilty of it as much as anybody else, sometimes, tonally, I think, I'm not just talking about us, I think I'm talking about political journalism generally, I think that such has been the speed of political events over the last 10 years or so in particular, and sometimes the adrenaline of it reporting on it is such that sometimes I think maybe tonally we get the tone wrong about it, we can kind of look sometimes as if we're enjoying it maybe a little bit too much.That's a hard thing to calibrate because like it is our jobs and politics is exciting and it is dramatic and you kind of want to get that across to people.You don't just want to sort of look stiff and bored and all those sort of things.

I'm a great believer that if, you know, particularly in broadcasting, if you sound bored or uninterested, why the hell should the audience sound, you know, pay attention to you?So it's a difficult thing to calibrate.I'm willing to accept that.But I think the broader structural idea of it And actually there's one other thing about it, and it's also true to say that with regards to the Starmer government, it is true to say I think that the papers, the right -wing papers in particular, have been unusually voracious about it.I think, you know, he got no honeymoon whatsoever.They went for him really, really quickly and mercilessly.

The thing I'll just say though, is that for Labour Prime Ministers it's not fair, but twas ever thus.Twas ever thus.It's also true to say that Starmer actually, you could argue, got a really easy press for a long time.You know, in opposition he got a really easy press most of the time because he was seen as a kind of hammer to Corbyn and Corbynism.And arguably, actually, and everyone knew he was going to win.So arguably, if he'd received a slightly tougher press, it might have helped him in the longer term.

And I'd also just say, and also the other thing about it is that we're actually in a moment now, this is one of my frustrations with Starmer,we're in a moment when the traditional media has never been less powerful.The big encumbrance around Labour Prime Ministers has been the right -wing cred.They've never been less powerful.There are now ways to get around them, for you to get your message out there directly, to come on shows like this.There's a whole media universe that didn't exist even five years ago.

I always felt that the Starmar operation never capitalised on that properly, possibly because the guy himself was ill at ease with all of that stuff, but still.I don't really buy the idea, to be honest.I know people don't agree with this and that's fine.I don't buy the idea that the reason the Starmer government has fallen is because of the media.And I would just say again, I said it on the show yesterday, If you don't like the fact we're burning through Prime Ministers, which of the Prime Ministers would you say we shouldn't have got rid of?Because actually, if you look at them from Cameron to Starmer, I accept Starmer's probably the most borderline, but there were very good reasons each and every one of them went.

And in each case, it wasn't the media, it was their own political problems.

I think the idea of do we enjoy it too much is a really interesting one because You know, Lewis, yours and my key performance indicator, we're not producing widgets on a production line.Our key performance indicator is our people listening.And if we sound bored and if we sound, well, it's not that interesting that we've had a prime ministerial resignation.Let's move on very swiftly.And we talk in a slightly dull and disinterested voice.Then how can we expect people to carry on?

Listening, I mean, you know, you're bound to be energized excited and Whoops, you got it in there And I think that that is what our job is and also and I I think that people think you know You the question talks about how people have got their own agendas.I don't think we've got an agenda I think I kind of I suppose in as far as I had an agenda.I thought that we had gone through a peculiarly chaotic period

No, we can't ignore it.

You've got to talk about the stuff that matters and we actually poured quite a lot of cold water on Yes, we did say, you know Look, this is kind of small beer compared to some of the other things that have gone on in the past in sleaze and scandal and you get you want to give a fair win to what he was thinking and I thought it was grown -up when he came in and said Look this it we're not gonna fix things overnight life is complicated these problems are going to take some years to resolve and for things to improve and I thought that was a grown -up message rather than I've got an oven baked deal and it's all ready to go and you know we just pop it in the oven and out it will come.I think that you know that was all grown up.But then the sort of missteps, the U -turns, the policies out of nowhere that haven't been kind of road -tested and they don't know whether they're going to fly or sink have just been disastrous.And I think that, you know, Keir Starmer has made a series of misjudgments which makes it made it inevitable that the party was going to move against him?

