Angela Rayner vs. Wes Streeting: has the next leadership race begun?
The Politics Show
The New Statesman
4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 4 December 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Four senior Labour politicians are on manoeuvres. Ailbhe Rea reveals who's in the running to replace Keir Starmer.
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Keir Starmer has become desperately unpopular. All eyes now are looking towards the May 2026 local elections. A disappointing performance by Labour could prompt the Prime Minister to resign. And senior Labour figures are already positioning themselves to replace him.
Ailbhe Rea and Rachel Cunliffe join Anoosh Chakelian to explore the most likely candidates, and the impact their manoeuvring is having on present relationships at the top of the Labour Party.
READ: Angela Rayner is Wes Streeting's biggest obstacle to PM
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The New Statesman. |
| 0:05.0 | Last month, number 10 figures accused Wes Streeting of plotting a leadership coup. |
| 0:09.8 | Does he still have an eye on the top job? |
| 0:11.9 | And does the one woman who could really stand in his way, ex-deputy Prime Minister Angela Rana, even want to be PM? |
| 0:18.3 | I'm Anous Chiquelian and this is the New Statesman podcast. |
| 0:21.6 | Joining me today is our political editor Alva Ray and our associate political editor, Rachel Cunliff. |
| 0:26.9 | Hello, both of you. |
| 0:27.7 | Hello. |
| 0:28.7 | Alva, your column this week is on this theme. |
| 0:32.1 | But I just wanted to ask you before we start talking about the personalities involved, |
| 0:36.1 | there's a line in your piece that suggests that a lot of people think a leadership contest come May is pretty inevitable. I mean, |
| 0:43.2 | are we looking at that as the most likely timeline? Yeah, I mean, I know that this annoys some |
| 0:48.9 | listeners talking about a leadership contest that isn't officially happening. Believe me, in Parliament it's happening. |
| 0:57.7 | And it just, it feels inevitable, even though it's hard to know when it would be. |
| 1:04.4 | I mean, I think I basically never speak to anyone who thinks that Kirstarmer will be |
| 1:09.3 | Prime Minister by next Christmas. |
| 1:11.7 | You know, or, you know, will he do another conference speech? |
| 1:14.6 | I really doubt it, given just where everyone seems to be. |
| 1:19.3 | So May is the sort of obvious time because Labour is set to, you know, is on course to do pretty badly in Scotland and Wales and in local elections. They're really trying to... London councils are up then as well. Yeah. And so even though they're, you know, they're trying to avoid that fate, but everyone is sort of braced for it to be pretty bad, including number 10, they would say, but it's midterm. That's's sort of inevitable um you know it doesn't mean much |
| 1:45.4 | doesn't mean you should get rid of the lead doesn't mean you should get rid of the leader but you know |
| 1:48.5 | everyone's almost a little bit resigned to may go may going badly so that feels like a an obvious point |
| 1:56.1 | but there's just a sense of inevitability to it happening at some point and it doesn't have to, you know, someone was saying to me, you know, it doesn't have to be January or May. |
... |
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