Could Andy Burnham build to victory?
6/4/202621 min
With two weeks until the Makerfield by-election, does Andy Burnham really have a plan in place to run the country?
Sam Coates and Anne McElvoy examine the policy ideas – including an ambitious expansion of social housing construction – which could form a future leadership pitch.
Back in Westminster, the duo assess the fierce political fallout from the murder of Henry Nowack after a tense PMQs. What does Nigel Farage’s intervention mean for the government and policing?
Plus, has the Prime Minister’s chief ally, Darren Jones, been dragged into the Peter Mandelson scandal – with the release of a series of mysterious texts?
You can see the full list of candidates standing in the Makerfield by-election here.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAnne McElvoy· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Hello. Good morning. It's Thursday, June the 4th. Welcome to Politics at Sam and Ann's. And let's start with a mystery. This morning we read that on the day of Peter Mandelson's sacking, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, Darren Jones, sent him a message saying he was sorry and what a great job he'd done as ambassador. But why has that surfaced now? And might the Dark Lord himself have anything to do with it? My name is Anne McElvoy from Politico.
Sam Coates· Host0:33
And I'm Sam Coates of Sky News. Ooh, well, let's look at the evidence because this missive was revealed by The Spectator's Tim Shipman, but it wasn't in Monday's Mandelson Files document dump. Darren Jones told the Commons his messages were no longer available, and it's not in his interest to see something as embarrassing as that surface again. And Peter Mandelson didn't, as it said in the documents, hand over his phone to the government, but could, could the pair be doing a little bit of political spinning from beyond the political grave? You could possibly say. It is, as you mentioned, Anne, a mystery.
Anne McElvoy· Host1:09
It's Thursday, the last day of the parliamentary week, and a story from outside Westminster has been driving a hard political conversation, and that is the dreadful tale of the stabbing of Henry Nowak, a student in Southampton last December, his subsequent treatment by police and his death,