The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - Britain's Liminal Moment

00:00:00.000 Hi folks, welcome to another one of our political chats. I'm joined by Dan, and today we're going

00:00:04.640 to be talking about the liminal moment that I think Britain has found itself in. So you may

00:00:09.620 have heard the term liminal space. Well, liminal means the point of a change, the threshold at

00:00:15.580 which something is going to change. So we are, I think, moving into something new here, actually.

00:00:21.800 But I don't think the thing that we're moving into is what they think it's going to be.

00:00:26.180 and i think it's actually a good thing that we get this done now you're gonna have to sell me

00:00:31.560 on this case because my sort of view has been that nothing will change yeah well okay well

00:00:37.380 let's let's talk about andy burnham so he came out and gave what is essentially his pitch to

00:00:41.400 make me prime minister to the labor party to coronate him as they've been saying

00:00:45.520 and i think this is actually um good now i realize not that the pitch itself is good right

00:00:52.580 actually the pitch itself is actually not that bad right but i think this is good well is there

00:00:57.000 anything to the pitch beyond i'm not keir starmer yeah there is actually okay it's a positive pitch

00:01:03.060 it's actually not just a negative pitch unlike farage's pitches are always just yes stop that

00:01:08.420 guy yes but why you um but no there is there is something to this right because i actually think

00:01:15.880 that getting andy burnham out of the way now is much better because we've talked about the

00:01:21.340 factions in labor and how they have their leaders right keir starmer is the leader of the managerial

00:01:26.320 technocracy the southern london human rights lawyers jeremy corbyn was the leader of the hard

00:01:32.120 left and both these factions have failed well what have we actually got left we've got the trade

00:01:36.300 unions and the soft left the trade unions aren't going to bring i don't think they're going to

00:01:41.100 bring forth a champion because they're not an electoral force right the trade unions are an

00:01:46.080 industrial yeah that are used to operating in negotiations behind the scenes i mean they they

00:01:51.540 did ed milliband but a few years ago he was essentially their champion he got elected

00:01:55.860 labor labor because he was the because he was the union pick and you imagine ed milliband

00:02:01.220 being the front and center vote for ed milliband well i mean they tried it and it was disastrous

00:02:06.820 yes never so i think this is essentially what andy burnham represents i think is probably

00:02:13.300 the last constituency in the coalition of the Labour Party so if Andy Burnham fails then that's

00:02:23.700 every um group in the Labour Party that has been brought forth and screwed it up so anything they

00:02:32.860 produce now will just be more of the same everyone will be like oh yeah I've heard that before you

00:02:37.380 know if we get another human rights lawyer it's gonna be another Keir Starmer if we get another

00:02:41.600 hard left guys gonna harness another jeremy corbyn and after andy burnham it'll be oh it'll

00:02:47.200 just be another andy burnham right and so getting this out of the way now rather than having it

00:02:52.340 be the new thing in 2029 is good and i don't it doesn't i don't think it matters that much whether

00:02:59.820 he calls a general election or not i don't think he's going to because i don't think they can be

00:03:03.540 sure they're going to win like he ran in makerfield because he knew he was going to win yeah i think

00:03:07.820 he has the option because he's his level of support within the Labour Party is so high that

00:03:13.540 if he had won Makerfield in a very marginal way then people would have said well look I'm only

00:03:19.360 going to support you for leader if you can guarantee my seat is going to be safe but because

00:03:22.880 it's so overwhelmingly going to be him he's got he's got the political capital within the Labour

00:03:27.880 Party to do it however because all of these people think that it's a personality issue the

00:03:33.860 machine doesn't work because the personality at the top and they all think this all the tories

00:03:38.420 all the labor party they all think you just swap out the personality at the top and just to be

00:03:42.220 clear this is expressly burnham's opinion as well yes oh yeah expressly his opinion yeah they all

00:03:47.440 think it i'm gonna do things differently including your bloody not mr burnham they genuinely think

00:03:52.560 that all you need to do is sit on top of the machine and give different instructions because

00:03:56.200 for example he's been talking about um we need to build more houses and he actually thinks that

00:04:02.860 you just tell the machine you just tell your civil servants okay let's build more houses and

00:04:06.900 then it happens no the machine outputs what the machine outputs and the machine can't be changed

00:04:12.380 because at this level there's so many competing tensions within it that if you try and change

00:04:17.180 the machine in any way it all breaks apart i mean so the machine isn't going to do anything

00:04:21.780 pausing on that point the machine could be changed but you would essentially be committing as you say

00:04:27.780 to junking the whole thing you'd have to you'd have to go into it knowing that you're seriously

00:04:33.620 going to upset people and there's going to be enormous institutional pushback and fundamentally

00:04:37.760 it's labor's machine yes he's he's doing everything he's doing he was very clear in the

00:04:42.580 election i'm here to save the labor party and that means save the entire project of what labor

00:04:47.300 has been doing he doesn't i mean he was part of blair's labor government right yes he doesn't

00:04:52.580 see himself as separate to this he sees this as what the labor party should be doing and therefore

00:04:57.640 he's not going to go like right okay the system needs to be junked in the way that say Nigel

00:05:01.500 Farage or Rupert Lowe would and you know the conservatives are obviously on the keep Blair

00:05:06.400 system uh plantation but at least Farage and Lowe would be like yeah no this I mean being most

00:05:13.040 charitable to Farage not that I think he's actually going to do it but if if Farage could at least go

00:05:19.360 well I think the system is wrong and I want to change it Farage at least recognized that the

00:05:22.740 system was not built for him yes whereas keir starman the system was built for exactly somebody

00:05:27.960 like him and even he started complaining a few months in yes i i asked for things to be done

00:05:34.640 and nothing happens and andy burnham is going to discover that the system was also not built for

00:05:39.560 him that's the thing because the soft left are still sentimentally connected to their roots in

00:05:45.420 the north they still think of themselves as working class white working class northern

00:05:48.780 communities and so you'll notice that andy burnham's rhetoric he never focuses on identity

00:05:53.280 politics he never focuses on minorities it's actually a very parochial tribal i mean his

00:05:59.720 makefield uh pitch was for us in a 97 white english seat he kind of does have identity

00:06:06.300 politics but the identity is labor sure yeah okay what i mean is racial different okay yeah he never

00:06:12.000 he's never promising to the minority groups i'm gonna make britain brilliant for you that's

00:06:17.160 keir starmer's human rights law is talking yes that's the rhetoric they use oh no he's saying

00:06:21.360 no it's for us for the the northern manchester white working class this is expressed but he's

00:06:26.860 not going to go after the bit of the home office which is trying to maximize the amount of muslims

00:06:30.980 coming in obviously not obviously not uh he obviously but the the point is you can see him

00:06:36.160 where he locates his um personal identity his load style yes yeah exactly in a slightly

00:06:42.680 different direction yeah exactly but the system is not built for them so the system you will you

00:06:48.400 he will come into contact with the system and be like right so i can't do anything about this and

00:06:52.540 i'll be like no because there are all these laws all these rules that uh all these legal challenges

00:06:57.320 will be triggered by the lefty human rights lawyers that you endorse in every other way

00:07:00.660 you just don't want them in charge of the labor party because they're destroying your party

00:07:03.320 and so he will find himself as you say sat at the top of the machine he can't control he can put a

00:07:08.060 different gloss on it that's about the only thing he can do yep and he will and he has and in

00:07:12.660 fact in in in his defense like for labor's last best hope he's not bad right he's actually he's

00:07:20.860 he's not an unlikable guy he seems on a personal level to be someone you could you know have a

00:07:26.100 nice chat with the pub in right yes and he seems to actually care about the people of the north

00:07:31.260 yes he's made this promise to them that as we discussed last time no no i'm here to save

00:07:36.880 the Labour Party for us so that we can go back to our ancestral roots of being serfs on the

00:07:43.280 Labour plantation yeah you feel like with this guy you could have a pint with him and you might

00:07:47.100 not agree with his politics but you could have a bit of banter about something whereas Keir Starmer

00:07:51.240 you kind of think if I went on a camping trip with this guy and fell asleep I'd woke I'd wake

00:07:54.960 up tied up and he'd be skinning me yeah yeah that's basically yes that's basically the difference

00:08:01.800 so he he has actually got a good gloss to put on the labor party um and actually his recommendations

00:08:09.620 are not bad recommendations right so we'll go through the burnham blueprint because

00:08:16.760 anybody all based on the assumption that you can actually do any of this yeah yeah

00:08:20.220 the intentionality is not terrible right it doesn't solve all the problems but it does

00:08:29.540 recognize and attempt to address some of the attacks that are coming from the right right

00:08:33.980 yes and not the important ones but it's just that i look at this stuff now when when a prime

00:08:39.080 minister comes in and says that he wants to do something i look at it the way that people used

00:08:43.360 to look at 30 years ago when miss world used to come out and say i want world peace it's it's it's

00:08:50.020 like you just you just like yes dear so do i yeah so do i uh anyway so let's go through just the

00:08:55.900 main points right is given us by the guardians devolution now this is one of those things that

00:09:01.780 uh sounds nice to the soft left because it's like oh yeah local power for local people so yeah that

00:09:07.980 sounds reasonable but what that also means is the system more fully entrenching itself with layers

00:09:13.660 of bureaucracy uh and uh middling sort of politicians who've got a very small stake a

00:09:20.480 very large stake in a very small pond and so i mean like who who gives a damn what happens in

00:09:24.800 the welsh assembly nobody other than the people in the welsh assembly so i would be absolutely in

00:09:28.980 favor of devolution if you devolved everything including taxation if taxation were included yes

00:09:35.620 oh that'd be a great idea but then you don't have a unitary state anymore really well that's kind of

00:09:40.580 what i want exactly i'd like the you know the parliament in wessex and winchester yes if you

00:09:44.800 know if we could get elected to the parliament in winchester and have taxation set by wessex

00:09:48.720 and you could have mercia and northumbria and all that not i mean at least what the americans have

00:09:53.500 estates but more so yeah well that's not that's not enough all it is is an extra body that can

00:09:59.520 borrow money yes that's exactly what it is that's that's exactly what it is and can bring in extra

00:10:06.140 regulations to make your life worse but can never repeal necessary regulations that could make your

00:10:11.220 life better right so it it will never be uh useful to us but it sounds like a good idea from his

00:10:18.940 perspective because of the sort of like dreamy oh isn't it just good to devolve powers without

00:10:24.900 devolving taxation but what that also means is that it just sent it cements the system right

00:10:30.360 because now rather than having like i mean you had like constituency countries like england doesn't

00:10:36.920 have it but northern ireland wales and scotland you could see how a sort of revolutionary fervor

00:10:42.280 could build up in that size of a national block right but if you had like a parliament for yorkshire

00:10:48.320 a parliament for mercy a parliament for wessex that's not enough right and especially if they

00:10:52.720 have no taxational powers or anything like that or very limited executive powers um it means that

00:10:59.040 the system they're always going to just do what the parliament in westminster always did with the

00:11:03.640 eu just kick it up it's kit no was no got a problem wow that's westminster like they said

00:11:09.020 oh that's the eu the eu's making us do this power out of our hands we don't have to think very hard

00:11:14.440 about this we don't have to take responsibility for anything but we continue to draw our salary

00:11:18.300 and we continue to impose ridiculous rules on you

00:11:20.820 because we're bored, frankly,

00:11:22.440 and there's nothing you can do about it.

