Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: The last few weeks have been kind of spellbinding. Andy
Speaker 2: Burnham won a by election, he became an MP, and
Speaker 2: within weeks of that he's going to be Prime Minister.
Speaker 2: We're in an extraordinary period and because it's moving so fast,
Speaker 2: you can lose how astonishing it is.
Speaker 1: Steve Richards, podcaster and UK political commentator Nigel Farage has
Speaker 1: definitely been an actor in this Labour drama.
Speaker 2: Hasn't he reform of being ahead and opinion polls in
Speaker 2: Britain for a long time now, and part of his
Speaker 2: task is to turn that round. I think what he
Speaker 2: will try and do is become the figure all those
Speaker 2: who want to stop Farage becoming Prime minister feel okay
Speaker 2: about coalescing.
Speaker 1: Around on Bloomberg Weekend. This is the Mishal Husain Show.
Speaker 1: I'm Mishal Husain. We did a UK politics episode here
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, but so much has happened since
Speaker 1: that it was time to return a new prime minister.
Speaker 1: Andy Burnham looks set to soon be seen walking up
Speaker 1: Downing Street and taking the reins of power. Part of
Speaker 1: the background to that the Labour Party deciding to replace
Speaker 1: its leader mid term has been the rise of Nigel Farage,
Speaker 1: and this has been a week when he has again
Speaker 1: dominated the headlines. There's been scrutiny of his donors, his benefits,
Speaker 1: his property portfolio, and he has responded to that by
Speaker 1: calling for a rerun of the contest for his parliamentary seat.
Speaker 1: So there is a lot happening in British politics right now.
Speaker 1: Labour is hoping to look refreshed and revived through bringing
Speaker 1: in Andy Burnham, someone who was until recently the mayor
Speaker 1: of one of England's great cities. I interviewed him when
Speaker 1: he was in that role in Manchester. He talked about
Speaker 1: his ambition, his responsibilities, his sense of mission. He was
Speaker 1: very far then from being a national leader. I've been
Speaker 1: thinking too of the change in Keir Starmer's fortunes from
Speaker 1: the moment that we stood together on a TV debate
Speaker 1: stage days before the last UK general election only two
Speaker 1: years ago. But he had the wind in his sales
Speaker 1: then he was the coming man taking us through all
Speaker 1: of this. Is Steve Richards' longtime political commentator and now podcaster,
Speaker 1: host of Rock and Roll Politics, a podcast with a
Speaker 1: loyal army of listeners who he calls the cooperative. Steve
Speaker 1: is particularly knowledgeable about Labour politics and leaders. He's the
Speaker 1: author of many books, some of them are on the
Speaker 1: table when he came into the studio, and I've put
Speaker 1: details in the show notes, and do have a look
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com forward slash Mitchell, because that is
Speaker 1: where you will find my notes and reflections on each
Speaker 1: and every episode, including what I read before and after
Speaker 1: the conversations. And this time with Steve, we begin with
Speaker 1: his writing and a very early observation of British politics.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we're going to talk about characters in the
Speaker 1: present day one in particular.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: There's a great story that you share about Wilson and
Speaker 1: seeing him have an egg thrown at him and the
Speaker 1: way he responded to it.
Speaker 2: It's an absolutely for me, a moment where politics came alive.
Speaker 2: I was there and I was very young, and it
Speaker 2: was just so.
Speaker 1: Exciting and life. It seems to bring him alive horribly.
Speaker 2: He looked about ninety and this happened, and he changed,
Speaker 2: came about thirty years younger, and the whole mood of
Speaker 2: the hall changed. And I was about ten or eleven,
Speaker 2: but I found it fascinating. I can do it with
Speaker 2: the Harold Wilson impersonation, but it will be lost on
Speaker 2: most of your.
Speaker 1: Audience, or share it with me now though he's.
Speaker 2: Sort of looked up with this egg down and I said,
Speaker 2: now here we have six months of a Labour government,
Speaker 2: which goes to show you could only afford to throw
Speaker 2: eggs under a Labour government. And the whole audience laughed
Speaker 2: and erupted, and the I say, Wilson looked about fifty
Speaker 2: compared to ninety. And it's the humor as a power
Speaker 2: of leadership.
Speaker 1: And the presence of mind.
Speaker 2: And to act quickly.
Speaker 1: Exactly right, because he's before the social media era. But
Speaker 1: hearing you describe that, I can imagine him in the
Speaker 1: era of being door-stopped with the camera and having phones
Speaker 1: in your face all the time. Yeah, exactly, exactly, Steve.
Speaker 1: I wanted to start with the theme of your latest book,
Speaker 1: Turning Points, because it is about moments of crisis or change.
Speaker 1: Some of them are British political crises, some of them
Speaker 1: are international, the decision to go to war in Iraq,
Speaker 1: the pandemic, the global financial crash. But it made me
Speaker 1: wonder about something relating to now. Technically, what we're about
Speaker 1: to see is effectively a handover from one Labour prime
Speaker 1: minister to another. But do you think it could be
Speaker 1: more than that? Do you think that this transition could
Speaker 1: actually be a turning point for Britain.
Speaker 2: I think it could. And it's not automatic. When there
Speaker 2: is a change of prime minister mid term. The external
Speaker 2: challenges remain the same, a lot of the government remains
Speaker 2: the same. But in this case, the rise of Andy Burnham,
Speaker 2: it could be because he has got a very clear
Speaker 2: agenda for what has gone wrong with the British state
Speaker 2: and how Britain is governed and how he wants to
Speaker 2: put it right now. If he and it's a big if,
Speaker 2: if he implements his plan, this will be a turning point.
