The Week: Andy Burnham’s Big Speech And First Own Goal?

Newscast

The hosts and guest Lucy Fisher analyze Prime Minister Andy Burnham's recent political maneuvers, focusing on his Labour Party conference speech and the fallout from his comments regarding

Key takeaways

• Andy Burnham's Downing Street issued a clarification after his interview suggested he wouldn't intervene in Manchester City's Premier League financial breaches, stressing that 'no one is above the rules' despite his past ties as mayor of Manchester.
• The Prime Minister's conference speech outlined major long-term goals like scrapping the triple lock and reforming social care, but faced criticism for lacking immediate economic details or funding mechanisms.

Main topics

• Andy Burnham's Labour Party conference speech
• Manchester City financial rule breaches and political fallout

Notable quotes

"Not sure the Prime Minister actually did make that clear entirely in the interview, but there we go."

Conclusion

The episode underscores Burnham's instinctive, narrative-driven leadership style while highlighting the significant

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:00) This BBC podcast is supported by ads Speaker 3 (0:02) outside the UK. Speaker 3 (0:06) So, quick summer recap? Speaker 1 (0:08) Heat waves, data leaks, AI hacks, folding phones, and a viral, spinally challenged raccoon. Yeah, Speaker 3 (0:13) I think that covers it, right? I'm Thomas Germain. I'm Speaker 1 (0:17) Jess Maddox, and The Interface is back from its summer break. Speaker 3 (0:19) New season, new co-host, same deep dives into the tech that's shaping our world and our lives. So Speaker 1 (0:26) before AI wipes out all of humanity, Speaker 3 (0:28) allegedly, join Speaker 1 (0:30) us for The Interface. Listen Speaker 3 (0:31) on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 7 (0:38) Hello. Chris is here in the studio. Hello, Chris. Hello. Would you like an update on my 500k running Speaker 5 (0:44) in 100 days? Oh, I Speaker 7 (0:44) would love an update. So hang on a minute. Yeah, so... It's not good. This was Speaker 5 (0:48) always going to happen, wasn't it? A bit of a bottleneck at the end. Speaker 7 (0:51) Yes, as you correctly predicted. Maybe because you've got more experience with deadlines in your current job than I do. Yes, so the idea was to run 500 kilometres in Andy Burnham's first 100 days. Yeah. We've got 26 days to go. I have run... 310.29 kilometres, leaving 189.7 to go, which averages out at 7.3 kilometres per day. You see, I Speaker 5 (1:17) can't do kilometres. I can only do miles. About four miles a day. Speaker 7 (1:20) It's 117.9 miles. About four miles a day. That's a park run and a bit, isn't it? Every single day. I've been warned that leads to the risk of injuries doing, even though it's not a huge amount. Doing that amount every day. I Speaker 5 (1:37) reckon you need to do a couple of runs a week that are double that and then a few that are Speaker 7 (1:42) less and then Speaker 5 (1:43) you'll be all right. It's a Speaker 7 (1:44) lot. It's a lot. And so I'm now toying with the idea that if we get to the final week, which will be the last week of October just for the budget, do I rope in friends, colleagues who like running who could maybe do like 5K for me? Hang on Speaker 5 (2:00) a Speaker 7 (2:00) minute. That doesn't count. Okay. That'll get Speaker 5 (2:02) you into trouble with the Premier League. Speaker 5 (2:05) We have an email from newscaster Clara on this subject. I've long been an avid listener of newscasts, but little did I think that I would now find Adam and newscasts to be turning into my personal trainer. Oh, wow. Encouraging me to take on the challenge of trying to run all of these kilometres in Andy Burnham's first 100 days. It was just what I needed to get me to just keep running in spite of some wild and windy Scottish weather. I'm nearly keeping up with you, Adam. I've reached 192 kilometres. I'm sure considerably slower than you would run them. But my exercise, my excuse, sorry, is I'm considerably older than you by some 15 years, I think. Here's hoping my newscast listening will help me reach the 500 target. Wow. So, Clara, I reckon you are... giving us permission to record longer episodes because Speaker 7 (2:56) you were saying you needed a bit more time. Maybe accompanied by like a beat just to keep you enthused. Clara, that's great to hear. I'm chuffed that I've inspired somebody to pursue their fitness. I Speaker 5 (3:07) have bumped into people in the park where I have been out jogging myself and I've met newscasters jogging in the opposite direction listening to us. Speaker 7 (3:17) Great. I have to listen to music because I find if I listen to a podcast, there's been a few times where I've literally stopped running because I've been listening quite intently. And then you're like, oh, I just stopped. Then you're like, how long have I been stood here for? I Speaker 5 (3:28) was listening to our friends on Walescast this morning on a run as I was mugging up ahead of the Plaid Cymru conference to which I am heading in Llandudno. So I Speaker 7 (3:36) don't mind a few Speaker 4 (3:36) words Speaker 5 (3:37) whilst I'm jogging. Speaker 7 (3:37) OK, right. Let's jog through what we've learnt this week in this episode of Newscast, which was originally broadcast on Thursday night on BBC One after question time. which was also after Celebrity Traitor. So loads of people will have been watching, I'm sure. Newscast. Speaker 1 (3:52) Newscast from the BBC. Humanity's