00:11:24.020 And so this is just a way of the system

00:11:26.180 just making itself more Byzantine,

00:11:28.160 more complex, more elaborate, and...

00:11:30.240 It's just extra layers.

00:11:31.180 It's just extra layers.

00:11:31.920 It makes a more difficult shift.

00:11:33.160 So boring, not useful,

00:11:37.060 but I suppose to be expected.

00:11:38.280 And then reform of Westminster and Whitehall.

00:11:40.960 Now, this is...

00:11:41.720 It's just like every other prime minister

00:11:43.220 thinks they're going to reform Whitehall.

00:11:44.540 Yeah, exactly.

00:11:46.140 That's what Keir Starber said.

00:11:47.560 like that's literally what keir starmer said i'm going to fix westminster no one's going to fix it

00:11:52.240 right but the interesting thing he does have here is that backbenchers should be empowered to act

00:11:56.880 to change things in their local areas uh and promise that he wouldn't use the whip system to

00:12:01.540 create for a closed down debate uh though he stopped short of promising to abolish it because

00:12:06.560 of course the whip system for anyone doesn't know it's a powerful way of parties to make sure their

00:12:10.260 vote the right way on hot button issues very quickly on that you get your order paper which

00:12:17.420 is the business of the day you get your votes and they either unline them one two or three times

00:12:22.540 three three lines basically means you will be kicked out of the party if you don't vote for

00:12:26.240 this two lines is you better vote for it but you know if if you're literally dying then maybe we'll

00:12:32.820 maybe we'll let you off and one line is if you can be bothered turn up and vote yeah and what will

00:12:39.300 happen is he's saying this now the moment it's a vote that he actually cares about will be three

00:12:43.780 line whips all over the place exactly this is why he's not abolishing it but um giving backbenchers

00:12:49.380 the power to do things in their local constituency actually might be useful because as you've spoken

00:12:53.880 about before the real the real um power of an mp is in representation and patronage uh getting

00:13:00.840 people to do things in your local area because an mp actually has zero executive power in their

00:13:04.680 own location it's all council members they don't have any executive power yeah none zero literally

00:13:09.280 nothing so um it i mean it sounds like the most blue ball job in the world frankly so i've been

00:13:15.420 elected an mp what does that mean well everyone feels it's important what can you do nothing

00:13:18.740 yeah all mps can do is basically hope to be elected to the selected for the executive yeah

00:13:26.120 which is why i prefer the american system on this because they separate the the legislative

00:13:29.960 from the executive yes which we don't do and you know i suppose there's probably a bit of a sway if

00:13:35.740 um for you i just read jess phillips book on being an mp good god honestly it wasn't that bad

00:13:41.800 you know right are you in it no i'm not right i didn't think i was um yeah which is a surprise

00:13:47.280 actually um but uh but she says look a lot of it is just um essentially being a go-between between

00:13:54.020 uh the public and the services that the government provides so if a local council hasn't picked up

00:13:59.080 rubbish in this area she then gets onto the local council to pick up the rubbish or her stuff yeah

00:14:03.420 it's a social worker it's literally just a glorified babysitter basically um so actually 0.85

00:14:09.680 that's not a bad idea and it might mean that this there's something in being a politician

00:14:15.420 right there's actually like a measure of responsibility you actually get to change

00:14:20.760 something and therefore it's worthwhile being a politician which might incentivize actually

00:14:25.240 decent people to become politicians right who knows who knows right but the point is

00:14:29.880 he's not going to he's not going to significantly reform westminster i don't think and even if he

00:14:35.460 does reform westminster in any particular way i don't think it's going to change all that much

00:14:39.320 and like you said the second he needs it the whip will come back and everything will return

00:14:42.920 business in an instant yeah so an end of trickle down economics well we've heard this before as

00:14:48.960 well um uh he's i mean rachel reeves has said exactly this but it's like okay it's just trickle

00:14:55.920 down from the government now rather than from private industry that that's all we have is is

00:15:00.840 except the trickle down is from the is from the government and then out into the welfare system

00:15:05.940 but that is literally all we have at this point yes so you know like oh yeah well you know we'll

00:15:12.140 do that it's like okay great but again but um is uh completely hamstrung here in the fact that

00:15:18.920 he's not gonna have any fiscal headroom he hasn't got like a big war chest that's just sat in the

00:15:24.220 treasuries 132 billion in the hole every year exactly yeah we we spend more in benefits than

00:15:30.120 we take in in personal taxes for example right so he's inheriting a tragic economy that is on his

00:15:36.580 last legs and can't call it forever and he is not going to be able to do anything with it so he's

00:15:41.280 like oh yeah i'd like uh i'd like to expand the role of the state in running essential services

00:15:45.060 housing and industrial strategy okay with what how are you gonna pay for that then exactly what

00:15:49.840 you didn't do because this whole experience in manchester is is like i said it's just it's just

00:15:54.540 a body that can borrow money so all he had to do whenever he wanted to do something in manchester

00:15:59.520 was just ring up the treasury you literally you literally as a local authority you just ring up

00:16:03.500 the treasury and say i want some money and you you tell them how much money you want and they

00:16:08.080 will deposit it into your account and then you pay uh you pay the the the bank of england rate

00:16:13.500 plus a quarter and then you say i hate the bond market so it's more difficult to borrow that money

00:16:17.380 but but it's it's you can do it at a local authority level because the scale of the

00:16:23.500 borrowing is so low compared to the uk that you can get away with it but when you're at when you're

00:16:28.260 in the top job the bond markets are already maxed out the amount where they're willing to lend at

00:16:33.740 this current rate and if you're keir starmer and you're seen as being someone who understands

00:16:40.300 the business is important fine if you're andy burnham i've got a public track record of saying

00:16:45.820 i hate the bond markets i don't think we should be paying attention the bond markets are holding

00:16:49.740 us down there in chain and you know no no it's a bosking of money then it's a bank basically you

00:16:54.920 know you're just borrowing money from a bank and you're not enslaved by them but anyway the point

00:16:58.600 is they're not exactly his best friend and so okay i and again one of the things about andy

00:17:04.640 burnham is there is no clear policies right there is no clear he states a direction of travel but

00:17:11.420 doesn't give you anything i've heard ambitions i've heard wishes yes i haven't heard any policy

00:17:16.160 yet again very much like miss world being like oh i'd like world peace yeah yeah wouldn't we all

00:17:21.520 but anyway so we don't know but he's basically can do more of the same probably further in the

00:17:27.840 belief that this will one day produce economic prosperity obviously it's not going to yes anyway

00:17:33.440 so he wants to take the utilities back into national ownership which i do actually approve

00:17:37.820 of why i don't especially hate this no i why why do we let but for different reasons uh mine for

00:17:43.280 xenophobic reasons why do foreigners own our utilities yeah why did we allow the conservatives

00:17:47.680 to sell off the utilities to their buddies and make a cut on them the only thing i would say

00:17:52.640 is that even though it doesn't really make sense to have utilities in private ownership

00:17:58.380 is that they required huge subsidies when they were in public ownership and when they were

00:18:04.620 privatized they actually started paying taxes so they are significantly more effective in in

00:18:08.840 private hands sure it's just that the price of them has been rocketing well that is true but

00:18:15.400 i would rather publicly subsidize the utilities and have my taxes keep my water rates down

00:18:21.700 you do get a lot of bloke though so i'm not saying you don't and i i appreciate it's

00:18:26.500 you know there's no easy answer and there's no correct answer but we've had decades of

00:18:32.520 privatization and thames water is like for example it gives the thames water is bankrupt

00:18:37.940 and it's constantly leaking i can't remember how much was my wife told me the other day

00:18:41.960 that it was an unbelievable amount of water it's just wasted by thames water because it's just not

00:18:46.400 worth paying to repair it right and it's like okay well you know the same with the trains the

00:18:51.620 trains are constantly terrible because it's not worth paying to upgrade them and it's okay well

00:18:55.980 i would rather the government actually give us good infrastructure that we're paying through

00:18:59.260 the nose for at least the infrastructure would be good right at least it can say oh i'm building

00:19:03.320 this thing because you know like trains with aircon on for example right in the current heat

00:19:08.900 wave no i'm not even joking i went down to london to the art conference crap by the way um and two

00:19:15.440 trains a bunch of the trains were cancelled during the middle of the day they're just cancelled

00:19:19.640 aircon not good enough i got on a train waiting half an hour they're like yeah sorry we're gonna

00:19:23.540 have to cancel this train because the aircon's not good enough it's like oh my god we'd be halfway

00:19:27.280 way home by now if you just gone but instead they wait for half an hour hoping the temperature on

00:19:31.860 the train would go down and basically we had to change two trains to get on one that had half

00:19:35.180 decent aircon but even then he was like on the third carriage the aircon isn't working so go on

00:19:38.880 the other carriages and obviously everything's completely packed so it's like there's no room

00:19:43.220 on the other carriage anyway the point being it's not working in private hands either right so yeah

00:19:48.480 the the system right i think the only way it's going to work is you get the japanese to run it

00:19:53.020 basically their trains are amazing i yeah yeah no doubt um but the point is um thames water is

00:19:58.600 actually not a bad case to use they've gone bankrupt uh the question is is the government

00:20:02.200 just kind of like take on their assets and whatnot or are their bondholders take over

00:20:06.700 i actually don't see why we're subsidizing cheap infrastructure in europe by allowing

00:20:13.160 to own our infrastructure so anyway moving on social housing oh my goodness yep good luck

00:20:18.900 i mean it's just he's just in i mean he literally said oh the problem there is a really easy way to 0.74

