 We've been pretty annoyed with Keir Starmer of late that we have been encouraging people to stay in the Labour Party so you can vote in any C elections and so the left can still have influence within the party. The times though are reporting that not all of you are listening. 250 people a day since Keir Starmer was elected last spring have been leaving their Labour Party. Yes membership fell by just under 57,000 people or 10% between April and November according to figures published by Labour. It had 552,835 members eligible to vote in its leadership election in April. That figure had fallen to 495,961 in the National Executive Committee elections two weeks later. Insiders believe that its real membership could be below 450,000 when lapsed members those who had stopped paying their subscription are taken into account. Aaron, this has been sort of shared as evidence that Keir Starmer is sort of losing the dynamism that came with the movement party from at least the first years of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership 2017 for example. It worked pretty well by 2019. Obviously everything had gone wrong but it's hard to argue that a small party is better than a big party. At the same time do you think this will just be music to Keir Starmer's ears because presumably the people who have left the party are disproportionately those who support Jeremy Corbyn and who might be voting for different slates when it comes to things like the NEC election or even parliamentary selections? First of all it's more than 50,000. I mean it's at least 50,000 and I think the paper is right there in saying it's probably close to 100,000. Could be more. We know that because clearly just the turnout was so astronomically low for the most recent NEC elections. I think it's almost certainly more than 100,000 people have left and you're right to say that most of those people, not all of them, we don't actually know, might not be as high as that potentially could be but it seems primarily people from the left who could be the basis of or returns the sorts of policies we saw up until last year. Could it be music to his ears? I mean Keir Starmer's getting so much wrong at the moment and his supporters and allies are cheering on so many things which are leading to negative consequences. I think I'll try and dress it up as yes this is exactly what we want. We're as we go on to see we're polling below a Conservative party and we're falling in the context of 6,000 deaths. His first six months as leader have been entirely nondescript so I think they're going to say that. I think primarily actually the biggest problem for them with regards to falling membership is also you're saying a sort of salami slicing of union funds. We've talked about this before and the big donors aren't coming yet. Now they may welcome, right? They may welcome but when you've got local elections to fight next May, it's a problem. So if Labour do poorly next May, if the members keep on going, if the unions keep on reducing funds to the party, you know what I think gave 9 million to Labour in 2019 and those donors don't come, then all of a sudden he's in quite a weak situation. Now I do think it's possible that in 12 months, not even 12 months, in eight months time after May, if Labour do badly or they're underperforming by the way, I don't think they will but let's just say they do for the sake of argument. I think people will be saying Keir Starmer should consider his position. Now I don't think that means the left should launch a leadership election for two reasons. First of all it's not strong enough to do so. Secondly, I think it would be a perfectly fair criticism to say in response to that he hasn't had time. You know you can't say well Jeremy Corbyn wasn't given a shot by the time of the chicken coup. They did it within 12 months from becoming leader and then doing the exact same thing although it would be 18 months. So I think it does create problems for Keir Starmer and if the next six months are like the last six months people will be calling for his head but if he is replaced and I suspect he wouldn't be, it would almost certainly be by somebody from the right of the party rather than the left. I disagree with that. I mean the right still don't have the membership who could win them a leadership election. Could be somebody in the pocket of the right. Your argument there I think it would be the right who are most likely to successfully mount a challenge because they have the MPs. The left still, the socialist campaign group can't really get enough nominations for someone to challenge Keir Starmer from the left but someone from the right potentially could. They're still a big base for the right in the party but I don't think they're going to do that soon because if you think about it the one thing that could be bringing Keir Starmer down in the polls is his sort of small C conservatism and him attacking and dividing the left which they love. So I mean I think his position is safe. I don't know, let me clarify because it's important. I don't think the right wants to get rid of Keir Starmer. What I'm saying is in the scenario where Keir Starmer goes for whatever reason, let's say there's a calamitous local election results next year and they're running out of money really quickly, all I'm saying is were he to be replaced by somebody, it would not be somebody from the left. It might be Angela Rainer in which case the left all of a