The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - It's All to Play for in Makerfield

00:00:00.000 hi folks welcome back to another one of our political chats uh we have our first guest

00:00:04.060 in the studio i don't know if he'll be any good you know yeah i i was wondering why you drafted

00:00:10.480 me into this and i said to dan i feel like this series has had a sort of top gear of politics

00:00:14.320 vibe and so yeah he did a richard hammond complete the set i'm not sure why you're

00:00:18.880 calling carl james may because he can't drive oh that's it yep it's true yeah yeah he doesn't get

00:00:24.000 to be the jeremy clarkson of politics he's obviously the jeremy clarkson oh are you kidding

00:00:27.040 clearly clearly i'm being ganged right without having any guess ever again uh anyway so today

00:00:32.720 we're going to be talking about makefield because everything all eyes are on makefield and everyone

00:00:36.240 knows it and it's weird how opaque it is from the outside because actually surprisingly little

00:00:43.400 polling has been done and surprisingly uh little information seems to actually be trickling out

00:00:49.800 from the perspective of the those people in the westminster bubble and us in the hinterlands

00:00:54.960 so we're going to be talking about um how restore are they're getting noticed right they it's got

00:01:01.580 to the point now and just for anyone wonders uh we're all members of restore and we support

00:01:05.980 restore and we want restore to win just so our biases are crystal clear hate farage hate labor

00:01:10.540 hate tories hate greens hate lib dems like they're all terrible we're for us but we do love our

00:01:16.520 country and that's why we're backing restore exactly um well and we're going to be talking

00:01:20.900 how they they just can't ignore us at this point right they can talk they they cannot invite us on

00:01:26.480 to talk to them about the issues but they can't ignore that we're a force in british politics and

00:01:31.240 that's been what three months you can see the the fear that they have that's barely concealed

00:01:35.220 because of just the contours because of how they've been by their own admission overreacting

00:01:40.260 having all of their surrogates on x in mobilizing the media that we've covered on the podcast before

00:01:45.720 for an all-out spectrum attack and almost doing contradictory and and and every line possible to

00:01:52.880 try and just find a gap in the armor that will eventually just immobilize their opponents and

00:01:56.160 it just makes them look histrionic yes and i mean dan hodges called it perfectly actually and he's

00:02:01.640 not someone whose predictions i respect normally he was like yeah look they're gonna start attacking

00:02:05.880 restore and that's gonna raise restore salience and suddenly uh we're gonna be everywhere and

00:02:09.940 then we're gonna be talking about the canvases the restore canvases in makefield what they're

00:02:13.240 finding and then we're going to find and then we're going to talk about reforms rearguard action

00:02:16.960 against this so let's let's begin so we are we are mainstream now right it's understood that we

00:02:23.460 have an mp we have a very large and very uh skilled media social media apparatus and and i

00:02:32.680 don't i don't just mean us i don't just mean the restore team themselves i mean our activists as

00:02:37.520 in the many hundreds of thousands of people who have been politically engaged no like no i'm

00:02:42.180 arguing the case in the comment section i'm posting on facebook i'm posting wherever i mean

00:02:47.060 i i saw there's a there's a just an organic rupert lowe facebook group half a million people in him

00:02:52.280 at this point right that i found that it suggested to me i was like oh join

00:02:55.700 we've got an anon battalion yeah no absolutely we've got the anon battalion it like the the

00:03:01.300 the air war for restore britain is going very very well very well so i think journalists would

00:03:06.760 have been aware of that for a while because journalists are overwhelmingly on x of course

00:03:10.320 you'll find they don't want to talk about it yeah you'll find voters on facebook but journalists on

00:03:14.260 x and so we've been dominating that because restore is backed by the online right where all

00:03:18.640 the sort of youthful energy is so they've been well aware of it and so they started out for a

00:03:22.620 long time saying oh this is just you know people online very online it is always an online based

00:03:27.700 attack but now they're starting to see it come through in so many other ways that they that they

00:03:32.340 feel that oh damn we're going to have to find a new narrative here yeah and this we'll play a bit

00:03:36.860 of a clip from Jacob Rees-Mogg on Laura Kusenberg's show on the BBC where they have to talk about us. 0.94

00:03:43.200 Right. If Restore, which was a sort of splinter off, Nigel Farage had a big fallout with a man

00:03:47.740 called Rupert Lowe who was a reform MP and he set up his new outfit. Do you think there's a risk

00:03:52.080 that reform might lose because of that fallout and the right splits? Well, I keep on banging on

00:03:56.260 that the right should come together. We need to work out how we can cooperate to win elections

00:04:01.820 like this. There's a by-election in Aberdeen South going on at the same time. What I suggested is the

00:04:06.200 Tories should help reform in Makerfield

00:04:08.560 in return for reform helping us in Aberdeen South.

00:04:11.920 But if we could win both of those,

00:04:13.520 that would be very positive for the small-c conservatives 0.87

00:04:16.680 in British politics.

00:04:18.320 And I think Restore vote is a wasted vote.

00:04:21.040 I mean, it is not helping anybody.

00:04:23.060 But some people in reform seem to be quite rattled by it, though.

00:04:26.800 Well, Rupert Lowe has the support of Elon Musk,

00:04:30.460 so everything he says on social media gets tens of millions of views.

00:04:34.300 Which matters in politics in the 21st century.

00:04:36.420 Which matters in politics.

00:04:37.360 Whether those tens of millions of views are in England

00:04:39.120 or whether they're in the United States, I don't know.

00:04:42.240 I've got a few things about this.

00:04:44.820 Number one, Elon Musk doesn't own Facebook.

00:04:47.080 And Farage is getting annihilated in the analytics.

00:04:50.900 And Rupert Lowe's biggest platform is by far Facebook.

00:04:54.460 Exactly.

00:04:54.980 Where the voters are.

00:04:55.620 The second thing is, I find it very conspicuous

00:04:58.100 that about a month or so ago,

00:05:00.020 the other version of this operation of uniting the right

00:05:03.780 was actually bringing a few of us into the fold

00:05:05.380 because the people that were sort of perpetuating

00:05:07.200 the need for a Tory reform pact

00:05:08.920 because they have a strong, sentimental attachment

00:05:10.960 to the Tory party and want to see it salvaged

00:05:13.000 were David Starkey, who I greatly respect,

00:05:16.060 and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

00:05:17.460 Starkey had me on his show

00:05:18.860 and that was the first time that Starkey had been critiqued

00:05:20.520 from the right.

00:05:21.460 And he opened with this structured line of questioning

00:05:26.040 that tried to represent Rupert as a proper Tory,

00:05:29.920 as someone like, basically,

00:05:31.060 he should just be in the Tory party.

00:05:32.260 And if he's in the Tory party,

00:05:33.120 He's safely sequestered there.

00:05:34.180 They can join a pact with reform

00:05:35.160 and everyone can unite the right

00:05:36.380 and we can get back onto the things

00:05:37.400 they're more comfortable with.

00:05:38.640 Malk obviously interviewed Rupert,

00:05:40.260 cut out the section where he criticised Farage

00:05:42.400 because they wanted to bring us all onto the plantation.

00:05:45.240 We resisted that.

00:05:46.240 And so now, now that we have refused

00:05:48.500 the containment operation,

00:05:49.840 now they're bucking.

00:05:50.860 Now they're dismissing.

00:05:51.520 Now they're calling us far.

00:05:52.420 This is right.

00:05:53.340 So it began about a month ago with,

00:05:56.140 I can't remember whose podcast he was on,

00:05:57.660 but he was on someone's podcast.

00:05:59.480 And he just flatly said,

00:06:01.740 restore will be nothing.

00:06:03.120 It will get zero in the polls.

00:06:04.320 It will not be an issue.

00:06:05.200 ADT, I think it was.

00:06:06.220 I think it was.

00:06:07.240 You're saying Mog was doing that.

00:06:08.400 Mog said this, right?

00:06:09.600 And then about a week later, it was clear,

00:06:12.200 oh no, actually, Restore have got some legs.

00:06:14.300 And so on his own YouTube channel,

00:06:16.140 he put out a video saying,

00:06:17.080 well, we need to unite the right.

00:06:18.440 We need to get the Tories and reform

00:06:19.640 and just even Restore need to come together.

00:06:22.560 And then a week after that, he was calling us racists

00:06:25.300 because, as you said, we resisted the containment.

00:06:28.600 So that latter reference that you're making there,

00:06:30.880 I remember seeing that one.

00:06:31.740 And that was the one where Mogg was saying,

00:06:33.500 okay, well, look,

00:06:34.840 obviously conservatives need to do a deal with reform

00:06:37.020 because conservatives are basically stegosaurus at this point.

00:06:40.200 And then he was saying, okay,

00:06:41.380 and we can bring in Rupert Lowe,

00:06:43.060 but we've got to cut off the online right.

00:06:45.100 We've got to get rid of them

00:06:45.980 because those people we don't want.

00:06:47.880 I mean, that is the basis.

00:06:49.960 That is the energy.

00:06:50.940 That is where the youth is at.

00:06:52.240 That's where the culture is moving to.

