# And Starmer Makes Six, Why Britain Can’t Keep a Prime Minister

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 22 Jun 2026, 15 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/2e70237c-729b-49ef-bd9c-b47101591637/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his resignation Monday after less than two years in office. Starmer is the sixth Prime Minister to resign in the decade since the Brexit vote, raising major questions about where the country’s fractured political system goes from here. On today’s Big Take podcast, Bloomberg Executive Editor Edward Evans joins guest host Wendy Benjaminson from London to discuss the turmoil at 10 Downing Street. They explore what led to Starmer’s resignation, how soon the man poised to replace him, Labour Party frontrunner Andy Burnham, could call a general election and how the UK’s other political parties might take advantage of the power vacuum. Read more: Burnham Poised for Power in UK After Starmer Steps Aside We have a special Bloomberg subscription offer for podcast listeners at Bloomberg.com/podcastoffer. Hosted by Wendy Benjaminson; Produced by Julia Press; Reported by Edward Evans; Edited by Tracey Samuelson. Fact-checking by Victor Swezey and Laura Newcombe; Engineering by Emma Munger. Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
[0:08] Speaker 2: Every decision I've taken has been about putting the country
[0:11] Speaker 2: I love first. That is why I will resign as
[0:17] Speaker 2: leader of the Labor Party less.
[0:20] Speaker 3: Than two years into the job. Britain's Prime Minister, kir
[0:22] Speaker 3: Starmer is stepping down.
[0:24] Speaker 1: It's an extraordinary turnaround in his political fortunes. This is
[0:27] Speaker 1: somebody who won a landslide majority in twenty twenty four,
[0:32] Speaker 1: the one hundred and seventy four seat majority, something Labor
[0:34] Speaker 1: hadn't won since the days of Tony Blair.
[0:38] Speaker 3: Bloomberg editor Edward Evans says Starmer suffered a series of
[0:41] Speaker 3: early missteps.
[0:43] Speaker 1: Nobody was quite clear what the policy was, what the
[0:45] Speaker 1: big picture was.
[0:47] Speaker 3: Then this May, Starmer's Labor Party had a disastrous showing
[0:50] Speaker 3: in local elections that prompted about a quarter of his
[0:54] Speaker 3: party's MPs to call on him to resign. That resignation
[0:57] Speaker 3: leaves the UK facing its seventh lee since the country's
[1:00] Speaker 3: Brexit vote ten years ago. This is the big take
[1:08] Speaker 3: from Bloomberg News. I'm Wendy Benjaminson in for David Gura
[1:12] Speaker 3: and Sarah Holder today on the show How did the
[1:15] Speaker 3: UK get here? Who's next in line to replace Starmer?
[1:19] Speaker 3: And can Britain's next PM hold on to the top
[1:21] Speaker 3: spot longer than he did. Less than two years is
[1:30] Speaker 3: not a long time to last as Britain's Prime Minister,
[1:33] Speaker 3: but Edward Evans tells me Starmer's downfall has been underway
[1:36] Speaker 3: from the beginning.
[1:37] Speaker 1: Very quickly he came in and there were a series
[1:40] Speaker 1: of early missteps that really started to undercut his authority.
[1:44] Speaker 1: There was an attempt to cut winter fuel payments for
[1:47] Speaker 1: pensioners which he put through, which was incredibly unpopular with
[1:50] Speaker 1: many in his party, particularly on the left, but it
[1:53] Speaker 1: was then subsequently reversed. There was also an attempt to
[1:56] Speaker 1: cut benefit payments, again later reversed, so you saw at
[2:01] Speaker 1: that point, you know, blood was in the water. His
[2:03] Speaker 1: political authority was starting to drain away. Then, of course,
[2:06] Speaker 1: more recently we had the appointment of Peter Mandelson as
[2:09] Speaker 1: the UK ambassador to the US. Mandlsson subsequently emerged was
[2:14] Speaker 1: a close associate of Jeffrey Epstein. That was particularly damaging
[2:17] Speaker 1: for Starmer because this was an appointment that Downing Street
[2:19] Speaker 1: had particularly gone out of its way to put through,
[2:21] Speaker 1: and it's one of the most if not the most
[2:23] Speaker 1: senior post in the diplomatic service and one that's absolutely
[2:26] Speaker 1: crucial right now with Donald Trump. Then you fast forward
[2:30] Speaker 1: to the local elections of disastrous result for Labor, and
[2:34] Speaker 1: many in his party in Westminster were extremely nervous at
[2:37] Speaker 1: that point about their own seats if the party continued
[2:40] Speaker 1: on that course. And then more recently still he lost
[2:43] Speaker 1: his Defense secretary over a dispute over increased defense spending.
