WATCH: Ex-Tory minister brands Labour cabinet reshuffle a 'disaster'

on Andrea Jenkins

What do you make of that? I can admire her spirit, frankly. I do too

I mean, that takes a bit of pluck to stand up in front of people and that's not necessarily your trade

And do it again on the TV just now. Well, quite, at the drop of a hat with a moment's notice

I just think that takes a lot of pluck. But today's politics in Downing Street was more like thriller, I would argue

Is this about you or about Reform UK? This is changes that are meant to lift this part of this government's position in the polls

but they're worried about Reform UK, not about you lot. I think they're in desperate trouble all round, to be honest

But not because of you, because of Reform UK. The Tories have failed to land a blow on the government

It's fair to say that Reform are in a very strong position in the polls. I would look daft if I were to say anything other than that

But look, we took a pasting in the election last year. We are starting off from a really low base

It's going to take time. This is not going to be easy. We need to totally reset as a party, reassert our values

tell people what we're about and sell a message. That's not going to be something that happens overnight

Do you think that the new Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmoud, can do any better on tackling the small boats crisis

than Yvette Cooper, who, frankly, failed to deal, slot the boats, the numbers are way higher than last year

Well, when you look at Yvette's record, it's disastrous because we didn't fix everything

I wouldn't claim for a moment that we did, but we were beginning to make some progress. We closed 188 hotels

We got a deterrent that they should have got on and done. and we'd also reform the law to give ministers the powers that they need..

But you piled up by asylum seekers in hotels. I mean, you've left them a huge problem they're still dealing with

But on so many of the metrics they squandered the progress So actually what we seen is this all go completely the wrong way And I don think unless the policy prescription changes that Shabana Mahmood is going to do any better The best thing that Keir Starmer could have done today and that he singularly failed to do

was to sack Lord Herma as the Attorney-General because whilst that man is the Attorney-General

ministers are not going to do what is necessary. Well, I should say he remains there, as does Haile Alexander and Ed Miliband

Only the names we've discussed are those who have moved. So those people all remain there

Will this work? Will it lift the party in the polls? I mean, he's basically moved the same people

to different jobs in this government and brought in a couple of new names, hasn't he? If you look at Emma Reynolds there, formerly of the Treasury

and of course Douglas Alexander, formerly of the Trade Minister. Otherwise, they are all the same people who had the old jobs

I actually think that nothing is going to fix their fundamental problems

I think the country is going to suffer for the duration of this government

when you consider the various things that you try to achieve out of reshuffles

Party unity not improved. In fact, actually, you've created more enemies today. Well, the left may be concerned about who is their person in the cabinet here

I don't think anyone in the country voted for David Lammy to be Deputy Prime Minister. No

Well, there will be a vote going forward on who is the deputy leader of the party

and that might become a problem if the deputy PM won't be made. You can see how they're saying, well

but Keir Starmer doesn't know who it is, so you can't risk having that job open

Of course, he might be away. I'm going to ask you finally, Nigel Farage has said today in Birmingham

he expects this government to collapse in 2027. Is that ridiculous? Well, when you consider that this week was reset number two for the government, I think we're probably into reset number three

Their problem is a communications problem, a policy problem, a messaging problem

None of this is fixed by any of this today. It's a disaster. I think an early election could happen