How Beth Rigby prepared a ‘narrative’ for Starmer and Sunak grilling – and why an early jog almost ruined everything

Published

3 months ago

June 14, 2024

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Beth Rigby has revealed how she decided on a “narrative” before quizzing the Labour and Tory leaders at Sky News’s special event – and how a morning run almost scuppered everything.

Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak took turns for a 45-minute grilling at Sky News’ Battle For Number 10 in Grimsby, with questions coming from a representative audience.

First to interrogate both leaders was political editor Rigby, who has lifted the lid on what it’s like to prepare, execute (and almost miss) the big event.

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“Kay Burley told me when I first came into telly ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’,” she told former Labour MP Margaret Hodge on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast.

“So, I took these two mottos into this very intense interview prep… you get loads of information and you start to try and work out what’s the narrative that you want to tell.”

The secret, she said, is to look at everything and then “distill it” until you have a clear “narrative arc”.

“With Starmer, the thing really was – how can you trust this guy? That was the premise,” she said.

“But for Sunak, it was like, you say you’ve got a clear plan, you say you’re going to deliver… so, what’s the Conservative record? But more importantly, what’s your record?

“Because you’ve actually been prime minister. You made five pledges, and then there was a broader question about what were the betrayals to the British people.”

But disaster almost struck before the event had even started.

“The night before, I woke up at, like, five in the morning, fully awake,” she said, adding she could “feel the adrenaline”.

So, she decided to go for a run.

“I just saw I’m coming to the end of the road. And I went to turn round, and, as I turned, I nearly ran into a moving car. So, I nearly got run over,” she explained.

Not the kind of car crash anyone would have expected that day.

Email the team electoraldysfunction@sky.uk, post on X to @BethRigby, or send a WhatsApp voice note on 07934 200 444.

Politics

Lisa Nandy says Sir Keir Starmer ‘very sensible’ to accept football tickets worth thousands

Published

13 hours ago

September 21, 2024

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Lisa Nandy says Sir Keir Starmer 'very sensible' to accept football tickets worth thousands

Lisa Nandy has said Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to accept thousands of pounds worth of football tickets was “very sensible”.

The minister for culture, media and sport also said she had never accepted free clothes from a donor.

Speaking to Sky News at the start of the Labour Party conference today, the MP for Wigan said: “The problem that has arisen since [Sir Keir] became leader of the opposition and then prime minister is that for him to sit in the stands would require a huge security detail, would be disruptive for other people and it would cost the taxpayer a lot of money.

“So I think he’s taken a very sensible decision that’s not the right and appropriate thing to do, and it’s right to accept that he has to go and sit in a different area.

“But I know that he’d much rather be sitting in the stands cheering people on with the usual crowd that he’s been going to the football with for years.”

Ms Nandy also said while she has not accepted free clothes – joking “I think you can probably see that I choose my own clothes sadly” – she doesn’t “make any judgements about what other members of parliament do”.

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She said: “The only judgement I would make is if they’re breaking the rules, so they’re trying to hide what they’re doing. That’s when problems arise.

“Because the point of being open and transparent is that people can see where the relationships are, and they can then judge for themselves whether there’s been any undue influence.”

She asserted there had not been an undue influence in gifts accepted by senior Labour figures, adding: “We don’t want the news and the commentary to be dominated by conversations about clothes.

“We rightly have a system, I think, where the taxpayer doesn’t fund these things. We don’t claim on expenses for them. And so MPs will always take donations, will always take gifts in kind.

“MPs of all political parties have historically done that and that is the system that we have.”

She added: “I don’t think there’s any suggestion here that Keir Starmer has broken any rules. I don’t think there’s any suggestion that he’s done anything wrong.

“We expect our politicians to be well turned out, we expect them to be people who go out and represent us at different events and represent the country at different events and are clothed appropriately.

“But the point is that when we accept donations for that or for anything else, that we declare them and we’re open and transparent about them.”

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Sir Keir, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves said yesterday they will no longer accept donations in the future to pay for clothes.

The announcement followed criticism of Sir Keir’s gifts from donors, which included clothing worth £16,200 and multiple pairs of glasses worth £2,485, according to the MPs’ register of interests.

The register shows Ms Rayner has accepted clothing donations to the value of £2,230.

Sky News also revealed the scale of Sir Keir’s donations this week as part of our Westminster Accounts investigation.

Sir Keir was found to have received substantially more gifts and freebies than any other MP – his total in gifts, benefits, and hospitality topped £100,000 since December 2019.