Keir Starmer is safe - but for how long?
The Politics Show
The New Statesman
4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For days and weeks Westminster has been quivering with anticipation at the prospect of yet another prime ministerial resignation and leadership election.
But following the resignation of Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney in the wake of the Mandelson scandal, MPs appear to have closed ranks, rallying around Keir Starmer.
So, no leadership election, at least for now.
But are his supportive MPs shoring up the PM - or just biding their time?
And can British politics ever break its addiction to psychodrama?
LISTEN AD-FREE:
📱Download the New Statesman app
MORE FROM THE NEW STATESMAN:
❓ Ask a question – we answer them every Friday
⏰ Get our daily politics newsletter every morning
✍️ Enjoy the best of our writing via email every Saturday
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The New Statesman. |
| 0:04.7 | For days and weeks, Westminster has been quivering with anticipation at the prospect of yet another |
| 0:11.1 | Prime Ministerial resignation and leadership election. But following the resignation of Chief |
| 0:16.5 | of Staff Morgan McSweeney in the wake of the Mandelson scandal, MPs appear to have closed ranks |
| 0:21.5 | rallying around Kirstama. So, no leadership election, at least for now. But are his supportive |
| 0:28.5 | MPs shoring up the Prime Minister or just biding their time? I'm Olly Doug Moore and this is Daily |
| 0:33.6 | Politics from the New Statesman. Rachel Cunleff joins me in the studio. Hello, Rachel. |
| 0:37.4 | Hello. Hi. Hello. |
| 0:38.0 | Hi. |
| 0:40.0 | Insane day yesterday. |
| 0:41.4 | It had the feeling of being the type of day where anything could happen or nothing could happen. |
| 0:47.1 | And I feel like we had a bit of that with the slightly unprecedented leader of the Scottish Labour Party calling for the resignation of the leader of the Labour Party in Westminster. |
| 0:58.8 | And I was thinking for a second, oh my goodness is Kirstarmer going to go. |
| 1:02.9 | The cabinet rallies around him. |
| 1:04.4 | It doesn't happen. |
| 1:05.6 | I mean, just give me the top headline. |
| 1:07.0 | Your thoughts on yesterday, first of all, Rachel. |
| 1:08.9 | Well, yeah, it was a real, oh, this could be it moment, and then it wasn't. |
| 1:14.3 | So very interesting questions to ask about what spurred Anasawa to decide to make that intervention. |
| 1:22.8 | Was it because he is just looking ahead to the Scottish elections in May and wants as much distance |
| 1:28.8 | between himself and Kirstama as possible for those elections, which is fair enough. Or did he |
| 1:34.2 | suspect, or even was he led to believe, that there would be one or more cabinet ministers |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New Statesman, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The New Statesman and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.