[2:48] Speaker 1: And then you know above all this, you know this
[2:50] Speaker 1: fiscal strait jacket that the government's been operating under a
[2:53] Speaker 1: set of rules essentially imposed by the Chancellor, and they
[2:56] Speaker 1: hold that the Chancellor must balance day to day spending
[2:59] Speaker 1: with tax revenue by twenty twenty nine point thirty and
[3:02] Speaker 1: reduced debt as a share of GDP by the same point.
[3:05] Speaker 1: And there's very little room to increase borrowing, there's very
[3:08] Speaker 1: little room to increase spending, and squaring that circle has
[3:12] Speaker 1: proved impossible for Starmer with his own party.
[3:16] Speaker 3: You mentioned the Peter Mandelssohn appointment, which I'm interested in
[3:20] Speaker 3: where it ranks in all of these problems that Starmer
[3:25] Speaker 3: had in his term, because as you know, in the
[3:27] Speaker 3: United States, almost no one has faced any consequences for
[3:30] Speaker 3: their relationships with Epstein, and this has not only cost
[3:33] Speaker 3: Peter Mandelsson's job but now Kere Starmer as well.
[3:36] Speaker 1: I think that the point with Mandelssohn was it was
[3:38] Speaker 1: it's a political appointment and it was made clearly by
[3:42] Speaker 1: Downing Street, so this was very much on the Prime
[3:44] Speaker 1: Minister's own judgment too. It came out over a period
[3:48] Speaker 1: of days and weeks and you had the drip of
[3:51] Speaker 1: news and Parliament took the unusual step actually forcing Downing
[3:55] Speaker 1: Street to release a lot of the papers surrounding the
[3:58] Speaker 1: appointment of Peter Mandelsson. So again that dragged out, even
[4:01] Speaker 1: dragged the whole process out even further.
[4:03] Speaker 3: So the favorite right now to lead Britain is Andy Burnham,
[4:06] Speaker 3: who has just sworn into Parliament today. Who is he
[4:09] Speaker 3: and why has he become a major player so quickly?
[4:12] Speaker 1: And the first thing to say, he's a long term
[4:13] Speaker 1: figure in the Labor Party. This is not someone who's
[4:16] Speaker 1: a stranger to Labor. He's grown up in the labor
[4:19] Speaker 1: movement and has been active in it since the days
[4:21] Speaker 1: of the Blair governments. He was I think most recently
[4:26] Speaker 1: known for being Mayor of Manchester, and I think that
[4:28] Speaker 1: was the really you saw that the political reinvention of
[4:31] Speaker 1: Andy Burnham. He came out and colloquially known as the
[4:33] Speaker 1: King of the North, and the emergence of this thing
[4:36] Speaker 1: called manchester Ism, which is essentially a mix of state
[4:40] Speaker 1: control he nationalized the local buses in Manchester, mixed with
[4:44] Speaker 1: working with business to promote development. And you know, if
[4:48] Speaker 1: you look at Manchester Skyline over recent years, there has
[4:50] Speaker 1: been a huge, huge change there. Before Manchester, he was
[4:54] Speaker 1: a Labor MP for many years and it's important to
[4:57] Speaker 1: note this is someone who he ran for the Labor
[4:58] Speaker 1: leadership in twenty ten lost He ran in twenty to
[5:01] Speaker 1: fifteen again and lost to Jeremy Corbyn. So this is
[5:05] Speaker 1: somebody who's no stranger to the Labor Party.
[5:07] Speaker 3: So Edward. Last week Burnham won a seed in Parliament
[5:10] Speaker 3: during a by election, which is a special election to
[5:13] Speaker 3: fill an empty seat representing Makerfield in northwest England.