Yeah, I think, as we've talked about on the show many times, the reason that Stalmer went is not because of the media, that didn't help, it was because support for him within the Parliamentary Labour Party evaporated.Now I would say that his inability to command the conversation, despite the fact that he was Prime Minister, so he used the bully pulpit of being Prime Minister, is part of the reason of his downfall.I sometimes think people who make this argument, they're hankering after a different age.You know, whether we like it or not, whether we like it or not.We are in this age of algorithmic politics, which I know I talk about a lot, but I think it's really important.You know, successful Prime Ministers who are on the cusp of changes in communication

technology, they take advantage of it.You know, all the way back to, say, Stanley Baldwin, you know, doing his talking, doing radio addresses for the first time.You know, it would have been no good.Someone like Gladstone would have been no good at that, I'm sure.But that's the point.Successful prime ministers see opportunities in changes in media technology, and they don't just complain about it.

Wilson again with television, the first television Prime Minister.Blair in the 24 -hour news cycle, you know, on and on it goes.They see advantages to it and they exploit it in terms of not just getting their message out there but commanding the political conversation because that is part sustaining an argument, making an argument, sustaining a political project.That is a huge part of being a successful political leader and I know that lots of people out there really admire Starmer and they see a guy who they think is, you know, competent and has integrity and was working hard and he may well have been all of those things but he's not a civil servant, you know, he's not leading a government department, you know, he's not a permanent secretary.All of those things would be enough if you were but they're not.He elected to go into politics and in order to go into politics you need to show sustained political skill and one of those sustained political skills is being able, even when you hate them, to command the media to sustain a message, to make an argument and to however hostile the media is, get your message out there and so I think In so far as the media was responsible for Starmer's downfall, it was his inability, his inability to break through the media and the hostility that he saw, which led him to where he was.

I also think it is just worth underlining the sort of conversations that as a political journalist, you have with senior politicians who are in the cabinet, who obviously can't put their names to something that they're telling you because it would, you know, it'd lead to them being fired.But there was a verythat was so widespread in government about Keir's handling of individual ministers, of deciding on policy, of working out the right political strategy to get a policy implemented.You know, the classic being the defence investment plan, which we are still waiting for and have been waiting for for months.And why has it taken so long to implement?to get agreement on what this should be.

If you are the Prime Minister, you should be able to bang heads together, drive this through, know that your rip will run.If you've got a majority of 160, you ought to be able to see off your backbenchers, who probably are there because you happen to be at the head of the ticket in the general election.And Keir Starmer was never able to do that.And so I just say that it's remarkable how little fuss there has been.from the Labour Party itself since Keir Starmer announced his resignation.And that speaks to me less about it was the media what killed him than it was his own party.

It was his own backbenchers, his own government ministers who became so exasperated with the drift in government that they kind of thought, oh, God, we've got to go for the nuclear option and dump him.

I do think that it is true.I mean, part of the question is How can PMs ever achieve anything in such short time spans?I think it's certainly true to say that the pressure on politicians to respond to everything is of a different order of magnitude, which is exacerbated clearly by social media, the algorithmic politics, all of those things.And I think the media, certainly, we don't give politicians enough.I think often we don't give them, sometimes there is a sort of faux naivety.that we sort of adopt or the media adopts in terms of talking to ministers or interviewing ministers, we sort of pretend as if there's no trade -offs involved and everything can be instant and all those things.

And I think if we had a slightly more rational politicsI think it is true to say that we would have slightly more grown -up conversations.But then it's incumbent upon ministers as well, to be honest with the public, and to say that.And to, not in an arrogant way, but in a direct way, take on journalists sometimes and say, you know this is more complicated than you're letting on.You know that it is.You know, I always felt this during the trans debate, for example.

you know, when every single minister would be asked, you know, what's a woman and can a woman have a penis?And I was always just imploring a politician to go, you know, you know what you're doing here.You're making something crass and simplistic and stupid in an attempt to get me to say something crass and simplistic and stupid, whereas you know that actually if I'm being a responsible politician, you know that I'm basically competing.I'm trying to balance an array of competing interests and trying to do it in a delicate way and not offend people and all of those sorts of things.And that recurs time and time and time again.So it's not to say I'm not defending the media endlessly at all, because I think there are real deficiencies in how the media operate.

just need a better plan for how to deal with it and I don't think so.

You'd have to look at Donald Trump and say that is how you do it.You may not like Donald Trump and I'm sure an awful lot of people listening you know will come think oh god what does Donald Trump ever do that's good.He keeps communicating, he keeps telling his story, he goes round the media, he is using social media to brilliantly and yeah he's assisted by it but he keeps on and on and on he doesn't back down and he looks and you know here's this 80 year old president sitting in the White House who is absolute genius in social media messaging and keeping his base on board and Keir Starmer wasn't able to do that.