00:06:54.540 And he's so far in the, well, he's a Tory.

00:06:56.260 He's so far in the past that he can't see the moment.

00:06:59.840 He knows it, yeah.

00:07:00.400 And he wants to sever the flower from its roots, so if you have Rupert the flower, it wilts and dies in your hands, so it's safely disconnected from the online right.

00:07:08.720 But look at his dismissiveness now. A vote for Restore is a wasted vote. Well, it's only a wasted vote until it's not.

00:07:14.540 In Makerfield, where the Conservatives probably are going to lose their deposit.

00:07:16.660 Well, it wasn't in Great Yarmouth, where they absolutely destroyed all of the opposition, Conservatives and Reform, on a completely level playing field.

00:07:25.380 right so you know you can say that but again this feels like a rearguard uh frankly coping and

00:07:31.720 seething action where it's like well what what if what if that narrative just doesn't land um so

00:07:37.080 anyway i saw this clip from the times podcast that uh rupert lowe had put out a bbc newscast sorry

00:07:42.300 uh where the guy is from the times he is from the times podcast that's right um where and i i'm one

00:07:47.580 of the very i'm one of the tens of people in britain who watches the times podcast unfortunately

00:07:51.780 so yeah it's insanely boring but it tells you where elite opinion is even if no one's listening

00:07:56.080 to them and they just can't believe it something that both uh reform and labor people have said to

00:08:02.660 me is there is a another force an unexpected force in this restore britain the party set up by

00:08:07.560 rupert lowe the former reform mp who's kicked out reform by nigel farage last year set up his own

00:08:13.680 party uh significantly to the right of um to the right of reform and the cabinet minister said to

00:08:19.960 me on saturday you know yes lot of love for andy it's going to be hard for the labor party but the

00:08:26.420 thing that most struck me is this restore britain lot are a real thing i saw them canvassing people

00:08:31.080 were mentioning them on the doorstep it was a real thing in a way that nobody is quite expected

00:08:35.320 love it so a couple of things on this i get the vibe from perhaps dan hodges and labor that they

00:08:42.220 do actually want to big up restore britain because they think they're buying into this

00:08:45.780 now to the jacobie smog has which is that the right wing vote is a fixed pie and so they can

00:08:49.820 split it divide and conquer but it actually gives me the vibe of hillary clinton and the campaign 0.99

00:08:54.420 propping up donald trump as a pied piper candidate and it comes back and bites them in the ass because 0.99

00:08:57.620 they'd actually rather nigel farage as their enemy because he's still on the plantation 0.99

00:09:01.640 whereas we're not and the thing that gave that away is actually um i also have the the misfortune

00:09:06.360 of listening to the daily tea and michael gove was on there last week and when asked about reform

00:09:12.120 UK, he was like, oh, there's people I respect

00:09:16.120 in reform. They're voting for reform.

00:09:17.820 He said, what about Restore? And he went, Restore is a joke

00:09:20.100 and Rupert Lowe is a joke. It's a party of jokes.

00:09:21.980 And that was vindictive. Now, if you remember,

00:09:24.000 who was the person who invited Rupert Lowe on the

00:09:25.800 Spectator immediately after he was expelled from

00:09:28.020 Reform, back when he thought Reform could

00:09:30.000 be strangled in the crib? Who was

00:09:32.080 made to look like an arse when Rupert sat there 0.99

00:09:34.080 and said, it was you, Michael. You did COVID. 0.99

00:09:36.060 You did Transitor. Who else was 1.00

00:09:37.880 banned by Michael Gove from the physical

00:09:40.200 premises of the Spectator after having a debate?

00:09:42.120 The moment that they can't contain you,

00:09:44.600 they have this sort of acid reflux reaction.

00:09:47.600 They spit you up.

00:09:49.120 And that's what they're experiencing now.

00:09:50.860 And that's precisely what's happening.

00:09:52.260 But as the Times and BBC have realized,

00:09:56.520 oh no, this is coming from the door.

00:09:58.300 As in, people are like, oh no, I quite like Rupert Lowe, actually.

00:10:00.820 And people are like, you're not supposed to even know that this party exists.

00:10:05.600 How is this a thing in this constituency?

00:10:07.500 It's like, well, it turns out the air war is quite important.

00:10:09.720 and actually the boomerwaffen on facebook are influential like these are huge groups there's

00:10:15.440 a million and they think they've they've scored some great victory by removing restore from

00:10:19.420 question time no i think that was to our advantage yes it was rather keep our candidate pounding the

00:10:25.240 ground in maker field and having normal conversations with normal people rather than

00:10:28.940 engaging in the thunderdome of gotcha politics that is currently slaying robert kenyon that

00:10:34.620 question time was just a liberal tone policing it was it was no it was just a struggle session

00:10:38.400 a woke struggle session

00:10:39.820 with Jabba the Hutt

00:10:41.180 shaking her

00:10:42.300 looking down

00:10:42.960 through her

00:10:43.460 like rimmed glasses 0.99

00:10:44.880 watching Wazowski

00:10:45.980 yeah yeah yeah

00:10:46.660 it's like

00:10:47.480 why would you go on this

00:10:48.880 how does this help

00:10:49.740 well you're right

00:10:50.300 it's nullified Rob Kenyon

00:10:51.680 because I think

00:10:52.300 and trying to be

00:10:53.620 as impartial as possible here

00:10:54.900 I think that

00:10:55.640 if you were to put

00:10:56.280 the candidates side by side

00:10:57.400 Rob Kenyon has a stronger

00:10:58.620 presentation

00:10:59.080 and on paper

00:11:00.160 he has stronger qualifications

00:11:01.260 like NHSX Army

00:11:02.440 all these things

00:11:02.900 however

00:11:03.680 the moment that you engage

00:11:05.000 with that longhouse

00:11:06.200 dialectically

00:11:07.040 yes

00:11:07.500 weaker position

00:11:08.220 And also, if you are in a party which is acting as if it is weak, despite you being a strong candidate, you are briefed with weakness.

00:11:14.220 You are briefed to apologise and concede.

00:11:16.500 And so, if he'd gone in there, I think you said this to me just before, if he'd gone in there full plumber mode, and he said to Fiona Bruce, all right, love, quiet.

00:11:23.000 Like, people would actually respect him, but he didn't.

00:11:25.480 And so, by not engaging...

00:11:27.180 Oh, he's clearly been heavily briefed.

00:11:29.480 By Farage.

00:11:30.380 By Tice.

00:11:30.880 It'll be Tice.

00:11:31.760 I know, I know, I'm joking.

00:11:32.560 but like but you are right the briefing into being the the the the weak party to heal in

00:11:39.000 the conversation it's like no no no exactly well and the briefing would have been something like

00:11:43.580 they're probably going to attack you with this thing from your past or something that you've

00:11:46.760 said this is how you apologize yes yeah completely the wrong tactic the tactic has to be some

00:11:52.660 variation of what rupert low which is to say i don't care i don't care about your long housing

00:11:58.020 tone policing yeah that's exactly what it is um and so like and this has been restore strength

00:12:04.680 from word go is just say we're not going to engage in the tone policing struggle session

00:12:09.880 dialectic of being woke and you being the right wing of woke means you always lose that argument

00:12:15.480 it's like no we're not the right wing of work that's correct and we don't care and so you get

00:12:19.920 incredible incredible uh bits the camera from sky news where they just went just trying to tell them

00:12:27.120 about Restore Britain's policies is an incredible advert.

00:12:30.220 But consensus isn't really what Elon Musk does.

00:12:33.140 For nearly a fortnight, he's been posting in lurid terms about the murder.

00:12:37.580 He responded approvingly, for example, to the ex-Reform Party MP Rupert Lowe,

00:12:41.700 who vowed this week that his new party, Restore Britain, would, and I quote,

00:12:46.440 with the British people's approval, put Vikram Digwa, Novak's murderer, to death.

00:12:52.320 The new Texas Chainsaw Massacre looks terrifying.

