Starmer’s leadership questioned amid Labour scandal storm (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I don't think any of us want to return to the melodrama, the political chaos that we saw over the last decade.

[00:00:05] Speaker 2: What have we just seen over the last week?

[00:00:07] Speaker 3: Is Zakir Starmer now a lame-duck Prime Minister?

[00:00:13] Speaker 1: That's coming your way, Luke. No, I don't think he is. I think what I wanted to see from a politician, from a leader, especially after so many years of chaos, is someone that can try things, make mistakes, but admit they've made mistakes, apologise for it, learn those lessons and do better. And I think, I don't think any of us want to return to the melodrama, the political chaos that we saw over the last decade.

[00:00:38] Speaker 2: What have we just seen over the last week?

[00:00:41] Speaker 1: I want to see the Prime Minister...

[00:00:42] Speaker 2: Are you a Westminster?

[00:00:43] Speaker 1: I want to see the Prime Minister focus on the issues that matter. That means, yes, restoring trust. It also means learning where mistakes have been made. And he's been very honest this week, which is what I want to see from a political leader. I want to see someone that, if they make a mistake, admits it, learns the lessons and then does better. And that's precisely what I've heard him say this week to parliamentary colleagues. What I know the public want us to do, focus on getting stuff done, changing Britain for the better, delivering the manifesto. Now, we're making progress in that, but I'm an impatient so-and-so as a minister. I want us to make progress faster. And the more time we spend on Westminster ups and downs, who's doing up and down, I don't think that's where the public want us to be. Focus on the issues that matter. But we've got to learn from this week, because I don't want to see this week repeated again, frankly. I want us focusing on bringing down NHS waiting lists further, growing the economy, getting our public services in a better shape. And that's what we're making progress on.

[00:01:41] Speaker 4: You say you don't want it to be repeated. You've got a transport union, the TSSA, affiliated to Labour, tonight, just tonight, saying, Salma's got to go and be replaced by Angela Rayner. So this is just going on and on.

[00:01:53] Speaker 1: Well, I don't agree with them. I respect that, in a democracy, people can have different views. And it's OK to have different views, as long as you debate maturely and don't be muppets to each other. And I think it's right that, in a big organisation like the Labour Party, a big family, where people do have different views, and many of those views are passionately held, that we have a debate, we have options on the table that we can discuss and debate properly. But this week has not been a great week for Labour, I don't think. But I want to see us learn from the mistakes that have been made. I want to see us learn from the mistakes that the Prime Minister set out and do better and focus on the things that actually matter, bringing down waiting lists, growing the economy, tackling misogyny in our communities. These are the things that I think people want their government focused on.

[00:02:37] Speaker 4: Is Keir Starmer now a lamed-up Prime Minister, Ben?

[00:02:41] Speaker 5: Well, I'd call him a zombie Prime Minister, because he seems to be wandering around aimlessly at the moment, sort of neither really dead or alive. Will he still be here, Luke, 28 days later? Oh, that's a very good film reference.

[00:02:58] Speaker 1: Well done, Ben. Yes, I think he will be still here, yes.

[00:03:01] Speaker 2: OK.

[00:03:02] Speaker 4: I had no idea you were going to start doing film references. Right, the man at the very back, in the black T-shirt, yeah.

[00:03:08] Speaker 6: Yeah, I just wanted to say that you used the term mistake, but I think appointing someone who had connections with a known paedophile to be ambassador to the US is not a mistake, that's a disgrace.

[00:03:18] Speaker 7: Yes, and no, the glasses.

[00:03:25] Speaker 3: You also talked about how he's making mistakes and learning from them, but how many mistakes is too many mistakes? With the U-turns on PIP, on winter fuel, on the child benefit cap, when is that enough?

[00:03:37] Speaker 4: The man here at the front.

[00:03:39] Speaker 8: I appreciate people make mistakes, because that's how we learn in life, but what I don't appreciate is somebody who shows constant poor judgment in his tenure so far, and that's appalling. Eileen.

