Starmer Will Fall

Prime Ministers always say they will never go until they go.They have to, because as soon as you say you're going, your power evaporates.You have no authority.You can't get on with business.And it's always worth continuing to roll the dice until there's not a single die left to roll.

And this is the position Sir Keir Starmer is in today.Andy Burnham's victory in Makefield was much bigger than expected.Reform did less well.Restore did less well too.Rupert Low was telling people he would win the by -election and then they did poorly, they got 6 % of the vote.not enough to make up the difference between reform and labour.

So Burnham won regardless of Restore.Conservatives, I think, voted tactically for reform, with the Conservatives getting a small vote, but that wasn't enough.Burnham's victory is very important because it gives him what the Americans used to call the Big Mo, gives him momentum.He has shown himself able to win in a seat that just over a month ago voted in local elections overwhelmingly for reform.It's a big swing from reform to Labour in that constituency in a few weeks.But what caused that swing, what caused the swing was the desire to get rid of Starmer, that voters in Makefield felt that if they voted for Burnham they would get rid of Sir Keir Starmer.

And Sir Keir Starmer has become so unpopular that the country at large wants to get rid of him, even though he hasn't been in yet for two years.And I think he'll be gone very quickly.He will discover over the weekend that he has very little support, that the cabinet has been briefing against him.Only Stephen Reid seems still to be in favour of him.The party machine has moved.on.

And I remember seeing this both with Boris Johnson and with Liz Truss, both of whom I wished to remain as Prime Minister.I'd supported them in their leadership campaigns.I saw it also, though from a greater distance, with Theresa May, who I wished to see leave office.I thought she was not doing what I had expected or what the country expected of her.But as it gets closer and closer to the end point, the leader keeps on saying, I will fight on, even when everybody else knows that it is over.

The supporters likewise carry on and their numbers diminish, but I was one of Boris's last supporters.I went into the cabinet office one morning and a reporter stuck a microphone up my nose and said, do you think the prime minister will carry on?And I said, he should go on and on forever.And by the time I got to my office, it had been announced on the radio that he'd already gone.So yes, you get people like me who are effectively the last Japanese in the jungle fighting on for a battle that's already been lost, but the battle has been lost.

And momentum is with Burnham.So what does this mean?Well, my guess is that it means he becomes prime minister very quickly.Think back to David Cameron being succeeded by Theresa May.That was not intended as a coronation.It was just the way events fell out.

Theresa May got momentum, Boris dropped out of the race, Michael Gove didn't get very many votes, Andrea Leadsom gave one interview that was very unsuccessful, and Theresa May was in office within a fortnight.I think again that is going to happen because Labour MPs want to back a winner.They're looking at the opinion polls, they see there's a modest boost if they have Andy Burnham, but there isn't much of a boost from anyone else.That makes it more likely they will hold their seats.

And if Burnham gets nearly 200 MPs backing him, nearly half the Labour parliamentary party, then if West Streeting just gets 81, or Angela Rayner gets 83, They will be starting the race so far behind that there will be no point in continuing it.And they will recognise that in pretty short order.Sir Keir Starmer, if over half or nearly half of the parliamentary party are backing an opponent, will go straight away.I do not believe he will run the race to the finish.I think he will pull out, and he will do so for good reason, because it's actually humiliating for a sitting Prime Minister to be defeated by his own party, he would be causing division, he'd be causing uncertainty in the country.And I don't believe that Kirsteinmer is basically a bad man, I think very few politicians are.

I think underlying all their ambition, all their desire to hold office, is a broad wish to see the country do well.And it is very hard to argue that the country will do well with a long drawn out leadership election when there is a clear contender who has got momentum behind him who is going to win.

So, within the next few days, I would expect it to become clear that most Labour MPs are backing Andy Burnham.I would expect Andy Burnham to be quite discreet, at least over the weekend.And then I would expect action next week, as Sir Keir Starmer decides that he is going to step down, and then the King will send for Andy Burnham.And that's when it becomes really interesting, because we've been in this half -life of Starmer government for months.where the government hasn't been able to do anything, it has no mandate, it has a big majority but it can't do anything.get things through, policy announcements are delayed, even on defence we don't know where we are, what's going to happen.

A new Prime Minister will have a honeymoon.He will be able to make decisions, he will have people supporting him, he will have loyal ministers, he will have backbenchers who are trying to get jobs in the new administration, who will be loyal, who will be sycophantic, dare I say, that not entirely unknown habit of politicians looking for promotion, and that will give him the ability to set his agenda.And then the question will be, does he have one?And here, well, I think things won't be much better after a relatively short time.That as far as one can tell, Antebernum stands for even less than Keir Starmer.He doesn't have any strong guiding principles.

He's been a Blairite and a Corbenite.Fundamentally, he's been a Bernemite.with some success, as he looks as if he's heading towards 10 Downing Street, being a Burnhamite has suited him.But he's been a shapeshifter in terms of his policies, a chameleon, if you will, that he has changed his view on almost everything to suit the electorate that he is talking to.In government, that is disastrous, because you need to be guided by principles to make difficult decisions.All decisions are choices.

And if you don't know what you really want to do, making the difficult choice is impossible, and you end up making the popular choice for the next day's headlines, but those then become contradictory.Then you do U -turns, then people lose confidence in you.So I think this is an administration that we are going to get, whether we like it or not.We're not going to have any say in the matter, I wouldn't have thought, but it will be an administration that is just as directionless as Sekir Stalmas has been, just as unable to use the majority that it's got, and with less of a mandate.I don't think this is good for the country.but it may be momentarily good for the Labour Party.

It may help them pick up a bit.As an aside, it's a very disappointing result for Reform, it's a disappointing result for the Right, but a brilliant result for the Conservatives and a personally brilliant result for Kemi Badenoch in Aberdeen South.Really good news for the United Kingdom, a Unionist Party winning, the SNP facing all sorts of difficulties, but also this is a change of view, I think, from the country at large.on the green propaganda, the green religion.I think we've given up the green religion.We've become atheists of greenery.

And that's good news and important.It's very good news for the Conservatives.But I might do another little video on that later.Thank you, as always, for watching.