00:12:54.060 how much money would i have had to have spent to get sky news to deliver that line

00:13:00.760 like how much that this is purely this is trumpian you could you could imagine all the boomers at

00:13:06.720 home the ones who still watch tv who haven't really been exposed to this but they know deep

00:13:11.220 down something is terribly terribly wrong in the country they heard that and they're like what

00:13:14.580 what rupert lowe is going to put vikram digua to death great i want him put to death this i mean

00:13:22.560 like i said this is trumpian uh media manipulation 101 right we're going to build a big wall and 0.94

00:13:29.160 make them pay makes co-pay for it and i'm like look at this ridiculous thing and everyone's like

00:13:32.800 brilliant finally someone's going to do something about the problem well the great genius of trump

00:13:36.820 is is he figured out how to get free advertising which is say something outrageous and the liberal

00:13:41.640 media will run with it for two weeks say something else and they can't they're like dogs chasing

00:13:46.140 off the cars they can't stop themselves you know but what happens when they catch the car while

00:13:49.780 they get a trump president faraj understood this for about a week where he said sort of the cold

00:13:54.940 rage comment and then because of the the kickoff in in southampton then all of his surrogates spent

00:14:01.580 the last few days explaining how well that's not really what he meant take ownership of it and so

00:14:06.260 the moment you're explaining you're losing yes if you're not setting the agenda for them to react

00:14:09.220 to you then you're the right wing work you're on the back foot yeah and that's this is what um

00:14:13.680 faraj's surrogates are saying like you know friendly you used car salesman rahim khatam

00:14:18.300 uh has been molding over restore britain constantly uh if they're not a threat why

00:14:22.160 their problem well they are a threat let me explain no i'm not interested in you explaining

00:14:25.560 because that's you losing uh we are a threat good enough let's move on right so let's talk

00:14:31.340 about the pollsters so um the pollsters uh have been rated here under the on the election data

00:14:36.680 vault and servation are a pretty good one actually servation uh have a reliable record when it comes

00:14:42.880 to general elections and they've been doing some polling in uh makefield now the current uh state

00:14:50.000 of affairs with the polls is not really very different to what it was like a month ago uh

00:14:56.100 reform have gone into their dip they they the lowest point i think they're on average 24 but

00:15:02.680 they've managed to recover slightly to an average of 26 which is not great so about a quarter of

00:15:07.100 the electorate overall the confidence intervals there are not not tight though so no well the

00:15:13.000 restore peaks and troughs as well need to be explained i promise i'm not doing a mock cope

00:15:17.700 but it's because the early ones were polls that were prompting and ever since they've been polls

00:15:23.120 like the yougov one where you're in a second page drop down menu where you've got to go out of your

00:15:26.980 way to do it yeah and they're well aware that if i mean this is all uh containment so suppression

00:15:33.520 strategy exactly it's a suppression strategy but um but the the situation hasn't terribly changed

00:15:38.600 the conservative and labor party on 18 and 16 respectively greens on 16 lib dems on their

00:15:44.120 eternal 12 percent and reform not really gaining any ground they're not losing any ground nationally

00:15:51.080 but they're not gaining anything and i think clearly no energy there exactly it's it's a

00:15:56.480 it's very clearly a kind of um a loveless marriage you know so like well i've just settled

00:16:02.400 you know okay this is the best i'm going to do therefore well a loveless marriage between

00:16:06.600 reform leadership and reform voters i mean that's a perfect description they are tolerating each

00:16:11.940 other because they they both think they can't do any better but if a sexy neighbor starts uh you

00:16:16.520 know well the online right was a sexy neighbor and reform leadership like no no not interested 1.00

00:16:20.780 but but you know now now you've got the uh the you know if the sexy neighbor buys the house next 0.96

00:16:25.600 door and starts winking over the fence who knows right that maybe those voters don't stay with

00:16:30.820 reform anyway so we got the first servation oh sorry let's let's uh yeah sorry got this map of

00:16:36.480 makefield before we get into the servation polls so um this is the manchester mill um our cartographer

00:16:41.660 josh howsdon mapped voting patterns across the constituency now i think this is important because

00:16:45.580 i suspect this indicates wealth uh more than anything so of course labor are the party of

00:16:50.540 the rich in this country and so just this so for anyone who doesn't know makefield is not actually

00:16:56.260 a place right what you have uh three or four towns that have been conglomerated into

00:17:03.020 makerfield so it's the same actually it's kind of like the south cotswolds constituency which is

00:17:07.940 you know right next to swindon but actually includes sort of pertin and um you know i don't

00:17:14.660 even know what's in it actually because it's a recent redistricting but um it probably wouldn't

00:17:18.520 pass it perhaps not wouldn't pass it but a bunch of cheltenham you know they've done the same in

00:17:23.080 southeast where they've connected like relatively deprived new eltham to very well-to-do chisel

00:17:27.120 last which used to be its own separate borough and they've done it using something called the

00:17:29.940 cold harbor estate which is just a couple like a row of houses that connects the two so it's just

00:17:33.560 like this weird yeah and so like like no one's from the south cotswolds you know what they're

00:17:39.120 from is cheltenham or chichester or wherever you know whatever the towns are they're in this is not

00:17:45.760 like an organic identity this is a constituency identity i've got a theory that i'm going to

00:17:50.420 check out immediately after this podcast i bet i can guess where major public sector employers

00:17:54.940 are in makerfield looking at this map i'm guessing where the council building is in fact

00:18:00.820 and i look forward to testing that theory yeah yeah so anyway so that's based on uh previous

00:18:05.700 voting intentions so anyway we we got the first salvation poll um that came out that had labor on

00:18:10.620 43 reform on 40 but restore on 7 now this was of course made a big deal out of because

00:18:16.860 we're splitting the vote the vote is being split we're going to let andy burnham the worst most

00:18:23.200 diabolical labor leader that could possibly be i mean don't get me wrong i'm not a fan of andy

00:18:27.920 burnham but he just he's like the buzz lightyear action figure in toy story 2 they're all in the

00:18:33.480 same packaging they're all got the same smart i mean he's literally committed to the immigration

00:18:37.020 of shabana mahmood the economics of rachel reeves the general politics of kirstama but they're all

00:18:42.960 basically the same who cares you know so anyway i'm not terribly worried about andy burnham um

00:18:47.800 but as you can see restore on seven percent that's something again the premise being false that we've

00:18:53.300 beaten to death over here that seven percent wouldn't necessarily vote for reform if restore

00:18:58.060 britain wasn't on the ballot yes so we've seen great yarmouth there were originally um there

00:19:03.660 was a much lower voter turnout double the voter turnout of reform support uh also there was a dip

00:19:11.080 in reform support from about 31%

00:19:13.060 down to sort of 22 to 24

00:19:14.640 in the period before Restore Britain became a national

00:19:17.080 political party and some of that support

00:19:19.160 became re-energised when Restore

00:19:21.040 went on the map

00:19:22.320 but that means that those voters would have otherwise

00:19:25.120 stayed at home at the next general election and wouldn't have

00:19:27.140 voted for reform anyway

00:19:28.420 Can I make a quick observation about this Carl

00:19:31.100 because I spent

00:19:32.860 many many years playing poker and one of the

00:19:35.080 things you learn from that is pay no attention

00:19:36.900 to what people say but to the bets

00:19:39.100 they make

00:19:39.720 um the what the people's actions are the revealing thing and i'm just looking at this and i'm thinking

00:19:46.320 why has reform and and the entire political establishment been throwing so much firepower

00:19:54.380 restore if they're on seven percent the liberal democrats on four percent that's not much

00:19:59.980 difference why why would they not be going after uh restore and the liberal democrats and the greens

00:20:05.280 but you don't hear about anybody who's basically in the same orbit as a stall on this poll

00:20:10.260 which makes me think that maybe this poll is a little bit understating it because their actions

00:20:14.940 their internal polling if their internal polling is showing this how the hell do you explain their

00:20:21.640 actions over the past two weeks well i had a senior figure in reform reach out to me by text

00:20:27.260 when i shared a video that i did earlier about a week or two ago about um presumably what you're

00:20:34.220 going to pull up soon rupert's own internal polling based on the canvases which is about 20 odd

00:20:38.520 percent and i also stated that i'd heard from other sources in reform that it was higher than

00:20:43.600 the seven percent there it was a bit above 10 and a senior figure in reform said no no just just to

00:20:48.480 clear this up we've got them about one or two percent and i was like okay interesting but why

00:20:52.160 did you feel the need to reach out to me to clarify that knowing that i mean i have friends that run

00:20:57.100 restore britain why are you keen to manage my expectations and tell me that actually what what

00:21:03.900 my friend the party my friends are running that their feedback is wrong and you actually have a

00:21:07.800 better read on their support than they do like why are you trying to like psyop me into becoming

00:21:11.440 discouraged why why are you doing damage control right that's the question why are you trying to

00:21:17.280 set expectations and on the numbers you just gave it if they're if restore really are on high teens

00:21:22.720 or 20s like you're suggesting well that does perfectly explain their behavior over the past

00:21:27.500 two weeks but that doesn't yeah yeah seven percent is not really that much at all you

00:21:32.520 wouldn't mention them at all ever no exactly you would have forgotten about them you certainly

00:21:35.500 wouldn't be promoting or not well i mean it was promotional sky news or discussing them on the

00:21:40.280 bbc or on the times podcast or wherever they wouldn't feature like the lib dems don't feature

00:21:45.460 every conservative and reform aligned media commentator is talking about them in the negative

00:21:52.260 and stressing why you shouldn't vote for them.

00:21:54.800 And you wouldn't do it for 7%.

00:21:56.820 The Labour ones are talking about them

00:21:58.300 like they are a new army that's just rocked up

00:22:01.060 and are stomping and conquering castles.

00:22:02.780 But they've also gone through

00:22:04.160 every single establishment slur in the last...

00:22:07.580 Pardon my language.

00:22:09.960 They've blown their load too quick. 0.97

00:22:11.240 They did the speed run straight to anti-Semite 0.60

00:22:13.780 and Holocaust denier in the times of Israel.

00:22:16.460 Like, sorry.

00:22:17.640 Well, a bit of foreplay first.