Speaker 2: And no one quite knows in advance how a prime
Speaker 2: minister is going to perform, but certainly his ideas partly
Speaker 2: learned from when he left Westminster many years ago, has
Speaker 2: the potential to be transformative.
Speaker 1: This great rebalancing of power, the biggest rebalancing of power
Speaker 1: in British history or recent British history, which he has stated.
Speaker 1: And we don't have very much detail on that, and
Speaker 1: I have, and you have much more than me heard
Speaker 1: people are about to lead or want to lead, you know,
Speaker 1: making these big speeches, I'll reduce welfare spending, I'll build
Speaker 1: more houses. But you think there is something fundamental that
Speaker 1: he wants to get.
Speaker 2: So one qualification in British politics. Quite often leaders who
Speaker 2: are about to become prime minister, whatever the context, often
Speaker 2: claim their big idea is a change in the way
Speaker 2: power is exercised. I think the difference here is Andy
Speaker 2: Burnham means it. I think his experience of being a
Speaker 2: mayor of Greater Manchester, where he saw certainly in transport,
Speaker 2: the power of local leadership translating into an actual policy development,
Speaker 2: means that he thinks this is a way forward, and
Speaker 2: I think he's got views also on the way the
Speaker 2: British state has become pretty dysfunctional, more widely beyond the
Speaker 2: need to devolve power. He calls it the outsourced state.
Speaker 2: A lot of Britain is run by unelected agents, these
Speaker 2: private companies, and the paths of accountability and responsibility are
Speaker 2: so blurred it's very hard for a government to get
Speaker 2: anything done. Now, how he finds the money to deal
Speaker 2: with this is a huge, huge question.
Speaker 1: And we're going to dig into all of that, the
Speaker 1: ideas and how to implement them and what they'll cost.
Speaker 1: But I want to talk for a moment about how
Speaker 1: the UK got to this point in time where a
Speaker 1: prime minister who wanted huge majority less than two years
Speaker 1: ago ends up being booted out by his own party.
Speaker 1: Now you're really plugged into Labour politics, in particular your son,
Speaker 1: your son in law of both MPs. Your daughter is
Speaker 1: a political advisor too. When did you first start hearing
Speaker 1: that Starmer was in serious trouble with his own MPs, Well.
Speaker 2: Not from any of them.
Speaker 1: I find that hard to be seriously seriously they careful.
Speaker 1: It ends up on air, really really careful.
Speaker 2: I think they see me as irritant to be honest,
Speaker 2: because I just have my own views, I mean, and
Speaker 2: my view is that he was in trouble from quite
Speaker 2: early on. Leadership requires sort of titanic qualities and he
Speaker 2: came into politics very late and didn't have many of
Speaker 2: those titanic qualities. He had a few resilience when he
Speaker 2: chose to to have a dogged attention to policy detail,
Speaker 2: but I don't think he understood how you had to
Speaker 2: work a government, how to liaise with his MPs who
Speaker 2: became antagonistic quite early on some of them.
Speaker 1: Anyway, should Starmer ever have been leader of the Labour Party,
Speaker 1: then what would you give him credit for.
Speaker 2: Well, on one level, it's fascinating because here is someone
Speaker 2: who not only led Labour to a victory, but a
Speaker 2: landslide election victory, and Labour don't win many general elections
Speaker 2: in Britain. So that was an achievement, There's no doubt
Speaker 2: about it. And if you step back from all the noise,
Speaker 2: there were also policy reforms of some considerable significance. The
Speaker 2: National Health Service is in a better place now measurably
Speaker 2: than it was, and I think the economy is more
Speaker 2: stable than it was. But you know, to be honest,
Speaker 2: after the fourteen years of pretty wild rule, the Liz
Speaker 2: Truss premiership, the Boris Johnson premiership, I think the anti
Speaker 2: Tory mood was set. And he'll hate me for saying this,
Speaker 2: but the degree to which Keir Starmer brought about that
Speaker 2: victory is questionable. I think Boris Johnson, Liz Trusts and
Speaker 2: others helped Labour return with that landslide.
Speaker 1: He lost the election. Conservatives lost the election more than
Speaker 1: Labour winning it. He did, however, transform the party in
Speaker 1: the minds of those were very against it during the
Speaker 1: Jeremy Corbyn years and that period Andy Burnham sat out
Speaker 1: because he was running Greater Manchester in that time. Is
Speaker 1: that an achievement in your view? That Starmer did put
Speaker 1: the party in a position where people who had turned
Speaker 1: against them compared.
Speaker 2: It was partly an achievement and partly a problem. Here's
Speaker 2: why the achievement was very quickly he took control of
Speaker 2: the Labour Party. The Labour Party is really hard to control.
Speaker 2: And I see Neil Kinnock who led Labour in the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties and really had to change Labour from the
Speaker 2: doldrums of absolute election slaughters. And Neil Kinnock says, I
Speaker 2: won't use the swear words he put in as well,
Speaker 2: but he said, oh the hell did he do this?
Speaker 2: You know? Took Neil Kinnock at nine years very quickly kissed.
Speaker 2: Armer had the leavers of power in the Labour Party. However,
Speaker 2: in the way he became a very authoritarian leader, expelling
Speaker 2: people who challenged what he and his then chief advisor,
Speaker 2: Morgan Sweeney regarded as the only acceptable route to take.
Speaker 2: The sort of sacking of various ministers on the so
Speaker 2: called soft left of the Labour Party ended up giving
Speaker 2: those very victims more power than they've ever possessed before.