[5:17] Speaker 1: Why was that significant, Well, firstly that it was extramely
[5:20] Speaker 1: therese by election in the first place, in that the
[5:23] Speaker 1: previous MP you had just been elected, Simon's had to
[5:26] Speaker 1: step down to clear the way for Burnham to do it. Normally,
[5:30] Speaker 1: by elections caused by the resignation or the death of
[5:34] Speaker 1: somebody in office. This one, this was cerctually somebody stepping
[5:36] Speaker 1: aside to create room for Burnham. You can't be party
[5:39] Speaker 1: leader unless you're in parliament. Here the vote itself was interesting.
[5:43] Speaker 1: I mean make a field that the constituency. It's a
[5:45] Speaker 1: northern seat, it's very close to where Burnham grew up.
[5:49] Speaker 1: It's an area he knows the fight there was against reform.
[5:53] Speaker 1: Now this is Nigel Farage's party. They did very well
[5:56] Speaker 1: at the local elections very recently in the local elections
[5:59] Speaker 1: in maker Field. They had great hopes for their candidate.
[6:03] Speaker 1: Now obviously Burnham beat him, and beat him by a
[6:06] Speaker 1: much bigger margin, I think than people had expected. So
[6:09] Speaker 1: I think, you know, for that election, I think the
[6:11] Speaker 1: big question marks now about Farage and peak reform. But
[6:16] Speaker 1: for Burnham, it's really assigning that many in labor are
[6:18] Speaker 1: taking it as assign as somebody who can energize the
[6:21] Speaker 1: electorate and can bring political support and popular support that's been.
[6:25] Speaker 3: Lacking and maybe some parallels to the upcoming US midterm elections.
[6:29] Speaker 3: But tell me about Burnham's possible path to Downing Street
[6:33] Speaker 3: from where he is today.
[6:35] Speaker 1: There is a process nominations. The party leadership will open
[6:39] Speaker 1: on July the ninth and close on July sixteenth. Assuming
[6:43] Speaker 1: nobody else runs, Burnham could then become Prime Minister essentially
[6:48] Speaker 1: if it does go to a vote, if another candidate
[6:51] Speaker 1: does emerge, and I must stress at this point that
[6:54] Speaker 1: looks unlikely one impossible contender where Streating fell in line
[6:59] Speaker 1: behind Burnham earlier today, but it is possible somebody else
[7:02] Speaker 1: comes out of the woodwork. Then it would go to
[7:05] Speaker 1: a vote of Labor members and you would see a
[7:07] Speaker 1: result in early September. Starmer, It's important to note, would
[7:10] Speaker 1: obviously remain Prime Minister until the new leader is appointed
[7:14] Speaker 1: by the party.
[7:16] Speaker 3: And if Burnham does become PM, he'll be able to
[7:18] Speaker 3: appoint his own cabinet that will include the Chancellor of
[7:22] Speaker 3: the Exchequer, which is equivalent to the US Treasury Secretary.
[7:26] Speaker 1: I think that's going to be a really big moment
[7:27] Speaker 1: because it will send a big signal about the direction
[7:30] Speaker 1: of the government. Is he going to go more radical?
[7:33] Speaker 1: Is he going to go and be continuity. Now there
[7:37] Speaker 1: are two names that are in all the sorts of
[7:39] Speaker 1: names in the frame. Obviously, Ed Miliband has been a
[7:41] Speaker 1: name has been suggested. Where's Streeting's name? I think has
[7:45] Speaker 1: also been suggested, two potentially very different paths. The question
[7:50] Speaker 1: for Burnham is how much of a break is he
[7:53] Speaker 1: going to represent with Starmer and if he is going
[7:55] Speaker 1: to break with with Starmer's government. The difficulty he's got
[7:59] Speaker 1: is that he has not won a general election and
[8:02] Speaker 1: won a mandate from the electorate, and so there are
[8:04] Speaker 1: questions about, you know, does he then possibly go and
[8:07] Speaker 1: call another general election. He's been quite careful not to
[8:10] Speaker 1: rule that in or out today. It's been bit cagy
[8:13] Speaker 1: around that. We talk about it being elected prime minister,
[8:15] Speaker 1: but he's being appointed essentially by his own party. He
[8:17] Speaker 1: hasn't faced a popular vote, and without that, does he
[8:20] Speaker 1: have a popular mandate?