[00:03:54] Speaker 9: Yes, Carl, I completely agree with you. Keir Starmer is absolutely a lame duck. He's teetering on the edge of the precipice. Labour MPs this week decided to pull back, not quite kind of push him over the edge, but it's only a matter of time, perhaps after the Gorton and Denton by-election, perhaps after the local elections, Labour are going to have really bad results. Maybe they're just keeping him in place so that he's a useful fall guy after that. In the meantime, he is incredibly weak. And I agree with the gentleman here who talked about judgment. You know, let's remind ourselves what's happened here. It's not just this week. Actually, all of this broke last week about the Mandelson scandal, but that is something that dates back a really long time, and not only did he appoint Mandelson despite knowing that he had this connection, ongoing connection, with Epstein, we've also had another Labour member of the House of Lords, Matthew Doyle, this week, who's had to be basically chucked out because of his connections with the paedophile. Also this week, we've been raising questions about the MOD's contract with Palantir, perhaps facilitated by Peter Mandelson in his conflict of interest role, both in relation to his job, his interest in Global Council, and then his job working with the Prime Minister. There was a meeting between the Prime Minister, Mandelson and Palantir last year, and then subsequently a contract allocated to this organisation without any due process. So, we've got huge questions to ask. Labour has huge questions to answer, and fundamentally, Keir Starmer does have to go. He's lost the confidence of the country. He's lost the trust of the country, not just the last few weeks, but, as the gentleman there said, multiple U-turns over multiple months. It is absolutely time for him to go. And, in fact, it's time for a change, which is why so many people are wanting to vote Green at these upcoming elections, because they are disillusioned with Labour and they want people that they can genuinely trust.

[00:05:50] Speaker 4: Luke, I'll give you a chance to talk about Palantir in a moment. Nadine, I just want to ask you your view. I know, clearly, you're no fan of Keir Starmer, but I'm interested, particularly because you've been present at the defenestrations of two Prime Ministers, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. How do they compare?

[00:06:04] Speaker 7: I was in the room. So, Labour MPs have only been in Westminster for 18 months. They're still wet behind the ears. They haven't got a clue how to defenestrate a Prime Minister. It happens by... I mean, Conservative MPs, regicide runs in their veins. I'm not surprised your answer was short, Ben, because Conservative MPs plot and they scheme and they plan and they have no moral ethics whatsoever when it comes to taking down a Prime Minister, because it's all about personal ambition and it's not about the country. I mean, also, you are a Conservative MP.

[00:06:41] Speaker 2: I need to point that out.

[00:06:43] Speaker 7: But I was not a plotter or a schemer and I didn't put my own personal ambition before the country. And what you will see happen now is, those Labour MPs, they've learnt their lesson. Andy Burnham, this didn't start on Monday, this started two weeks ago. When Andy Burnham decided he'd move from his kingdom of Greater Manchester and come down to Westminster and take Starmer's place, what he discovered was that Morgan Sweeney, Starmer's former right-hand man, had anticipated that move and he blocked him from being able to do that. Keir Starmer has the weight of the number 10 machine behind him and it is formidable. And a Prime Minister can hold on with that machine behind him for some time. And what Labour MPs will start doing now is it will be death by 1,000 cuts. They will start to undermine Keir Starmer. You saw it with Lisa Nandy this morning. You saw it with Angela Rayner this afternoon. You've seen it with the unions tonight. It won't stop, Luke. Every day there will be a bad headline now for Keir Starmer. And it will probably come, as you write, after the Manchester and Gorton by-election or it will come after the May local elections. But what they will do now, those Labour MPs, the Angela Rayner camp, the left want to be in power, the West Streeting camp, New Labour, what's left of New Labour, they want to be in power. You will see them, both camps, now constantly undermine Keir Starmer. Watch the press every day. Somebody will make, and I was not surprised to hear Lisa Nandy making those comments this morning.

[00:08:19] Speaker 4: So, what comments are you referring to exactly?

[00:08:21] Speaker 7: She made the comments that Number 10 was dripping with misogyny, that Keir Starmer, I think, needed to get a grip or something. There was something she made...

