David Blunkett on how Keir Starmer can save his premiership
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 November 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s been a chaotic week for Labour, with rumours of internal plots and Downing Street briefing wars.
As questions swirl around Keir Starmer’s leadership, and with Rachel Reeves facing mounting pressure to steady the party’s economic footing, Labour’s internal tensions are threatening to boil over.
Lord Blunkett joins Jon in the studio to dissect what is going on inside Labour, how Starmer might get a handle on the situation, and ultimately save his premiership.
This episode was recorded before reports of a Labour tax u-turn.
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.6 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.9 | Oh, I'm an optimist. |
| 0:13.9 | I wouldn't have been a member of the Labour Party. |
| 0:16.2 | God help me. |
| 0:17.5 | For what now? |
| 0:21.6 | 63 years? You're giving stuff away here. |
| 0:23.6 | 63 years if I wasn't an optimist. |
| 0:26.6 | I've been through hell and back. |
| 0:28.6 | I've been on the heights of success and the lows, the valleys of despair, |
| 0:35.6 | but I still remain absolutely an optimist, both about my party, |
| 0:41.7 | about the government and about our country. And in the end, it is all of us, the country, |
| 0:48.7 | that needs to change and not just government. That is David Blunkett, Lord Blunkett, former Home Secretary, former Work |
| 0:56.2 | and Pension Secretary, former Education Secretary, truly one of the giants of the Labour |
| 1:03.3 | movement, a minister throughout the Blair years who suffered resignations but came back |
| 1:08.9 | and actually earned the respect of people across the aisle. |
| 1:13.7 | When Blunkett was a backbencher and David Cameron was the prime minister, Blunkett asked Cameron |
| 1:19.2 | a question and Cameron started by replying, he is a remarkable politician, a remarkable man. |
| 1:25.7 | He is battle-hardened. But even though he is 78 years old now |
| 1:31.0 | and sitting in the House of Lords, politics still burns inside him with a bright intensity. |
| 1:39.4 | And his displeasure at the Stama government is not so much that they're not doing it right, |
| 1:46.4 | but he feels they're not getting on top of the civil service and getting the machinery to work for the people. |
... |
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