The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - June 17, 2026


Reform Is Falling Apart


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 2 minutes

Words per minute

202.63

Word count

12,746

Sentence count

136

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

18

sentences flagged

Hate speech

23

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of the political chat, we talk about the election result in Makerfield, and all the odd polling numbers, and why they don't seem to add up. We also discuss why the mainstream media seems to have completely forgotten about the Greens.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hi folks, welcome to another of our political chats. Today we're going to be talking about
00:00:03.820 the situation in Makerfield, because that's really the only thing worth talking about until
00:00:08.080 Thursday, or Friday really, which is when we get the results, and we're going to find out how things
00:00:13.040 played out. Before we begin, Dan, have you got any predictions? Dare you make any?
00:00:19.960 I mean, I woefully underestimated what they were going to do in Great Yarmouth,
00:00:24.460 so, but I have no particular reason to disbelieve their internal polling which is coming out in the
00:00:29.780 low 20s so i'll just say that low 20s seems reasonable um i honestly have no idea like the
00:00:36.700 polls are all over the place i don't really believe the establishment polls which we'll get
00:00:41.260 into in a minute this does very very much feel like an exercise in the polls are designed to
00:00:47.640 influence the electorate rather than measure the election yes with these polls yeah the polling
00:00:52.060 companies and there's only a couple of them that got involved and they've only done small samples
00:00:55.380 but it feels like they're taking a hit for the greater good it does it's essentially very strange
00:00:59.760 how disinterested the polling companies seem to be in maker field if this is such a titanic battle
00:01:06.280 for the future of the country if this is really going to decide the next prime minister and
00:01:09.900 only only what two of them are curious enough to do a poll there have been three now oh okay
00:01:15.560 three whole polls from the dozens of polling companies who for some reason were just like
00:01:20.380 yeah no that's boring yeah there's nothing to see here no no no polling to be done here it's
00:01:24.580 really strange yes um but yeah for myself i don't know i mean i honestly i do think andy burnham's
00:01:31.200 probably going to win it so um i haven't been there but we've had lots of our chaps who have
00:01:34.840 been there lots of our activists who are there and you'll see how many of our activists are there
00:01:38.300 when he should i mean he he handpicked this seat yeah he could have gone anywhere i mean he
00:01:43.200 if he's going to be the next prime minister he has so much power of patronage he could have gone
00:01:48.020 to any mp in the whole manchester area and said i'll make it worth your while to step aside and
00:01:52.440 he chose makerfield yeah so he should win well i mean why would he choose it if he's not intending
00:01:59.080 to win uh but also what's the name of the mp is it luke simmons or something yeah that sounds right
00:02:04.280 yeah he he is actually a really well-liked mp in the area he's not from the area but apparently
00:02:09.080 he's done a lot for the area and sort of rupert low fashion actually um so a lot of people are
00:02:14.540 actually disappointed to see him go because he had quite good name recognition even though outside
00:02:19.180 of makefield no one's heard no one's ever heard of this mp but anyway so let's look at some of
00:02:23.600 the polls so here's a poll from uh convergent which is a company i'm actually not familiar with
00:02:29.140 is this a new one it is a fairly new one uh this was from the up until the 12th of june so only a
00:02:35.380 few days ago um and sample size of 525 which is apparently a fine sample size for the size of the
00:02:43.700 constituency but i would be very suspicious about these results so they had labor on 49 i mean it
00:02:50.400 does seem odd and again i'll just keep going back to my point from last week if restore are really
00:02:56.200 polling below the greening party the green party at five percent yeah why is the entire mainstream
00:03:03.720 media and reform why are they talking about nothing but restore if that poll is true and
00:03:09.200 their internal polling is showing the same they would be going after labor but they're not saying