sudden would have to back somebody who we saw the fallout when she was backed by momentum for instance, deputy leader last year. I think Angela Rainer is a very compelling politician but in any case she wouldn't necessarily in a policy respect be to the left significantly of Keir Starmer. She wouldn't be doing a lot of the crap he's doing right now but on Green New Deal, on housing, would she be to the left of Keir Starmer? We don't really know actually. So that's all I want to say. I think it's possible for Keir Starmer to be weakened, to be doing terribly and for that not to redound the benefit of the left of the party anytime soon. Let's go on to another story which is apparently damaging Keir Starmer, according to people close to him. This is from the observer there reporting that party insiders believe the Ford inquiry could be a major flashpoint damaging Starmer's leadership. So the Ford inquiry for anyone who hasn't got that stored in their mind was launched to investigate the leaked dossier on labour, antisemitism and factionalism. And so this was put together and while Jeremy Corbyn was still leader under Jenny Formby as general secretary and it was meant to be a submission to the EHRC to sort of show how factionalism had contributed to the the poor handling of complaints of antisemitism within the Labour Party because EHRC was sort of looking at this as the party is one coherent institution who we can find guilty or innocent and they're saying look wait a minute you have to take into account there was a civil war going on. We tried they marked whatever. That ended up getting leaked because lawyers didn't want to hand it to the EHRC. The Ford inquiry is an inquiry into both its contents and the situation in which it was compiled and the situation in which it was leaked. The observer are reporting that concerns have now emerged over the scale and unpredictability of the independent inquiry which insider sphere has taken on a life of its own. It is understood to have received hundreds of submissions. Party figures said that inquiry was going anywhere and everywhere. Another said we have created a real millstone here. This could be sorted out frankly in a few weeks but the inquiry seems to be looking at everything. It's become a nightmare. Now I want to get your thoughts on this Aaron because there's a couple of options here so one is that sort of Keir Starma launched this thinking I'll just start a review and that will put the issue to bed and I can get them to sort of put forward what basically what I want. So a possible outcome is that this is actually running out of his control and that he's sort of adopted or hired some people or appointed sorry is the word who are more independent than he was hoping and are going to sort of tell fundamentally the truth about what happened and so they're briefing beforehand to I suppose try and potentially dismiss the results but also to sort of kite fly a bit to sort of say maybe you should maybe you should tone it down a bit to whoever is doing this report. The other option though is that what they're trying to do is set expectations quite high for this report so if you're here with the HRC report for example I was on the radio with Margaret Hodgson Saturday incredibly rude person very very unpleasant just not nice just not nice person just just seemed very very unpleasant anyway she was saying and her line has constantly been since the HRC report she's saying oh it's so much worse than I could have possibly imagined it's I read it and I was just thinking this is so strong this is so much stronger than anything I could have imagined. I mean you just stop listening to that thing like one what are you expecting into what report did you read because I mean if you read the report even though everyone said the damning report and yeah it's not it's not a report that says yeah the labor party did great but the details of it basically are it had a defunct complaint system which basically everyone's admitted over the past five years and they say it improved under Jenny Formby and well they have two examples of people on Twitter dismissing claims of anti-Semitism to the extent that they think is an abuse because it sort of encourages an atmosphere where Jews aren't welcome that was people basically saying you know this is all factional this is all invented by the Israel lobby so I don't know how good she was expecting it to be for her to find this completely damning but I find it a bit of a ridiculous argument really and I'm wondering if that's what's happening here the labor party is sort of ramping this up as an independent investigation that they think is going to be really problematic for Kier to sort of make it sound independent then when it comes out and it's actually a bit of a whitewash they can say oh well we've been saying that this is going to be really damaging for Kier because it was so independent and then it gets released and they're like and and look this was supposed to be a real problem for Kier Starmer and actually it's totally backing him actually it turns out this this this report which was supposed to be so difficult and running wild and independent it must be correct because we were worried about it and what it has shown is Kier Starmer's great Jeremy Corbyn's terrible and everyone on the left should be perched I think that that may be true I think that'd be very smart expect sort of expectations management however what came through in