00:22:18.880 Yeah, exactly.

00:22:19.620 Yeah, I'm limping at the moment,

00:22:21.140 but I will make it home.

00:22:22.260 But what happened?

00:22:22.940 Did Rupert Lowe step back on any single issue?

00:22:24.900 No, he held his ground.

00:22:26.140 And where are those allegations now?

00:22:28.880 It was only a couple of days ago.

00:22:31.000 It was like a week ago

00:22:31.700 when they were calling it

00:22:32.840 Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism,

00:22:34.520 but that's all disappeared.

00:22:35.780 It's evaporated like wind.

00:22:37.200 The absolute worst thing

00:22:39.620 that Rupert could have done,

00:22:40.840 which he knows better than this,

00:22:42.220 but right-wing politicians

00:22:43.340 have been making this mistake for years.

00:22:45.740 Yes, which is to come out

00:22:47.100 and apologize when they attack you.

00:22:49.200 And if he had done that,

00:22:50.680 they would smell blood and they would still be doing it.

00:22:54.460 If he would have booked a flight to Tel Aviv the next day,

00:22:56.560 they would be promising a merger.

00:22:58.220 Instead, they're attacking.

00:22:59.120 He literally didn't care and it's gone away.

00:23:01.900 So anyway, this was a telephone poll

00:23:04.660 from landlines and mobile phones of 504 people in the constituency.

00:23:11.580 They say that it has been weighted to the profile of all adults in Megafield,

00:23:15.320 aged 18 plus, by age, sex and ward, and 2024 general election vote.

00:23:20.680 right that's interesting because 48 of the constituency didn't vote in 2024 and one of

00:23:28.580 these parties didn't exist and well yeah not only do but but okay yeah well and one of these parties

00:23:33.720 didn't exist and we already have evidence that this party that didn't exist is spectacular at

00:23:40.720 galvanizing non-voting voters because this is what they did in great yarmouth with a 50 extra

00:23:48.700 a turnout in that constituency and what was for a total victory in that constituency what was the

00:23:54.440 share as well of landline versus mobile because they don't by virtue of calling landlines you

00:23:59.940 skew the demographic towards the older generation of course and if and if restore britain has a

00:24:04.020 disproportionate young online support base especially among its canvassers then you're

00:24:07.920 not going to pick those people up or even it doesn't even have to necessarily be young it

00:24:10.880 could be middle-aged how many middle-aged people have landlines in their houses i don't have a

00:24:14.640 landline in my house well i do but it powers the internet and it doesn't connect a phone to yeah

00:24:19.060 exactly i don't have a phone that they could phone i mean you know like but there's no you know

00:24:23.020 obviously everyone uses their mobile phones so even people our age don't have landlines that

00:24:27.060 you can call you are calling pensioners yes which is why you're getting labor and reform

00:24:32.560 and just quickly build on your point about activating non-voters um that was how the

00:24:37.780 brexit vote was fun yes and and it still fascinates me that the the most significant vote in our

00:24:44.780 lifetime was one on the back of non-voters and immediately after it happened people have just

00:24:50.480 forgot apart from restore they've just forgotten that you can activate non-voters as if it's not

00:24:55.620 a thing one person yeah who did that strategy during brexit it's dom cummings yeah dom cummings

00:25:01.120 made a joke about something being restore policy the other day he's the only person that understands

00:25:06.040 this dynamic yes and when when you've got literally half of the electorate that is there

00:25:10.920 for that it's not they don't want to be involved it's that i'm not voting just don't see the point

00:25:15.440 i'm not voting for the used car salesman or more treachery which may be i'm not sure which way

00:25:20.460 around right exactly right i'm not voting for the the chancer or the careerist right again who am i

00:25:27.920 talking about yeah but anyway the point being i'm prepared to come out like we saw in great yarmouth

00:25:34.260 and vote for something substantively alternative yes and that is what has happened so i do think

00:25:39.380 this is important the the by the 2024 general election result is important right and so the

00:25:44.480 voting figures are reported on the base of respondents likely to vote in the by-election

00:25:47.960 factored by likelihood to vote with undecided and refused removed notice how we are skimming this

00:25:55.760 down even more so okay well likelihood to vote basically just means retired not just that it's

00:26:03.060 just okay the 52 percent who did vote are probably likely to vote again but the 48 percent who didn't

00:26:08.460 vote are going to be completely skimmed out of this no we're not listening to those people who

00:26:12.960 are outside to see the raw numbers for this well i'm sure you could find them actually but i didn't

00:26:18.220 look into that i didn't have time to look for them but i thought that was just important because

00:26:21.700 again factored by likely to vote if you're like well are you likely to vote in 2029 no probably

00:26:27.520 not but maybe I am now maybe something has come along now right and undecided and refused removed

00:26:33.740 again a lot of people I think are going to be undecided so if you take out all of this yeah

00:26:37.620 you've got a position like this where you've got 40% of people in that narrow cohort are for Andy

00:26:44.600 Burnham 40% are for reform and okay they're the committed but that probably amounts to about 20%

00:26:51.040 of the electorate something like that 25% of the electorate that you have actually managed to

00:26:56.140 categorize there the rest you have expressly left out by your own calculations anyway so

00:27:02.460 salvation did another poll with restore on now eight percent reform have gone down to 39 percent

00:27:07.880 and the splitting the vote argument has disappeared entirely right even if you added up the conservative

00:27:14.020 restore and reform vote you do not beat andy burnham who's on 49 in this poll now our friends

00:27:19.920 on the ground the first one they literally were in my in discord so there is no way they're on

00:27:25.300 49% in makerfield mate there is no way i'm here i'm here all day every day walking around it's

00:27:31.040 not 49% labor so this is a poll that's been done in the same way so it's 518 people telephone

00:27:39.300 infu combination of landline and mobile data and it was weighted by age sex ward 2014 election

00:27:45.780 and uh the weighted data was derived from the results of the 2024 general election and so

00:27:52.840 it's the same

00:27:55.020 obviously the same

00:27:55.660 numbers are all over the place

00:27:56.740 I mean Liberal Democrats

00:27:57.600 lost six points

00:27:58.720 the Conservatives

00:27:59.340 the Liberal Democrats

00:28:00.020 only lost three points

00:28:01.280 oh three points

00:28:01.920 sorry

00:28:02.160 the Conservatives lost two

00:28:03.560 no no they lost one point

00:28:04.720 sorry

00:28:04.980 and Labour

00:28:06.180 what happened to them

00:28:07.460 so 43

00:28:08.020 Labour have gained

00:28:08.460 seven

00:28:09.700 no six points

00:28:11.680 I mean unless

00:28:12.740 something titanic

00:28:13.780 happened in Makerfield

00:28:15.060 obviously these numbers

00:28:16.780 are all over the place

00:28:17.540 well it could be

00:28:18.480 that they conducted

00:28:19.080 the majority

00:28:19.800 of the telephone interviews

00:28:21.220 on a Friday

00:28:22.240 and all of the public sector workers had the Friday offer

00:28:24.800 working from home, they might be more accessible

00:28:26.720 via landline or phone, whereas again

00:28:28.720 the younger support base and the working class

00:28:30.760 support base for a store Britain were at work

00:28:32.440 and couldn't answer a telephone survey.

00:28:33.920 Entirely possible. Now I don't know any of that

00:28:36.400 obviously, but the sample of 518 people

00:28:38.840 is it the same phones?

00:28:40.400 Is it the same lines you're calling?

00:28:42.100 Is it the same numbers? I don't know.

00:28:43.340 We don't have this information.

00:28:45.480 But a lot is being made out of these polls

00:28:47.600 and I don't think these necessarily

00:28:49.840 represent reality at all.

00:28:51.120 it doesn't explain the behavior in any way no exactly it doesn't explain the behavior um because

00:28:56.720 really reform should be non-stop attacking labor if that was the case right there'd be no reason

00:29:01.880 to attack restore because it's not enough anyway what you need to do is reduce the labor vote and

00:29:07.840 you need to grab those people and come over and say look whatever andy burnham's going to destroy

00:29:11.900 your pension or something right whatever it is you need to say but the problem is reform don't

00:29:16.260 have a positive case as to why you should vote them they've got to where they are by saying

00:29:20.700 we're a bit like the conservatives but we're not the conservatives and that doesn't work against

00:29:25.320 restore and it doesn't work against labor it only works against the conservatives but also the attack

00:29:30.360 line they've got on andy burnham isn't actually very good because now i don't like andy burnham's

00:29:34.640 politics i don't appreciate any of the things he's done in his career i don't like the fact

00:29:39.220 that he's a labor careerist but saying we have to stop andy burnham at all costs yes why yeah he's

00:29:45.460 not evil a month after your local election tagline was vote reform get starmer out well isn't this

00:29:50.560 getting starmer out exactly so again you're looking consistent he's literally the only way

00:29:55.420 starmer could be gotten out right so not only is your own messaging all over the place but i mean

00:29:59.860 you can say whatever you like about andy burnham but he comes across as likable he comes across as

00:30:03.700 better than starmer way better and and or is in hell but yes yes we're going to have a labor