[8:21] Speaker 3: Roud you mentioned a general election, Britain has to call
[8:24] Speaker 3: the next one by August fifteenth, twenty twenty nine, so
[8:28] Speaker 3: the next PM could actually be in the job for
[8:30] Speaker 3: quite a while.
[8:31] Speaker 1: The general election date, that's the last date it can
[8:33] Speaker 1: be held by, But the Prime Minister has the power
[8:35] Speaker 1: obviously to call a general election at any point before then.
[8:38] Speaker 1: It's a tremendously useful political power if you're prime minister.
[8:42] Speaker 1: The question for Burnham is does he go along, does
[8:44] Speaker 1: he wait for something to improve, does he bet that
[8:46] Speaker 1: things will turn round over time, or does he say, look,
[8:50] Speaker 1: I want to do something more radical. We've got a
[8:51] Speaker 1: break free of these fiscal rules that were set by
[8:55] Speaker 1: previous governments and adopted by the previous Labor government. You know,
[8:58] Speaker 1: I want to take a more radical line things like
[9:00] Speaker 1: Brexit and the relationship with the European Union. And to
[9:03] Speaker 1: do that I need to take back to the people again.
[9:05] Speaker 1: That's really his political one of his early big political calls.
[9:08] Speaker 1: He's going to have to make.
[9:12] Speaker 3: After the break, how a new PM might handle Trump
[9:15] Speaker 3: and how Starmer's downfall reflects the changing British party system.
[9:30] Speaker 1: British politics can be famously brutal at times.
[9:34] Speaker 3: That's Bloomberg's Edward Evans about yet another British Prime minister
[9:38] Speaker 3: forced to resign.
[9:39] Speaker 1: You lose authority over time, and then very suddenly, you know,
[9:43] Speaker 1: it becomes clear and people you pointed, people who owe
[9:47] Speaker 1: their seats to you, turn around to you and say, no,
[9:49] Speaker 1: Prime Minister, your time is up. We think you've become
[9:51] Speaker 1: a liability.
[9:52] Speaker 3: Tell us more about the dynamics of recent UK parliamentary
[9:56] Speaker 3: by elections. For decades, these races have largely been between
[10:00] Speaker 3: Labor on the left and Conservatives on the right. How
[10:03] Speaker 3: has the dynamic changed.
[10:05] Speaker 1: I think that what you're seeing in British politics is
[10:07] Speaker 1: the splintering essentially what was a two or three party
[10:11] Speaker 1: system where you had the Conservative and Labor Party on
[10:14] Speaker 1: the right and on the left, and then the Liberal
[10:16] Speaker 1: Democrats in between perhaps, and you're seeing that now splinter
[10:20] Speaker 1: into five seven parties or more. And you're on the
[10:23] Speaker 1: right you're seeing the growth of Reform under Nigel Farage,
[10:27] Speaker 1: and on the left you've seen the growth and support
[10:29] Speaker 1: for the Green Party under Zach Polanski and that's been
[10:31] Speaker 1: a challenge for Labor on left wing voters moving from
[10:35] Speaker 1: Labor to the Green. So that's having some really interesting consequences.
[10:40] Speaker 1: We have a first past of the post system here.
[10:41] Speaker 1: It's not proportional representation, so it's the party with the
[10:45] Speaker 1: most the most votes that wins at a by election.
[10:48] Speaker 1: Still and you know, Makerfield, it was fascinating that sense,
[10:51] Speaker 1: because you know, you had a big question going into it,
[10:54] Speaker 1: would Reform outperform. You had a split within a split,
[10:58] Speaker 1: as it were, a Restore which is another right wing
[11:01] Speaker 1: party and you know, were they going to take votes
[11:04] Speaker 1: off Reform off of Farage's party, how would that split
[11:08] Speaker 1: out in the event Burnham, you know, outpolled and outpold
[11:11] Speaker 1: everybody by by some margins. So if you're sitting in
[11:14] Speaker 1: the Labor Party there that might that will give you
[11:16] Speaker 1: I would imagine hope that the two party system there
[11:19] Speaker 1: is still some mileage in it.
[11:21] Speaker 3: Yet which parties stand again the most from Labor's problems?
