Democracy Sausage with Mark Kenny
Jun 23, 2026 · 1 hr 2 min · 12 segments
How did a Prime Minister who won one of the largest parliamentary majorities in British history find himself gone within two years — and what does his fate tell us about the limits of triangulation…
Pat LeslieGuestMaria TaflagaHost
Mark KennyHostI mean, he will have a hell of a challenge on his hands because he will become, assuming there is no leadership contest and he's coronated, he'll become the leader of a political party that he doesn't necessarily have deep networks or connections in.
What's his relationship to these people? You mentioned party management was such a significant part of Starmer's failure.
I think it would be very tempting for him to go to an election to get his own mandate.
and to seek his own legitimacy because he doesn't have the legitimacy of winning an election.
But as you and I know as political scientists, this is always far more complicated than it appears on the surface.
So I suppose so much will depend on actually how he chooses to position himself in those first – well, you know, he's probably got about 60 days probably to sort of set the agenda for what kind of prime minister he's going to be.
And is it going to be – structured around the Labor Manifesto as it is, but perhaps pushing, you know, like potentially relaxing the fiscal rules, for example, which we've talked about in the past? Or is he going to essentially offer something far more radical, which is out of his playbook, which might be the type of step change that people might consider as something as a way forward out of, you know, which is, you know, like it makes me think of the sort of those comedies, those British comedies from the 1970s like, you know, To the Man Aborn with the aristocratic family sitting in the giant pile, the grand pile.
They can't, you know, they've got the grandeur but they can't actually like live in this place.
I thought it was interesting, you talking back to sort of party management and whether or not, I mean, the Labour Party, the Parliamentary Labour Party is in part a a bunch of people in Starmer's image because they went from a very small number of seats to a very large number of seats and he had very tight control over who was selected there.
And so it's true, Andy Burnham, he's not been in Parliament for a while and by the numbers he doesn't know very many people.
minister for Tony Blair, minister for Gordon Brown, shadow minister for Ed Miliband, and for Jeremy Corbyn, most recently.
One of the more loyal ministers for Jeremy Corbyn, and knows the old heads and power brokers quite well.
In some ways, To go back to why it is that Keir Starmer has found himself without any supporters, really, at all, is because he doesn't really have a faction.
I mean, he will have a hell of a challenge on his hands because he will become, assuming there is no leadership contest and he's coronated, he'll become the leader of a political party that he doesn't necessarily have deep networks or connections in.
What's his relationship to these people? You mentioned party management was such a significant part of Starmer's failure.
I think it would be very tempting for him to go to an election to get his own mandate.
and to seek his own legitimacy because he doesn't have the legitimacy of winning an election.
But as you and I know as political scientists, this is always far more complicated than it appears on the surface.
So I suppose so much will depend on actually how he chooses to position himself in those first – well, you know, he's probably got about 60 days probably to sort of set the agenda for what kind of prime minister he's going to be.
And is it going to be – structured around the Labor Manifesto as it is, but perhaps pushing, you know, like potentially relaxing the fiscal rules, for example, which we've talked about in the past? Or is he going to essentially offer something far more radical, which is out of his playbook, which might be the type of step change that people might consider as something as a way forward out of, you know, which is, you know, like it makes me think of the sort of those comedies, those British comedies from the 1970s like, you know, To the Man Aborn with the aristocratic family sitting in the giant pile, the grand pile.
They can't, you know, they've got the grandeur but they can't actually like live in this place.
I thought it was interesting, you talking back to sort of party management and whether or not, I mean, the Labour Party, the Parliamentary Labour Party is in part a a bunch of people in Starmer's image because they went from a very small number of seats to a very large number of seats and he had very tight control over who was selected there.
And so it's true, Andy Burnham, he's not been in Parliament for a while and by the numbers he doesn't know very many people.
minister for Tony Blair, minister for Gordon Brown, shadow minister for Ed Miliband, and for Jeremy Corbyn, most recently.
One of the more loyal ministers for Jeremy Corbyn, and knows the old heads and power brokers quite well.
In some ways, To go back to why it is that Keir Starmer has found himself without any supporters, really, at all, is because he doesn't really have a faction.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.