We're a long way from Harold McMillan being able to sneak off during the Suez crisis as Foreign Secretary and go read some Trollope of course.

Where was he reading it?

Huh?I don't know, on the toilet?I don't know.

Well, I thought there was going to be an Erewash.I thought that was such a kind of awkward segment.

Oh, do you want some Erewash?Oh, yeah.I'll give you some Erewash stuff.OK.You know, it's a very important moment for that.Let me just get my...

Where's my Erewash facts going?

Oh, here we are.Erewash.Some Erewash facts.Well, did you know, John, for example, that Long Eaton, which is in the Erewash constituency, was once the upholstery capital of Britain.Indeed, at its peak, the town exported sofas and furniture around the world.Even today, many well -known British furniture brands have their roots there.

Fascinating.Let's go on to the next question, shall we?It's a voice note from Rhys.

Hello, John and Lewis.Hope you're doing well.My question is, how long can Andy Burnham sustain his popularity from both within the PLP but also opinion polls throughout the country.

Is that Rhys or Andy Murray?I think that was Andy Murray asking us the question.

I don't think Andy Murray would be able to ask anything that interesting.

Oh, that is so rude.Andy Murray's really super smart.

I'm sure he is, but he's a bit, yeah, he's not the world's most dynamic man, is he?

I think he's very funny, actually.I think you've got that all wrong.

OK, I'm sorry.I'm sorry, Andy.

Next edition of the News Agents, an apology to Andy Murray.

Right, so now it's Erawash and Andy Murray I've got to apologise for.All right.Two.Who knows?We'll make it trio by the end of the show.No doubt.

I'm sure you'll offend someone else before the show's over.I think that it's a difficult one because what we don't, I mean, look, picking up from our last question, what Andy Burnham does very well is vibes and communicating and having a sense of fun and laughter.He's not the greatest orator I've ever seen in politics.Much like Andy Murray.But I think that what you've gotwith Burnham is someone who has ridden a wave brilliantly and saw a door that was slightly ajar, pushed it open and has been, you know, so impressive in doing that.

How you maintain it when you've, you know, what we know about Andy Burnham as mayor is the things that he was against.You know, I was not happy about the deal for WASPI women.He was obviously very upset about Hillsborough and wanted things to change.We've now got to hear what Andy Burnham is for and how he's going to articulate that when it might run into, you know, opposition in the country.And I think that will be a test of whether he can maintain this feel -good momentum, which I'm sure will give Labour a bit of a bounce in the polls, but I don't know how long it will sustain when you're having to make tough decisions.

I think the polling that's out there shows that, and I think this is Burnham's sort of big opportunity, last opportunity of the Labour Party really, I think there is a general feeling that the public are willing to give Labour a second hearing.You know, we're not at the point that I think, for example, Rishi Sunak was in 2022, when he took over.Yeah, it was done.It was done.I think it was almost nothing that Sunak could possibly have done.The brand, the Conservative Party brand, was irredeemably damaged.

I did speak to people during the Makefield campaign, Labour people, who expressed a lot of concern that the Labour brand in Makefield, how much hostility there was to it, how quickly it had become tarnished.But Burnham clearly, because of his personal popularity, confers upon Labour the opportunity to redeem that somewhat.And so it's clear from the polling that the public are interested in Burnham, and from what we can see on the hypothetical polling, and it is still hypothetical to this point, there would be a reasonably significant transfer from Greens, from Reform voters, even some Conservatives, Lib Dems, back to Labour, which could push Labour under Burnham up to the late 20s, which would be still under Burnham.where they were in the 2024 general election, but wouldn't be bad, would be higher than where reform is now, or nip and tuck with them.As you say, John, the question is how easy that will be to sustain.And look, ultimately, I think so much of that is on Burnham.

on the strategy he chooses to adopt, and to what extent that kind of feel -good factor can sustain for very long.And I think one thing, I think you said it on the show yesterday, I think one thing that Burnham will not do, and one lesson I think he's learned from Starmer, is he will certainly not adopt the kind of hair shirt, drab approach that characterised Starmer from his earliest days.and from which he never could escape really, you know, people will remember, listeners and viewers will remember coming into office, the country clearly desperate for a bit of hope, that sort of feeling of change, and holding that press conference where he basically said things are going to get worse before they get better.Basically adopting the 2010 Osborne approach.Problem is with that is that 14 years had passed and the country was in no mood to hear it in the way that perhaps it was in 2010.So I think that happy warrior, that happy warrior kind of feeling that I think has done Burnham an enormous amount of good.