[00:08:30] Speaker 4: But she didn't call for him to go.

[00:08:32] Speaker 7: No, she stopped short of that. She said something on the lines of, how can you revamp a man? When she was asked, could Keir Starmer be revamped? And she said, he's a person, we can't revamp him. So, she was not positive in her comments.

[00:08:44] Speaker 4: I mean, having read that interview, I don't think she was saying that as a criticism, but I realise she's made other comments as well. Denton and Gorton, I think you refer to, rather than Manchester and Gorton.

[00:08:53] Speaker 7: And then they'll put the knife in, when they've done enough of that, then they'll put the knife in when they know he's weak enough. Man here in the front.

[00:09:00] Speaker 10: I must admit, I hear what you're saying. And I hear what everyone's said so far, the disappointment in... ..Keir Starmer's selection. But, ultimately, I want politics and politicians to actually solve our problems, and this is good. But, really, the problem we need to solve is the Epstein files.

[00:09:22] Speaker 5: Yeah.

[00:09:22] Speaker 10: All of the people affected in that.

[00:09:25] Speaker 2: Yeah.

[00:09:26] Speaker 10: Be decisive with who we're going to back. We need to get that sorted, because it's a distraction. And, ultimately, we need to solve all our public services, everything which we vote for in politics. This is just a massive distraction, and there's so much we need to solve.

[00:09:40] Speaker 4: And do you think having a new Prime Minister would help?

[00:09:45] Speaker 10: Over the last few years, I must admit, I'm finding it hard to know who to back, because I look at what we've had, what we now have. I look at the other options, further to the left, further to the right. I find them divisive, for the most part. I naturally am a centralist. I want to believe in compromise and civil society, and I don't know where I can find that, if not in Conservative Labour and Lib Dem. I want to back, but I just don't think they have the mass.

[00:10:17] Speaker 4: OK. Woman here.

[00:10:19] Speaker 11: I think this is a distraction, I completely agree. And I think, to be honest, the connection that Mandelstein had with Epstein was known at the time at which he was appointed. So, the fact that everybody's piled in now to kind of say, oh, why was that appointment made? Well, why was that not talked about more at the time? This, to me, seems like more of a reflection that Labour aren't happy that they're doing well in the polls, so now let's get a new leader, which is not what we need. We need stability.

[00:10:45] Speaker 4: So, you'd like Keir Starmer to stay?

[00:10:47] Speaker 11: Yeah.

[00:10:49] Speaker 4: Luke, just... Ellie was talking about this company, Palantir. Just briefly, let's deal with that. It's an American software company that specialises in big data, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, and they've got a contract with the MoD, and what you're trying to say is that there was a bit of kind of insider influence through Mandelstein and possibly Epstein. There's no evidence of Epstein. We don't know. Do you want to just give an answer to that?

[00:11:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, I answered, in fact, Ellie's question in the House of Commons this week. We need artificial intelligence to keep our country safe, to process data faster. We appointed a contract with Palantir through a proper procurement process, and it delivers for our national security. It protects the data in the UK, but we need to...

[00:11:32] Speaker 9: It was directly allocated. There wasn't a competitive procurement process. That contract was directly allocated to Palantir, the December 2025 contract. And we need to see all of the papers in relation to that. You know, you can surely see that it looks dodgy that earlier that year you have a meeting between Starmer, Mandelstein and Palantir. Palantir, a company founded by a guy who's terribly cosy with Trump and with Epstein, who's named multiple times in the file.

[00:12:01] Speaker 4: I think we're getting a little bit far away from Izkir, Starmer are now elained up Prime Minister, so let's stick with that. There's a woman here in the front. Let's hear from you in the grey cardigan.

[00:12:08] Speaker 12: Thank you. Do you feel that Labour lost a lot of the working-class support after the departure of Angela Rayner? I know that as a voter voting for the first time as a young woman in the working class, it sort of felt like she was the only anchor that we had to the Labour Party feeling relatable. After her departure, I can't find anything within the Labour Party to vote for in the next election.