00:30:10.480 government for the next three years so you what you want is the least worst of them the best of

00:30:15.220 them which is probably Andy Burnham getting us to that point human right yes after a south port

00:30:20.380 is Andy Burnham going to come out or Belfast last night or whatever is that which is inevitably

00:30:25.160 going to happen is Andy Burnham going to say you're going to get the full force of the law

00:30:28.140 or is he going to come out like a human being and say look I really understand this is terrible

00:30:31.720 because he's a likeable what it indicates is reform want the most soulless awful vile human

00:30:38.680 being to be prime minister because they think it will benefit them at the next election no I'm

00:30:43.580 living in this country i want the least worst prime minister at all times and actually what i

00:30:48.900 really want is the best possible prime minister but we don't get an option to vote for rupert

00:30:53.620 low until the next election so i still want the least worst labor prime minister until we get to

00:30:58.540 that point i'm fine storm is staying in just because you know best of the devil you know and

00:31:02.220 the one thing i do agree with barrage about this is um he is inadvertently the best recruiting

00:31:06.860 sergeant for the right i just don't think it's necessarily um uh for reform um brain gone well

00:31:15.020 no no i i agree with you like there's something about starmer i i i've actually i've actually

00:31:20.840 been warming starmer not as a person but because because of his sheer contempt for his own party

00:31:26.800 right nobody hates labor more than starmer does nobody looks down through down his nose on his

00:31:32.960 fellow Labour politicians more than

00:31:35.160 Starmer. I've remembered now, it's that

00:31:37.020 Burnham isn't sufficiently

00:31:38.860 charismatic a figure to salvage Labour's

00:31:41.060 chances anyway, so I'm not particularly worried.

00:31:42.840 And when you said, oh, he's a human, so his response

00:31:45.040 to Southport or Belfast

00:31:47.160 will be one of... Yeah, his response will be

00:31:49.200 the second interview he gives

00:31:50.920 will be condemning the far right as evil and racist,

00:31:53.400 but the first one will be expressing

00:31:55.120 some sort of Potemkin compassion for the people.

00:31:57.340 So, yeah, so he will be less...

00:31:59.160 It will feel less like there's a

00:32:00.340 a pole of villainy that's fallen over the country it will feel less like the country's being run by

00:32:05.640 the terminator yeah um but yeah anyway like i said i'm actually warming starmer on that because

00:32:10.540 um it's funny watching him stamp down his own party and literally give them no consideration

00:32:15.820 they're like yeah you're destroying a party and he's like i don't care i don't care i'm staying

00:32:20.400 forever it's a thousand year starmer reich as far as starmer's concerned um so anyway getting back

00:32:26.360 to this so these are again with all of those things with likelihood and whatnot stripped out

00:32:31.060 we are at a very um i think quite narrow selection of the actual electorate as you see you know but

00:32:38.260 factored in with likelihood to vote with undecided and refused removed okay but that's a huge

00:32:44.480 constituency that you know restore tap into that you've deliberately ignored and so okay you this

00:32:52.040 you can't take these polls as accurate summaries of what has happened because we are in new

00:32:58.240 territory where actually a lot of previously inactive voters have now got a weapon that

00:33:03.440 they can use against the establishment as you said this the other day on like politics live

00:33:07.080 whatever so i understand it's like yeah but why couldn't you activate them when you being a part

00:33:12.740 of the uniparty being a part of the system was just more of the same and rupert lowe being the

00:33:17.760 only party who's like i don't care i'm putting them to death is very clearly outside of the

00:33:22.480 consensus right so anyway this was uh restore's own internal canvassing results and what i really

00:33:29.620 enjoyed about this is when they first started canvassing mayfield uh i i had lots of people

00:33:34.560 in restore like rupert himself messaged me like i don't really believe our own returns and so they

00:33:40.120 would go back to the people collecting are you sure about these numbers because this seems too

00:33:44.760 good to be true and eventually rupert was just okay well look uh on a thousand sample size we're

00:33:49.840 getting 24 nearly 25 for restore britain which i mean who knows right who knows but he's not

00:33:56.800 excluding those i did question these numbers when i when i saw the guys from restore i was like

00:34:01.060 that can't be right and and i said look what's happening is people are turning up on the door

00:34:06.240 wearing a restore rosette and the person behind the door they probably have the door knocked on

00:34:11.880 seven times and they just want you to go away and they're just going to tell you what you want

00:34:14.740 to hear and they're just trying to get rid of you and the guy said to me yeah you might think that

00:34:19.720 but our internal polling in makerfield understated the numbers so i'm like oh bloody hell actually

00:34:26.960 great yarmouth i mean it's a great mark great yeah they they got 42 percent internal polling

00:34:31.960 and yes about 46 on average but in some constituencies absolute majorities so it's

00:34:37.840 when you hear that you think well maybe yeah i mean and this does explain the panic in the

00:34:43.280 establishment perfectly if those are actually the numbers well no wonder no wonder reform and the

00:34:49.380 conservatives and the entire establishment media have been talking about nothing else for two weeks

00:34:53.880 as as i previously mentioned to you i think when we did this might be last week or the week before

00:34:57.940 um yes there will be a sampling bias on the door for the people that just actually open the door

00:35:01.840 and talk to you however it is significant that the the largest percentage on there is 31.2

00:35:08.180 definitely against there's only about a six percent gap for those declared for restore britain but

00:35:13.440 definitely against will be split between predominantly reform and labor well i mean

00:35:19.180 labor lib dam green there will be you know all of that compiled the two largest factions so so the

00:35:25.040 the single most enthusiastic response they have registered on the doorstep but the single most

00:35:30.320 consolidated enthusiastic response was restore again that's from restore canvases but that does

00:35:35.220 that does mean the restore block is largely locked up and they're not and this is this is

00:35:39.840 why reform are freaking out they're not likely to break away and go over to reform whereas as we've

00:35:45.500 already seen with the servation polls whether or not we take the sampling um reforms vote are

00:35:49.960 actually fair weather between them and labor yeah so a lot of undecided and considering as well as

00:35:55.240 some of the like i think most of the definitely against will be labor right diehard labor voters

00:36:00.420 but like say you know at a guess i'd say 10 percent or so uh reformers who are definitely

00:36:05.580 against is there like cult of farage types but i suspect in that 24 and 20 percent that's a lot

00:36:11.580 of reform voters who are undecided or i'm considering voting restore you know i'm on

00:36:16.100 the fence right so anyway um this is this is um corroborated by of all people dan hodges right

00:36:22.660 who is he's been making a lot of enemies in the mainstream over this and he's adopted this very

00:36:29.400 unpopular position that actually or journalism yeah yeah yeah yeah actually that's exactly it

00:36:35.820 diane abbott puts the right shoes on sometimes exactly and like i said i don't normally take

00:36:40.840 his word for anything um and i don't really consider his position as being very credible

00:36:45.480 in most other realms but it's lining up very similarly with what i personally am finding

00:36:50.520 right when we speak to our activists when we look at what the actual um information they bring back

00:36:57.040 and they say look i was there all week yep this was the you know it was at least we got we got

00:37:02.340 guys there this week so very soon we're going to be having footage coming back from absolutely it

00:37:06.900 should be out tomorrow or in fact should be out today um so it's one of those things where you're

00:37:12.340 saying look um i'm being told by multiple sources from different parties that canvas returns for

00:37:17.180 makefield show restore significantly outperforming the seven percent reveal in the times poll i

00:37:21.560 spend that's what i suspect that's what's underpinning the current reform meltdown yes exactly

00:37:25.240 as you say if it was only seven percent on the door you wouldn't you wouldn't care it wouldn't

00:37:30.780 be that big a deal how often do we talk about the conservatives we don't because we just don't care 0.98

00:37:34.740 because they're irrelevant can we do something mildly stupid and reminds us that they exist 0.93

00:37:41.660 yeah like she she was a shell stacker in waitrose the other day and i was like yeah she fits in 0.82

00:37:46.120 seamlessly it's when she did the thing yeah yeah meant to be aping trump and it was just like

00:37:50.040 didn't you serve me a big mac before yeah you literally look like you belong in the uk then

00:37:54.000 yeah uh anyway so let's go to the um uh actual canvases right so you've got um a right-wing

00:38:00.460 journalist called madeline here who runs her substack and she spent two days canvassing in

00:38:05.360 maker field with restore and so these are her direct experiences right so she says there's a

00:38:12.360 stereotype that does the rounds about restore supporters that they're terminally online incels

00:38:16.040 uh only and that the only part of that stereotype that's true is that most of the

00:38:19.940 party's active members are men. Beside that, it's completely wrong. A lot of the members who turn

00:38:24.240 up to Canvas are barely online. They come from all walks of life. There are young men at the start of

00:38:28.320 their careers, both in the trades and white-collar professions. There are concerned parents who want

00:38:31.640 the best for their children. There are business owners who have been badly hurt by Labour's taxes

00:38:35.000 and worried they'll lose their livelihood if current trends continue. And there are older 0.63

00:38:38.180 people who are choosing to use their retirement to support a party that promises a brighter future