I think they will try and sustain.And I think, I think their approach to Farage will be substantially quite different to that of Starmer.Starmer again, I'm saying this is the wrong strategy, but Starmer again invoked a kind of, you know, quite almost a kind of apocalyptic sense.It was a dark, tried to invoke quite dark vision of what Farage would mean.and basically try to set it up as, you know, it's the forces of us against darkness, really.I don't think Burnham will do that in the same way, you know, or at least if he does, it will be a change from what he's done up to now.

Up to now, he's tried to basically say, look, you know, I want support from reform voters.I'm not going to demonise reform voters.I'm just going to adopt a sort of more positive message about ourselves and Labour and working withother parties.So I think the question is, is to what extent that that difference in disposition sustains and how long he'll be able to sustain it in terms of a polling balance.But if he does, if he does, I really think we'll be talking about a general election quite quickly.

Right, before we go to the next question, John, did you know that Britain's first successful canal tunnel experiment happened in Erewash.The Erewash Canal was one of the engineering triumphs of the 19th century that helped fuel the Industrial Revolution in the Midlands.So where would we be without it?Well that is truly I'm gonna hold that.Should we do an OB from there?

Yeah, let's do that from the air wash tunnel.

Yeah, big time, in the dark.Emily would love that.

In the dark, no signal.

Yeah, really hot.She'll love that.

Absolutely perfect.

Right, good.Well, the next question is from your neck of the woods, John, sort of.That's Perth, Australia.Catherine Barris says this.Would Burnham have been been as compelling a replacement if he had won the Gorton and Denton by -election, given he would probably run to the left to consolidate the left vote and would not have been perceived as a reform slayer?Was it another political miscalculation of Starmer to block Burnham from running?

Well that is a great question and when we were up in Makefield last week, well that was precisely the question that you raised about, you know, how different this could have turned out and how differently Andy Burnham would have been perceived.if he had been sort of facing off against the Greens and that, you know, he had to go into a Dutch auction with the Greens about how left -wing you were going to be.And would people have felt the same way about him if he had run there?Look, I think it's true that the Burnham campaign, this has been the most extraordinary coup d 'etat that has happened in British politics in the sense that it was so kind of brilliantly done that, you know, within moments of him winning a by -election, you felt that Starmer was done.I think that it would have probably been the same if he had fought Gorton and Denton, and I think there was an extent to which Stammer was trying to sort of stave off the inevitable by delaying and saying you can't run that.and then being forced into it later on.

As we said on the show, in Makerfield, I think if he'd been fighting against the Greens, he would certainly have tapped left.I think the selection of Makerfield is going to genuinely affect our politics in a way that if he'd been in Gorton, it would have affected our politics in a different way because we've got a Prime Minister.Yes, he's got a big majority now because he had such a sensational election.win.But I do think it will change the character and kind of tenor of our politics that we have got a prime minister, not just with a seat in the north of England, but in the Red Wall as opposed to North London.I think that will be a big difference.

Maurice Glassman, the rather peculiar Labour peer, was saying the other day.Peculiar?He's an interesting guy, but he's quite peculiar.He represents an increasingly unusual position in the Labour Party.He says some interesting and peculiar things.But anyway, he was saying the other day that basically there's proof that there is a God because he has set up that Bernard would become the MP for Makerfield, which will take him down the sort of blue labour tradition that he represents of more socially conservative, sort of slightly more liberal, anti -immigration, all those sorts of things.

And I think it really, really will matter.And I think if Starmer, if we think about the counterfactual now, if Starmer had allowed him to stand then, and he'd won.I think it would have been far less likely, because it was before the local elections, that the Labour Party would have crowned him.There would still have been more political support for Starmer within the parliamentary Labour Party.I think it would have been hardlyfor Burnham to turn down a Cabinet job.