[00:12:33] Speaker 4: And did you vote for them in the last election, can I ask? I did. Right. So you're feeling disenchanted?

[00:12:38] Speaker 12: Yes.

[00:12:38] Speaker 4: OK. The man at the very back in a sweater. Can't quite see what colour.

[00:12:42] Speaker 13: I'm just wondering, like, what is it about our politics that makes the people involved lose their moral compass? I mean, Keir Starmer was sold to all of us as, if anything, you might not agree with him, but he's a good man. And he's appointed the associate of a known paedophile to be the ambassador to the US. Equally, like Nadine said, you're Andy Burnham, who markets himself as the King of the North, was willing to abandon all of them just to get a chance to climb up the greasy pole and get into Number 10. So I don't really understand why the people that we elect can't have our best interests at heart, not their own.

[00:13:13] Speaker 7: And went out Monday afternoon, back and forth.

[00:13:14] Speaker 4: APPLAUSE I've got to say, we started this question because so many of you asked a question more or less like this. That's why we went for it. That's how it works on this programme. And what we're hearing is quite a lot of disenchantment, I think it's fair to say. I mean, look, isn't that the problem? And at the heart of Karl's question, is Keir Starmer now laying up Prime Minister, is, A, this kind of... It's not going to be universal, but a fair sense of disenchantment, and also the fact that he is surely now at the mercy of his backbenchers. Because we've seen how powerful they have been in the last week. He's clung on to his job, but he can't afford to alienate them.

[00:13:54] Speaker 1: Well, I think Keir is a good man. I think he has the right moral compass about wanting to focus on making our country better. But I think we have to learn from what's happened. We need to restore trust in politics in a way that it has been damaged, not just by what we've seen in the past few days, but by 14 years that preceded it. And I think the way to do that, the way to win people's votes round in the elections that we've got coming up, and to look ahead to a general election, is to deliver what we promised. NHS waiting lists are falling. We want them to fall faster.

[00:14:28] Speaker 4: But he wanted to deliver welfare reform, but then it went down very badly with the backbenchers, so he had to row back on that.

[00:14:32] Speaker 1: And surely that is what's going to continue happening. But I think it's right that leaders listen to views. Because they've got to lead as well. And take responsibility. Absolutely, they should. And that's what Keir Starmer has done this week. And it's something that I have not seen in the 14 years previously, in many years that I was in Parliament, in opposition. I want us to focus on the issues at hand. And I also want our leaders to be more upfront and honest, not like shirk responsibility. Keir has taken this on the shoulders. He has been very clear. He made mistakes in the appointment. We're learning from those, and we're focusing on the issues that matter. Because I don't think that if we were just to do, as the Tories did previously, which where I'm appointed with Tories, hard to know... And reform. If we look at what's happened in the past, where we've just seen scandal after scandal after scandal, with no accountability, no responsibility, no taking the concerns on board and acting upon them, that, I don't think, makes Britain stronger.

[00:15:32] Speaker 5: Focus on the issues at hand. Keir Starmer must be the first Director of Public Prosecutions who takes what people say at face value. If you're to believe his story, he must have been the most gullible prosecutor in the world. His defence in this entire process was, oh, they lied to me, or this person gave me bad advice, as opposed to taking responsibility for decisions he's made, as he absolutely should, given the role that he has. Well, that's exactly what he has done, though. No, he hasn't. That's exactly what he has said. That's exactly what he's done. Look, what's so sad in this whole sad affair is, you know, I think we need to look at the whole thing. Firstly, we need to focus on the victims of Epstein. We need to focus on the victims of paedophiles who've been associated with these people. That should be our primary focus. We need to look at this properly and see exactly what was said to who. I'm very glad that we were able to force these files being published. I hope we see them very soon, in terms of what happened during the vetting process. And while this is all happening, our country needs to be governed. We've got big problems with growth being stagnant. We need to focus on improving our public services. We've got, you know, the Labour government is causing all sorts of issues with the economy. Hospitality is going to the wall. People are concerned about their jobs. And all they're seeing is this circus in number 10 when we need leadership and we need proper government.