Miliband Mania Puts Burnham In ‘Tricky Position’ — Dominic Lawson

[00:00:00] Ben Taylor: I think whatever happens with the chancellorship, he will play a major role in this government. There's speculation that he could be Deputy Prime Minister or stay in his current brief and keep pushing that agenda through. [00:00:11] Speaker 2: If you're just joining us, there is only one time and place where you'll get a sneak peek into tomorrow's Sunday Times, and that is with Editor Ben Taylor, who is here in our studio. Morning, sir. [00:00:22] Ben Taylor: Good morning. [00:00:22] Speaker 2: Thank you. Oh, you got your mic? There you go. Excellent. All good. There we go. We're on. We're on, folks. OK, let's start kind of at the beginning. Ed Miliband, Ed Miliband Profile, his name has popped up quite a bit of late. [00:00:40] Ben Taylor: Why are we so obsessed with him? Well, there's a very good question. I'd love to throw it out to the listeners as well. We're all suffering from Miliband Arrangement Syndrome, I think, to borrow a phrase. Ed has become this lightning rod for everything that people arguably dislike about some of the government's policies, but for a certain section of the country, he's also a bit of a hero. And I think that Andy Burnham now has an extremely difficult decision to make about whether he makes him his Chancellor of the Exchequer. Just to go back a few months, Ed Miliband said to Keir Starmer and the NEC, which is Labour's ruling body, that Andy Burnham should have been allowed to stand in Denton and Gorton, which was the other Greater Manchester by-election that we had this year, you'll remember and listeners will remember that that was blocked by the NEC and ergo Keir Starmer. We now know what happened. There was another by-election. They didn't block him and he's now about to take over as Prime Minister. That is Andy Burnham. But Andy will not have forgotten that debt he owes to Ed from six months ago. Ed has also been up there on the campaign trail in Makerfield and the pair have been in constant communication. He's also a former Treasury official. He's worked with Gordon Brown and he's one of the more experienced cabinet ministers that we have. And bluntly, he wants the job. The problem that Andy Burnham has got, as Lara Spirit reported last week, is that there are many vested interests who don't want Ed Miliband. Two of them are major unions, the GMB and Unite, who don't like his net zero agenda. There's also the city, which feels that he will declare war on so-called predator capitalism. And then there's just the general public, which rejected him as a potential prime minister in 2015 and hasn't forgotten that and would possibly object to him now running the economy. So that's the debit side for Andy Burnham, a lot of baggage. On the credit side, there have been people who've said this week that Miliband gets things done. He's energetic. He knows his way around Whitehall and he's got a point to prove and could actually be very helpful for Burnham in actually teaching him the wiles of government, of which he's been out of since 2010. So Andy Burnham, don't forget, has not been in a government of any type since 2010. And he probably needs him. But either way, I think it's a really, really tricky position for Burnham. Josh Glancy is looking at the story of Ed Miliband, his rise, the famous leadership election where he obviously stood against his brother, his time as leader of the opposition, and also who has influenced his thinking. Famously, his father was a left-wing academic. That's been well-trodden, that's well-trodden ground in the past. But also the other people around him that have influenced his economic and his environmental thinking, which have led him to where he is today. It's completely fascinating. And I think whatever happens with the chancellorship, he will play a major role in this government. There's speculation that he could be deputy prime minister or stay in his current brief and keep pushing that agenda through. But he's become... Because we've arrived at this in such a funny way that Burnham is essentially anointed prime minister without actually a shadow cabinet behind him, we're in a very odd situation. [00:04:02] Speaker 2: OK, it is odd. And there's something to be said about Andy Burnham coming in on this mandate of change. Well, not even a mandate, but kind of the conversations of being such different and such change for the party, and then bringing in kind of an old God. [00:04:16] Ben Taylor: Well, quite. And on Monday, he will be making, as the Times has flashed this morning, a speech on the economy. Yeah. But he'll be making a speech on the economy as it stands, without having a chancellor in place. So, who is speaking on Monday? Is it Andy Burnham? Yeah. Obviously, he'll be mouthing the words, but whose philosophy is he actually expanding? Is it Ed Miliband? [00:04:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really fascinating. And speaking of all the Labour manoeuvrings, Lara Spirit's been speaking to Yvette Cooper to get her verdict on these two years of Starboard. [00:04:45] Ben Taylor: Yeah, and I think this is really interesting. She's been to Poland with the Foreign Secretary. Now, she's a woman that also has eyes on being chancellor. She's a former chief secretary to the Treasury, so she's eminently qualified. And we were talking about, there is a problem with Starmer demoting Rachel Reeves to a less prestigious role in the Cabinet. Reeves, you know, has been there for nearly two years. She's well known by the city. She is the first woman chancellor. She has reminded us on occasionally. And losing a woman from a top job when you have another man taking over as prime minister may not bother many of the public, but it's excruciating for the Labour Party. Absolutely excruciating. Good point. So, I think Cooper still has an outside chance of being chancellor. It's very outside. However, she has spoken to Lara, not just about Andy Burnham, but also about the last two years. And I think what I took from my brief conversation with Lara last night is that she still thinks that the winter fuel moment was the moment where they fell off the tracks and started to lose the public support that they built up during the election campaign. [00:05:53] Speaker 2: OK. And aside from politics, I believe we've got an interview with Alanis Morissette. [00:05:57] Ben Taylor: Well, I think people have maxed out on politics over the last few days. They've maxed out on the heat and they're still fascinated by the World Cup. But there are three fantastic interviews in our supplements tomorrow. One is with Alanis Morissette, who's just been inducted into the Hall of Fame, the Songwriting Hall of Fame. She is now 30-odd years since Jagged Little Pill. It was a really interesting interview about, not just about her music career, but also her time as a family and her reaction to becoming essentially an older singer. Then, on the other hand, you've got Larry David, who's now been around for 50 years. I'm not sure how him and Alanis Morissette would actually get on. [00:06:36] Speaker 2: Maybe they could interview each other. Yeah, they could interview each other. [00:06:39] Ben Taylor: But he is a man who looks at the world in a slightly different way, shall we say. And he's got a big show out about America at 250, which is very much a sideways look at the Republic. And then, finally, we've got Sarah Cox, you know, once known as that awful word, ladette, but is far more sophisticated and interesting than that. She's given a great interview to the magazine. So, the point about this really is, if you're fed up with politics, there's loads in the Sunday Times tomorrow. The final thing I want to talk about is that when the heat calms down, go out on a pilgrimage trail and you could really enjoy yourself. The big thing, according to travel, is these walks that take you to a seat of religious pilgrimage. So, it could be Canterbury Cathedral, it could be Southwark Cathedral, it could be anywhere. And they are becoming increasingly popular with our readers for something they can do. It's a walk, you stay overnight, you keep walking, and then you get to your destination. Hugely popular, famously in Spain, obviously, the Camino to Santiago de Campostia, but increasingly popular in Britain too. A way of combining travel with some time for thought. Well, thank you very much. And that's in travel tomorrow. [00:07:51] Speaker 2: Thank you very much, and thank you to our listeners.