00:03:13.680 anything about labour they're only going after the people who are fourth what exactly like why
00:03:18.860 was the daily mail dedicating an entire front page to calling us nazis yes if we're in fourth place
00:03:24.340 and aren't i mean even the vote splitting argument doesn't work here because even if you added up the
00:03:29.100 conservatives restore and reform you still don't beat labour there so yeah it doesn't make any
00:03:33.320 sense at all what would yeah why are they spurging out about us in this way and so i'm i'm not
00:03:40.000 persuaded by this i mean look at the look at the greens and the conservatives right in in very much
00:03:44.180 the same orbit as restore according to this poll yeah nobody talks about the conservatives they
00:03:49.800 disagree nobody talks about the greens even but they're all talking about this random party that's
00:03:55.640 polling the same as the greens and the why it would be inexplicable yeah if as you said we
00:04:03.760 haven't had a very recent example of why it actually might be that there is a kind of hidden
00:04:09.460 restore vote out there because as you can see at the bottom it says excluding those who don't
00:04:14.860 intend to vote and adjusted by likelihood to vote as a yeah so these are these are figures that have
00:04:20.600 been somewhat massaged based on how did you vote in 2024 how are you how are you feeling about any
00:04:26.460 of these candidates from these parties and of course restores uh constituency seems to be those
00:04:31.580 disaffected people who don't tend to vote so if you are so if they rang you up for this poll and
00:04:36.980 you said i'm intending to vote for restore britain and they said when was the last time you
00:04:40.760 voted and they say 1995 that they are massively deranking you or excluding you yes they're going
00:04:47.660 to manipulate the data based on that uh and so i can't help but feel there's a kind of willful
00:04:54.100 blindness that's been introduced into these polls because if you are going to weight it and adjust
00:05:00.140 it based on how they previously voted well a lot of these people won't have previously voted yeah
00:05:06.360 And so you're carving out a constituency of voters
00:05:10.200 who, like, as people have mentioned,
00:05:12.400 Dominic Cummings with Brexit...
00:05:13.620 Yes.
00:05:14.060 ...brought these people out and blindsided you.
00:05:17.260 And the polls before Brexit were saying
00:05:19.640 it was going to be a slam dunk, an absolute slam dunk.
00:05:21.900 They were going to win by 20 points or something.
00:05:23.260 Oh, yeah. I mean, I thought we were going to lose Brexit.
00:05:24.800 Yeah. And we didn't lose Brexit
00:05:26.900 because they didn't take into account the people
00:05:29.840 who hadn't historically voted.
00:05:31.900 Yes. And so, anyway, like you said,
00:05:34.420 um it doesn't really make sense for them to otherwise be attacking us so intensively
00:05:39.220 but we'll get on to the actual on the ground reporting of it in a minute because again these
00:05:45.100 polls can be useful but are also sometimes wildly wrong and i i've just spoken to loads
00:05:54.860 of our activists in makefield and that's something we don't think that 50 of people
00:05:58.100 in this constituency are voting for labor yeah we just don't think that's the case
00:06:01.820 i mean just just a fundamental question right if polls are good and accurate why does every
00:06:07.280 political party commission their own internal polls that they don't release that's a great
00:06:10.760 why would you bother and why restore britain the only party who did release their internal poll
00:06:14.660 well apart apart from we've heard leaks from various people in labor sure they would say
00:06:19.640 leaks yeah never restore britain just published theirs yes our returns are 24 so but the leaks
00:06:25.820 from labor is like yeah that one's actually accurate the store stuff is accurate anyway
00:06:29.660 we've got more polls uh here's from opinion opinionum i'm pronouncing that wrong anyway um
00:06:37.400 so they found that we were on seven percent and again you can see if you can read there
00:06:44.020 uh this is results of 400 respondents who at least seven out of ten likely to vote and gave
00:06:49.520 a voting intention so again they are carving off a particular number of people who didn't vote or
00:06:56.520 say they're not likely to vote or something like that carving off 30 of the response yeah yeah
