Starmer has disagreed publicly with Healey over his resignation and promised to fight a leadership contest. Still going…
In an interview with Chris Mason on the BBC, Starmer said of Healey: “I have the highest respect for the individuals that you have quoted and they say there’s not enough. But I don’t agree.” He also said every department is taking a cut to boost defence spending: “Yes, everybody is contributing to this, every single one.“ At the same time he said he was “not prepared to cut our public services”…
He insisted the DIP would be published before the NATO summit and that “defence will be the number one priority in that spending review and spending reviews beyond that.” It’s what he was saying before his Defence Secretary resigned…
On leadership:
“I’m not going to go away. I don’t think we should plunge the country into the chaos of a leadership election… Well, I don’t think it should happen, but if it does then I will fight. And let me just be clear with you. That’s not about personal vanity. It’s not about stubbornness. It’s out of a very deep sense of duty.”
Though when Chris Mason said: “You will lead Labour into the next general election,” Starmer replied: “Well that’s what I want to do.” Getting a scent of the coffee…
At the end Starmer said: “I recognise that, you know, I’ve got to turn things around. We had a very bad set of elections.” Indeed…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”