So we probably would have been in a situation where he would have been in the Cabinet and it would have been easier for him to challenge after the local election.So I kind of feel we would have ended up in the same place.But certainly that proof of concept that he is a reform slayer, to use Catherine's phrase there, would have been much the weaker.And I think it might have meant, might have meant, that he, i .e.Burnham, would have been more likely to face a challenge but with the momentum he got from that by -election as we see the potential of that challenge.

And there is discontent in the Labour Party.Not everybody in the Labour Party likes Andy Burnham, make no mistake.There's lots of people waiting in the winds, waiting for him to fail.But right now they know that collapsed like a house of cards.They just knew that they couldn't stand against this oncoming tide.

I mean, the genius of Burnham and we'll see what it's like when he has to govern and when he's got key cabinet decisions to make and all the rest of it.But the genius of Burnham has been that he has been slightly on the left and slightly on the soft left and then slightly blare right and he sniffed the political wind and the way it was blowing and adjusted to it and that doesn't make him a flip -flopper or kind of insincere i think that's politics that's what you have to do in politics you know where the wind is blowing and if you kind of set yourself against it you get knocked over by and large he sensed that and he's also sensed where opportunity might present itself and this whole operation that went on with, you know, Josh Simon resigning the seat and setting up the by -election, Andy being confirmed as a candidate, knowing that Keir Starmer couldn't stop him, then winning the by -election after terrible local council election results.I mean, it's just been, it's been brutal and it's been brilliant.I mean, you know, you may not like Andy Burnham.You might be upset about what's happened to Keir Starmer.You might think what is wrong with the Labour Party.

But just as an actor,of political assassination, it's hard to fault it.

We've got another voice note now.And this is from, we're getting around the world today, John.You'll like this, all the old Emile Sopal over there.Voice note here from Neil from Bangalore.

Hi, John.Hi, Emily.Hi, Lewis, huge fan of the podcast.I'm Neil, a public policy student from Bangalore in India.And I wanted to ask about Andy Burnham's immigration policy, given the fact that Shabana Mahmood is likely to remain the Home Secretary.I have been seeing a lot of my friends who want to study in the UK scrap their plans, basically studying in Europe because of the costs and because of the tough immigration rhetoric.

I think one of the UK's biggest soft powers is its attraction of global talent to its universities.So what do you think that Andy Burnham is going to do on this particular topic?Is he going to double down, basically saying he is fine with the idea of lesser students coming in to study in the UK?Or is he going to change that perception, returning the UK back into this kind of educational soft power that it once was?Love the podcast and I hope you guys answer the question.

Bangalore wanting to OB in Bangalore.

Oh, yeah, I'm up for it.

So we're doing we're doing the Erewash Tunnel Yeah canal tunnel then Bangalore and Bangalore used to be where the English Army officers British Army officers would go to retreat because it was a nice temperate climate we can't when they when we ran the embark We've got to prioritise.

Talking of which, as you know, the Ilkeston in the Erewash constituency has one of the UK's biggest annual charter fairs.Dating back to 1252, the Ilkeston Charter Fair is among Europe's largest street fairs, stretching for nearly a mile.Indeed, it is so big, John, that schools and many businesses close while it's in town.I mean, they're closed anyway at the moment, aren't they, schools?Yeah, because it's too hot.

Too hot for the little ones.Everyone's got so woke.

So woke.

It was hot in my day.It was hot in my day.

Yeah we just let the kids boil today.Yeah exactly.It was good for them.Let them get on with it.

Should we answer the question or do you want to go off on your street fairs?

I'd love to, any time.

I think that the immigration question is really an interesting one because I think that Andy Burnham's instincts and particularly having fought off reform and been the reform slayer to use from the previous question.that he can't do anything that looks like he's soft on immigration.The other part of your question, Neil, which I think is really interesting, is the fact that the universities in the UK would love to be attracting more foreign students because that is what's keeping a lot of, you know, higher education institutions in this country afloat, but by the number of people who come from India or wherever it is around the world, China and the like.And if they feel that it's more and more difficult to come to this country and you're not welcome and it's, you know, tougher and tougher, then I think that hits us as well.It hits the higher education sector in this country which is reeling.at the moment?