Speaker 1: I remember from of them end up being key at
Speaker 1: Burnham supporter. He made enemies that way, but he say,
Speaker 1: wouldn't he steve that he was standing up for principles
Speaker 1: that after that time under the Tories, where it seemed
Speaker 1: that you could get away with anything as a as
Speaker 1: an MP or a minister. He wanted to uphold standards
Speaker 1: in public life and therefore if people made mistakes, they
Speaker 1: had to go.
Speaker 2: I think it was broader than that. So for example,
Speaker 2: in the build up to the election, they blocked certain
Speaker 2: candidates from standing not for making mistakes but for what
Speaker 2: they believe. And speaking to Kis Starmer about this when
Speaker 2: he was in opposition, you know, I said to him,
Speaker 2: because you just end up with a perception of a
Speaker 2: party that's pretty weird. You know, there is forty points
Speaker 2: ahead in the opinion polls, sort of turning in on itself.
Speaker 2: But his view was, or the view of his advisors,
Speaker 2: was you get credit for taking on elements of your party,
Speaker 2: and I'm not sure whether that's the case.
Speaker 1: He also would appear blocked Andy Burnham from returning to
Speaker 1: Parliament earlier than he had.
Speaker 2: That was for a different reason, of course.
Speaker 1: Because he didn't want him in parliament able to stand
Speaker 1: against him, able to stand against it has now come
Speaker 1: to pass, Which.
Speaker 2: Has now come to pass. It is the most extraordinary
Speaker 2: sequence of recent times. Just a few months ago Kirs Starmer,
Speaker 2: with an absolute, overt ruthless determination, went to the meeting
Speaker 2: of Labour's governing body and per personally put the case
Speaker 2: for blocking him and succeeded because he had complete control
Speaker 2: of the Labour Party. And yet a few months later
Speaker 2: and this was a sign that was over for Kirs Starmer.
Speaker 2: He was too weak to repeat the exercise. And Addie Burnham,
Speaker 2: who looked as if there was no route into the
Speaker 2: House of Commons, found a route. And the last few
Speaker 2: days weeks have been kind of spellbinding. From he was
Speaker 2: outside the House of Commons, he won a by election,
Speaker 2: he became an MP, and within weeks of that he's
Speaker 2: going to be Prime Minister. It's extraordinary.
Speaker 1: But even the circumstance of that seat becoming available, the
Speaker 1: one he stood in, was because a Labour MP gave
Speaker 1: up their seat in order to make way for him,
Speaker 1: which I haven't seen happen before.
Speaker 2: It's never happened before. And this MP was a very
Speaker 2: ambitious MP.
Speaker 1: Who presumably will now come back, who.
Speaker 2: Will come back in some shape or form. Absolutely there
Speaker 2: will be a reward for that sacrifice. And what a sacrifice.
Speaker 2: You know, it's hard work getting a seat and he
Speaker 2: gave it up and in a way it was it
Speaker 2: was like an episode of sort of Faulty Towers, you
Speaker 2: know where number ten and Kissama thought, yeah, we've got
Speaker 2: through it. And then it was announced this MP was
Speaker 2: standing down for Andy Burnham and that was it. They
Speaker 2: couldn't block him.
Speaker 1: In your book, The Prime Minister, you have a very
Speaker 1: useful checklist for if the country is looking to elect
Speaker 1: a prime minister, he or she must have the following qualifications.
Speaker 1: And the first one you put on the list is
Speaker 1: he or she must be a political teacher, which I
Speaker 1: thought teacher was a really interesting word to use here.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by it? And is Andy Burnham
Speaker 1: a political teacher? Yeah?
Speaker 2: A political teacher is absolutely essential because policies rerupt around
Speaker 2: voters all the time and what many inspiring leaders forget
Speaker 2: to do is explain why they are doing what they're
Speaker 2: doing and more widely. You have to then explain how
Speaker 2: that policy fits into the rest of your government's policies,
Speaker 2: and then frame an overall sense of purpose and mission.
Speaker 2: And teaching can take kind of many different forms. President
Speaker 2: Trump is a teacher in his own way, in.
Speaker 1: His mastery of social media.
Speaker 2: In his hunger to be the main commentator on his
Speaker 2: own leadership, and so he is an around the clock commentator.
Speaker 2: Now he does it in a very eccentric way, but
Speaker 2: he is there explaining what he's doing and why he's
Speaker 2: doing it all the time. Now, Addie Burnham is a
Speaker 2: completely different political character, but he too is I think
Speaker 2: a teacher. I say I think because you never wholly
Speaker 2: know until they get into the position of ultimate power president,
Speaker 2: prime minister. But I think he is one of those
Speaker 2: who is conscious all the time. He needs to be
Speaker 2: in a never ending dialogue with voters. His social media
Speaker 2: videos are brilliant. Now whether it's going to be quite challenging.
Speaker 2: So devolution his big theme is a quite dry topic,
Speaker 2: so he has to make it exciting. So the big
Speaker 2: test of his teaching capacity is to come. But the
Speaker 2: great election winners and those who remain in power for
Speaker 2: a long time are political teachers.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting that you think he is that. And
Speaker 1: obviously he's had a significant experience in Greater Manchester for
Speaker 1: nearly a decade. He's grown in that job, no doubt.
Speaker 1: But it's worth reminding everyone that he ran for the
Speaker 1: Labour leadership twice before and lost. And you when you
Speaker 1: interviewed him a couple of years ago, now you did
Speaker 1: put this criticism to him that he has been seen
Speaker 1: as a bit of a shape shifter, loyal to Tony Blair,
Speaker 1: loyal to Gordon Brown, not necessarily willing to go up
Speaker 1: against Jeremy Corbyn. Yeah, he had an answer.