00:20:26.380 fix the problem with social housing yeah stop importing people yes well and kick out the people

00:20:31.140 who are yeah not native in social housing and suddenly you get millions of them back i mean 0.94

00:20:36.500 that literally would yes unlock millions of houses yes but he doesn't want to do that he doesn't ever

00:20:42.760 talk about immigration that's something and there's this general attitude on the left that

00:20:46.260 they understand they've lost the argument on immigration and can never contest it so they

00:20:50.120 don't right they just don't uh kia starmer's the closest saying look we reduced net integration to

00:20:54.820 only 150 or 250 000 or whatever it is it's like kia that's still awful that was awful when everyone

00:21:01.400 was like god immigration's awful yes then boris johnson made it so much worse and you're like

00:21:05.100 yeah i've got to back down to awful levels so brilliant you know anyway the point being he's

00:21:10.400 just like yeah we're just gonna have to um concrete over the green and pleasant land we live in 0.95

00:21:14.820 so we can live in megacity one full of somalians and whoever else splendid yeah wonderful um so 0.99

00:21:21.960 the the target is to build one and a half million new homes which is not going to happen because 0.99

00:21:27.940 of course the reason they don't just build rampantly already is regulations and overbearing

00:21:32.940 government um and like various like legal nonsense like look at like hs2 well i've got a good example

00:21:40.080 of this i've got i did a broconomics on house prices that people can go and watch and i've got

00:21:44.360 a couple of housing developers to come in uh and and i mean just one example at one point they had

00:21:50.760 to stop for a week so the inspectors could come and stand there at night and count the number of

00:21:55.880 bats with it i knew you were gonna say bats yeah and that and that's one example but it's it's not 0.99

00:22:00.680 like it's that it's it's thousands of things like that where they just stop for some stupid

00:22:07.060 bureaucratic process i mean there's a reason that hs2 has cost like 200 million before even

00:22:11.480 breaking ground you know it's just like oh why oh we've got to check fish population oh no that

00:22:16.940 was a nuclear power plant yeah to do the fish disco way it'd be some nonsense yeah absolute

00:22:21.580 nonsense just build just build anyway the point is they're not going to he's not going to repeal

00:22:26.240 the laws that that is another um miss world speech that one 100 100 um then he's going to

00:22:33.260 fix the high streets and so oh how are you going to do hopefully the same way i proposed fixing

00:22:37.820 the housing problem how is he going to do it well i mean he recognizes these become a key

00:22:42.740 political background with reform highlighting boarded up shops a symbol of the economic

00:22:46.940 mismanagement labor and tories but okay what i mean burnham's plan is to quote reform business

00:22:52.640 rates now if that means abolishing business rates and that will actually work that would actually

00:22:57.640 work yes the reason that the high streets have turned into vape shops barbers and american candy

00:23:04.320 shops and various other other and the new one is the bangladeshi luggage shops you notice them

00:23:09.200 around yes right the reason that they exist is because these people don't pay the business rates

00:23:14.540 because they liquidate their companies every year and just start a new company yeah and they don't

00:23:19.160 even bother to change the signage when they do that they don't exactly they don't change the

00:23:22.340 signage they don't pay taxes they don't pay the business rates they don't they don't file tax

00:23:27.220 returns a company's house or anything like that they just liquidate create a new company and it's

00:23:30.580 literally every year because they know i mean if you or i made an error on our taxes a good faith

00:23:35.620 error hmrc would be all over us but you can have it you can literally have a shop in the high street

00:23:41.640 and pay no taxes no business right and they will never go after you because oh we don't want to

00:23:47.100 appear racist but even if they do it's like okay well how long can you drag that out for right and

00:23:53.180 administratively yeah you can drag it out for years right like okay the council send you a letter and

00:23:58.920 you don't reply for six months they send you another letter you don't reply for another six

00:24:02.520 months and then they send you a final demand oh no okay i will reply to that one and they'll say

00:24:08.520 can you provide this this and this in three months and you'll drag it out and then in six months

00:24:13.440 they'll say you haven't provided this blah blah blah and so like two years down the line they're

00:24:16.880 like right we're going to begin legal action against you and we're going to seize your property

00:24:19.340 oh we're going to dissolve our business no what are you going to seize now nothing oh i just

00:24:23.720 happened to have reincorporated another business on exactly the same plot of land and exactly the

00:24:27.840 same building same staff same steinage same products exactly same owners and you know it's

00:24:34.200 a new company but exactly so now they have to go through the process again and it's like oh my

00:24:38.540 god you know so these people basically don't have to pay the business rates and everything else

00:24:42.640 and everyone else has been hamstrung by it so the only things you see in the high street

00:24:46.220 the only things that can actually work are companies that committing crimes by just existing

00:24:50.780 so it's just like right okay if you if reform the business rates means just get rid of them

00:24:55.080 which you should because it's just robbery brilliant then we can compete because then

00:24:59.220 suddenly we're all on the same level again and people would rather come to us or whatever you

00:25:03.320 know shops then go to the bloody uh barbers but that's literally the reason so anyway the next

00:25:09.380 thing is re-industrialization now again no clear plan here but just this is very much a miss world

00:25:15.400 wish list burnham said he would safeguard sovereign manufacturing production capability across the

00:25:20.460 country in critical sectors like steel defense energy food and food and farming i mean good idea

00:25:26.340 so literally how literally all you need to do is fire ed milliband into the sea and get somebody

00:25:33.280 who can make energy as cheap as possible and then all of that stuff that he said there will just

00:25:39.340 appear well kind of because i mean like how are you going to prevent the chinese from flooding 1.00

00:25:43.600 the market with cheap steel yeah i mean they've got cheap energy and cheap workers yes they do 1.00

00:25:48.680 cheap workers cheap energy and an abundance of iron so what's the plan well you're going to have

00:25:53.540 to tariff them right so suddenly you're actually playing a much more aggressive game in international

00:25:58.260 trade but that's going to have knock-on effects there are going to be native businesses that

00:26:02.640 needed that steel or whatever it is you know food whatever it is all the native businesses

00:26:07.180 okay well we need other things and this is going to raise prices and um i'm sure that we'll get

00:26:13.740 the cost of living a little bit later i mean just quickly on on we're doing it on farming

00:26:17.880 where we set extraordinary farming regulations for native farmers and but we don't tariff farm

00:26:24.820 goods from anywhere else so they just ignore all of that stuff say that they've done it import it

00:26:30.520 in and then and then our farmers can't a great example of this is in wales i think it was 10

00:26:35.460 percent of the farmland has to be rewilded so every farm in wales this is what the local government

00:26:41.360 in wales has done has made it so by law in wales you have to fallow 10 of your land you just can't

00:26:47.520 use it so you're at 90 maximum capacity anyway and then you've got whatever like you know

00:26:53.200 i don't know how farming works but you've got to leave certain fields fallow for certain periods

00:26:57.760 of time and stuff like this and so you you're never getting 100 anyway but you're already

00:27:02.000 cut down by 10 before you even begin and that's without all of the taxes all of the other

00:27:06.520 regulations all of the like whatever the bloody and a local authority cannot imagine why that be

00:27:12.680 a problem because for them getting to 90 capacity would be an enormous leap in productivity yeah it

00:27:18.540 would but then as you said all of these people in all the other countries are basically living in

00:27:23.020 like anarcho states where like what does central government look like in peru if you're a peruvian

00:27:28.380 agriculturalist you know or in bloody south africa or wherever you know we don't even need to go that

00:27:32.800 far i mean poland doesn't do all the we do with well yeah sure farming so it's just so much easier

00:27:38.240 for them to just oh we'll just import a billion tons of it by cargo container yeah and then our

00:27:43.400 farmers of course get squeezed and then you've got the government's like oh we're going to put

00:27:46.140 an inheritance tax on your farms and all this sort of stuff so it's just like right i mean i'm in

00:27:49.920 favor of this kind of national economic strategy this nationalist economic strategy but i don't

00:27:56.020 think for a second that burnham has the balls to go and do what you actually need to do no right

00:28:01.100 he hasn't got the balls he'll just do speeches he'll just do speeches he'll he'll vibes wishes 0.97

00:28:06.800 and you know but again it's another issue seized by nigel farage so he's trying to 0.98

00:28:11.040 pip nigel farage off the post here um he's not going to do anything on this obviously but then

00:28:15.620 we go to education employment and again we need to complete rethink of how we support the next

00:28:20.000 generation to succeed it has to start with the education system okay right so what does that

00:28:24.960 mean well that just means um getting people to do technical colleges rather than academic education

00:28:30.420 so okay you're going to get apprenticeships rather than degrees okay great handy but that's

00:28:37.540 actually not the sum total of the problem with the education system the problem with the education

00:28:42.060 system is like if if all of our students were coming out of the education system sounding like

00:28:48.780 um uh i mean you know you know power would be a good example you know someone who's very articulate

00:28:54.780 so coming out like t.s elliott right coming out sounding like some the average person from the

00:29:01.160 1950s sounded you know smart articulate able to form arguments able to critically examine

00:29:07.120 information they were given then i wouldn't even be coming yeah okay well they've all got to go on

00:29:11.280 degrees that's not great but at least that we're producing very intelligent very capable young

00:29:16.420 people through the education no the problem the education system which the classical education 1.00

00:29:20.860 is indoctrination it's crap it's not even that it's indoctrination it's crap like people are 0.99

00:29:26.460 coming out thick half of them unable to bloody read and write no attention spans all this sort 0.99

00:29:31.420 of thing right it's it's not what they're being taught it's how they are being taught that is

00:29:36.340 actually the problem and so don't get me wrong i'm in favor of bringing back you know apprenticeships

00:29:40.560 and all this sort of stuff but it's the nature of the system that is not competitive and has low

00:29:46.920 standards that is the issue and of course he doesn't talk about any of that obviously and this

00:29:52.620 isn't you know so we're just going to produce people with a large cation who now work with

00:29:57.000 their hands rather than work with their minds so okay brilliant brilliant absolutely brilliant

00:30:00.800 so anyway we get to the cost of living and the guardian hits you there it's unclear what form

00:30:05.560 these measures will take he doesn't know he's got a clue but um has hinted he'll look at tax cuts i

00:30:11.780 mean bravo i would love tax cuts but he doesn't know what he's going to do because he's got the

00:30:16.820 problem that the system is the system yeah like as we've covered like okay you want to have

00:30:22.220 high tariffs protecting british industries well how are you going that's going to also he wants

00:30:29.120 to free himself for the bond market and the only way that well he can cut spending but he's not