Yeah, it's a really interesting question.I think it's clear.Look, Shabana Mahmood, she was an early convert at Team Burnham.She played her cards very well.So my understanding is that she basically approached Burnham, you know, we're talking about the tail end of last year.Even though there was a lot of speculation at that time that she herself might run for leader, I think she recognised that her profile within the party wasn't in the right place, saw, intuited which way the political winds were going to blow and became an early sort of Burnham convert.

So it looks likely she's going to stay as Home Secretary and indeed has convinced him, partly again because of being in Makefield and the sort of constituency that he has, that it is vital that her immigration reforms continue and that Labour is continued to be seen as tough on immigration.Of course it does remind us of the fact that Burnham, just like Starmer, can't get away from the trade -offs that characterise the Starmer government.You know, Starmer comes in at the start of his term in office and says that growth is the number one priority.Now, it's not necessarily true to say that if you have loads more immigration, you get loads more growth.If that were true, then when we had a million immigration, we'd have had 5 % or something like that in terms of growth.But it is true to say, as West Streeting has been arguing, that there is potentially an opportunity right now in Britain to hoover up quite a lot of this high -value migration, academics, scientists, engineers leaving the US, PhD students, academics, all of these sorts of people.

And we could say, look, Britain is open.open for business, opening its doors to this high value migration.Will Burnham be willing to do that?Can he make that argument in a way that Starmer might not have been willing to do?It'll be a really interesting test case.Not least, John, because of course, one of the really fascinating things about Burnham and Burnhamism or Manchesterism is the kind of like the dirty little secret of Manchesterism.

You can make an argument, business -friendly socialism, it's kind of like new labour on steroids.It's basically courting loads of foreign direct investment.Why is Manchester such a booming city right now?It's because it's not because the state's been spending tons of money.It has been courting foreign direct investment, Chinese money, Middle Eastern money, saying, come and invest in Manchester.We'll provide you with special dispensational tax breaks, whatever it is.

Working with this, as Burnham talks about it, public sector, private sector, working together to regenerate this great industrial city.Very similar to the sort of mood music and policy that we saw in the new Labour era.It isn't very blue Labour, let's put it that way.So, you know, Burnham will, it will be a fascinating thing to see to what extent Burnham, if he's intent on transportingthat Manchester model, one of the things it might actually generally mean is opening the door to high -end, high -skilled immigration that can bring growth and gross value added.

Right, one more question, this one from Jonathan.I think I know where Jonathan stands on a certain issue about one former cabinet member by the question.Given where Streeting is a treacherous and duplicitous individual who was planning to topple Starmer from the start and is likely to do so again with any future leader, he is also despised by frontline NHS workers for the use of language he chose to describe striking doctors, What would you do with such an odious, treacherous character if you were the new leader?Personally, I'd tell him to wind his neck in and focus on improving his 500 majority in his constituency and send him to the back row of the back benches.Jonathan, you must learn to say what you really think.

So my third apology is going to have to be to Wes Streeting on behalf of the show for you reading out that he's treacherous and duplicitous.Heaven forbid, Wes Streeting.

No, no, he's very loyal.I mean, when he did that interview with you the other Friday, I did listen to it and kind of gasp at a couple of occasions where I thought, my God, he is really pulling the cabinet curtain back and telling us what had happened in cabinet meetings only a few days ago.And I do think that that may have cost him some support.And so I'm fascinated to see what Andy Burnham does with West Streeting in terms of does he feel honour bound to give him a job because he didn't force a contest or does Andy Burnham feel slightly contemptuous of that because you know what Wes if you'd had the numbers you'd have gone for it and you just didn't have the numbers you're a busted flush.

Yeah I don't think that Burnham's going to feel he owes String a great deal.I think there are lots of people to whom he will owe jobs and who have been absolutelyin arranging and organising this extraordinary and bloodless coup.Lou Haig, the former Transport Secretary, Annelies Midgley is an MP that most people, viewers and listeners probably haven't heard but we're going to hear a lot more from I think in the future, possibly Ed Miliband too, who knows.But I don't think Streeting will be among them.I suppose Streeting, I mean in his defence he would say, that he was being loyal to the Labour Party that he saw the writing on the wall with Starmer he was willing to go out there and say it in a way and most of his cabinet colleagues were saying and thinking exactly the same thing but he actually went out there and said it.

