Former First Secretary of State Lord Mandelson Speaks to T&G on the Elections

Good afternoon,

Labour peer Lord Mandelson has told Times Radio Sir Keir Starmer "underestimated the challenge he was taking on" as leader of the Labour Party.

Speaking to Tom Newton Dunn and Isabel Hardman on T&G on Sunday he said this week's election results is a "sort of awakening" for Sir Keir:

At the beginning, I think he underestimated the scale of the challenge he was taking on. And I think he underestimated the scale of the transformation that was needed to meet voters expectations of what they wanted to see the Labour Party do and change and to take on.

Second, I think after the devastating result of the 2019 election he assumed the party would show some humility, and willingness to change. And I'm afraid I think that the assumption, in the case of some leading members of the party, was misplaced. Just look at the opposition of John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and other supporters of Jeremy Corbyn who were responsible for that devastating defeat. They're not showing humility and willingness. They're not showing a preparedness to change.They are just remaining stuck in a rut, looking backwards and trying to justify and vindicate themselves and the policies on which we lost the last election very, very badly indeed. And I think actually, it's been a sort of an awakening for Keir And I think it will be a catalyst. I think, if anything, it has strengthened him and I hope and I believe it will embolden him and that's what the party needs.

And on the size of the challenge faced by the Labour Party compared to that of the 1990s:

The reason why under Blair and Brown we were prepared to embrace change in the 1990s, the change that got New Labour elected, was because after so many years in opposition we were fed up with the futility of it. We'd gone through four successive election defeats before we were elected in 1997. Four successive election defeats. Now we've just gone through another four, since we left government in 2010. And in my view, the party's got to share the same appetite for power and government we had after the last time that we endured those defeats. What worries me, frankly, is that the appetite that hunger for government is absent from some in the party.