00:07:00.300 basically yes and so who knows but again seven percent so i mean at least it's substantive
00:07:05.720 uh above conservatives and greens um and it is enough to feed the splitting the vote narrative
00:07:12.340 and again this was from the 11th of june at the latest so who knows who knows same sort of
00:07:18.820 perspective on this uh then we have a third one which is from more in common um more in common
00:07:24.680 not tremendously reliable um and the thing is i couldn't actually find any granular detail on this
00:07:30.340 so it was originally published in the times i go to the times article and all they said
00:07:34.340 is that uh they polled makefield by sample uh by telephone and online between may the 28th and jude
00:07:40.740 the 12th okay okay so i don't i don't have any further information about this that i could get
00:07:48.060 But this, again, restore on 8%, reform on 40%, Labour on 45%.
00:07:53.580 It's going to be the split-the-vote narrative.
00:07:56.380 But, again...
00:07:57.880 It does annoy me, the split-the-vote narrative.
00:08:00.960 So, come the next election, if there isn't a restored candidate to vote for,
00:08:06.680 I'm not going to vote.
00:08:08.020 Well, yeah, obviously.
00:08:08.960 And that's apparently me splitting the vote.
00:08:11.560 Well, they do feel entitled to your votes.
00:08:13.720 As far as I remember, it's the Jacob Rees-Mogg political socialism philosophy.
00:08:19.140 Everyone who votes was guaranteed to vote,
00:08:21.840 and all of those votes are shared out among various political parties.
00:08:25.540 So you need a slice of your pie.
00:08:27.140 In his view, it is split solely between are you a right-winger or a left-winger.
00:08:32.220 His political view is genuinely as simple as that.
00:08:35.700 It really is.
00:08:36.340 And if you are nominally right-wing, well, okay,
00:08:39.900 that means that you have to vote for reform,
00:08:41.680 which is odd because he's literally a member of a party which is running a candidate in makerfield
00:08:46.420 and that's all but as we've spoken about before it's also just wrong-headed as in there there is
00:08:53.360 not just this fixed pie of voters that are automatically shared between the different
00:08:58.040 political parties no people actually choose different things based on how they feel the
00:09:02.580 country is going on what's on offer and sometimes they vote sometimes they don't vote this is
00:09:06.220 actually a free market so this kind of you're splitting the vote political socialism argument
00:09:11.920 is really weird coming from jacob reese mogg who is an ardent free marketeer but also is not
00:09:16.020 accurate well and also if the jacob reese mogg view of politics was correct why do we bother
00:09:22.160 having elections you just when you get to 18 you just mark a card that says your left ring or white
00:09:26.260 ring yeah and then they just tot it up and they just why would you bother voting yeah so what's
00:09:32.120 weird though is the betting markets have got all the money on restore now this isn't a prediction
00:09:38.780 this isn't a poll this isn't anything other than people's gut feeling yeah it's it's the
00:09:44.560 weight of money invested so yeah yeah exactly it's weight of money invested uh people you know
00:09:49.900 taking a gamble on restore winning so they put 100 quid on it or whatever they might make i don't
00:09:55.580 know however much you know grand or something like that however much out of it um but it's just
00:09:59.180 really weird that that's where the betting markets went it's just really strange and again i just
00:10:05.160 can't believe the uh labor 45 percent number now there is definitely a burn and bounce but remember
00:10:11.160 in the local elections uh restore stormed them reform stormed them won everything all of the
00:10:18.940 council elections in makefield uh in that area um and there was something like 25 seats or something
00:10:23.980 like this that there was in this sort of the area around this constituency um Labour have been on
00:10:30.200 the downswing now is Andy Burnham personally enough to pull all of that back I don't know
00:10:35.600 maybe but I just I mean I suppose it's possible that the people of Makerfield just desperately
00:10:41.320 desperately want Keir Starmer out it's the easiest way to achieve it I mean and I can sympathize
00:10:46.880 with that yeah I mean maybe maybe but again trust the Labour Party at your peril um anyway
00:10:53.960 so a lot of people like well why aren't you on the right um particularly bothered about andy burnham