00:38:41.400 of their grandchildren. While most of the party's radical nationalist wing may be visible online,

00:38:45.780 the majority of restore members are not particularly ideological people they're simply

00:38:50.220 looked around at their country and they are not happy with the state of it that lines up exactly

00:38:54.200 with my personal experience being the swindon branch organizer right we've got 400 plus members

00:38:59.220 and that is exactly right it is a swathe of just like an ice call through the country of people

00:39:05.460 all ranks who are just like no we're not happy with this the online right of the online right

00:39:10.320 but that's not what the membership is i've seen the same in southeast london all the branch meetings

00:39:14.040 i've gone to in various boroughs exact same cross-section it's exactly the same and that's

00:39:18.160 amazing that rupert lowe has managed to activate people along these lines but there is a core theme

00:39:24.060 to them that's something that all lines up with them which is that later line which says you know

00:39:28.040 they're worried about their kids and grandkids yeah that is a consistent it's the future of the

00:39:31.940 country there is normal people getting political it's the mums and dads party it is absolutely

00:39:36.200 that's exactly how i've been characterizing it so anyway she carries on in this particular campaign 0.94

00:39:40.260 the party is focusing heavily on making the streets safer for women and girls fighting 0.67

00:39:44.020 over development in the local area improving special needs and special education needs and

00:39:47.980 disabilities support for those in genuine need and tackling anti-social behavior and making

00:39:52.600 high streets thrive again so very good positive messaging this is we are going to fix the country

00:39:59.940 what the what reform promising genuinely i'm actually not sure what reforms campaign is 0.97

00:40:06.100 actually about a referendum on the sniffability of carol vorderman's asshole poor old robert 0.98

00:40:11.180 he made that joke years ago it was just a joke before he was political i think it's disgusting 0.99

00:40:17.780 i wouldn't want to consume i mean it is disgusting i mean it is disgusting because you're too young 0.53

00:40:22.360 to remember 20 years ago i'm not nice i'm not she's you know what it's embarrassing story i'm

00:40:27.160 going to tell this my mom watches this i used to as a one-year-old walk up to the screen when she

00:40:31.280 was putting the numbers up on countdown against the screen oh wow so you're actually so this is

00:40:35.880 and when you were one that was that would have been appropriate and hopefully he made the joke

00:40:39.960 back then this is proof of the institution of britain yeah yeah it was literally like in 2012

00:40:44.820 or something that he said this so it was a long time ago before he became a political candidate

00:40:49.100 for anything and it was just a joke uh and the thing is he didn't even say it someone else had

00:40:52.840 said it he was like he was just making like a wry joke on well it's just what we're all thinking

00:40:56.520 they're really being evil towards him over this he doesn't deserve any of this nonsense

00:41:01.080 I can guarantee, as a plumber, he's made far worse trust.

00:41:04.620 And he should just own it.

00:41:06.080 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a joke.

00:41:08.140 But anyway, the point being, I don't actually know what their campaign is for.

00:41:12.460 Why are we voting?

00:41:13.620 It's getting elected.

00:41:14.740 I mean, it's literally that.

00:41:15.920 I mean, it's like, get Starmer out?

00:41:17.760 No, that's not the argument, because then you'd vote for Andy Burnham, right?

00:41:21.240 It's not about the next election.

00:41:22.980 It's about fixing the country.

00:41:24.880 That's what matters.

00:41:25.880 Exactly.

00:41:26.240 and so the i and and this is just very sensible and this is very clearly what the restore campaign

00:41:32.140 has been projecting without getting tied up in the weird smear merchantry of the mainstream media

00:41:39.360 this is the thing i actually completely in favor of don't bother with them you don't need them

00:41:43.280 we've got literally thousands of activists going to makefield week after week and a candidate who's

00:41:47.680 knocking on doors and talking to people you don't need any of that oh the other the other thing as

00:41:52.000 well that's been significant about the the inefficacy of reformed attacks on restore is

00:41:56.880 who's been taking all the heat from the attacks rupert yeah not rebecca yeah whereas who's been

00:42:02.640 taking all of the attacks from robert it's robert yeah so so that means that on the ground if your

00:42:09.720 if your name is anonymous with reform and then people are highlighting your candidate with

00:42:13.480 national profile and trying to smear his name you're gonna get credibility deducted whereas

00:42:17.700 if people are just attacking rupert for this that and the other but you're getting leaflets

00:42:20.600 through the door saying rebecca shepherd's going to clean up your high street and stop all the 0.99

00:42:23.000 rapey foreigners from following you home they're like oh she seems nice yeah i i like that idea you 0.96

00:42:27.420 know what what i mean in fact she says i had a brief conversation with shepherd during a lunch 0.99

00:42:31.980 break on the first day of the camera scene she's come across as a downsworth ordinary woman who

00:42:35.300 simply wants to improve life for local people and that's genuinely my impression of her now she's

00:42:39.400 been getting a lot stick from the sort of like online commentary at who are like well hang on

00:42:43.280 a second i'm used to hearing professional talkers talk professionally she's not that slick she's

00:42:48.520 not a slick conversation like the presenter that's correct she's not but that's not what you're

00:42:53.620 looking for when you're talking on the door let's say restore wins the next general election

00:42:58.440 you want at most 15 to 30 percent of your people being good talkers yeah yeah you you want a

00:43:06.600 certain percentage but honestly coming from this world and knowing professional talkers

00:43:11.160 it would be an effing disaster if everybody in government was a good talker you actually need

00:43:17.100 people who do the detail who do the nitty-gritty you can't just have a can you imagine a government 0.99

00:43:22.120 of podcast oh it'd be bloody disaster the amount of e-girls that end up on the short list and

00:43:26.240 have the whip withdrawn be terrible exactly i'm i'm very happy that she's not a media personality

00:43:31.760 right i'm very happy that she is a business owner that she just wants to get work done

00:43:36.380 and that she can go around and just talk to people as a normal person right so she's like this has

00:43:42.180 been the overwhelming response about rebecca shebin she's just normal and she just wants to

00:43:45.580 fix things oh that's right like the rest of us then yeah it's just just just like the rest of 0.88

00:43:49.340 us like the entire membership of restore britain anyway she says uh she was partnered up with

00:43:53.160 someone so she says my partner and i but that's not a boyfriend that's just someone she was

00:43:56.840 partnered with to go canvassing she is available lander and i went over to the house uh that

00:44:02.840 labor campaigners had just left and introduced ourselves to a lady on the old doorway so she's

00:44:06.600 giving us some examples of uh her experience here she told us that labor were only leafleting and

00:44:11.140 we were the first ever to actually come to the door during an election to actually want to talk

00:44:14.000 and win her vote she and her husband who appeared from the side of the house to join the conversation

00:44:18.100 already intending to vote for restore they felt that rupert lobe was the first politician in a

00:44:22.000 long time if ever to be on the side of ordinary british people and that has been rupert's genuine

00:44:27.640 sort of killer message killer app sort of like the the thing that's really like he is not on the side

00:44:34.520 of the system who knew that the magic source of british politics was giving the british people

00:44:39.320 what they wanted and needed so many knives in our back yes so many knives in the back

00:44:43.940 you got a guy who's like i'm not going to stab you in the back and then this has been the

00:44:48.480 overwhelming response from the left as well they a lot of them actually hate forage because they

00:44:54.280 don't think he is authentically the right wing he claims to be right they view him as a grifter 1.00

00:44:59.120 he's a chancer he's here to sell me a used car you know look at you you morons constantly buying 1.00

00:45:05.140 he's not gonna do any of the things that you want him to do he's not for you and they're right 1.00

00:45:09.020 but they don't ever say that about Rupert Lowe

00:45:10.800 they say oh no Rupert Lowe's a zealot

00:45:12.800 he means what he says

00:45:13.660 he means what he says and he's going to do it

00:45:15.300 wasn't there an article about that or something

00:45:17.220 it was a reddit post that I saw that we covered the other day

00:45:19.820 because it was just so funny

00:45:20.740 but if even the redditors are like no no this Rupert Lowe guy's a zealot

00:45:23.980 I think it actually means what he says 0.55

00:45:25.280 he's actually going to put the evil people to death

00:45:27.200 it's like well great

00:45:28.860 I mean again couldn't ask for a better argument

00:45:31.320 but anyway

00:45:32.700 the next one is the sort of sunk cost labour voters

00:45:36.440 where she says

00:45:37.900 we pulled up an area full of bungalows and we knew this uh on the the door there would be a

00:45:43.140 fair portion of older people in the area who feel a loyalty to the labor party that can't be shaken

00:45:47.440 no matter what the labor party of today is like uh in general it was the older voters though far

00:45:51.780 from all of them and the wealthier constituents intend to vote for labor uh the last train born

00:45:56.000 out in the national polling date yeah labor is the old rich people party uh if you're old and

00:46:00.280 not rich you vote for the conservatives or reform if you're old and rich you vote labor and uh

00:46:05.120 that's that's the way that works but she ends up with this right from my conversations with voters

00:46:10.920 uh there were two main takeaways some people had always voted for labor and always would

