Coffee House Shots: Steve Baker on how to oust a Prime Minister
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.3 • 826 Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2026
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s Saturday shots, James Heale is joined by former Conservative MP Steve Baker to discuss the fallout from Wes Streeting’s resignation and the ‘orgy of chaos’ that has ensued.
Steve takes James inside the dark arts of a Westminster coup: why numbers matter, why you should pay attention to individual grievances, the importance of discipline – and why Labour’s rebels may already be getting it wrong. As Andy Burnham plots his return, do the people of Makerfield really want to be caught up in a by-election that will not be about local issues? And is Burnham as good as he thinks he is?
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:35.1 | Hello, welcome to the special Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots. I'm James Hill and I'm delighted to be joined today by the former Conservative MP, Steve Baker, the former Tory MP who's now running the Fighting for a Free Future substack. Steve, obviously Labour isn't your tribe, but we wanted to get you on to discuss what's been happening because there's no one who knows more about leadership contests than you. Well, that's very kind of you to say so. I mean, I regard it with a degree of, is the word, Schadenfreude, I'm watching them get their just desserts. For 14 years, they created as much misery as possible for us, criticized everything that went on. At least when we were, I'm afraid, trying to remove Theresa May, it was about the long-term constitutional |
| 1:11.3 | future of the country. That is not what this is about. So it would be tempting to be amused |
| 1:17.4 | superficially, but of course it's not funny. It's the future of the country. So it's pretty |
| 1:21.6 | serious. And how does one actually go about removing a leader and creating that narrative into |
| 1:26.6 | a space to do so. |
| 1:27.7 | It requires immense work. Gosh, I wish I wasn't expert in these things. But a political |
| 1:33.2 | campaign out of Parliament is really, it's all about numbers. So there'll always be somebody |
| 1:38.2 | who moves early. They're all on a hair trigger to go. So Andrew Bridgen would put in his letter |
| 1:42.8 | at the drop of a hat. But you're then getting, it's progressively harder to get people over the line |
| 1:49.0 | to do what needs to be done. So it's always a question of knowing where colleagues are |
| 1:54.0 | intellectually, emotionally, what they're trying to achieve, what their best judgment of |
| 2:00.0 | the interests of the country is. |
| 2:01.7 | And I'm afraid, and I wish it wasn't like this. I do. |
| 2:04.8 | Very often it's what their grievances are. |
| 2:06.9 | What are their frustrated ambitions? |
| 2:09.5 | What was the time that they were let down by the person who we're opposing? |
... |
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