00:30:33.940 going for he could so the only thing he's realistically going to do is just print the

00:30:37.680 money instead which is going to cause the cost of living to go up well let's get to the fiscal

00:30:41.720 rules because uh as you can see the biggest challenge for burnham as for successive prime

00:30:47.200 ministers will be how to pay for his plans yep and the role of chancellor is still undecided

00:30:51.680 i'm hoping ed milliband uh i'm you know i want ed milliband failing upwards right

00:30:57.200 obviously because i'm an accelerationist but um as you can see they like well sending a clear

00:31:06.680 signal to jittery bond investors he's pledged his policy agenda would be backed with sound

00:31:10.840 public finances and the discipline of our current fiscal rules so he is going to as he says retain

00:31:16.440 the self-imposed borrowing and debt constraints drawn up by rachel reeves to limit his options

00:31:20.720 but uh this is the reason why they can't get anything done either this is the reason why

00:31:25.440 the only option is raise taxes yep well they've run out of money and yeah and they can't borrow

00:31:31.980 anymore yes so in summary right these are these things are deliberately done to address many of

00:31:40.780 the issues that farage is raising now the primary issue that plagues this country you'll notice this

00:31:47.000 wasn't on this list no it wasn't he didn't mention immigration at all no we mentioned it but but no

00:31:53.540 they didn't mention no no um so no matter what happens burnham is wearing these blinkers yes

00:32:00.340 the real problem will forever be outside of his peripheral vision but he'll focus on trying to

00:32:06.400 get the machine as you said to do things it's not going to do he's not going to have the bravery to

00:32:10.280 actually junk the machine and build a new one which is what actually needs to happen um so

00:32:15.620 nothing's going to happen as he studiously avoids the problem right all that will happen is things 1.00

00:32:20.900 will get worse your taxes will go up there will be more immigrants on your high street and the 1.00

00:32:25.720 cost of everything around you will go up that's all that's going to happen eat all the goodwill 0.98

00:32:30.780 in the world is not going to fix this am i wrong uh no no but i mean i mean what what is their line

00:32:39.640 on immigration i mean it used used to be for years that it makes us stronger and it improves

00:32:44.880 the economy but since since that has been so comprehensively debunked well prior to this

00:32:50.820 speech he did say that he was going to keep shabana mahoud's uh immigration reforms which

00:32:55.820 to her credit have lowered the net immigration right now that still means that 850 000 migrants

00:33:04.520 here are let in which is what last year's figures were um but to her credit that is lower than the

00:33:09.080 boris wave record of about 1.5 million so i mean it's a low bar to cross but she did cross it um

00:33:16.540 but the weird thing is we're in the last days of the starma regime and morgoth uh dm of the day

00:33:23.240 really seems like starma's holding a lot of this back because uh shimana moon has decided no we're

00:33:28.640 actually always going to offer sanctuary to those fleeing war and persecution and that means

00:33:32.480 literally anyone applications for new kept and safe legal routes will be opened in autumn based

00:33:38.400 on the canadian community sponsorship model well if they focus on war zones i mean that i mean the

00:33:44.180 the most horrific and long-lasting war zone that immediately pops to mind is sudan

00:33:49.140 ukraine oh sudan is worse and has been going on longer but not well not that much longer but that

00:33:56.260 was a sudanese guy you chopped up that chap in um belfast well yeah um but that's this is um

00:34:02.820 pretty pernicious when you think about it isn't it the community sponsorship model so the sudanese

00:34:08.120 community in this country and get more sudanese sponsor sudanese i wonder if the sudanese community

00:34:12.820 have any incentive to get more sudanese in well exactly right and this is um something they talk

00:34:19.660 about in here uh basically what's going to happen is look at this canada's community sponsorship

00:34:26.700 scheme has successfully resettled 400 000 refugees since 1979 so that's a long time we could probably

00:34:32.440 do that in a year exactly right i i would love to see the curve on this because i bet it was very

00:34:37.380 small very small very whoa what are you doing right but anyway the point being is that um what

00:34:43.580 this is going to allow is for refugees to work it's going to allow them to uh what's uh there's

00:34:49.820 they've removed the prohibition on illegal immigrants gaining citizenship so they're going

00:34:56.320 to get a path to citizenship and it's uh going to make sure that they can actually become uh members 0.98

00:35:03.800 of the community but okay but whose community because i'm not sponsoring any bloody refugees

00:35:08.560 no you're not sponsoring any refugees i doubt it but who is going to sponsor refugees yes well

00:35:14.120 the sudanese community the somali community the pakistani community the bangladesh community

00:35:18.320 they're all going to be sponsoring it and they're not exactly short of aunts and uncles and nieces

00:35:23.240 and nephews to work in their businesses that are currently operating before they change the name

00:35:27.540 of them but they're going to use the tory scheme which was with the ukrainian refugees specifically

00:35:32.980 the tories said we'll pay you 350 pounds a month if you house a ukrainian refugee

00:35:37.860 and we'll do it for up to 18 months they're planning to pay the migrant communities to

00:35:45.500 sponsor foreigners to come and live in their houses so if you've got a cousin in bangladesh

00:35:51.100 or whatever who you wanted to bring over anyway the government will allow them in a safe and 0.93

00:35:56.100 legal controlled way to apply as a refugee and then pay you to take your cousin who you wanted

00:36:02.440 to bring in anyway you now get 350 pounds madness absolute madness um and i love this

00:36:10.060 shibana mahoud has told politics uk that asylum seekers will repay this country's generosity

00:36:14.460 by paying back their asylum support how's that going to happen they'll be required to contribute

00:36:18.680 towards the cost of their asylum uh using the welfare that we give them oh right okay so this

00:36:25.800 is plugging the extension league lead back into itself absolutely they we're going to give them

00:36:32.120 money and they're gonna um be forced to pay 10 000 pounds out of their benefits but i mean

00:36:39.580 literally this will be means tested and paid monthly either directly or taken from benefits

00:36:42.760 that's exactly what they'll probably put their benefits up to cover it as well

00:36:45.920 that's probably true that's probably true and they're paying 350 pounds a month to their

00:36:52.680 families to take them in and so it's just like right okay all right nothing's gonna change

00:36:57.060 in a fair point yeah so even even if it is was it 350 pounds a month is it so even if they take

00:37:03.960 350 pounds a month out of their benefits yeah the 350 pounds instead goes the person they're living

00:37:10.800 with who is their aunt uncle or cousin right and the we know that these people live um many more

00:37:19.000 to a household than we are prepared to right so if you've got four people in your household you

00:37:23.360 could possibly expect 10 in theirs okay if that's you know the government's expecting four person

00:37:28.320 households and then suddenly has an extra six people in is playing you know 350 per person

00:37:34.700 oh now you're incentivizing them because they're going to be making out like bandits and they don't

00:37:40.500 care that they're going to force you know little jahid from the village to live in a bunk bed in 0.85

00:37:46.820 a room with five other people they don't care because the government's going to be paying like 0.83

00:37:50.020 three grand so or like two grand for and it's oh great that's just great this is and this this

00:37:57.640 isn't this is starmer doing it right this is under starmer's government it'll doubtless get worse

00:38:02.180 under burnham i mean obviously when we come to power there's there's going to be a lot of

00:38:07.540 deportations i am willing to slow roll some of it because i want i want to go around to shabana

00:38:12.780 mamood's house to to andy burnham's house to kia starmer's house and say look here's 40 sudanese

00:38:18.300 they're going to be living in your house until we get around to deporting them

00:38:22.400 the thing about all of this as well is assuming assuming any of it can be proven right if oh on

00:38:28.120 paper i've got five people living with me so the government's paying me like you know grand

00:38:31.980 it's like postal votes all over again yeah is anyone coming around to actually check that

00:38:36.120 like because i might say to my all my cousins in india right okay guys come over and if one

00:38:43.520 person does come around you can say look we're all living here and then you can just go home

00:38:48.000 and i'll pay you 200 pounds a month to just live in india i'll collect 150 and everyone gets what

00:38:54.160 they wanted at the end of it right everyone just we i mean it's so open to abuse and as if as if

00:39:02.120 these schemes aren't just complete this is the problem with government and especially labor is

00:39:05.540 it never occurs to them that anything they do might be manipulated yes anyway so uh stephen

00:39:11.900 swinford here from the times thinks that it'll be uh this was written on the 22nd of june so

00:39:17.700 probably about two two and a half weeks now till uh we get andy burnham as the coronated prime

00:39:23.900 minister of the united kingdom um like i said i don't think he's gonna call an election i don't

00:39:28.840 think he's i don't think he needs so i think he's the last chance of the labor party have i think a

00:39:32.640 lot of them feel that he's the last he thinks that if he gets three years he can win the public over

00:39:36.920 because at the moment he thinks that the machine will do what he says because he's still in fantasy

00:39:40.840 land yeah yeah absolutely and every single prime and kirsten will do this as well every prime

00:39:46.620 minister we've had after their prime minister they start doing interviews where they say i

00:39:51.420 ask for things to be done and nothing happened i pulled levers and nothing happens they also they

00:39:56.340 all say it uh so let's take a look at the polls so there has been a burnham bump it hasn't been

00:40:04.060 that big it's certainly not enough to call an election no i wouldn't want to call an election

00:40:08.280 with those numbers no if i was nigel fryer or the labor party frankly i mean if i was at the

00:40:12.680 labour party and i think like i do i would because if i get 21 now and remain a major party in

00:40:20.440 opposition that that might be worth doing but this is interesting isn't it um dip for reform

00:40:27.840 boost for labour but puts them on 21 that's how bad labour's fortunes were right and all what it

00:40:35.540 takes to get at least some people back on is for them to say look we're a labour party who doesn't

00:40:41.500 hate you that's all because andy burnham's entire shtick is i'm on your side i'm one of us you know

00:40:47.000 and so that's drawn some people back conservatives stuck on 18 greens down by two so zach polanski's 0.62

00:40:53.660 on the decline now and lib dems floating around 12 13 as usual labor i kind of i can accept because

00:41:00.900 at least one in five people must work for the state and that's going to draw a lot of the support

00:41:04.500 conservatives i can understand because you know still a lot of older boobers yeah greens i mean

00:41:10.900 that that i mean that's invaders and wide-eyed student student girls yeah and lib dems people

00:41:18.360 who just don't want to think about this stuff but they do have a nice garden so yeah yeah but i mean

00:41:22.500 the conservatives and lib dems basically on borrowed time yeah the number of people getting

