Labour heavyweight Harriet Harman is joining Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast as a permanent member of the team.
The former acting leader of the party and mother of the House will now sit alongside Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby and Conservative peer Ruth Davidson as the three women bring the news – and their views – to the public every week.
In her first appearance as a host, Ms Harman told today’s podcast she was “absolutely thrilled” and “really excited” to become a regular fixture, adding: “I was so excited when Electoral Dysfunction started up, and I’ve been so pleased to see it go from strength to strength.
“So to find myself actually joining it, I feel I’m on the threshold of something absolutely amazing.”
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Ms Harman became a Labour MP in 1982, having long campaigned for increasing the representation of women in the party – and the Commons.
She became a shadow minister two years later, and when Labour came to power in 1997, she held a raft of roles – including becoming the first-ever minister for women.
She stood down at this summer’s election, but will be joining the Lords as a Labour peer when parliament returns next week.
Harriet Harman served in Tony Blair’s first government in 1997 as the first minister for women. Pic: PA
Sharing her insight into a tough week for Sir Keir Starmer – who warned of a “painful” budget to come in October due to the £22bn “black hole” in public finances – Ms Harman said she was going to “cut him some slack”.
She compared the current prime minister to one of his predecessors, telling the podcast: “I remember when Gordon Brown… was chancellor, he used to talk about prudence with a purpose – basically you’d be terribly prudent with the public finances, but here’s the purpose.
“And what Keir Starmer is doing is more of the prudence at the moment, rather than the purpose, because I think he’s trying to make sure that people don’t become over-optimistic about the speed of change that they’ll see in their actual lives.”
Ms Harman said she thought her party leader was “paranoid” about failing to deliver as a government, as that would “build resentment” among voters, and any “overpromising” from his side would just make things worse.
“So [in his speech this week] he was talking about the foundations of society being undermined, as well as the foundations of our economy. And I think he is very averse to the idea of overpromising.”
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However, she was surprised at how “sanguine” newly elected MPs were about his position.
“I was wondering whether or not our new team of MPs, many of whom were elected for the first time in July, whether or not they were getting overanxious,” said Ms Harman.
“[But] they are like, ‘well, this is what we said on the doorstep – we said things were going to be hard and it would take a while, and we’re going to take just tough decisions to bring about stability’.
“So, they seem to think this is what they were expecting, and [what] their constituents were expecting.”
“Certainly it’s… on the other end of the spectrum from ‘razzmatazz’. But, you know, perhaps he’s got it right. Let’s see.”
Don’t forget, you can see Electoral Dysfunction live when it goes out on tour in September.
You can get your tickets by clicking here and the dates for the shows are below:
• London – Thursday 12th, Bloomsbury Theatre
• Salford – Monday 16th, Lowry Quays
• Liverpool – Sunday 22nd, St George’s Hall
• Glasgow – Thursday 26th, The Glee Club