Lord Kinnock speaks with journalism students about Labour, Starmer’s leadership and the Mandelson crisis

Journalism master’s students at City St George’s, University of London heard from Lord Neil Kinnock, hours before he headed to Parliament for a meeting between Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and fellow Labour Party members.

The talk gave students the opportunity to ask the former leader of the Labour Party questions about his views of Starmer’s stewardship of the Party as he faces increasing scrutiny in his leadership.

The Parliament meeting on Monday 9 February is understood to be an opportunity for Starmer to address his backbenchers at a critical moment for the prime minister, following the shock news that his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney had resigned.

In his resignation on Sunday, McSweeney said he took full responsibility for advising the prime minister to appoint Lord Peter Mandelson as envoy to the US.

Earlier in February, new information around the diplomat’s ongoing relationship with the disgraced financier and paedophile Jeffrey Epstein emerged, with reports that Mandelson had received payments from Epstein and had allegedly passed sensitive government information to Epstein.

The students had the opportunity to ask Lord Kinnock his thoughts on what these crises mean for Starmer’s leadership – and whether or not he felt Starmer could weather the storm.

Lord Kinnock was invited to speak on the Political Reporting module run by Professor Barney Jones, who launched the award-winning political programmes Breakfast with Frost and The Andrew Marr Show and ran Election coverage at the BBC.

Lord Kinnock discussed why he views anger as a motivating emotion, his own experiences of being under intense media scrutiny while Leader of the Opposition between 1983 and 1992, and the ways in which he believes the media can influence election results.

He spoke of his lifelong loyalty to the Labour Party and discussed his friendship with Alastair Campbell, former campaign strategist for Tony Blair who is recognised as playing an important role in rebranding the Labour Party as New Labour before its winning 1997 election.

As part of the module, students gave presentations on political topics and the ways in which media has reported on them, such as the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum which saw the first-past-the-post voting system maintained.

Natasha Kennard, a student on the MA in International Journalism, gave a presentation on the public perception of spending on welfare vs warfare in the UK. Her presentation revealed the surprising statistic that 7 in 10 Brits did not consider their pensions to be part of the welfare package, and she had the opportunity to discuss this figure with Lord Kinnock.

Speaking about the class, she said:

The module has been eye-opening, especially because today we're speaking about Keir Starmer and the Epstein scandal [as it’s unfolding]. It’s been really interesting to hear Lord Kinnock’s insight from within the Labour Party.

It's a hands-on module that allows us to see places that probably we wouldn't be able to see on our own. I love this module, it’s one of my favourites of the course.

As part of the module, students also visited the House of Commons and will visit the BBC.