00:46:15.860 but they were more the more interesting of the two concerned reform voters no one i spoke to

00:46:21.160 wanted to vote reform because they liked reform every potential reform voter who knew about

00:46:26.400 restore preferred restore but was concerned about splitting the vote reform's media campaign had

00:46:31.040 been successful in convincing people that a vote for restore was a vote for burnham but if everyone

00:46:35.100 who preferred restore were to vote for restore reform would lose a lot of voters not just a few

00:46:39.540 but almost every single reform voter i met you don't want permission obviously my sample size

00:46:44.460 is small and people will question my claim because i was there to canvas for restore but that's the

00:46:49.340 truth of what i saw and heard and this she is not the only person saying this right this is a great

00:46:54.860 again from a restore canvasser on the ground a campaigner on the ground i was on the ground and 0.97

00:47:00.740 make it feel like yeah these are chatting shit mate like trust me lad like when i say like it 0.84

00:47:06.540 was it was around 20 percent of votes in restoring about 20 percent of votes in labor like literally 0.98

00:47:11.360 like i was there mate um there were 250 of us was the head count as well and ours reform showed up

00:47:18.120 with four people had flapping it um they had to do like they're putting signs everywhere because 0.69

00:47:23.120 like people are sick and nigel mate um and the ego the ego's gone a bit crazy over there mate like 0.95

00:47:28.820 if you look at 0.97

00:47:29.860 if you look at

00:47:30.800 what they've been doing

00:47:31.420 in the media lad

00:47:32.120 like it's all the Tories

00:47:33.520 that come out for them lad

00:47:34.360 it's all the establishment lad

00:47:35.760 when we were over there mate

00:47:37.480 the energy was electric lad

00:47:38.700 like all the workmen

00:47:40.560 in vans lad

00:47:41.100 were stopping

00:47:41.580 and beeping

00:47:42.080 and like

00:47:42.620 anyone that saw the t-shirt lad

00:47:44.620 were beeping mate

00:47:45.260 the only people

00:47:45.720 that didn't like it 0.76

00:47:46.340 were like old liberals

00:47:47.820 and there was like

00:47:48.360 only about two of them

00:47:49.240 that we met

00:47:49.660 but like

00:47:51.620 of the ones that answered bro

00:47:52.780 like

00:47:53.080 I'm talking like

00:47:54.180 I had a Green Party member

00:47:55.620 who loved the policies

00:47:56.660 who changed his vote

00:47:58.220 and he said

00:47:58.560 he'll be voting restore what so like the thing no no this is not harry's friend that's it's

00:48:03.420 literally what harry said to us yes he was his green party friend loves his twitter feed but

00:48:07.500 wants something done about the economy it's like yeah well all we have to do then is start moving

00:48:11.400 our tanks into the realm of we're going to improve the economy which we should do and this is why zia

00:48:15.140 and goodwin have been apoplectic about the tory defectors and it's because they have they've read

00:48:21.140 the projections for some time and they know that the looking like you are a a recycled conservative

00:48:27.620 party is electoral poison in the red wall retirement home for tories i said this ages ago

00:48:33.360 like you you you are taking a bunch of former tories and telling the labor voters in the north

00:48:39.240 you have to vote for this so no sorry like a vote for reform is a vote for nadine dorries

00:48:44.180 no have have the um ex-borist cabinet tories that have joined reform have they been canvassing

00:48:53.220 in makerfield no they haven't no lee anderson went up uh richard tice went up as well i think

00:48:57.800 yeah but they're not they're not boris defectors no exactly on on the day that's exactly benton

00:49:02.920 they had everyone out exactly but that's the point exactly i'm making like yeah lee anderson

00:49:08.160 and tice okay fair enough farage of course himself went up um well lee anderson he is a

00:49:13.740 former tory but he was also for the laborers and he's also yeah and he's also northern vice's

00:49:18.220 constituency is bolton because he parachuted himself in but the telling thing about what

00:49:21.820 you're saying is that the plan that got Boston and Skegness is it okay right um my apologies but

00:49:28.780 the telling thing about that is the plan that got leaked to me by someone in Milbank Tower ahead of

00:49:33.200 the local elections which was they were going to try and strangle Restore in the crib in Great

00:49:36.840 Yarmouth but they were going to send down a bunch of people nobody recognized rather than Tory faces

00:49:41.260 to tell people on the doorstep the Restore are too far right we've already seen some of that 0.92

00:49:44.800 from Ring doorbell footage from this actually yeah yeah yeah we have yeah the the Indian guy

00:49:50.160 didn't actually include that because i didn't know if we'd have time but yeah the the deeming

00:49:55.440 reform on the doorstep but again like not the condemnation that you think it is so i'll don't

00:50:01.120 vote for them they're really far right so that's what i want don't vote for them sir they've got

00:50:04.960 no indians running their deportations anyway so burnham uh come out and said look we don't think

00:50:09.000 this is in the bag actually now if you were looking at the previous polling you would think 0.93

00:50:12.980 it was in the bag right you would think hey we're on 49 they're on 39 with 10 points ahead even their

00:50:18.800 split vote can't catch him up this is in the bag but he's acting like it's not in the bag because

00:50:23.260 he's on the ground in makerfield he's encountering like the times podcast or the bbc podcast said oh

00:50:29.460 this is a real thing that people are bringing up on the doorstep this is not a guaranteed thing

00:50:33.080 and so even burnham is just like yeah this this isn't a home run or anything like that which is

00:50:39.320 what reform are acting like it is they think it's a home run for burnham if we even stand there

00:50:45.120 and so they're castigating us all of their fire is on us as if we were more than just seven or

00:50:51.100 eight percent of the vote it's like sorry i don't i don't think the things are as they're being

00:50:55.180 represented and i think your assessment is correct that their internal canvassing returns are like

00:51:00.380 jesus christ we are going to get slaughtered by restore here and so who knows right so anyway um

00:51:05.860 the uh the branding for restore britain has been pretty damn consistent

00:51:10.580 it's this it's this dark navy blue uh bold font picture of britain can't miss it right this is

00:51:20.560 the very first post of the very of all the branding right um and this is the reform website

00:51:25.460 in january you know it's totally different brand yeah it's yeah it's it's the yeah yeah it's this

00:51:32.220 yeah but you can tell you know the the teal uh with just a gray dark gray background um

00:51:39.080 um it's all the same branding and this is this is what their branding has been like i've just

00:51:45.560 noticed that you're using web archive i am using web archive i am aren't i um because i mean like

00:51:54.020 i said it's been the same font it's been the same color scheme it's been the same like you say sort

00:52:00.000 of cleaning brand presentation brand yeah it's their brand not anymore this is oh my life

00:52:07.160 this is the brand

00:52:09.320 the reform

00:52:10.580 it's almost unbelievable

00:52:14.200 look you're not using web archive

00:52:15.700 this is the live site

00:52:17.200 this is the live site for reformparty.com

00:52:19.780 and I recognise the colour scheme

00:52:21.600 it is just

00:52:23.140 it's unbelievable

00:52:25.240 this is your nagging spouse

00:52:27.540 catching you having a chat over the fence with the neighbour

00:52:29.700 and deciding to put on a pair of hot pants

00:52:32.300 and an old wig and something like that

00:52:33.720 to come out and present herself as a new young thing

00:52:35.800 yes it's it's remarkable how suddenly there's very little teal actually on the website and it's all

00:52:44.740 that sort of dark blue and you know suddenly it's all slick and sorry this is weird this is weird

00:52:53.020 that you would dress so unbelievably similarly to restore if this wasn't a big problem for you

00:53:01.760 why are you trying to bamboozle the electorate what's that saying first they ignore you then

00:53:07.560 they fight you and then they copy your website imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

00:53:13.500 uh this is i mean i don't know who thought this was a good idea i think they used a color picking

00:53:19.380 tool to make sure they got the exact color as well we will get into that actually it's actually

00:53:24.240 remarkable so anyway so um here's the leaflet it's like wow that looks a lot like a restore leaflet

00:53:29.960 a lot like a restore leaflet what a what a shock and apparently there were plenty of them as well

00:53:36.000 loads of them were being put around right all these restore leaflets can you go back one slide

00:53:40.580 because that looks like the uh that that actual graphic looks like the front cover of harrison's

00:53:46.080 paper doesn't it doesn't it just again same dark blue and the same white same white britain right

00:53:53.680 they are literally stealing reforms branding and restores branding because i think it's exactly as

00:54:00.500 you say they've seen the returns and they're afraid and they're like we've got to do everything

00:54:03.920 this is very sort of lib dem coded sort of uh tactics right so yeah make it look like we're

00:54:09.620 the party but how everyone actually wants how afraid do you have to be to get down to the point

00:54:14.540 where you're copying the color scheme of the leaflets not just the color scheme i mean look

00:54:18.780 at their original leaflets like this is um a leaflet from gorton and denton for alan partridge

00:54:23.840 yeah for for mr partridge nothing like the leaflet there is it well this is the same tactic that

00:54:28.840 andrea jenkins used when she was actually running in her seat as a conservative uh she didn't have