00:41:27.000 nice gardens the attrition rate for that the churn rate for that it's going to be a slowly

00:41:33.280 declining constituency well the conservative one particularly is very predictable yeah and the 0.72

00:41:37.360 conservatives won't be around in 20 years no just in 20 years time all the boomers have had you know 0.72

00:41:43.800 passed on there just won't be conservative voters anymore so that's that party cooked so anyway

00:41:50.920 here's another poll uh something very similar uh restore at six percent on that one though

00:41:56.540 so that's a nice uh did they prompt for that one or uh i don't know actually i didn't check to be

00:42:02.560 fair but it's pinium but let's assume they did after makefield um which i think would be the

00:42:07.980 charitable thing to do as you can see restore on six percent is a good chunk uh suddenly in you

00:42:13.000 know half the greens there but the greens again on the decline labor on 21 reform on 26 conservatives

00:42:19.280 on 17 fairly similar and then another one from yougov reform on 24 labor on 20 conservatives on

00:42:26.460 20 lib dems and greens sliding down a bit so you can see there has been a bit of a bump probably

00:42:31.360 coming from the lib dems and greens yeah mostly greens i would suggest um but it's not that

00:42:35.840 significant so going into the poll of the polls for june 26th still not great for anyone really

00:42:42.160 you know we're still bringing up to five on average this brings us back to the point i've

00:42:45.620 been making all along on this series is that our political system is not designed for six political

00:42:49.800 parties no um so something is going to shake out but i mean as as in trying to make predictions

00:42:55.600 for the next election oh god yeah anyone's guess when you've got six parties in a two-party system

00:43:00.800 yes and especially when like the the old hands in the two-party system are desperately trying

00:43:07.160 to save it i mean fair enough to kemi badenock i mean if you go back say a year right the

00:43:14.100 conservatives are on 17 on average and she's managed to get them to 18 and really if nigel

00:43:21.640 rogers been doing his job he would have ground that down yeah she has actually stemmed the

00:43:27.120 leading uh she hasn't increased the share but no and of course raj blunted his his his key

00:43:35.320 differentiator by hiring so many tories yes and kicking out the right wing of his own party

00:43:40.740 this has been a mistake because i mean that five percent of the bottom there could have been five

00:43:46.000 percent that restore uh reform would have had right yeah like why why are they outside of you 0.81

00:43:51.400 nigel you know you should have been like no these are my outriders they're gonna make me look like 0.82

00:43:55.300 moderate and everything would have been groovy if i'd had if i'd been able to do big tent politics

00:44:00.160 where instead he did it the other way around he embraced the conservatives and attacked the right

00:44:03.560 wing yeah and that didn't uh solve any problems um so uh bmg found that um they polled

00:44:12.200 in the 23rd and 24th june it's like ah if andy burnham was the labor leader so this is about

00:44:20.020 this over a week ago now right if andy burnham was the labor leader how would you vote and people

00:44:25.120 like oh i'd vote for labor over reform plus five to labor 27 yeah yeah why that's not gonna hold

00:44:33.520 up why isn't that shaken out then in the other polls why isn't that shaking out in the polar

00:44:37.960 polls like this this like is is not something that is actually manifesting itself and it's because

00:44:46.680 adi burnham's net approval is already going down yep yeah i mean he hasn't even got the job yet

00:44:51.860 hasn't even got the job and and he's not subject to a great media blitz either the media is

00:44:57.600 surprisingly positive about him and and within a week of him getting on and a week is generous

00:45:01.800 there'll be some horrific um attack and he's gonna have to find words to address because at the

00:45:07.880 moment he's just ignoring it like you said he's he's just dancing around he's not acknowledging

00:45:11.740 it but there will be a horrific attack and he will be expected to say something and if he says

00:45:16.540 nothing he's going to lose if he says something he's going to upset somebody yeah it's just

00:45:22.340 nothing there's nothing that he can do or any other politician that's willing to play within

00:45:26.720 this system can do yeah i know that's completely true and i mean he is still the most liked

00:45:33.280 politician but that's because i think he personally is quite a likable guy well and also he hasn't

00:45:39.080 been in westminster for more than a week exactly and he he got to build up a nice reputation as

00:45:43.760 the mayor of manchester which means it's not really a partisan position but already any and

00:45:48.740 again i need to stress the political media in this country is overwhelmingly blairite

00:45:54.740 sky telegraph even the daily mail is i mean the spectator edited by gove the daily mail calling

00:46:02.700 restore nazis like they're all fundamentally comfortable with the blairite settlement and

00:46:08.280 want to play in that sandpit burnham has been given a really easy ride by media by any standards

00:46:14.460 because a lot of it really does want tony blair's labor party to be in charge because if you think

00:46:20.160 of the age of the people who are editing this now that's when they were coming up their formative

00:46:25.440 years in politics in in the world were under cool britannia and tony blair's rictus grin of how

00:46:32.540 things can only get better and the the the political power system in this country is a

00:46:37.500 fully blairite system so therefore they are the people that get to hand out perks and patronage 0.67

00:46:42.300 and therefore if you are successful in this current world the easiest way to have got there

00:46:47.780 is to be in tune with the existing power structure because it's just by far you you can do it a

00:46:53.500 different way but it's just a hell of a lot harder and those people who are like our age or older

00:46:58.780 who are looking back at this system and this and in in its defense britain had a great run between

00:47:06.160 about 1995 and 2005 maybe even up to 2010 right we had a great run living standards were going up

00:47:14.580 like the the ability to buy houses was going up the cultural confidence in the end of the 90s

00:47:20.320 of the year 2000 of britain was spice girls and oasis and all this like we never not since the

00:47:26.700 60s and the beatles had we had this kind of cultural confidence and cultural impact 90s

00:47:32.180 golden age definitely it genuinely was and so for the people now running the country and i mean like

00:47:38.420 at every level like the politicians like literally andy burnham was a blairite minister uh the people

00:47:43.420 editing the daily mail or the spectator of the telegraph whatever it is for them burnham represents

00:47:49.260 a return to nostalgia right they he represents a safe golden age that he is promising to return to

00:47:56.500 so he's getting the most comfortable like it's literally like a water slide that's being greased

00:48:02.860 for him to slide down into number 10 and everyone's like oh my god it's coronation yeah you're all

00:48:07.000 coronating him but no one's going on the hard campaign against andy burnham and even we're not

00:48:11.940 doing that because it just doesn't seem worth it it doesn't seem what's the point you know i don't

00:48:17.340 hate andy burnham i don't think i mean like for us tried it in makerfield didn't work i just think

00:48:22.440 he's the wrong target because it's it's not it's not andy burnham the personality i just don't buy

00:48:27.160 into this whole personality thing it is it is the blairite system that has been built up that can

00:48:32.560 produce no other outcome than the outcome that it is currently producing for some reason more of the

00:48:37.820 same is not something i expect to give a yield a different result but anyway burnham's favorability

00:48:43.800 is going down not by a huge amount or anything like that but his unfavorability i mean he isn't

00:48:48.980 even in the job yet yeah but and also he was the mayor of manchester right i mean like if if we'd

00:48:55.300 gone back three years and just gone out on the street and be like have you ever heard of andy

00:48:59.620 burnham no unless you're asking in manchester exactly unless you're asking manchester why

00:49:04.640 would you have heard of andy burnham yeah i mean unless you're a labor party apparatchik

00:49:08.520 why would you i mean we remember him because we're political nerds enough to know who the

00:49:12.620 junior ministers in blair's government was yeah and and he was thoroughly i mean there was a

00:49:17.080 reason why he went to manchester because he was thoroughly uninspiring he kept failing in his

00:49:20.760 challenges for leadership yes because yeah as you say completely uninspiring but the point is the

00:49:26.440 more the more the public is becoming exposed to him they get an unfavorable opinion because they

00:49:30.580 don't think anything's going to change right here's an opinion poll for the observer and this is just

00:49:36.580 remarkable absolutely remarkable so andy burnham's hope and glory campaign and honestly i don't think

00:49:43.040 i don't think he could have run a better campaign in makerfield right i don't think he could come

00:49:47.720 out with a better pitch for well i mean he could come out the better pitch for the sort of moral

00:49:51.660 direction of the country but from his position as a labor grandee yes it's as good as it could

00:49:57.660 possibly have been but still only a third of labor voters labor voters yeah think that things are

00:50:03.960 going to get better yeah two-thirds of them like it's going to stay the same or get worse half of

00:50:09.820 that for all adults yeah oh yeah for when it comes to like all adults only 17 of the country

00:50:15.060 are going on this journey with him yes not even a not even the 21 who intend to vote labor think

00:50:21.700 this is going to get better right clearly things are going to get worse because nothing will change

00:50:25.140 except the debt will go up well i like the british public's wisdom it's going to stay about the same

00:50:29.440 as in things are going to crap no light at the end of the tunnel and things will just get worse

00:50:33.140 uh yeah i think i i i mean i think it will get worse actually because he's going to raise taxes

00:50:38.620 he's going to ignore immigration

00:50:39.920 he'll mess up in ways

00:50:42.340 the thing is he's going to try and do

00:50:44.720 what Keir Starmer had finally

00:50:46.920 learnt was impossible

00:50:48.420 which was try and change things

00:50:50.020 yes that's true

00:50:51.960 but yeah so

00:50:53.860 basically half the public like this isn't going to work

00:50:56.600 isn't going to fix anything

00:50:57.780 nothing's going to get better

00:50:59.020 it's probably going to get worse

00:51:00.500 and as you said pointing at Andy Burnham

00:51:04.340 and be like oh I hate Andy Burnham personally

00:51:05.820 who cares it's just a suit 0.91

00:51:08.380 well he's not even a suit actually he's wearing his bloody black shirt black t-shirt and a jacket

00:51:14.260 and his eyelashes and it's just like that's what we hear about it's like okay but the british

00:51:19.040 public isn't being fooled by this and they're not being won over by it and they might personally

00:51:23.240 think andy burnham's all right but then nothing's going to change uh so anyway so that's what's

00:51:28.900 happening on the left at the moment so the last great white hope for the labour party is andy

00:51:34.260 burnham and he's already lost the confidence of the voters uh on the right oh yeah things are

00:51:41.100 going weird man so we had the other day the storm in the teacup that was rupert low was like i'm

00:51:49.540 fine with multiculturalism if they integrate which obviously means multi-racialism but that caused a

00:51:54.820 massive fury in the online right yeah because oh rupert lowe is not like a wig now it's like

00:52:00.220 yeah duh obviously he's not a wig now he never said he was yes didn't say he was going to purge

00:52:04.160 every non-white person in the country what did you think he was saying why did you think he was 0.99

00:52:07.840 saying that you know but that like little stupid low is not steve law's yeah it was was the the 0.99

00:52:14.400 shocking lesson that the online wignats learned the other day and they were oh it's over it's like 0.97

00:52:18.820 what did you think but counter but counterpoint look at his policy i mean he he he's putting

00:52:23.920 bloody india and pakistan on a red list yes but just look at the actual policy yes he doesn't go

00:52:30.280 as far as steve law's that's still pretty he goes substantially further than everybody else 0.93

00:52:35.100 absolutely so that storm in the teacup passed very quickly like uh friends was a bit confected

00:52:41.460 but it was but it was it's also a sort of sign of the sort of ideological purism like a lot of

00:52:47.000 the communists i've seen communists say the same thing about keir starma leading the labor party

00:52:51.860 so yeah but look what he's doing he's getting you a lot closer to communism than anyone else

00:52:55.880 outside i mean there were a few people that we're friendly with who was who got involved in that

00:52:59.480 restore um you know that brief order and i just said look look you're just gonna have to settle

00:53:05.180 for getting 90 of what you want in the first parliament and if 90 in the first go is not

00:53:10.000 good enough for you then be a beautiful loser but that's that's what online ideological discourse

00:53:15.180 is it makes beautiful losers and it's not productive and it honestly it's like okay 0.96

00:53:20.680 you kind of want to i mean this is the famous thing about tony blair he always said no to his

00:53:25.180 left he just you know with his radicals on his left they were like we're demanding we're demanding

00:53:29.340 intended no we're not doing that but crucially he didn't make the mistake that both keir starmer

00:53:34.980 and nigel frage made which is he said no to them but he didn't exclude them yes he didn't expect

00:53:39.920 they were always welcome but but he just said no to them yeah here's here's the agenda this is what

00:53:45.480 we're doing we're not doing that yes you can carry on thinking what you want but this is what we're

00:53:48.940 doing and that's the sensible thing that rupert lowe's been doing he's not been excluding them

00:53:52.680 he's not like he's not turned on them he's not purged them you know he didn't kick steve laws

00:53:57.880 out he doesn't disavow and he's just like no i'm not i remember an interview with tony blair when

00:54:02.380 corbyn came to power and and and blair recited a number of times when he was prime minister

00:54:07.420 where he met with corbyn and he was perfectly civil to them and he just disagreed with him

00:54:11.840 but it didn't occur to him to kick him out the party and as a result you did not get the formation

00:54:17.980 of the green party when tony blair was in charge that has happened now under starmer and restore

00:54:23.280 has happened under farage because they think that you you can't just say no to people you you have

00:54:30.320 to excommunicate them but also um like tony blair understood you need the big tent coalition

00:54:38.460 right like and like i said restore now on the polar polls at five percent farage down to 25

00:54:44.940 well that's not your majority 30 plus that might be a majority you've actually harmed yourself by

00:54:52.320 being cruel to the radicals the one thing that does annoy me is some people who say

00:54:57.080 oh look and the logic for the big big tent is absolutely right and then they go on for that

00:55:02.380 like rafe at um um the policy or policy exchange new culture form yeah and he was saying look you

00:55:09.880 know the store have got to come all in on a big tent and it's like but it's literally impossible

00:55:14.500 because they were deliberately thrown out they they were pushed out it's not on them

00:55:18.720 virage would have to apologize to rupert lo publicly yes for anyone who's wondering how this

00:55:23.740 would have to happen he would have to come out and give a big me a couple and say look that was a

00:55:28.180 mistake i made i allowed zia yusuf to do this i made the mistake and i'm sorry rupert lo i would

00:55:35.480 love to make amends please can we go for dinner so i can apologize to you personally i'd like to

00:55:39.840 apologize to all of the restore supporters who also felt slighted by the way i'd behaved i wasn't

00:55:45.120 right to do it and actually i really want to make amends so for the sake of the country we can save

00:55:49.900 britain yeah and you know everyone that we kicked out we would like to bring back in we would like

00:55:55.360 you to come back into the fold and i'll make rupert lowe whatever you know give him a spokesman

00:56:00.280 position for you know reforms deportation i mean at this point it would have to be a very senior

00:56:05.060 one as well it would it would yeah especially given the sort of um clout rupert lowe the

00:56:10.260 political capital rupert loads generated like farage would have to humble himself to the point

00:56:14.880 where it's never going to happen yeah but i mean what you've just described is impossible for any

00:56:18.760 politician to do well i mean i don't think it would be impossible for any politician it's just

00:56:24.060 it's definitely impossible i can't remember ever seeing a politician anywhere in the western world

00:56:28.380 doing what you've just described maybe somebody can think of an example but i really think it

00:56:32.020 would raise farage's profile and star right i actually because after makerfield he came out

00:56:37.360 gave a bit of a mea culpa and actually i think everyone thought better of him for it right he

00:56:43.600 was like restore people what do you want you know like there was some sort of out outreach there

00:56:48.500 and he came out and was like yeah no we thought we were going to win but we didn't and that was

00:56:51.640 our fault and it's like okay that that's better than just being like belligerent partisan politician

00:56:57.940 right so it's not that it couldn't happen and actually it's a very good thing when it does

00:57:02.080 but there's no way farage is going to do this right so anyway in reform it's been a bit like

00:57:09.160 a pressure cooker and dr david bull the former chair of reform who stepped down in may um because

00:57:16.540 uh the stress of everything apparently he wanted to take some time off uh has come out and said

00:57:22.140 nigel farage should take a break from politics now he said quote reform the party is way bigger

00:57:29.300 than nigel politics is ruthless business i think also one of the other things i would say to farage

00:57:34.920 as a friend and colleague is he needs to take some time out and have a bit of a break really

00:57:38.680 well i mean that was what we were saying last week i mean one of the points we made is he when

00:57:42.900 he was doing all that head in the hand stuff every time he was having an interview is he's just a

00:57:47.780 he's such a different guy from a couple of years ago a couple years ago he was having fun um you'd

00:57:53.060 see with a pint in his hand laugh and it was a proper laugh as well you could tell he was enjoying

00:57:57.640 himself and he just feels really really stressed at the moment and and look obviously building a

00:58:03.320 political party is a big stressful job well i say stressful but it's it's very very challenging

00:58:09.360 yes but if you if you're loving what i mean working here sometimes can be like that

00:58:13.220 we're banging out stuff i mean quite often i film three times a day and you just get

00:58:17.020 little breaks in between and you're researching you're doing so a lot of the stuff you're

00:58:20.500 covering is harrowing yeah but it i i don't i don't ever come away and and the guys in restore

00:58:26.020 they're not like holding their heads in there they're not upset about warriors yes happy

00:58:30.140 warriors yes and we all are by the way you know you can see our group chats um they'll probably

00:58:35.500 get leaked um but the point is we're happy warriors whereas reform don't feel like happy

00:58:40.200 no they feel embittered yes and i think it genuinely comes from what farage and zia did

00:58:45.520 to rupert and this because this schism is a it's a much more stressful thing for reform than it is

00:58:52.000 for anyone else but where i'm going with that is it i i worked in loads of organizations loads of

00:58:57.760 teams loads of small growing businesses who've been doing stuff if everybody is aligned it

00:59:04.440 doesn't really matter how hard the work is you you actually still enjoy it it's when there are

00:59:12.160 internal tensions within the organization and you're trying to do something i mean if if you're

00:59:18.120 if there's internal tensions and you're not trying to do anything well that's just the public sector

00:59:21.440 that's the local council but if you're trying to do something and you're and you're loggerheads

00:59:25.980 that is a absolute hellscape to work in and it sounds like that's happening here he who has a

00:59:32.600 can bear anyhow yes that's exactly what it comes down to and exactly the like farage has made his

00:59:39.440 bed here right he's the one who did this to himself and of course this comes hot on the heels

00:59:45.240 of everyone going after him for this five million pound donation by christopher harbourn i don't

00:59:50.380 actually care about that i don't care about that at all no like yeah okay you know i like i i i

00:59:56.700 can understand some insanely wealthy man who wanted brexit wanting to reward for us yeah

01:00:04.220 giving brexit and i actually think that he should be rewarded for brexit yeah if it was up to me up

01:00:08.760 to me i would give him a knighthood and build a bloody statue of him in in westminster square

01:00:13.540 because i still appreciate what he did for brexit yeah i and and he should be he absolutely should

01:00:18.940 be rewarded and acknowledged and become a historic figure for it i just don't think that he i agree

01:00:24.880 with elon musk he hasn't got what he takes yeah and that's that's the first and just be clear i

01:00:28.880 don't hate nigel farage i'm frustrated with nigel farage i'm frustrated that you aren't the thing 0.88

01:00:33.640 you need to be and i've said this before you need to step into a new mold now nigel the the 0.90

01:00:38.340 conciliatory like returning king and you're not doing it and if he flipped into elder statesman 0.76

01:00:42.580 mode um you know i'd be all for him yeah and he because he could do that yeah like retire is

01:00:49.080 basically retire and be like a do your gb news show give your sort of and it's not that he doesn't

01:00:53.980 have intelligent and wise things to impart it's just he's made a hash of this he's made an absolute

01:01:00.160 mess of it and it's not good and so like yeah like i said i don't care about the money at all

01:01:04.840 and i i if i were the conservatives after brexit they should have just made him a conservative lord

01:01:09.720 yes wind up yes the party we make you a lord in the house of lords so you can go and make money

01:01:15.560 as you see fit you know you can and you can just live a happy life and be pressure on the back

01:01:19.700 benches or not the back benches in the house of lords when you want to be you know when you feel

01:01:24.200 like coming out and you know giving us a bit of a tongue lashing for not doing brexit row whatever

01:01:27.700 you can come out and do that because you're within our tent and we would have been secure 1.00

01:01:31.060 you know but they didn't because they were stupid and he didn't because he was stupid 1.00

01:01:35.440 with Rupert Lowe and it's like if the lesson has to be learned you can't just break off your radical 1.00

01:01:41.120 flank and expect it not to come back and bite you in the ass yeah whether you're Keir Starmer or 0.98

01:01:45.640 Nigel Farage whether you're Starmer whether you're the conservatives whether you're Farage 0.99

01:01:48.780 you you are dragged forward by your radical flank well yeah actually you're right because

01:01:53.340 you could look at it that the conservatives did exactly the same thing by by that I mean

01:01:57.980 they didn't quite expel their Brexit right but but they kind of did for a long time David Cameron

01:02:04.860 and the remainer faction kept control of it and it was only afterwards that boris johnson actually

01:02:09.280 got in with the brexiteer faction yes and farage recognized it was like okay stand down then back

01:02:14.760 at that time i knew several people who were still currently serving ministers yeah and

01:02:20.020 and i'm talking about several people here every one of them was a lifelong um brexiteer lifelong

01:02:28.420 anti-eu every single one of them signed up to the remain campaign because cameron well his

01:02:35.380 his acolytes went around to all of them and said look you won't have a career unless you back remain

01:02:39.260 and so they all flipped yeah i i know a bunch of people who are close to the boris faction

01:02:45.360 who were brexiteers and they won so good for them you know they they still lost their careers

01:02:51.060 so that that wasn't wrong yeah um but they were like the decent people in the tories who are like

01:02:56.760 no that is what we should be doing right and really again the tory should have just taken

01:03:02.860 farage in then like no we're trying to get nigel they probably should have done it 20 years ago

01:03:08.400 well yeah yeah okay yeah yeah but to be fair it was more obvious farage tells a story i mean

01:03:14.520 i had dinner with him years ago and he tells a story about how he was offered a senior position

01:03:19.800 under might have even been pre-blair uh sorry pre um cameron he was around about that time he was

01:03:26.760 offered a senior position he turned it down i don't know how true that is but well i mean it

01:03:31.180 might have been true um but he's in a position now that's too commanding right and in 2019 he

01:03:37.040 was in a commanding position like you know nigel farage was mr brexit according to trump so the

01:03:42.460 tory should have recognized that rather than pushing him out now look where he is because

01:03:46.140 they rejected their radical flank and look where he is now he's rejecting his radical flank there's

01:03:51.040 just no room to reject your radical flank you just have to tolerate them and in many ways the 0.79

01:03:55.100 radical flank is insufferable like we have to see the wignats on twitter whining at us constantly

01:03:59.940 what you don't think 100 whatever you know calm down you know calm down you know but you you can't 0.92

01:04:06.980 if somebody's a quarter whatever a quarter french you're gonna victim it's like no we're not gonna

01:04:11.560 do that exactly but but we recognize they are a part of what our political mission is and farage

01:04:17.780 refused to accept that and so now he's in a position where david bull one of his most long

01:04:22.940 time and loyal uh compadres is like you need to you need to relax mate you need a break

01:04:28.680 you need a break i mean you can see it from the public appearances guys frazzled yeah yeah and

01:04:33.980 this means there's a general schism in the party now don't worry about the headline here because

01:04:38.460 the lead is very fully buried at the bottom here but this is the interesting bit so this is

01:04:43.080 sebastian payne writing in the times uh here we go so there's a schism in the party about its

01:04:49.820 direction some notably notably its home affairs spokesman zia yusuf want to embrace the paranoid

01:04:55.820 style as identified by the political scientist richard hofstadter when examining barry goldwater

01:05:00.880 in the 1964 u.s presidential election a conspiratorial worldview that finds enemies

01:05:05.040 everywhere you can see this in yusuf's attacks on the media branding his rivals as traitors

01:05:08.980 there's constant war with the amorphous establishment whoever is in it there's a

01:05:12.920 reason that some in reform think yusuf is a menace as one senior counselor described him

01:05:16.740 and think his acolytes need to be contained even banished from the party now i think that's a

01:05:20.920 really uncharitable view of zia yusuf and i didn't think i'd be here mounting a massive

01:05:25.820 defense of zia yusuf well to be fair zia yusuf is the only one that i actually particularly like

01:05:30.060 yeah yeah i'm at the point now when i look at reform that zee yusuf is the person i most

01:05:36.160 identify with yes because he's clearly the right yes but yeah but he's the right of reform yes

01:05:43.260 he's found himself standing alone on the right after dealing with a political enemy to his right

01:05:48.000 and the thing is what once you start doing this process of we're just going to chop everybody on

01:05:52.920 the right well okay now zay yusuf is the guy on the right and if they chop him well then it'd be

01:05:59.460 so when a braverman is is and then we chop her let's put a pin in that because we're going to

01:06:03.140 come back oh okay second right so z yousef now represents the right now i i think calling it

01:06:09.060 the paranoid start again this is not fair because like his attacks on the media he's branding his

01:06:14.320 rivals as traitors and like the labor party the conservative party and all that and his constant

01:06:19.540 war with the amorphous establishment i endorse all of that he's right all i hear is zaya doesn't

01:06:25.800 want to toady up to people like sebastian pain but sebastian pain doesn't like that but also

01:06:29.760 zee youssef is against the blairite system that's what i hear i the media are the problem the the

01:06:35.560 the academics the intellectuals are the problem and the system itself is the problem and zee

01:06:39.800 youssef has recognized this and i forgot to get this clip but he he he he was on like lbc or

01:06:45.760 something he said i actually understand the desire to join restore and throw the biggest firebomb

01:06:52.360 you can at the establishment i understand that and he was actually very empathetic to the restored

01:06:56.460 position because it's what's necessary and so this is why he's like yeah no attack the media

01:07:01.820 attack the labor party as traitors constant war with the establishment he's right that's the

01:07:08.000 correct position the trumpian position no i'm at war with all of this and i want to flip the public

01:07:13.180 to my position because the system's killing them right that's perfectly reasonable on the other

01:07:17.360 side of that you now have the reform left which are the tories another faction within reform

01:07:25.320 argues for a less rebarbative more reasoned approach danny kruger these folks are the

01:07:31.980 former conservatives who yusuf openly loathes weirdly i'm toasting on yusuf's side here right

01:07:36.920 they argue privately that the use of racial politics was unnecessary was necessary to steal

01:07:41.320 rupert loath's restore party but the party ultimately needs to appeal to the center to

01:07:45.100 have any chance of winning. And of course you find Robert Jenrick, Danny Kruger on this side of

01:07:48.440 things, along with Lalia Cunningham. Farage is straddling both sides. Sometimes coming across

01:07:53.780 as more rational and traditional in his arguments, at other times he indulges in the paranoid style,

01:07:57.880 seen as a response to legitimate questions about the £5 million donation. But the uneasy internal

01:08:02.160 truce is breaking down. Reform has done very well so far thanks to a leader who outstrips the

01:08:06.220 party's popularity and who, despite its growth, has kept a lid on factionalism. Now both of those

01:08:12.680 fundamentals are under threat i think that's correct as well right yeah i mean they're keeping

01:08:16.420 a lid of factualism through a through a leader uh i mean in the same way that alexander the great did

01:08:23.060 but what happens the moment when when alexander is no longer around yes and so david ball being like

01:08:28.580 you're burnt out i can see you're burnt out you need to take we can see he's burnt out yeah

01:08:33.500 everyone can see he's burnt out but you need to take a break which is good advice on a personal

01:08:37.500 level but what happens with the party when nigel farage goes off for a month and everyone's like

01:08:43.420 oh right the top spot seems to be up for grabs yeah right if if there's a vacuum a power vacuum

01:08:49.900 and at one time zaya would have filled that role very comfortably but but now because danny kruger

01:08:55.360 has now got some more tory allies that's that's a big counterweight and and you can just see the

01:09:01.060 factionalizations fighting each other constantly if farage isn't there to tap it all down and

01:09:05.600 ironically zia yusuf would have been leaning on rupert low and us to counterbalance them if he

01:09:11.740 hadn't backstabbed rupert low so like this sort of like you know act in haste and repent at leisure

01:09:18.800 well now you're repenting at leisure i'd love to find out one day and i'm probably gonna have to

01:09:24.640 wait for zia yusuf's memoirs why did he get in on the axing of of low well he didn't he was already

01:09:31.900 in before he paid 200 grand and no no what why why did zai why did he was the participant yeah

01:09:39.120 yeah yeah yeah on on getting rid of low well i guess i guess at the time because there weren't

01:09:43.740 that many conservatives in the party were there at the time yeah uh you know all the tories hadn't

01:09:48.080 joined so i guess it was just looking at oh there's a lot of the the space on the right feels

01:09:53.800 quite squeezed if i get rid of the right wing guy i become the right wing i occupy this entire space

01:09:58.560 maybe but then a bunch of conservatives brought in it's like oh no i now we need some allies on

01:10:01.880 the right well oh no what happened to my allies right who knows dan hodges uh says something very

01:10:07.180 similar this is probably behind a paywall i know i've got the oh there we go right okay so dan

01:10:10.700 hodges says something similar um because he's speaking to people in uh westminster and um so

01:10:18.880 the uh the they talk about um whether the physical demands of leading the party virtually single

01:10:25.080 handedly are starting to catch up with the grandfather of british populism uh one i don't

01:10:30.660 know if i've got up there where it's in here somewhere right i've got out anyway right i'll

01:10:35.980 read it off my notes um uh one pointed to the way he'd twice cancelled in quick succession planned

01:10:41.900 appearances on bbc's flagship laura kusenberg show that's a big audience and usually he revels

01:10:47.580 in those outings missing one is fine but two that's not like him according to reports faraj

01:10:52.200 has told allies he wants to take a break from working at weekends so one friend told me he's

01:10:56.140 been working flat out for two years the general election through to the local elections he's

01:11:00.300 earned a bit of downtime which is of course the view covered by david bull which is not wrong

01:11:05.900 but um the problem is this is unsustainable because let's say he he's working flat out and

01:11:14.960 he's working weekends and then he actually wins the election what's he going to do take a holiday 0.82

01:11:18.960 then no yeah when do you get your holiday nigel yes the answer is never so anyway let's carry on

01:11:26.080 right so um he's also reported to have spent uh time visiting his close confident george cottrell 0.66

01:11:32.240 who's based in montenegro and according to his friend he is not solely focusing on his party

01:11:36.440 when he meets wealthy finances financiers nigel understands politics is precarious he has to

01:11:41.320 think of his future and his family's future hmm i was about to making money thing yes uh dan hodges

01:11:48.720 also says he's told the experience of walking into trump's mar-a-lago beach club and being

01:11:53.180 feted by the leader of the free world is up there with the greatest moments of nigel farage's life

01:11:58.060 but that alliance is drawing to a close there's already been a bit of distancing one farage ally

01:12:02.660 reveals and nigel knows the relationship is not going to be there for much longer trump is going

01:12:06.960 to be gone before the next election you won't have that to lean on anymore as in trump's time