Speaker 6 (3:54) next great voyage begins. I don't know who the Prime Minister is, mate. I'm Andy and I'm not looking at my best right now. I see that he was, I guess, the mayor of a town. Ooh la la. Thinking about it like a panto helped. And what will you do? Speaker 5 (4:08) Stare at a wall. Speaker 6 (4:09) Do Speaker 7 (4:09) we play music now or what do we do? Hello, it's Adam in the Newscast Studio. And it is Chris back in the Newscast Studio. It's Joe Pike also in the Newscast Studio. And joining us from the Financial Times, it's Lucy Fisher, who's their Whitehall editor and presenter of a podcast called... Political Fix. Speaker 2 (4:25) There Speaker 7 (4:25) we go. Many podcasts to choose from. Right. How's everyone feeling after the Labour Party conference? You guys were all working much harder than I was. Shattered. I didn't have a single drink, Adam. I had lots of sleep. And still, Speaker 8 (4:37) it seemed so intense that I'm, yeah. In recovery mode. Joe introduced me, Adam, to a particular drink, didn't you? I did. Just because we were... Neither Speaker 5 (4:46) of us were drinking. Oh, no, Speaker 7 (4:48) wait, wait, wait, wait. This was at the social event us three were at. And this is now the second ridiculous thing I said at that social event. The first thing was, Andy Burnham's speech reminded me of Michel Barnier's infamous staircase slide from the Brexit negotiations circa 2018. Ha ha ha, what a great guest. The second thing was to do with this drink. Speaker 8 (5:09) I just asked at the bar for a non-alcoholic drink, whatever they had, and the guy said, I'll whip you up something. Speaker 7 (5:15) And Speaker 8 (5:16) it was called like a fig surprise or a fig special or fig. Speaker 7 (5:20) It was a... And I was like, Chris, the surprise would be how regular the figs will keep you. It was Speaker 5 (5:25) tremendous, I thought. I Speaker 7 (5:27) thought it was fruity, it was refreshing, it was icy, it was great. What Speaker 8 (5:30) was Speaker 7 (5:30) your favourite thing to drink at Labour Party conference? The atmosphere? The atmosphere. Speaker 2 (5:36) Well, on Sunday and Monday, I kept dry, but still managed to wake up feeling so frazzled that it almost resembled a hangover. I did let loose on the Tuesday night with a few Palomas, grapefruit cocktail at the Mirror Party. For Speaker 8 (5:50) people who haven't been, these places are... very sort of boozy. There are a lot of events where people are drinking alcohol because for Labour members and politicians and union members, this is their sort of Glastonbury or their World Cup or their BBC proms. And Chris, you did this kind of post-conference interview with Andy Burnham on Wednesday Speaker 7 (6:07) morning and it was at Everton's Newgrounds. And there was two big bits of news came out of it. So I thought we should maybe just update where we are on both of those. So he said... The UK government's current assessment is that there may have been some Iranian involvement in the incident at RAF Fairford, where five people were arrested and bailed at the start of the week. But just before we started recording this episode on Thursday night, there was news that a British Iranian national has been arrested in connection with those incidents. So you could see maybe where the prime minister was coming from when he was talking to you. Speaker 5 (6:39) Yeah, the backdrop really, news-wise, to the whole conference really, was the events in the early hours of Sunday morning outside. the RAF base in Gloucestershire, particularly because the various developments that we were getting over the course of the days whilst Labour were meeting in Liverpool were increasingly extraordinary, really. The initial arrest, perhaps not that surprising, but then the five men being released on bail. The Prime Minister leaving the conference site to go to a COBRA meeting at a secure location in Liverpool. He himself had not been in front of the cameras. about it. So when we did this round of interviews, political editor interviews, yesterday or on Wednesday, it was Wednesday, wasn't it? Yeah. That was the first time we had a chance to ask him about it. And he came with that news. And it's quite something, actually. It's quite a decision to take, isn't it, for a prime minister to decide to say publicly that that is what you... believe. He wouldn't go into why. I don't think we should be surprised that he wouldn't go into why. But it's quite a threshold to clear publicly. I think they felt they had to say something, not least because, unsurprisingly, with this current American administration, they talk publicly very freely, and both the President and the Secretary of State had done so, and we'd heard very little from the government Speaker 7 (7:57) here. And then the second news line, as we call it in the trade, that came out from your interview was the Prime Minister's comments on the situation around Manchester. to City because the Premier League had said they were guilty of more than 100 breaches of the financial rules, rules which are designed to stop rich owners, perhaps from the Gulf, funneling money into the club to buy really expensive players that they wouldn't be able to afford just through their earnings from the game. Why was what he said just so kind of incendiary, not just for football fans, but lots of people today? Speaker 5 (8:29) Yeah, let me unpack for newscasters what I was thinking about when I went in to do that interview. The Prime Minister had already that morning been on the Today programme,