00:54:33.720 rishi sunak on it she didn't have the conservative logo on it and i think she had a photo of herself

00:54:37.060 and farad on it if i remember correctly yeah and so it's it's just remarkable i mean here were the

00:54:42.620 original leaflets that they had for gorton and denton and for makerfield sorry you can see it's

00:54:47.520 got robert kenyon on it's like sorry like no farage no farage yeah exactly no farage on this one

00:54:55.160 you know he's not even mentioned actually it's robert kenyon's signature but no nigel farage

00:54:59.680 uh completely different you've they've completely changed it's actually the comparison is crazy

00:55:07.160 how they've obviously just copied restore britain's leaf obviously we've been doing this for a few

00:55:11.320 years and it's always an absolutely fatal sign when your leader does not go on your election

00:55:16.580 campaign material we saw now remember this was rishi um more recently it's been happening with

00:55:21.960 starmer and now reform haven't even won power yet but they're already at the point where farage

00:55:28.380 just doesn't appear on stuff it's the inverse of their local election campaign because you guys

00:55:32.220 were talking at the time about a post that i put out which contrasted the con the conservative and

00:55:37.580 the reform leaf that's reformed leases were sent from central office clearly harvesting data broadly

00:55:42.420 because like some of my family got some that don't even live with me they're definitely not reform

00:55:46.100 members never have been um they were just vote for nigel photos of nigel national issues and

00:55:51.820 they weren't particular to local candidates but the conservative candidates from around the area

00:55:55.140 had them taking a photo where they were walking their dog where they went to school they had their

00:55:58.640 they had their address like um the road they lived on on the ballot paper and it was all about local

00:56:03.120 issues and the criticism reform was you didn't even canvas our area so no wonder you lost like

00:56:07.380 bexley and bromley whereas now they've done the complete opposite they're so focused on local

00:56:10.540 because nationally being associated with reform may be in their conception divisive yeah and

00:56:16.080 And Nigel Farage, okay, a third of the population

00:56:18.800 might really like him, two-thirds hate him.

00:56:21.760 He is an established, well-known politician

00:56:24.040 that comes with a lot of baggage.

00:56:25.980 And actually, stealing the restore branding

00:56:28.600 and not having Farage on the leaflets

00:56:31.180 has clearly come back in their canvassing

00:56:34.040 as this gives better responses.

00:56:36.420 Otherwise, they wouldn't do it.

00:56:38.040 They've got their professionals behind the scenes.

00:56:40.240 And in fact, people are like,

00:56:41.460 God, that is a 95% color similarity.

00:56:44.260 that is that is almost identical yeah i mean like how it could be looked at that this isn't

00:56:52.440 i mean especially with the white britain there i mean just put it side by side it's like sorry

00:56:57.080 sorry we can see what you're doing here we can absolutely see what you're doing even stealing

00:57:03.120 like the memes of like i don't care um here's uh here's the thing where is it yeah even stealing

00:57:09.680 the slogan right like these are just memes people have put around you know i don't care

00:57:14.340 like as if as if nigel farage has ever stood on this sort of thing you know the the this is

00:57:19.800 a sign of profound weakness right profound weakness and people of course just started

00:57:25.340 mocking them it's like oh yeah here's the new logo for reform like it's just uh you know actual

00:57:30.700 inverse of ours and people are like you know put in complaint to the electoral commission

00:57:35.880 nothing will come of it i'm sure but um but the whole thing just reeks of lib dem coded messaging

00:57:41.800 right look at this one this is very similar to lib dem leaflets i received in the last election

00:57:47.740 and the sort of like joe swinson campaigning of here's just a magazine that just happens to think

00:57:53.580 the lib dems are the best thing ever and like it's obviously a way of trying to bamboozle the

00:57:57.500 i'm very familiar with this kind of leaflet because i live in an area where people have big gardens

00:58:01.600 yes so the liberal democrat party is incredibly strong and and i i probably got six of these

00:58:07.300 leaflets in my mailbox right now yes yeah absolutely if there was an election going on

00:58:11.220 might they'd be piling up on my doormat you know like and they're always exactly that format very

00:58:17.380 cynical electioneering well they can't win here so you've got to vote for us or else you get this

00:58:22.060 like no you know what i'm i don't know that this is persuasive and i mean i personally despise this

00:58:28.100 kind of leaflet uh again notice the you know keep farage off of it and whatnot but this is a joke

00:58:34.380 by the way is this a parody or this is a real one no no no they actually did that i think this is a

00:58:39.240 real one yeah there's a photo of it political commentator at the times yeah yeah yeah this

00:58:43.800 this is not a joke oh right this is a real thing there's a real lib dem uh leaflet that oh that's

00:58:50.080 bad so it's yeah it's it's it's one of those desperate yeah exactly right so there is this

00:58:56.460 stench of desperation and rearguard action that reform are putting out and i'm thinking it's

00:59:01.800 because the reports of our activists on the ground are accurate as in our guys are like wow we're

00:59:07.720 getting love everywhere here people are up for restore people really like it and like the madeline

00:59:13.600 says people are voting for reform just because they are not because they want to they think

00:59:19.200 they're the safe option yeah the moment that illusion is shattered exactly there will be

00:59:23.440 help to pay and if there is some sort of preference cascade with like yeah no i'm just going to go

00:59:27.560 for it i'm just going to go for restore then who knows what happens in make it there's only a few

00:59:32.160 years since the last preference cascade because the reason why people didn't go for reform at the

00:59:35.780 last election is because they thought reform was a wasted vote and you had to vote tory to stop

00:59:39.500 labor and the instant that illusion was shattered tories went from whatever it was 30 35 in the

00:59:45.860 polls down to about whatever it's 12 something like that so this this can change on a dime

00:59:51.840 and we're probably not that far from the point where this happens but it's restore that flips

00:59:57.920 reform yeah and so i and you because of again they're using the salvation poll you don't know

01:00:06.080 what there's been left out here like they literally say undecideds out non-voters out

01:00:11.420 um you know unconfirmed out like and we skewed it to the last election exactly we've properly

01:00:17.480 to get it to the last election that is a massive constituency of people who might come tumbling in

01:00:23.740 like an avalanche right like they did in great yarmouth now i'm not saying that's going to happen

01:00:27.880 i don't know what's going to happen i haven't been to makefield i haven't taken the temperature on

01:00:31.640 the ground but all i'm saying is i don't really trust these polls to be an accurate representation

01:00:35.460 and i don't think anyone else has any reason to either so before we end then guys um any last

01:00:42.220 thoughts on the situation i think it's going to be a competitive second or third um as things

01:00:48.800 stand i think despite criticisms of the candidate being comparatively weak compared to kenyan you're

01:00:57.320 correct in saying that actually the the lack of exposure has been to restore's benefit in terms

01:01:02.720 of canvassing on local issues and the attacks on by mainly reformed surrogates against restore

01:01:09.700 have been largely impotent because they've used every possible insult in too short a space of

01:01:15.180 time. And they've also recycled the insults that were lobbed at them only a couple of years ago and

01:01:19.800 continue to be lobbed at Farage. I mean, the thing that you were saying about why people didn't vote

01:01:23.720 for reform in the last election was because Nadine Dorries was telling them not to. And now she's the

01:01:27.580 same person saying, don't vote for a store because you won't let reform in. So I think they've

01:01:31.920 exhausted their credibility with a significant number of people. And so it'd be interesting to

01:01:37.060 see how many people are brave enough to take the plunge on an alternative option also you notice

01:01:41.080 for the reform they never actually tell me why i should be voting for reform like persuade me you

01:01:46.040 don't want to be a racist do you like like none of their surrogates none of their talking heads

01:01:50.780 have ever said to me here's why you should vote for reform they've called me all sorts of names

01:01:54.840 they've said ah but actually reform are more likely to win and they're basically indistinguishable

01:01:59.120 from restore anyway so oh so hang on a minute you can see that now you've caught up to where

01:02:04.020 restores original you've been dragged to this point yeah even though you're still not banning

01:02:07.100 immigration from india yeah yeah you don't have a red list and uh really we can't really trust you

01:02:12.060 not to just stand down again anyway i mean you stood down for boris so stand down now um yeah

01:02:17.500 so the the they don't they don't try and persuade me which is interesting but dan any any final

01:02:22.220 thoughts um no not really i mean other than to say that look if if those internal polls and it's

01:02:28.420 a 20 something is in play then i suppose it kind of lends to connor's point that it's not

01:02:33.920 impossible you end up with the top three parties all getting in the high 20s um and then it's

01:02:38.760 anyone's guess but to be fair all restore needs to do is come third and that is a seismic change

01:02:44.220 in british politics because it would have beaten parties of government like the lib dems and the

01:02:48.640 conservatives and the last people to win a by-election which was the greens but genuinely

01:02:53.480 um second or even first when you've got a freeway race like this is not impossible

01:02:57.940 so whatever happens

01:03:00.680 British politics is going to change

01:03:02.820 because the conversation is going to change

01:03:04.300 excellent

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - June 10, 2026

It's All to Play for in Makerfield

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript