GB News aired a brutal rant about the Labour Government under Andy Burnham‘s leadership, as he remains the current front-runner to replace Keir Starmer as Prime minister. During Thursday’s programme (June 25), presenters Stephen Dixon and Ellie Costello were joined by former Tory Immigration minister Tom Pursglove, who discussed which Cabinet ministers would be given the top jobs under the new leadership. He ranted: “Weren’t we told the politics was going to be done differently, and all we’re seeing is more of the same. It’s continuity Labour.

Tom ranted: “I thought it was fascinating to see some of the media reporting about the fact that there’s no talent on the back benches. It’s going to be the same faces as in the current Cabinet, but just cycled around into different jobs, shuffling in the deck chairs on the Titanic.” As Stephen argued: “That happens with every re-shuffle, doesn’t it?” The politician predicted that Burnham’s government would be a “total recipe for disaster,” in a brutal four-word putdown.

In his response to Stephen, Tom said: “It sounded like this was going to be massive continuity in terms of retention of a huge number of current Cabinet members.

“But what we know is that it doesn’t really matter who is made Chancellor in Andy Burnham’s Government because it’ll be more of the same.” The former minister fumed: “It’ll be tax, it’ll be spend, it’ll be borrow, and it’ll be driving unemployment up, total recipe for disaster.”

Ellie interjected: “It will be interesting to see what happens with Defence, though, because Al Carns is seriously considering his leadership bid. Is that because he wants defence?”

The GB News guest said: “We’d be doing a massive national service actually, if he was to enter the fray because it doesn’t sit comfortably with me that we’ve got an incoming Prime minister, who hasn’t set out any policy for the country to take a view on.

“He already lacks democratic legitimacy; he’s been returned by 25,000 people in Makersfield and is potentially going to be crowned without a proper race.

Tom continued: “So if he were to trigger that and it meant that over the course of a month, issues like defence spending would have proper scrutiny around it and that, that held his administration to acocunt thereafter and we actully got on and did what we need to do, that would be something that even for me as somebody in a completely different party would say ‘very well done’ to Al Carns because he would be doing us a service to our country.”

This follows reports that, if Barham were to become Prime Minister, he would demote Rachel Reeves from her role as Chancellor to a more “junior” position, after becoming the first female Chancellor following Labour’s landslide election victory in 2024.