that article in the observer was this idea that it's mushrooming and that I think is probably true because what Kier Starmer did to sort of defang the political contents of that report was to say we want to look at the contents that report how it was leaked and who it was leaked by so it was really expand rather than say let's talk about what's in this report it's not acceptable he tried to actually make its purview much broader to make it less politically toxic for him and it may be that that has political consequences for him and it may be that it's a very big report and the bigger it is the worse it is you know the HRC report the media can represent how they like the HRC report basically had three very critical things to say about labour you know how it acts unlawfully with regards to political intervention with regards to specific complaints the behaviour of certain agents to the party and its complaints process right that's that's it in 10 seconds I've explained the HRC report and how it's negative this may be much much broader and so I think there's probably some truth to it however I don't think it's going to be it should be investigating what was Operation Cupcake it's alluded to in the leaked document what MPs were involved what party grandees were involved what was Operation Cupcake Operation Cupcake was the idea that you have in the senior management team WhatsApp group within months of Corbyn winning is basically an organised effort to get rid of him that's what's called Operation Cupcake you know clearly there's a term being used by senior members of staff referring to a coordinated effort to get rid of the elected leader and it had a name that should I think that should have its own investigation and Stammer hasn't done that so I'm inclined to agree with you I don't really expect anything from the Ford inquiry however its timing is bad for Stammer he's got poor polling results members are leaving you've had obviously the whole Farago following Jeremy Corbyn being suspended five weeks ago Stammer's personal approval ratings were very good Labour that week that Corbyn was suspended were five points ahead of the Tories in one opinion poll primarily because of Marcus Rashford yes it's not dreadful for Labour yet but it's very bad things have turned around remarkably quickly for Labour it's been very bad the next month is like the last month again that is not the context you want the Ford inquiry to be releasing its results it's findings rather we have got some of these polls up because some of you might be thinking oh you're saying Chris Stammer's doing really bad in the polls is doing much better than what Jeremy Corbyn was in the tail end of his leadership that's true but when you look at directions and especially directions immediately since the Jeremy Corbyn controversy with him being readmitted and then having the whip suspended they're going in the wrong direction for Labour so this was a poll released by YouGov today and Westminster voting intention the Conservatives on 38 Labour on 37 and that's Labour down three points in a week what it looks like is those that 3% of voters are going to the Lib Dems in the green so that could quite easily be people who were sort of offended by Keir Starmer's treatment of Jeremy Corbyn basically and putting up two fingers to the left and um switching allegiance again these are small numbers but it's a it's a signal also if you click that document there on the Britain-Alex Twitter um on that tweet it basically shows the number of Tory voters from 2019 switching to Labour I think it's it's like it's five in a hundred it's tiny and then you've got I think two in a hundred of switching Labour to the Tories who the hell are these people but in any case after 60 000 deaths the number of Tory Labour switches which we were told Stammer would really get these people is tiny it's within the margin of error of zero so Labour is still behind the Tories despite the fact the Lib Dems are 5% lower than they were bear in mind they got 12% in December 2019. Let's look at the opinion poll so this was out yesterday so this is changes from the 2nd of November the Conservatives are on 41% that's up free Labour on 38% that's down four and the Lib Dems down one and the Greens up one so again you're seeing over the same period of time Labour down four points very similar to the YouGov poll that support going to different parties compared to the to the YouGov poll but anyway just giving you quite a clear picture and we can go back to YouGov because this sort of broke it down as to why this is happening and it does seem to be changing attitudes towards Keir Starmer sorry this is actually from opinion Boris Johnson is up one again over the past couple of weeks here's Stammer still as I say he's in positive territory he's plus 11 so I don't think it I don't think we can say in terms of polling it's been a disastrous six months of him but it does seem like it's been a disastrous two weeks for him and what has happened in those two weeks he suspended the whip from Jeremy Corbyn stood up on on television and said the guy who I asked to be Prime Minister last year is actually a terrible person he needs to apologize 60,000 people have died and he's up there saying this person needs to delete their their Facebook person a whole heartedly apologize I'm not surprised people see this guy as shifty and kind of not interested in the things they're interested in you can get a pretty