Speaker 2: For you, Yeah, I mean it was quite interesting. He said,
Speaker 2: I was always to the left of New Labour.
Speaker 1: This means essentially to the left of Tony Blair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So this is his own definition of who
Speaker 2: he is and always was. And I have some sympathy
Speaker 2: with him about this. As you know, there's a joke
Speaker 2: doing the rounds about someone going into the pub who's
Speaker 2: a Blairite a brown eye at Corbn easter Hallo, Andy Burnham.
Speaker 2: But looking back to that period, there were lots of
Speaker 2: people who came into Parliament during the Tony Blair period
Speaker 2: who were ambitious and wanted to get into Tony Blair's government,
Speaker 2: and they hadn't always been where Tony Blair was, and
Speaker 2: they moved with the times and then they moved again.
Speaker 2: Lots of people do that. So I think probably his
Speaker 2: self description of being to the left economically but small
Speaker 2: c conservative on issues like crime and immigration is probably
Speaker 2: an accurate place to start in trying to understand him.
Speaker 1: So let's dig into what he's done in Manchester, his
Speaker 1: record and the idea that manchester Ism is the new
Speaker 1: political philosophy that he will bring to the government of
Speaker 1: the UK, a version of what he's achieved in Manchester.
Speaker 1: Can you explain it with reference to the buses? What
Speaker 1: did he do?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: The terminology is significant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the terminology is really significant. And I made a
Speaker 2: mistake in that interview idea and I said, so you've
Speaker 2: become much more enthusiastic about public ownership. He uses the
Speaker 2: term public control. So what happened in Greater Manchester and
Speaker 2: it had already begun before he got there, and he's
Speaker 2: been criticized for that as well, But I think that's
Speaker 2: unfair because you know, it's not his fault that good
Speaker 2: things were happening. It's how did he adapt to it
Speaker 2: when he got there. And so the buses were privatized,
Speaker 2: which meant only the routes that were profitable were run
Speaker 2: with any kind of regularity. There's trams in Manchester. They
Speaker 2: were completely disconnected from other transport services. So they connected
Speaker 2: the whole thing and they regulated. Fairs were kept to
Speaker 2: a minimum. You could have a ticket where you could
Speaker 2: go from one form of transport a bus to another
Speaker 2: the tracks as happens in London. And I remember the
Speaker 2: day it all was interconnected. He did one of his
Speaker 2: very clever pieces to camera on social media and it
Speaker 2: felt exciting. Now that's not the same as renationalization because
Speaker 2: the private sector is still involved.
Speaker 1: Franchise.
Speaker 2: They get a franchise, but it's it's regulated and coordinated.
Speaker 1: And it they're forced to go to places which they
Speaker 1: might not have chosen to go to route wise because
Speaker 1: it wasn't profitable exactly. And I think passenger numbers have risen, so.
Speaker 2: Passenger numbers worked in have risen. Revenue therefore goes up
Speaker 2: and it generates growth because people can move around more efficiently.
Speaker 2: And the key thing, and this is where it works,
Speaker 2: I think, is these mayors are accountable for this, so
Speaker 2: if it had gone wrong, Vernon would have been a
Speaker 2: disaster area. The fact that it worked meant he was
Speaker 2: incredibly popular in Greater Manchester and so it is about
Speaker 2: how you work with the private sector in different ways.
Speaker 2: Now the big test is whether you can extend it
Speaker 2: across a whole country with different sized conurbations and all
Speaker 2: of that, and that's a huge question.
Speaker 1: And not just in transport, in lots of other areas.
Speaker 1: This exactly pamphlet that was released in this critical period
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago as Labour was mulling a new
Speaker 1: leader called the Productive State, which I think is known
Speaker 1: to be an influence. It comes from a group of
Speaker 1: MPs and Andy Burnham's endorsed this position. The Productive State
Speaker 1: of Framework for manchesteris and which says that what's been
Speaker 1: done with buses could be done for water and energy.
Speaker 1: I mean, the idea is not just to make services better,
Speaker 1: but also to bring down the cost of living again,
Speaker 1: something that everyone wants to do everywhere in the world.
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting about this paper, and which I
Speaker 1: hadn't really thought about in this way till it's spelt
Speaker 1: it out, is that it says that the high cost
Speaker 1: of essentials in the UK is not just about individual
Speaker 1: household It puts pressure on public spending because the welfare
Speaker 1: state has to cushion the blow of that. But the
Speaker 1: money it spends on housing benefit goes to landlords, or
Speaker 1: the money it might spend on energy bills goes to
Speaker 1: the energy companies. The state ameliorates without ever being permitted
Speaker 1: to cure directly. This is the fiscal escalator we are
Speaker 1: trapped on. Yeah, there's clearly a problem there, but it
Speaker 1: feels like an immense one to solve.
Speaker 2: It, really does. I think this is what he means
Speaker 2: by this phrase the outsourced state, because how do you
Speaker 2: to use another very popular phrase in British politics, take
Speaker 2: back control or a degree of control and your right
Speaker 2: to suggest or imply that. With transport, to some extent,
Speaker 2: it's easy because the sums involved aren't huge. I mean,
Speaker 2: buses are relatively cheap to run. The challenge with something
Speaker 2: like water is massive because the truth is there has
Speaker 2: been under investment in water since the privatization and before
Speaker 2: they were privatized.
