Are we seeing the return of Cabinet Government?
Rock & Roll Politics with Steve Richards
Podmasters
4.7 • 909 Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This month marks the fiftieth anniversary since James Callaghan became prime minister. There were many dramas punctuating his short rule in Number 10, but throughout the storms Callaghan showed skilfully how to manage his cabinets.
Arguably his leadership marked the final phase of ‘Cabinet Government’, but is it now returning under Keir Starmer?
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Written and presented by Steve Richards.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics, the podcast with me, Steve Richards. |
| 0:18.4 | I hope you're all having a great Easter or Easter recess, because |
| 0:22.7 | the Easter weekend is over, and enjoying this weather. As I record, it's sunny. And boy, have we |
| 0:30.7 | needed that. Now, I know the international situation is volcanic and fast moving. So if it's okay with all of you, I'm not |
| 0:41.1 | going to reference it. There are perhaps references to it when we come to your brilliant |
| 0:46.2 | emails. But there's a danger for podcasts, and this is a minor danger compared with the other dangers |
| 0:52.5 | in the international situation, |
| 0:55.5 | dating very fast indeed. |
| 0:58.7 | So again, if it's okay with all of you, I'm going to reflect on a change that has happened, |
| 1:06.6 | I think, in the Stama government since the departure of Morgan McSweeney. |
| 1:12.7 | And relate it to some reflections on the leadership of Jim Callahan. |
| 1:18.7 | Via the brilliant tides of history, I don't know if you follow the tides of history on X, |
| 1:24.7 | but they tweet or X or whatever the verb is now. |
| 1:30.0 | Wonderful. |
| 1:31.2 | It's what we all love in the podcast, contextualizing of politics. |
| 1:36.2 | And I couldn't believe it when I saw there tweet the other day, |
| 1:40.4 | that over the last few days, |
| 1:43.6 | it has the 50th anniversary of Jim Callahan becoming Prime Minister |
| 1:50.0 | in 1976. Of course it is, April 1976. And I thought we've done a lot about Harold Wilson |
| 1:57.9 | recently. And if you haven't heard it, there's the live podcasts I put |
| 2:02.5 | out of Alan Johnson and I from the York Literary Festival talking about Wilson, Blair and Stama. |
| 2:11.2 | We've done other things, and we'll be referencing Wilson when we come to your fantastic emails. |
... |
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