decent swing away from Labour just with people who really like Jeremy Corbyn I mean what sort of centrist always says ah you know Jeremy Corbyn wasn't that popular in the country and by the end of his leadership he wasn't but there are 10 to 20 percent of the population who are really committed to Jeremy Corbyn and don't really take kindly to a leader of what's supposed to be a progressive party putting two fingers up at him so if Keir Starmer wants to make it the the defining issue of his his leadership whether or not you have respect for Jeremy Corbyn and want him to be humiliated which is essentially what Keir Starmer seems to be trying to do then that doesn't seem to me to be a wise electoral strategy um our final poll for you this is from opinion again which of the following people do you think would be the best prime minister again almost neck and neck 31 30 we've been the margin of error but Keir Starmer down three points since when that poll was last done so the direction is all the same this row about Jeremy Corbyn not benefiting Keir Starmer maybe he should have done the sensible thing which is to say I may disagree with what he said but obviously this isn't a disciplinary matter we would not be talking about this still this this crisis is one of Keir Starmer's own making if he had said when Jeremy Corbyn made that statement I don't agree with the statement but he's not in my shadow cabinet so there's not much I can do this isn't a disciplinary matter then we would not be here Labour would probably be up in the polls right given the past two weeks that the Conservatives have had I do think Michael and we probably we probably do disagree about this somebody coming in former director of public prosecutions 700 000 pound campaign from the most expensive leadership campaign in the history of British politics I think his first six months have been incredibly underwhelming in that context he is not Tony Blair Mark II that is that is not what he is that is not what his leadership is going to look like could Labour form the next government perhaps who knows but it's it's not going to be easy and I think a lot of people backing Starmer thought this was going to be right Keir Starmer's at the wheel you know Labour 10 Downey Street 2024 here we come it's not going to be like that and the last month in particular has been marked by unnecessary self-defeating measures like suspending Jeremy Corbyn I think we can get a couple more polls up we can get up the one you were talking about do you think Labour is divided that rockets the moment that Jeremy Corbyn is suspended from the party which basically provokes a civil war and will continue to do so so long as he is not fully reinstated and you know in the sense of getting the the Labour whip back that will remain like that and people don't want to vote for divided parties my theory about this people say people don't vote for divided parties now you ask people people don't really care if a party is divided or not so Boris Johnson kicking out 20 of his MPs they didn't really care about I think more what they care about is people talking about their own party so the division if you're you're super cut throwing just kick them out especially if it's people like Amber Rudd who you know don't really have a following I think if you just will kick out Jeremy Corbyn probably you would have the the danger that there are a lot more people committed to him than they're committed to Amber Rudd I'm using her as an example because the whippers were drawn from her by Boris Johnson it didn't seem to have much much effect but I think what really damages you in the polls is that you know there's a national crisis going on and all you're talking about is whether or not someone in your own party can have the whip because of something they said on Facebook that's that's what people don't like it's the sort of the naval gazing of it all and we can also get up approval of Keir Starmer over time so as I said I don't really think his we can say his year has been disastrous because opposition leaders I think he's had a opposition leaders don't often get in in positives they're hold you know 60 000 people have died in positive yeah but you can you can see a direction of travel there which is that disapproval is rising no I don't want to make that I don't think it's an appalling year I think it's a the year from hell I think expectations high that's obviously nobody ever wants those actually generally they're a bad thing but I do think he's had an underwhelming year and I think if the next six months are underwhelming if they have a bad set of local elections in May I do think people will start to ask questions that doesn't mean you'll go people turn things around all the time but for me Starmer's approach here is basically what Osborne and Cameron try and do after 2005 which is to say you have a successful government we're going to basically do everything you do and that will make us look like a credible government in waiting the point is Blair and Brown were actually effective politicians and right now Starmer and Labour are mirroring a party which is a complete disarray and can be unable to manage both brexit and covid so it feels like they're going to have to come up with a new strategy quite soon otherwise this could start to look quite bad and I agree with you I'm being critical because I'm a critic but it's I think many many people would have expected him to be doing better