Andy Burnham Makes His Move
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, pressure is mounting on the PM as Wes Streeting resigned from his role as health secretary, and Josh Simons announced he would stand aside for Andy Burnham to have his seat.
There are still some steps ahead before that happens. The National Executive Committee must select him as the candidate, and he would need to go ahead and win. Nonetheless, the party is in chaos and Starmer is facing the biggest rebellion against his premiership to date.
What happens now and if there is to be a leadership election, when will it be? Adam, Chris, Alex and Joe unpack the (many) events of the day.
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New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/4guXgXd Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. The presenter was Adam Fleming. It was made by Anna Harris with Shiler Mahmoudi and Joe Wilkinson. The social producer was Beth Pritchard. The technical producer was Philip Bull. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.8 | Hello, we've got three big things to talk about on this podcast, and we're going to do them in the reverse order in which they happened on the day on Thursday. |
| 0:13.2 | So last of all, we'll talk about Angela Raynor's return to politics, or the ability of Angela Rainer to return to politics because her tax affairs have been cleared up. |
| 0:21.8 | Then we'll talk about the departure of Wes Streeting as the health secretary with a blistering letter to Kier Starrmer saying that he had lost confidence in the Prime Minister. |
| 0:30.1 | But we will begin with the bombshell news on Thursday tea time that there is now a very clear route back to Parliament for Andy Burnham, |
| 0:39.4 | the Mayor of Greater Manchester, which means he may morph from Andy Burnham Mayor to Andy Burnham, |
| 0:44.7 | Prime Minister in one scenario. So that is what you will hear on this episode of Newscast, |
| 0:49.3 | which we recorded on Thursday, T-time, and which was broadcast on BBC 1 after question time. Newscast. Newscast from the BBC. Humanity's next great voyage begins. We are in the midst of a rupture. Nostalgia will not bring back the old order. Six-seven. Yeah. It's supposed to be me as a doctor. There he has also a special connotation. Ooh-la-law. |
| 1:31.7 | Thinking about it like a panto helped. Do we play music now? What do we do? Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio. And it is Chris at Westminster. And it's Alex in the newscast studio. And also Joe Pike in the newscast studio. And we are recording this episode of Newscast on Thursday evening just past 7pm. I feel like today has been the longest, longest, longest day because you couldn't tear your eyes away from anything that was happening in the Labour Party |
| 1:35.9 | because it felt like something was happening every 10 minutes, five minutes. |
| 1:39.7 | Would you put it to an even smaller time interval than that, Alex? |
| 1:42.0 | No, I'd say that's about right. |
| 1:43.1 | And it's also one of those days where what happened first thing this morning, which was to do with Angela Raina, feels like it happened 17 years ago by this time tonight because so much has moved subsequently. And actually the biggest thing in this whole drama around, will Kyr Starmer survive as Prime Minister, will he be challenged, who will challenge him, when will it happen? Who else will join in? Actually, the biggest kind of revelation for that was this evening |
| 2:05.3 | at tea time, Chris, wasn't it? And we should just explain the various things that have happened. |
| 2:10.1 | Yeah. We should say, first of all, just to be absolutely clear as we record, |
| 2:15.2 | there isn't yet a formal leadership challenge to the Prime Minister. That has not |
| 2:20.3 | happened yet because nobody has got to the magic number of 81 MPs to trigger a formal contest. |
| 2:26.9 | But my goodness, the wider conversation is absolutely roaring along. And yeah, the development |
| 2:33.3 | at Tea Time on Thursday was Andy Burnham, |
| 2:38.2 | the mayor of Greater Manchester, not an MP. You've got to be MP to be a candidate to be the Labour |
| 2:43.0 | Party leader, saying he's found a seat, make a field, not a million miles from Manchester City Centre |
| 2:49.4 | to the west of Manchester. |
... |
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