Speaker 1: Where do you think those sums that will be necessary
Speaker 1: will come from? Because the choice could largely be taxation,
Speaker 1: or it could be borrowing. He has said he will
Speaker 1: stick to the current government's rules which limit borrowing for
Speaker 1: day to day spending. So I mean, what are you expecting,
Speaker 1: more taxation or more borrowing or a mix.
Speaker 2: There's going to have to be more taxation. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you look at what he has been saying, and
Speaker 2: I think at this point we do have to follow
Speaker 2: what he has been saying and assume he means it.
Speaker 2: So one of the things he has said is that
Speaker 2: he's going to initiate the biggest council house building program
Speaker 2: for decades. We know he wants to speed up plans
Speaker 2: for a national social care system. When he was Health Secretary,
Speaker 2: he had devised one and was going to fund it
Speaker 2: through various means, which got labeled as the death tax
Speaker 2: because it was about inheritance.
Speaker 1: Stuff tax on people's estates exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So then we look at the demands for defense spending,
Speaker 2: which seemed to go up and up on a kind
Speaker 2: of near daily basis, and we haven't even got to water.
Speaker 2: So these are huge things. We also know that he's
Speaker 2: publicly said he will stick to the fiscal rules, although
Speaker 2: he's indicated in the past that they need to be
Speaker 2: looked at again, but I don't think he has the
Speaker 2: space to look at them again at the beginning. There
Speaker 2: is a fear in Britain of every incoming prime minister
Speaker 2: of having a Liz Trust experience. Liz Trust prime minister
Speaker 2: for a month, the markets went bonkers and she was
Speaker 2: out and so therefore I think he will have to
Speaker 2: and will, I think put up taxes and how he
Speaker 2: does that will be very interesting who he targets because
Speaker 2: these mid term prime ministers are constrained. They haven't won
Speaker 2: an election. So he's working on a parliament elected on
Speaker 2: Labour's manifesto at the last general election, which ruled out
Speaker 2: quite a lot of tax rises.
Speaker 1: Well, or he's in the position where he doesn't have
Speaker 1: to have an election for another three years and he
Speaker 1: could do it that time and you know, try and
Speaker 1: show a record that enables people to elect him at
Speaker 1: that point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is probably what he will do. It's quite
Speaker 2: hard if you're a prime minister to give up a
Speaker 2: House of Comments where you have a majority of way
Speaker 2: over one hundred, which is huge in British politics. Most
Speaker 2: prime ministers would die for this kind of majority. However,
Speaker 2: this will be a running theme it always is with
Speaker 2: incoming prime ministers. And the one advantage it would give
Speaker 2: Andy Burnham if he were to hold and win a
Speaker 2: general election is he would then be freer to pursue
Speaker 2: his own agenda on all these issues, giving away power
Speaker 2: from the center to the local tax. He would have
Speaker 2: more flexibility. Mind you, going into an election saying you're
Speaker 2: going to change that is a risk as well as
Speaker 2: ever with leadership, he faces thousands of dilemmas.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that you don't think he'll go for more
Speaker 1: borrowing because you could make the argument for borrowing and
Speaker 1: say it's not for day to day spending, it's for
Speaker 1: investing in the future, and in this Productive State pamphlet,
Speaker 1: that's essentially the argument they put that it's not going
Speaker 1: to be the same kind of borrowing in the past,
Speaker 1: and therefore it is something that the ball markets could
Speaker 1: buy into.
Speaker 2: It's quite interesting because Rachel Reeves, the current Chancellor, who
Speaker 2: will lose her job when Andy Burnham comes in. He'll
Speaker 2: appoint a new chancellor, did change her very rigid fiscal
Speaker 2: rules on capital spending investment in infrastructure, so they have
Speaker 2: a bit of flexibility there already. And you are right
Speaker 2: that some of those who are very influential on him,
Speaker 2: people who were in the cabinet under Keir Starmer who
Speaker 2: sometimes got sacked from his cabinet, have been arguing that
Speaker 2: the markets will be okay if you can show you
Speaker 2: are borrowing to invest in a way that actually will
Speaker 2: raise revenue and be part of this so called productive state.
Speaker 2: So they might try and go a bit further. But
Speaker 2: they already have a bit more room than many realized
Speaker 2: because Rachel Reeves did revise this. She's cross. She hasn't
Speaker 2: got credit for it, but there it is. They've got
Speaker 2: more room to borrow if they want to.
Speaker 1: And I know you're in favor of Ed Miliband as
Speaker 1: the next chancellor.
Speaker 2: I think if you're going to be a change maker
Speaker 2: prime Minister, you might as well bring in a change
Speaker 2: making chancellor.
Speaker 1: You put him and his brother David, who's been a
Speaker 1: guest on the show, and actually when he was on
Speaker 1: the show in January did say it was wrong to
Speaker 1: block Andy Burnham from return at that stage. I mean
Speaker 1: Ed Miliband is someone you describe him when he was
Speaker 1: Labour Leader the night of the twenty fifteen election, absolutely
Speaker 1: convinced he was going to win and collapsing in tears.
Speaker 1: The shock of defeat profoundly disturbing for him. Hours earlier,
Speaker 1: he'd assumed he would be driving to Number ten via
Speaker 1: Buckingham Palace. What is his character and his politics? I mean,
Speaker 1: we know, but he's like probably I would imagine, to
Speaker 1: the left of Andy Burnham. Do you think he's certainly
Speaker 1: read ed too parts of the press in this country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he is really interesting and in a way more
Speaker 2: interesting I think than is widely recognized, because I'd forgotten
Speaker 2: about that. But you're right. He so thought he would
Speaker 2: be Prime Minister that he and his chief advisor spent
Speaker 2: the evening forming the government who would get which job,
Speaker 2: and then the Conservatives won with a small overall majority,
Speaker 2: and he was distraught and has taken a long time
Speaker 2: to recover from it. It is traumatic to be rejected
Speaker 2: in this way for any leader anywhere in the world. However,
Speaker 2: what is really interesting about him is he stuck with politics.
