3:02
Trev, um, in your experience, uh, all the stuff that sort of really got them going this morning, I know you've seen again and again. So, I'm just going to throw it out as I have done all morning. Last week, um, Wes Streeting was pilloried as having no cojones and not having numbers and laughed at. Putting the EU front and center of this future leadership debate was politically brilliant, wasn't it? Because Andy Burnham is now in massive trouble already, isn't he? I think, uh, tactically it was brilliant. Strategically, I think it was disastrous. Um, you've got the situation in, uh, Macclesfield, which is that, uh, Andy Burnham is sort of uh, faintly, uh, remain, but not idealistically,
uh, keen. And Wes Streeting, I'm not sure where he quite stands, actually, despite his machinations here. But they are, yes, using, uh, Brexit or remain or going back in as a lever to sort of embarrass the other. So, Burnham is now standing in a or will be standing in a constituency which was 65% pro-Brexit. And if he were to say, "I want to get back in," he might risk what is possibly going to happen anyway, which is that he's going to be defeated by Reform. But even if he now says, "I don't want to." Have you not seen it? So, we I won't bore you now, but we played an interview from September where he went, "Absolutely, we need to back in the Union. I love unions, trade you." He didn't mention the Soviet Union. And
then at the weekend, when asked, he said, "It's not about that. It's about local issues." I know that you're like me in that you have a great belief in the British public and how they feel very treated unfairly at the moment. They'll see through this. It's This is an open goal, isn't it, for Reform? Well, absolutely. And I think that this, um, return to the remain argument is a disaster for Labour both now, in the medium term, and at the next general election. They won't have the courage to have another referendum, which is the only democratic way forward, and in which case I think they would risk losing anyway, despite the apparent support now for going back in. I think that would evaporate as soon as the
arguments were laid out. So, they're going to try and wrap it up in the next general election, so nobody really will notice. They'll be thinking about their hip pocket nerve and all the rest of it. But, it's not going to work. Either way, it's going to be a disaster for them because it's a mess. Nobody really knows uh what the arguments are anymore. What we have is the people who voted for Brexit who are still voting for Brexit. That's That's the point of it, and they're trying to push against the tide. Uh and it's It's just an unscrupulous way of trying to gather a few votes by these two leadership candidates. Um let's look at the bigger picture as well. Um politics is a dirty business. Um a few analogies for you.
So, Reform in the Gorton and Denton by-election said, "A vote for Reform is a vote to get Starmer out." In essence, the candidate uh if we're being honest, in Makerfield, who's trampling on the people's heads, his campaign slogan should be, "A vote for Labour is to get Starmer out." So Absolutely. I mean, that's that's ludicrous, isn't it? Well, the whole thing is a total shambles. I can't imagine uh there's ever been quite such a ratbag bunch of politicians scrambling for office here at the expense of the country. Um Nobody's in favor of continuation of Keir Starmer. Nobody in the Labour Party apparently wants Wes Streeting at the moment. And lots of people don't really want Burnham because he's already failed twice to win the
Labour leadership. And there's no indication in his performance as mayor of Manchester that he is the man to lead this nation. I mean, and then I mean, I was nodding along to almost everything that Carl Turner was saying earlier. And then he mentioned Angela Rayner and everything went out the window. This is the state of play at the moment in the Labour Party. Yeah. In terms of the whole the whole campaign, I know you think I'd take it very seriously, but we have an incumbent Labour Prime Minister is hoping for a reform victory in Wakefield, Trev. That's how weird and ridiculous it is.
It's the drowning man clutching at two Labour weights, isn't it? I mean, look, he is doomed. He knows he's doomed. And if he isn't doomed now, he will be at the next generation if he limps along that far. But the thing that haunts me all the time, I'm sure it does most of your listeners too, Jeremy, and yourself, is that we have 3 more years of this. I mean, the amount of damage that this government has already inflicted pales by comparison with what may lie ahead over the coming 3 years as it is buffeted by all of these divisions within its ranks. Let alone what's happening in the outside world, and let alone what's happening in the European Union that they want to rejoin. Couldn't
agree more. I'll tell you what, a couple of [clears throat] other things before I let you go. I mean, God, I don't know what's happened to collective cabinet responsibility over the weekend. Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, who by the way knows absolutely that the leave vote will probably cost them that seat because she's in Wigan, 10 miles down the road. She said, "I'm campaigning for Burnham." This morning, Calamity Lammy. God, this is your death knell, isn't it? He said, "Of course I'll go to Manchester if he can find his way there and campaign." Just as a an ex-political editor of The Sun, so innocuous wrong word so lacking in any authority now is Starmer that two of his cabinet ministers are actively
saying we're going to campaign for a man who hasn't been selected and whose only desire is to get rid of their boss. And meanwhile, who's running the country? Yeah. I mean, who's dealing with the problems that are going to face us as the money markets turn against us? Who's going to deal with our defense reform? Who's going to actually have the nerve to grasp the nettle of welfare reform? Certainly not Labour, certainly not Starmer. And I mean, look, both of the two candidates who seem to be running at the moment, Streeting and Burnham, um, have no idea what they're going to do. And the big fear in my uh, mind is that they're going to leave the ground vacant in the end as they two fall onto the
ground, uh, scrambling to win votes. And Ed Miliband sidles through on the side. I mean, that is the heart of it. or Rayner. Well, Who's Who's got Who was apparently offered the health secretary's job over the weekend and said no. Who's going to publicly say I support Burnham. And if he loses the seat, he's going to rise like the phoenix, isn't she? And who personally, I am sure, does not think that she's got what it takes to lead the nation through the difficult times lying ahead and here in front of us right now as Prime Minister.
I don't think she's got it and I don't think she thinks she's got it. I think Ed Miliband is the one who's pulling the strings behind everybody's back. He wants to be Chancellor in a government or if not that, Prime Minister, but he probably doesn't expect to be Prime Minister. But it's Ed Miliband you have to watch out for here. Um, few quick questions. Does Burnham Well, he obviously is going to get selected. Does he win, um, this constituency Makerfield? How do you see it going? I would predict, frankly, uh, Jeremy, that he's going to lose. Really? that the people of Makerfield, uh, may well be still with Labour, but Labour isn't still with Labour itself now. And I think that they don't want to be taken
advantage of by a Chancellor like Burnham and being dumped by a an MP who is already the center of a scandal over his scurrilous attempts to, uh to uh, rubbish respected journalists on the Sunday Times. And that's they can see all this. I mean, the local voters are not fools. They will be able to assess all of this and decide they're not going to be made use of. So, you think that Reform will win that? And who do you think will come through on the rails, or who do you think will be I mean, I can't even bring myself to say the next Prime Minister cuz I don't believe that's right. I've said it all along there should be a general election. I don't think it's proper and correct, but there you go. Who do you
think you think Milliband, do you? Well, I think frankly, Jeremy, that you're right. There should and indeed must be a general election, but you have a government which is going nowhere. It's got a large majority. It knows it's going to lose that majority. That majority will become unemployed. Those MPs and cabinet ministers who are now getting a decent crust as their elected representatives are going to find themselves destitute because nobody's going to employ them once they're out of office. Really interesting, mate. It's great to have you on. We're going to watch it with interest in the next few weeks.
They think June the 18th. We'll keep you informed. Thank you so much indeed.