00:10:59.220 because andy burnham isn't a radical frankly like just think of some of the things that
00:11:06.600 has done or pledged to right over the last two years right first thing first he came out and was
00:11:12.380 like i'm against the british public because rioting over south port he just came out and
00:11:16.740 just said no this is unacceptable 24-hour courts you're going to jail for being upset that a bunch
00:11:21.780 of children were murdered yes and then you've got other things you've got the the jury trials
00:11:26.000 you've got the digital ids which is cramming through now yeah all of these things are insane
00:11:32.320 and this i mean if you're not from britain to give any idea of just how hated keir starmer is
00:11:38.300 right my kids found out yesterday that he's going to ban youtube oh yeah that's it um my kids don't
00:11:44.460 even know who keir starmer is they loathe the man yeah they were like who's doing this and i said oh
00:11:49.900 the prime minister and they were both like we hate him yeah because even people even people
00:11:55.720 who don't know who he is yes spies him like everything he does is overbearing everything
00:12:01.100 he does is um extreme in its own way and so is andy burnham going to be worse than that no
00:12:08.100 andy burnham is just going to be a kind of soft left socialist right where he's going to put
00:12:12.980 government money into manchester because that's where he's from and that's that's his constituency
00:12:17.420 and he might actually build some stuff frankly like you know it doesn't benefit me i'm not
00:12:23.520 in manchester the remarkable question here that lucy is asking is and i've seen a lot of people
00:12:27.540 do this is saying oh we've we've all got to coalesce around reform because otherwise we're
00:12:32.160 going to get a labor government it's like we've got a labor government yeah exactly we've already
00:12:36.100 got a government it is just we're going to be changing a completely awful soulless prime
00:12:42.620 minister for a clueless labor prime minister i would rather have a clueless prime minister
00:12:46.440 rather than an actively evil one,
00:12:49.300 who is operating on 50 years of Fabian programming
00:12:54.220 to undermine the tenants of the country.
00:12:57.080 I don't have any particular respect for Andy Burnham's political career.
00:13:00.860 He's failed every leadership challenge he's mustered.
00:13:03.300 So I'm not even convinced that he can unseat Starmer.
00:13:06.500 I think actually a lot of them would just be like,
00:13:08.020 well, better the devil you know.
00:13:09.300 And also it would tear the Labour Party apart.
00:13:10.900 Of course.
00:13:12.140 But also, Andy Burnham, the rumour around him,
00:13:14.820 oh, he's going to call the general election.
00:13:15.960 world god that would be no way yeah there's no way there's no way he's going to do it but imagine
00:13:20.260 if you're a labor politician sitting in parliament you're like but is he going to call the general
00:13:25.400 election and i lose my seat to the greens or to reform or to restore to whoever then why would
00:13:30.620 you know no i might just stick with kirsten because kirsten like you're saying kirsten is
00:13:34.400 like an evil robot sent from the future to destroy this country but at least if you're a labor
00:13:38.900 backbench mp you get to draw an 80 grand salary for the next three years exactly that's why you'd
00:13:43.680 stick with keir starmer but for the average person like okay let's say i mean it's inevitable that
00:13:48.840 it happens uh burnham overthrows starmer becomes prime minister and then the next day there's a
00:13:53.800 southport right another southport happens yeah does he come out and threaten the british public
00:13:58.920 probably not actually um you know whatever you whatever you think but by the same token he's
00:14:04.420 not going to come out and say millions must go no of course so so good he's still going to
00:14:08.980 completely unsatisfy people yes we're still going to end up with a change of government in three
00:14:12.680 years yes and he's committed to shabana mahoud's immigration policies committed to rachel reeves's
00:14:18.060 economic policy uh he's committed to ed milliband's green policy and and half of those things you just
00:14:23.120 mentioned are the reason why the why the labor so yes the labor party are losing something like
00:14:28.560 17 of their vote to the right but they're losing 16 to the left yes so with those policies you just
00:14:35.020 put out none of them are going to satisfy the right or the left the labor party is still going
