Kemi Badenoch on “people pleaser” Andy Burnham:
“[Being Prime Minister] is not a popularity contest. It is making the lives of all of the people outside this building better. And he has not said what he’s going to do. It’s all airy-fairy stuff.”
“What the country needs right now is someone who can take tough decisions, who can face down the Labour MPs that don’t want to do anything difficult. And that is what worries me…”
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.”