Speaker 2: He didn't leave the House of Commons and has been
Speaker 2: this radical energy secretary in the Keir Starmer government, arguably
Speaker 2: on issues relating to climate change, the most radical energy
Speaker 2: secretary in the Western world. And he is a figure
Speaker 2: of the left. He's to the left of David his
Speaker 2: brother Ed Miliband will be unquestionably a radical chancellor. However,
Speaker 2: he spent years working with the Labour Chancellor, Gordon Brown,
Speaker 2: who was in the Treasury for ten years, a long time,
Speaker 2: and he too has an expedient streak. He was the
Speaker 2: one who told Andy Burnham during the by election which
Speaker 2: Burnham won, to say he will stick with the fiscal rules.
Speaker 2: He is not just a kind of a left equivalent
Speaker 2: of Liz Trusts. He can be quite cautious too, and pragmatic.
Speaker 2: And although he has been this really radical climate change secretary,
Speaker 2: very adamant that Britain is heading for net zero faster
Speaker 2: than most other economies, he has had to accept a
Speaker 2: whole range of compromises in that area. So I think
Speaker 2: there would be quite a moment this decision as to
Speaker 2: who Andy Burnham chooses.
Speaker 1: But the markets could dive, I mean early. That could
Speaker 1: be one of the early crises even that a Burnham
Speaker 1: government might have to deal with.
Speaker 2: That is what would terrify Andy Burnham. A market crisis.
Speaker 2: But the alternative is risky, too riskier than it seems.
Speaker 2: So he could appoint a very cautious, small c conservative chancellor.
Speaker 2: The markets would be fine. At first, the media would say, ah, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is a sign of a grown up government. But
Speaker 2: the lesson of the past is that these Labour chancellors
Speaker 2: who have sought to reassure it all tends to implode
Speaker 2: in quite dramatic ways, Rachel Reeves being an example. So
Speaker 2: the totemic policy for Rachel Reeves was cutting the winter
Speaker 2: fuel allowance for pensioners in Britain and actually she did
Speaker 2: it to appear strong and iron Chancellor, and it's gone
Speaker 2: terribly wrong for her. So there are risks of caution
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: There's a broader thought in your work which is not
Speaker 1: just about Labour chancellors. It's about Labour prime ministers and
Speaker 1: how you think that they have the wind against them.
Speaker 1: They when they come to office and therefore they have
Speaker 1: something to prove and it leads them to make poor decisions.
Speaker 1: And I think you have even written that having something
Speaker 1: to prove was part of Tony Blair's decision to go
Speaker 1: to war in Iraq.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tony Blair was brought up in the nineteen eighties
Speaker 2: politically when Labour lost elections when they were seen as
Speaker 2: anti American, soft on defense. He wasn't actually an expert
Speaker 2: on the Middle East or certainly Iraq, but he was
Speaker 2: a world expert on Labour and why they lost elections
Speaker 2: in the nineteen eighties. And I think he was absolutely
Speaker 2: determined to show he was a different sort of Labour
Speaker 2: prime minister who would not break with the United States
Speaker 2: on issues to do with defense and war. And when
Speaker 2: he knew that President Bush was going to go into Iraq,
Speaker 2: he knew he would be with him. He just had
Speaker 2: to find a way of explaining why and how he
Speaker 2: was going to do it, and with the irony that
Speaker 2: by the end of his leadership he was seen by
Speaker 2: many as a liar, untrustworthy when he was doing it
Speaker 2: to show how trustworthy he could be as a Labour
Speaker 2: prime minister. And it's always happened with Labour governments and chancellors.
Speaker 2: Came back to the late nineteen twenties when Labour got in,
Speaker 2: they had a chancellor who ached to show that he
Speaker 2: could be trusted with the economy, so he followed very
Speaker 2: strict economic rigid rules and the whole government imploded in
Speaker 2: two years.
Speaker 1: A lesson of all of this to a Labour leader
Speaker 1: is be bold.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, with these added necessary qualifications. You have to
Speaker 2: show why you're doing it. You have to work out
Speaker 2: a message that gets through to a wider electorate and
Speaker 2: convince them. But I think it's safer to be bold
Speaker 2: than to seek to reassure and not do things because
Speaker 2: it all goes wrong.
Speaker 1: There's one philosophical point which I'm struggling with in the
Speaker 1: Burnham philosophy as we seem to understand it. He has
Speaker 1: this instinct to move power away from the center, to devolve,
Speaker 1: to give more power to local areas in whatever configuration
Speaker 1: they take. But then also, don't you have less control
Speaker 1: on the ultimate result. If you really want to transform
Speaker 1: the state into this productive state, doesn't that require a
Speaker 1: command and control. It's a big, complex idea. You're essentially
Speaker 1: sort of outsourcing it to local politicians.
Speaker 2: You've brilliantly captured the risk, talk about risks and the dilemma,
Speaker 2: and this is why devolution has much talked about and
Speaker 2: rarely happens that you, as a new prime minister, want
Speaker 2: to show that you are making a difference if you
Speaker 2: give away that control to local areas, genuinely giving it away,
Speaker 2: handing out money from the center and say over to you,
Speaker 2: you decide how to spend it. You are giving in
Speaker 2: modern Britain power to some councils run by Reform Nigel
Speaker 2: Farag's party, in some cases councils that are badly run
Speaker 2: by Labour or that because said they're not all well run.
Speaker 2: And you stand there in the House of Commons and
Speaker 2: have to say, I know it's gone wrong. Say I
Speaker 2: don't know. In the northeast of England, nothing to do
Speaker 2: with me. We've given away the power. And yet you
Speaker 2: want to say, as a prime minister, look at the
Speaker 2: difference I've made since I got into power. And that
Speaker 2: is a conundrum. There's a really interesting phrase Tony Blair
Speaker 2: once used before he got into power as Prime minister,
Speaker 2: where he went to a local government huge conference somewhere
Speaker 2: and he said, we are going to give you more
Speaker 2: power as long as you use that power responsibly. Now,
Speaker 2: the huge question implicit in that is who decides what
Speaker 2: is responsible? Now? Andy Burnham seems to be suggesting they
Speaker 2: can decide locally. How does he then show he personally
Speaker 2: is being transformative. What levers do he and his people
Speaker 2: use now? He would argue, now giving away power is
Speaker 2: the transformation. Let's see whether he still believes that when
Speaker 2: he is asked on various media outlets, what are you
Speaker 2: doing about X, Y and Z.
Speaker 1: Nigel Farage has definitely been an actor in this Labour drama,
Speaker 1: hasn't he? In that it's the prospect of him on
Speaker 1: course to be the next prime minister that has driven
Speaker 1: many Labour and MPs to be as against armor as
Speaker 1: they turned out. What do you think Andy Burnham's strategy
Speaker 1: is for beating Faraj? Is it to portray him as
Speaker 1: being beyond the pale? Is it more of a wooing
Speaker 1: back the Reform voter, in which he possibly risks alienating
Speaker 1: those who've gone to the Greens.
Speaker 2: In the bi elect that you are, Reform is the
Speaker 2: main opponent, and his strategy there was hardly to reference them,
Speaker 2: certainly not to make attacks on Nigel Farage at all,
Speaker 2: and at the moment there is plenty of ammunition to
Speaker 2: attack Nigel for Arch, but he didn't do it. He
Speaker 2: just focused on trying to attract a coalition of support
Speaker 2: around him and I think he will begin with that
Speaker 2: as Prime minister inevitably, certainly if Reform is the main
Speaker 2: opposition by the time of a general election, that can't work.
Speaker 2: He will have to.
Speaker 1: Go on the attack. Go on the attack, but go
Speaker 1: on the attack in what way? What would you advise
Speaker 1: Is it to try and portray Forages racist or because
Speaker 1: there's also another party now, a Restore which is to
Speaker 1: the right of reform. What would you suggest is the
Speaker 1: tack to take.
Speaker 2: I think what he will try and do is become
Speaker 2: the figure where all those who want to stop Farage
Speaker 2: becoming Prime Minister feel okay about coalescing around. One of
Speaker 2: the problems Keir Starmer had was that he had alienated
Speaker 2: quite a few on the left who went to the
Speaker 2: Greens and quite a few who have gone to Reform,
Speaker 2: and Burnham will hope he's an attractive enough public figure
Speaker 2: that they all feel okay about him. Now whether this
Speaker 2: will work will partly depend on how successful he is,
Speaker 2: of course, and if he's not, who knows what will
Speaker 2: then follow. But you are right to say, I think
Speaker 2: one of the many driving forces behind this astonishing rise
Speaker 2: from not being in the House of Commons to being
Speaker 2: Prime Minister is this, have we found a figure who
Speaker 2: can stop Nigel Farage the other good communicator in British politics,
Speaker 2: not brilliant, but good, and before Burnham came the best
Speaker 2: amongst the party leaders and it was very interesting. In
Speaker 2: the by election, Nigel Farage was there quite a lot,
Speaker 2: and I've always thought what a great communicator he is.
Speaker 2: He has the knack of appearing to have a conversation.
Speaker 2: I think he was a bit rude to you famously,
Speaker 2: I think when you interviewed him, but in that by
Speaker 2: election a bit like actually when he was with you,
Speaker 2: I thought if he looked ill at e somehow in
Speaker 2: his slightly old fashioned double breasted suit, he couldn't hide
Speaker 2: the fact that he was uneasy about their choice of candidate,
Speaker 2: And I thought, is he such a brilliant communicator?
Speaker 1: Nigel Farage has got this continuing relationship with Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and of course one area in which Andy Burnham is
Speaker 1: completely untested is foreign policy. How do you think he'll
Speaker 1: fare do you think his well, how will he deal
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump? Let's just get to that, because Trump's
Speaker 1: already been quite dismissive. Yeah, he's a mayor of a town.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, very dismissive about who he sees as a
Speaker 2: rather pathetic figure. It's not at all unusual for a
Speaker 2: British Prime minister new to the job to have no
Speaker 2: feel for foreign affairs whatsoever. That applied to Margaret Thatcher,
Speaker 2: who formed a very close relationship with Reagan. It applied
Speaker 2: to Tony Blair, and we've talked about how foreign affairs
Speaker 2: sucked him up. America, Clinton, Bush, Iraq, Europe. None of
Speaker 2: them came in with any feel whatsoever foreign affairs, and
Speaker 2: then foreign affairs absolutely sucked up their energy and attention.
Speaker 2: And this will happen to Andy Burnham, so he will
Speaker 2: have to adapt quickly. I think we will have to
Speaker 2: wait and see.
Speaker 1: What would you advise him though? Would you say with Trump?
Speaker 1: With Trump, be bold as your advice is in other
Speaker 1: areas well.
