Hello and welcome to Not Another One, the podcast with me, Steve Richards, Ian Martin, Miranda Green, Tim Montgomery, and this is, as 2025 becomes 2026, our look ahead to what I think is going to be, I know everyone says this everywhere, an extraordinary political year. And that's what we are going to be focusing on in our time together. What I want to begin with is your assessment

of what has been speculated about for a long long time over the Christmas period, that the

May elections are a sort of make or break point for Keir Stama. Who buys that? That this is it.

If Labour do as terribly as some predict it's over for him, where streeting will announce

he's standing, others may. Miranda, is May make or break for Keer Stama. Well, it seems to be being

built up in that way by our lovely colleagues across Fleet Street and the wider media,

but also by Labour MPs. That's the problem. It's a huge problem for Kierstama.

And I do think that individually,

the Scotland result, the Wales result,

and then what happens in the remaining English local and local elections in May,

we'll sort of in all three of those things will tell you, do a sort of

temperature check on how ill, how sick the Labour Party vote is. And I think it'll be really

difficult for Stama if it goes badly to resist some sort of challenge around that point, to be

honest, particularly since so many of the

inverted commas runners and riders, as we like to call them, in our breakout box on the page,

seem to be energetic. And, you know, Wes Streeting has spent the buildup to the Christmas holiday,

criticising Kirstama, saying the government as a whole,

lacks the storytelling ability about its mission, all the rest of it.

Why we say managerial, his criticisms are sort of reaching a pitch

that it would seem extraordinary if he didn't actually sort of come forward

in the in the new year at some point as a potential challenger similarly you know the the others

who are sort of waiting in the wings Angela Rainer deposed as as deputy prime minister for

...