23/05/2026
The Week in Westminster
BBC
4.0 • 258 Ratings
🗓️ 23 May 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As Andy Burnham is confirmed as the Labour candidate for the Makerfield by-election, George Parker asks whether this signals the start of a long goodbye for Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister. He brings together Labour MP, Miatta Fahnbulleh, who resigned as an Energy minister earlier this month, and Jonathan Ashworth, formerly a member of Keir Starmer's Shadow Cabinet.
The question of whether Britain should one day rejoin the EU has reared up once again in this shadow Labour leadership contest. To discuss that George speaks to the EU's former ambassador to the UK, Joao Vale de Almeida.
Following the Government's confirmation that HS2 could eventually cost over £100bn and may not open until 2039, George turns to Labour MP Ruth Cadbury, who chairs the Transport Select Committee, and Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Conservative chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
And, is Kemi Badenoch doing a good job as Conservative leader? George speaks to Lee Cain, former Number Ten Director of Communications to Boris Johnson, and Times columnist, Seb Payne.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.8 | This is George Parker of the Financial Times with The Week in Westminster. |
| 0:11.7 | Is this the start of the long goodbye for Sakea Stama? |
| 0:15.6 | The formal anointing of Andy Burnham as Labour's candidate in next month's |
| 0:19.2 | Makerfield by-election has set the clock ticking for a potential return of the King of the North to Westminster. |
| 0:26.0 | I know what my party has offered in the past has simply not been good enough. |
| 0:31.2 | The loss of faith of voters across the North, |
| 0:33.7 | so many of whom once saw us as their natural party is our fault, and nobody else is. |
| 0:39.7 | Of course, Andy Burnham has to win that by-election first. But if he does, many Labour MPs expect |
| 0:45.3 | him to mount an immediate challenge to the Prime Minister. Would there be a coronation, as some |
| 0:50.4 | have suggested? Whereas Streeting, for one, insists he would also fight for the Crown. |
| 0:56.0 | This was the former health secretary setting out his stall in the House of Commons this week. |
| 1:00.1 | I left the government because we are in the fight of our lives against nationalism. |
| 1:05.5 | And it is a fight that we are currently losing. |
| 1:09.1 | Unless we change course, we risk handing the keys of number 10 to reform. |
| 1:14.4 | Ah yes, and there's someone else who might have a view on all this. |
| 1:17.5 | Sequea Stama has said he won't walk away from his job in number 10. |
| 1:22.1 | And at the start of the week, he was determined to show he was still in charge. |
| 1:26.3 | The last 10 days, there's been a lot of activity, |
| 1:30.3 | which hasn't been as focused in my view as it should have been. |
| 1:33.3 | And I remind myself every day that I was elected into office |
| 1:37.3 | to serve the people, to serve the country. |
... |
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