Speaker 2: If you look back at how Starmer really went out
Speaker 2: of his way to woo Trump, he got another state
Speaker 2: visit and he hasn't got much out to put it
Speaker 2: at best. But I think what Burnham will try and
Speaker 2: do is I think there will be a renewed focus
Speaker 2: on Britain's relationship with Europe, which, to give Starmer credit for,
Speaker 2: there was this what they call a reset. Relations are
Speaker 2: much better now with Britain and other European leaders. I
Speaker 2: think Burnham will want to intensify that. We know that
Speaker 2: he is passionately pro European and he has said he
Speaker 2: wants Britain to go back into the European Union in
Speaker 2: his lifetime. I mean, he's quite young, so that's not
Speaker 2: a big specific commitment, but I think there will be
Speaker 2: quite a lot of focus on that. But yeah, he
Speaker 2: will try. He will be very nice to Trump. He
Speaker 2: can be charming, but he's learned how to be a
Speaker 2: rather charming public figure. And when they have one of
Speaker 2: their famous meetings on that White House sofa, I think
Speaker 2: he will manage that absolutely.
Speaker 1: Fine, Steve. Finally, he clearly has the support of scores
Speaker 1: of MPs on his own side. We could see that
Speaker 1: the moment he walked into Westminster and they're all gathered
Speaker 1: there to receive him. But we also know that this
Speaker 1: is a pretty fickle group of MPs. Isn't it like
Speaker 1: a lot of them were elected two years ago, they
Speaker 1: turned on the man who led them to that victory
Speaker 1: pretty swiftly. Do you think that could be something he
Speaker 1: can't take for granted? Having his own MPs on side,
Speaker 1: you tried to do something big, there's loads of people
Speaker 1: who come to you and say why you can't do it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, But viewers and listeners who don't know. He arrived
Speaker 2: in Parliament the monday after he won this by election
Speaker 2: and hundreds of Labour MPs gathered to be photographed with him.
Speaker 2: And I saw some of those Labour MPs and I thought,
Speaker 2: I'm tempting to tell Andy Burnham what they were saying
Speaker 2: about him just months ago. They weren't all Avid fans then.
Speaker 2: And you are right, this is a very hard parliamentary
Speaker 2: Labour part to manage. There are a lot of labour
Speaker 2: MPs with seats with very tiny majorities, and if it
Speaker 2: goes wrong, they will turn the way in British politics
Speaker 2: and in other countries too, in America, so the authority
Speaker 2: of a president, the authority of a Prime minister is
Speaker 2: partly dependent on the opinion pots and whether they are
Speaker 2: doing well. Kir Starmer lost authority ultimately because Labour were
Speaker 2: being slaughtered in elections and in the opinion pots. So
Speaker 2: part of Burnham's authority is Labour MP's hope he's going
Speaker 2: to be popular, and if that isn't the case, I'm
Speaker 2: sure he'll get a honeymoon. A lot of them will
Speaker 2: turn and there are specific policy areas where he will
Speaker 2: have to engage with them. Welfare, reform being one example.
Speaker 2: But I think he will be quite good at engaging
Speaker 2: with them. But yeah, you are right to point out
Speaker 2: that MPs increasingly are fickle in all parties they reform.
Speaker 2: People will turn on Farage, Conservatives on their leaders if
Speaker 2: they are unpopular. So the stakes for Burnham to stay.
Speaker 2: He's at the moment Labour's most popular politician. He needs
Speaker 2: to keep that position because that's from where a lot
Speaker 2: of his authority is derived.
Speaker 1: And he needs to make Nigel Farage less popular. He
Speaker 1: needs those opinion polls to turn the ones which put
Speaker 1: on calls to be the next prime minister.
Speaker 2: That is the context reform of being ahead and opinion
Speaker 2: polls in Britain for a long time now, and part
Speaker 2: of his task is to turn that round. And if
Speaker 2: he pulls it off, he will continue to have authority.
Speaker 2: But a lot of MPs won't get jobs in the
Speaker 2: Burnham administration, so they'll won't be thrilled and things. It's
Speaker 2: very hard to manage a parliamentary party in a modern
Speaker 2: era where loyalty leadership is not a given.
Speaker 1: Are you looking forward to this period? Do you feel
Speaker 1: as a commentator you've got more of a spring in
Speaker 1: your step.
Speaker 2: Well, politics is endlessly fascinating because it's human beings trying
Speaker 2: to do things that you would otherwise determine by war.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think we're in an extraordinary period and
Speaker 2: because it's moving so fast, you can lose how astonishing
Speaker 2: it is. You know, Labour have never dumped a leader, never,
Speaker 2: and here it is doing so in dramatic circumstances. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it's going to be absolutely.
Speaker 1: Compelling, interesting times. Steve Richards, thank you.
Speaker 2: So much, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: And that's where we left it this time. My notes,
Speaker 1: which are at Bloomberg dot com forward Slash Michelle, go
Speaker 1: from Donald Trump's comments on Andy Burnham to what might
Speaker 1: happen next with Nigel Farage, and of course you can
Speaker 1: listen back to his conversation with me from October here
Speaker 1: in the feed and so to the team producers Jessica
Speaker 1: Beck and Chris Martlew, video producer Andy Hayward, with audio
Speaker 1: mixing this week by Richard Ward. Our social media is
Speaker 1: by Alex Morgan and the music is by Bart Warshaw.
Speaker 1: The executive producer is Louisa Lewis, and at Bloomberg Weekend
Speaker 1: thanks to Brendan Francis Newnam and our executive editor, Katherine Bell,
Speaker 1: until next time. Goodbye,