01:12:11.900 in office will expire before the 2029 elections because by in 2028 so and even then we've as

01:12:18.640 we've been talking about previously for trump has very clearly distanced himself yeah very clearly

01:12:24.800 and and i don't see uh marco rubio or vance you know bridging that gap either i mean if france

01:12:32.660 were to win a general election and become prime minister i'm sure rubio advance would

01:12:36.220 oh yeah they'd have some sort of communication with him but then but they're not oh i think

01:12:41.220 they'd be tighter than you think but but it's still not trump calling him mr brexit you know

01:12:47.140 when he was all tanned he's not going to go back to the fated thing no exactly you know and and that

01:12:51.720 is an emotional issue he thinks for farage um and anyway so they've gone on with the

01:12:57.440 professionalization which the professionalization project has apparently stalled a few months ago

01:13:03.040 everyone conceded that everything was too centralized around nigel and he's up for

01:13:06.120 changing that but nothing's happened there's drift zia is fighting for control others are

01:13:10.540 fighting for control but no one's in charge so there was talk of nigel appointing a new chief

01:13:14.780 of staff but that's run in sand and so you get this power struggle in the party um and so this

01:13:20.680 happened on bbc question time and it was can i just make what you say wrapping up on that last

01:13:26.500 point there is only one way to grow a large organization very rapidly and that is to

01:13:32.200 constantly and i do mean constantly push every decision down to the lowest level that that

01:13:37.840 decision can be made yeah and if you ever see a decision be made at a level where it could be

01:13:43.180 made at a low at a lower level aggressively push that down and make sure decisions are made at the

01:13:48.020 lowest level possible fundamentally the opposite of the strategy for archers as pursued as we've

01:13:54.940 ever seen which is to bring every decision up to the top it just you you i mean you don't have the

01:14:00.160 bandwidth you can run us you can run a small organization that way but it will just crash

01:14:04.700 and burn if you try and do that on a large scale you don't have the bandwidth you're just one man

01:14:08.300 anyway so coming back to that pin with zia yusuf and the power struggle in reform this is what he

01:14:14.460 said on question time the other day i just says here you one thing that never ceases to amaze me

01:14:19.940 is you talk about government how easy it is to run government you talk yet you've never stood for

01:14:25.540 government you've never stood for parliament you know andy burton to be fair to him and you

01:14:29.880 criticize many things he's done and said but at least he's been willing to put his head above the

01:14:34.340 parapet why have you not done that why are you not stood in some of the by

01:14:38.020 elections the opportunities you've had around the country to get elected

01:14:47.940 what makes you think i never uh put myself above the parapet and wanted to

01:14:51.620 stand in the by-election kevin well you haven't done that have you

01:14:54.820 what makes you think that because you haven't stood zia

01:14:59.300 anybody who wants to stand in the by-election automatically gets to do so

01:15:02.180 maybe in the conservative party where it's just cronyism and nothing else matters mate

01:15:05.940 um but i think you made a lot of very big assumptions okay so that's interesting

01:15:09.380 so have you have you put your name forward to stand in by-elect we have an application process

01:15:13.940 uh to stand in parliamentary by-elections and all i'd say is that uh coming after me for not

01:15:19.700 being willing to stand in a parliamentary by-election is incorrect and hugely presumptuous

01:15:24.360 What did they do?

01:15:24.960 Why did they stop?

01:15:25.540 Did they refuse you?

01:15:28.960 Well, that's interesting, isn't it?

01:15:30.380 I mean, that is not the political answer.

01:15:33.440 No.

01:15:34.220 That is the answer of,

01:15:35.540 I'm in a faction that's being marginalised,

01:15:37.920 and the Tories in my party have marginalised. 0.69

01:15:40.460 Because we assumed Zia Yusuf was just being clever.

01:15:43.640 Because we assumed Zia Yusuf had a level of power and influence,

01:15:46.520 and we spoke about this a couple of episodes ago.

01:15:48.420 Yeah, and didn't want to dilute it.

01:15:49.860 Whereas basically what he said there is, 1.00

01:15:51.100 they picked that idiot Matt GPT instead. 1.00

01:15:53.580 Yes. 1.00

01:15:54.260 Yeah, they picked Matt GPT.

01:15:55.560 They picked Robert Kenyon.

01:15:56.660 They didn't pick me.

01:15:58.240 And like you said, that's not the political.

01:16:00.280 It's coming out on question time and being like,

01:16:03.000 I'm being sidelined in my own party for some reason.

01:16:06.740 That's a hell of an admission.

01:16:08.460 Hell of an admission.

01:16:09.900 I mean, it's virtually an attack on the Tories in reform.

01:16:15.320 And again, I'm actually very sympathetic to this here.

01:16:18.540 Actually, just through seniority alone,

01:16:21.420 he should get the first pick, surely, you know?

01:16:23.300 and it's not like he's an incompetent speaker in public or anything like that he handled himself

01:16:27.000 fine on question time and he has done multiple times so it's not like he can't be relied upon

01:16:30.360 pretty sure he would have done better than matt gpt as well absolutely yeah so will farage be pm

01:16:36.180 well as we talked about a while ago when he had his head in his hands it's not looking great

01:16:39.740 but of course when robert jenrick is asked about this on sky news oh absolutely absolutely even

01:16:45.180 though farage himself been like well someone better might come along i don't know i can't

01:16:50.620 so yeah it's like i weird stuff i think farage is getting burnt out and there's a power struggle

01:16:56.680 going on and it's uh zeer yusuf is losing it actually so anyway um i think we are actually

01:17:05.080 at a moment where things are changing right the labor party is on its last legs it doesn't look

01:17:11.360 like it's on its last legs if you look at the media narrative so andy burnham's gonna save us

01:17:15.840 but we all know that the thing the thing that worries me most is that when you say things are

01:17:19.940 changing is the the argument could be interpreted and say explicitly this is what you meant

01:17:26.000 but things will be changing back to how they were because what you've basically just described

01:17:31.820 is how um reform is is basically shape-shifting back into the conservative party

01:17:41.040 um the the okay so on on the left i actually think that labor is running out of track

01:17:50.240 right i think that the the narrative that is keeping andy burnham afloat

01:17:55.400 is going to insect with reality very soon i think he's just always the biggest problem for the

01:18:01.320 socialists i think he's just going to crater right yes he's going to try doing a bunch of 1.00

01:18:08.340 things that don't substantively change anything things will get worse there'll be more foreigners 0.98

01:18:12.940 we will have to pay more money cost of living will go up everyone be like why are these murders 1.00

01:18:17.100 happening on the streets handy you will have no answers for any of them right and no one else in

01:18:22.000 the labor party will have the political capital to come forward and say i could fix it he's i think

01:18:27.840 probably their last chance and i mean maybe ed milliband or someone or you know but i think and

01:18:33.660 on the right-hand side of politics on the right-hand side of politics the conservative party

01:18:38.440 have made no ground whatsoever right and i don't think they're gonna make any ground but they have 0.99

01:18:42.300 done well to hold on they've held yes well i think they've held because the boomers are like 0.72

01:18:48.460 finally the black woman who won't be called racist and tell it like it is oh they really 0.59

01:18:52.540 do think that yeah but they're on a ticking clock yes their share is just decreasing every day

01:18:58.060 and so reform are going to fall into a civil war if they're not already in hot civil war

01:19:07.940 in their own parts i mean this i i sounds a lot like a cold civil wars going on at the moment

01:19:12.460 yeah but this feels like the first shot across the bowels yes actually from zia where it's like

01:19:17.200 there's there's been a lot of positioning they say a cold war going on in reform but this feels

01:19:22.620 like a first shot no i was blocked from standing somewhere so why would you be blocked you're

01:19:27.360 literally this the co-owner of the company that is reform if they can block you like who knows

01:19:34.180 what's going on and this feels like the opening shot of the actual hot civil war and reform

01:19:37.940 especially if nigel fryer said look i just need to take a couple months off i just need to go to

01:19:42.160 a retreat enjoy my five million pounds and you know drink some yeah cocktails don't you guys

01:19:48.140 fight while i'm away yeah yeah right so it honestly could be going into meltdown especially

01:19:54.400 as the polls are not exactly glowing for anyone really so if they go into a public meltdown

01:20:01.000 oh yeah down in the polls the public hate that when they see absolutely no one thinks anything's

01:20:07.020 going to get better people aren't really excited for a general election and i mean restore is

01:20:11.820 slowly ticking up so that's good but basically it looks like meltdown on the right and on the left

01:20:17.980 and so i don't know what comes after this but i do think we're arriving at this point where there's

01:20:23.760 kind of like an irrevocable chain there is another potential way of looking at it is which is to go

01:20:28.940 back to my sort of analogy of the machine yeah labor will not be able to get a different result

01:20:34.500 from the machine than the machine is willing to give yeah and the party of the right will

01:20:39.960 ultimately end up resembling what the conservatives are because that is what the machine requires the

01:20:45.600 party on the right to be and and you could almost follow reform as as basically it's being forced

01:20:51.640 to become ever more tory-ish in order to comply with the machine which again leads me back to my

01:20:57.820 earlier stuff um that we're talking about on the show where i said ultimately i think it's going

01:21:02.940 to come down to restore and the greens because they're the only two parties are willing to break

01:21:08.440 the machine the greens will break it from the left and restore will break it from the right

01:21:13.040 but you've now got labor the tories and it looks like increasingly the tories especially if they

01:21:19.100 ditch zaya yusuf where you've basically got three three main parties that are that are trying to

01:21:25.960 operate on the machine without breaking it first yes so i think your prediction that will be greens

01:21:31.660 versus restore eventually is going to come to pass but the point is i think we're we're passing a

01:21:36.840 point of no return right i think what's happening is it's going to like andy burnham i think will

01:21:41.220 make it patently obvious that the controlled opposition in the tories isn't going to work

01:21:46.020 the Labour Party as the sincere believes in the system won't work and so essentially the the the

01:21:52.040 Blairite consensus like I said is running out of track and I mean maniacs on either side can carry

01:21:59.220 on laying track to get ahead but the only promise there is revolution basically yeah so I mean how

01:22:06.440 how surprising is it that this machine which has got you know the Blair engine written on the side

01:22:12.120 only ever produces blairite results yes of course it does yeah and so anything that's not prepared

01:22:18.280 to be off the track of blairism and prepared to lay its own track is just going to have a meltdown

01:22:23.560 in public in the center and i think that's what's going to happen in the near future

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - July 01, 2026

Britain's Liminal Moment

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