Was he thinking about his future prospects?Of course he was but he's a politician he's wanted to be prime minister since you know since he's in the womb basically I mean you know that's not an ignoble thing it's not a surprising thing there are always ambitious people in the cabinet.Starmer himself wasn't I know people don't want to hear this, verse to some of the dark arts, you know, when he claimed that Jeremy Corbyn was a friend and a colleague, and then mysteriously enough, he wasn't a friend and a colleague a few months later, you know, said that he thought that the 2019 manifesto was a starting point for everything and then disavowed it a few months later.You know, this is politics, you know, this happens.So I think Burnham will be thinking, in Streeting's favour, I think the reason he'll end up in the cabinet in some job or other, is that, you know, Streeting, whether you agree with Jonathan or not that he's treacherous and duplicitous, he is a very good communicator.He's clearly one of the best communicators that the Labour Party has got.

The Labour Party doesn't have nearly enough of them, so you'd probably want him in the Cabinet.And also, if Burnham wants to show that the Labour Party, he's bringing a Cabinet together of rivals, but also of different factions of the party, he is the sort of standard bearer of what you might broadly call a Blairite right of the Labour Party.So, you know, you'd sort of say this is a cabinet which is representing every tradition and every wing.And if you didn't have streeting in, then it would be difficult to sustain.

I tell you what I'm fascinated by.a generation of special advisers who started off when Blair and Brown were in their pomp.

We're still in the new Labour era.

We're returning to it, because Starmer wasn't part of it, but we're returning to it.So you've got Andy Burnham, who was one of the special advisers early on in the Blair -Brown years.He's brought back in James Purnell to be the Chief of Staff at Number 10.Again, one of those people.

David Miliband we're talking about as Foreign Secretary.

Ed Miliband.Douglas Alexander, Yvette Cooper, Tim Allen, who was Keir Starmer's press secretary, all these people who were special advisers back in the early 90s are still the dominant force in British politics today and will be holding key cabinet positions and key positions within.There's a whole documentary to be done about all these people who just grew up under the tutelage of Blair and Brown.

it to such an extraordinary extent and who could bring that to the just a little plug also um talking about plugs just before we we break one more time did you know john that the world's oldest surviving gas powered street lamps are in nearby nottingham road cemetery gas lamps in air wash installed in the 1880s they're still lit by gas rather than electricity you probably were you probably reported on it when they're installed yeah exactly okay draw the line between air wash and tooting i'm sorry What links Erewhosh and Tooting?

Erewhosh's most famous son is Robert Lindsay, who playedWolfie in Citizen Smith and the Tooting Liberation Front.

Well there you go.You see?There you go.I out -error -washed you.You have out -error -washed me.A sentence in so many ways I never thought I'd hear you say.

Hi, News Agents.

Love the pod.At the time of writing, it's possible England could face Scotland in the knockout stages of the World Cup.Could be different by the time you're reading this.

I thought Scotland got battered.They got battered last night, yeah.

Anyway, my question is, how should a PM go about supporting a team in a match with two nations in the UK, as another Brit married to a Norwegian?

And that's from Max.Well, it reminds me of like, you remember when Brown was asked about, would he be supporting England in the World Cup?And he said, Oh, absolutely.And then he said, what if they face Scotland?Who would you support then?and he he just froze he didn't know what to say and obviously the answer should be like we support Scotland like because you're Scottish but he just didn't know how to deal with it.

Andy Murray got in trouble for that that's what left him being very unpopular.I didn't think Andy Murray would be...

You know my views on Andy Murray John.Well we've heard those and you've had to apologise.

I think that Yeah, look, if you're English, you support the England team.If you're Scottish, you support the Scotland team.And there is no shame in either of those.Norway are doing very well.They're doing very well.

That big lanky lad doing the business for them.The big lanky lad?Well, he's huge.Have you seen him?He's massive.

I know.You wouldn't say that to him.We wouldn't make any jokes to his face.He's enormous.Hi, Eileen.Exactly.

And anyway, it might be England -Scotland in Mexico City next Sunday, in which case I have a ticket and I'll be there.

John, just before we go, Did you know that I think we may be running out of air wash facts?The M1 motorway slices through the constituency.Junctions 25 and 26.make it one of the UK's best connected manufacturing and logistics locations.We've done some great credit to them.I think we have squeezed the juice dry.

Not for the first time.We'll see you next week.Bye bye.Bye bye.The News Agents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity.

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