[11:26] Speaker 1: Well, I think you know Labour's already I mean the
[11:27] Speaker 1: Labor's already fallen behind the polls. And if you look
[11:30] Speaker 1: at the sort of average of opinion polls, Reform as
[11:32] Speaker 1: obviously and Farages of it has been by and large
[11:37] Speaker 1: ahead for some months now. Obviously that wasn't what happened
[11:40] Speaker 1: in Makerfields. So you know you've got you've got to
[11:43] Speaker 1: then question which is the outlier? Will that be replicated?
[11:47] Speaker 1: And again, now you know what happens with Farag's polling numbers,
[11:51] Speaker 1: do they start to move downwards? Obviously you know, any
[11:55] Speaker 1: party and any new leader comes in, you get a bounce.
[11:59] Speaker 1: Traditionally you get a ounce in the polls from that.
[12:01] Speaker 1: Can Burnham hold on to that if it materializes? And
[12:05] Speaker 1: for how long.
[12:07] Speaker 3: Edward, How would you describe Starmer's relationship with US President
[12:10] Speaker 3: Donald Trump? We know yesterday Trump posted that Starmer was
[12:13] Speaker 3: going to resign, so clearly he was excited for this
[12:16] Speaker 3: to happen. Do we have any sense yet of how
[12:18] Speaker 3: Burnham's going to navigate this relationship?
[12:21] Speaker 1: I think at this point note, I think it's very
[12:23] Speaker 1: as you say, it's a very very delicate relationship. It
[12:27] Speaker 1: is traditionally, you know, the most one of the most
[12:29] Speaker 1: important relationship, diplomatic relationships for a British Prime minister. And
[12:33] Speaker 1: I think that you certainly saw with Starmer a lot
[12:35] Speaker 1: of time, care and attention and delicacy given to how
[12:40] Speaker 1: do how do you handle Trump? You know it was
[12:44] Speaker 1: not always an easy relationship, and you know one of
[12:48] Speaker 1: the early tasks for Burnham coming in will be to
[12:51] Speaker 1: make contact, to develop that, establish that relationship and cultivate it.
[12:56] Speaker 1: If you're in Downing Street, you want to have a
[12:58] Speaker 1: close relationship with the US. But equally, you know Trump
[13:01] Speaker 1: does not pull well in the UK. It's a difficult
[13:04] Speaker 1: relationship to navigate.
[13:08] Speaker 3: Tomorrow, June twenty third is the ten year anniversary of
[13:11] Speaker 3: Britain's vote to leave the European Union. As you've said,
[13:15] Speaker 3: pms have had a lot of trouble keeping their job
[13:17] Speaker 3: since then. Is anyone going to be able to hold
[13:20] Speaker 3: onto this position?
[13:21] Speaker 1: We will see. I mean it is extraordinary. I mean
[13:24] Speaker 1: in Britain, certain people look across the channel and look
[13:28] Speaker 1: at the political instability in Italy and make unfavorable comparisons.
[13:32] Speaker 1: It is a sign that there is a political turmoil.
[13:35] Speaker 1: There is something, there's something deeply deeply in the political
[13:39] Speaker 1: system that is changing. I think with Brexit, with May,
[13:43] Speaker 1: with Johnson, each of those, you know, they were trying
[13:46] Speaker 1: to grapple with Brexit, or the markets in the case
[13:49] Speaker 1: of Trust, or the electorate in the case of Sunac.
[13:52] Speaker 1: I mean, it's very you know, right now, it's very,
[13:54] Speaker 1: very difficult for anybody of any party to square you know,
[13:58] Speaker 1: the markets, the vogue to Brexit and spending. And you
[14:03] Speaker 1: know that's why you're I think seeing this sort of
[14:05] Speaker 1: instability in British politics, and you know, it will be
[14:10] Speaker 1: very interesting to see how long Burnham stays in office.
[14:17] Speaker 3: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Wendy
[14:21] Speaker 3: Benjaminson in for David Gura and Sarah Holder to get
[14:25] Speaker 3: more from The Big Take and unlimited access to all
[14:27] Speaker 3: of Bloomberg dot Com. Subscribe today at Bloomberg dot com
[14:31] Speaker 3: slash podcast offer. If you like this episode, make sure
[14:35] Speaker 3: to follow and review The Big Take wherever you listen
[14:37] Speaker 3: to podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thanks for listening.
[14:41] Speaker 3: We'll be back tomorrow

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