Enda Brady: UK correspondent on Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham potentially challenging Keir Starmer to become prime minister

There's rumours in the UK a new competitor could challenging Keir Starmer to become the Prime Minister.

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, says Labour MPs are urging him to take over Starmer's role.

UK correspondent Enda Brady says Burnham has claimed the Labour Party needs a plan - but it's difficult to roll a leader.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In a Brady a UK correspondent with us now in
the good evening.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey, Ryan, good evening to you.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
So is one of the the room is true or
not starming going to face a leadership challenge from within
the party?

Speaker 2 (00:12):
I think he is. The rumors have been gathering pace
for a couple of weeks. Now Labor Party conference coming
in a matter of days. Step forward Andy Burnham. He
is Labor to the core, A former MP. This is crucial.
He's not an MP right now. He is Mayor of
Manchester and by all accounts he's doing a very very
good job. Now I know Andy Burnham. He's a very

(00:34):
formidable speaker. He's a good communicator in the media and
people like him and he has a big power base
in the North of England. Now he has strategically given
a couple of interviews in the last twenty four hours,
appointedly saying that the Labor Party is run factionally, that
the leadership is divisive, so a lot of criticism of

(00:55):
Starmer here and saying that the country needs a plan.
So there's the Prime Minister not have a plan. That
is the inference and a lot of people around Starmer
are starting to think that if he doesn't get his
act together, they may not win the next election in
four years time. Now, it's not an easy path to
number ten for Andy Burnham. He would have to resign
as Mayor of Manchester. He would then have to find

(01:16):
someone to give up their seat so that he could
run and become an MP and then get in that
way and formally challenge Starmer.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Fascinating staff. So yeah, yes, you say, very difficult and
much easier to roll a leader and the Considers than
it is the libor Paddy. Right, So how does it
all actually work?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, you're right. The Conservatives nice people in the back
twenty four to seven. I mean, well, Badenoch will be
gone by Christmas, it is what I'm hearing. Look, it's
a different beast, but you've got the Union mechanism as
well in Labor's. Yes, it's much more difficult to roll
out an incumbent leader in the Labor Party than it

(01:55):
is with the Conservatives. But nevertheless, I think Andy Burnham
is making his pitch because I haven't seen him do
any interviews for a few weeks and out of nowhere
he's all over the front pages today.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Interesting staff, how the parking industry in the UK apparently
quite the employer.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Have a guess, just just bear with me on this one, Ryan,
how many people do you think are working as parking
wardens in the United Kingdom this morning? One? You got
a it's an unfair question, Well have a stab, have
a stab. One hundred thousand, eighty two thousand. I mean,

(02:34):
it's absolutely staggering. They've turned it into a four point
six billion en z dollar industry. Think about that four
point six billion dollars this between parking charges and the
fines and the follow ups and the double ups when
you don't pay the final time, it is outrageous. Now,
just to put that figure in context, eighty two thousand
people employed in the parking industry that are currently under

(02:58):
seventy four thousand soldiers in the British Army. There are
more parking wardens than soldiers in a country that has
a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. It is
parking mad.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Because your population has got seventy million. I'm just trying
to think of how most of ours here in New
Zealand are now done by cars. At least in Auckland
you don't have mini parking wardens at all. It's cars
that have got cameras on them that drive around and
neb you now.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
And yeah, technology, look, we will eventually catch up. But
right now, I guess it's an industry that just keeps
making more and more money. And what really frustrates me
is just how kind of binary they are. I got
a parking fine a couple of weeks ago. I'd ended
up doing a double shift because a colleague went ill

(03:47):
and I had to stay in the studio. I park
in the same and this is all paid for byapp
and it's eighteen dollars to park there. And I park
in the same parking spot at the same time, in
the same car park every day of the week. And
don't tell me the tech you know that they couldn't
just say, oh this, this is a loyal customer here,
not one hundred and twenty dollars fine two days later.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Oh that hurts. Hey, how much is the government giving
foreign criminals who volunteer for deportation?

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Would you believe this? Four thousand dollars preloaded onto a
bank card as they leave the United Kingdom? Now this
has been confirmed by the new Home Secretary. Should ban
a ma Mood. She says that on the face of it,
it doesn't look good giving criminals four thousand dollars or
two thousand pounds to go, she said, But if you'd
look into the money figures, keeping them in jail for

(04:38):
a year is costing about one hundred thousand dollars. So
her idea and what the government is doing, is that
once they've served three months of a sentence, if they
agree to be deported, they will be led out early
and then put on a flight back to say a
country like Romania or Albania and given four thousand dollars
pre loaded on a bank card on the proviso that
you know you're out and he ain't coming back.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Thank good luck with that. Goodness me into thank You
Into Radio UK correspondent and everyone wants to leave New
Zealand great.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Place for more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive. Listen live
to news talks.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
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