00:14:39.100 to get ripped apart in three years time but for the reasons you've outlined he can't win a
00:14:43.680 leadership election by promising to hold an election afterwards so he's going to have he's
00:14:47.280 going to have to assure all those labor backbenchers don't worry i'm not going to do an election
00:14:51.120 and keir starmer can just say he is going to by the way he's going to he's going to ruin us and
00:14:56.820 but moreover like i said like okay andy burnham i mean already andy burnham's net favorability is
00:15:03.740 going down right because it looks like he might become the leader of the labor party and the
00:15:07.580 salience of Andy Burnham in the public mind
00:15:09.560 is that people are like, oh, good, another Labour
00:15:11.540 politician, great. But on a
00:15:13.540 personal level, he seems like a likeable guy, and
00:15:15.540 he seems like a human, which
00:15:17.460 would be a step up from what we've got at the moment.
00:15:19.640 He's just got no concept of how the economy works.
00:15:21.780 Of course, yeah, of course. It's just
00:15:23.440 going to be more tax and spend.
00:15:25.320 But the point is, like, for us
00:15:27.520 on the right, this is no particular difference.
00:15:30.120 People are like, would you like to eat a bowl
00:15:31.500 of cat feces or a bowl of dog feces?
00:15:33.620 It's like, well, I don't really have a preference.
00:15:36.180 And then Restore Britain, Swag
00:15:37.480 into the room and goes what wouldn't you rather eat this delicious medium rare fillet steak and
00:15:41.360 we go yes that sounds brilliant and then reform enters and say hi we're a miserable gray flat
00:15:47.060 plastic burger that's been heated up after sitting in the abandoned freezer for 10 years
00:15:50.220 why don't you vote for us and then you don't have to eat the dog feces or the cat feces
00:15:54.100 it's like but i could just have the steak yeah that sounds good and so anyway this i think is why
00:16:00.880 and i really do think this is why the um passion for reform seems to be completely absent in this
00:16:08.920 election right so i put up a tweet the other day because i just said look while we've been talking
00:16:15.320 about this i put up dozens of videos uh many many tweets i've seen what the reform guys are saying
00:16:22.080 i am yet to see the positive case for reform yeah and that's been reform's problem not just
00:16:30.160 in this one this is of course the problem with gorton and denton yes matt goodwin running around
00:16:34.480 like alan partridge saying keir starmer's gonna put your children on a flight to mars and you
00:16:38.980 know whatever all this nonsense but what but i mean seriously and and i put this tweet up and
00:16:43.760 specifically said to all the performers out there please give me the positive case for reform
00:16:47.520 dan wouldn't did the same it all didn't happen which isn't one just we're not we're we're not
00:16:53.020 gonna let andy burnham get into government it's like that's not the threat that you think it is
00:16:56.340 well the argument used to be we're not the tories at the last election but then they hired all the
00:17:01.400 tories and now it's we're not labor okay but but what is starmer out what is the reason for you
00:17:08.200 i mean in the in the locals it was get starmer out but that didn't yes that's flipped now it's
00:17:12.360 starmer loses a bunch of local elections and that gets rid of starmer well that didn't happen did
00:17:16.880 it so now it's literally keep starmer in for whatever reason that's like so sorry i actually
00:17:22.480 do you think Andy Burnham would be a step up from Keir Starmer?
00:17:25.680 Yeah.
00:17:26.020 But anyway,
00:17:27.520 the point being is this lack of positive message is not,
00:17:31.840 it's not inspiring the country to come out and support restore reform.
00:17:38.160 So this is the,
00:17:40.360 the two canvases on Saturday.
00:17:44.280 So the Saturday for all of the parties,
00:17:46.680 it's like the last big day.
00:17:47.740 They can get a bunch of activists there.
00:17:49.120 And for restore,
00:17:50.540 for reform,
00:17:51.240 probably about 60 people.
00:17:52.480 there's not that many and and what's even worse was it tice or whatever one of one of the top
00:17:58.880 reformers came out and said reforms brought an army yeah and i replied to that and said look
00:18:03.160 that's not even a platoon yeah that's whereas you look at restore uh restores one yeah that's a
00:18:08.840 battalion yeah um for from reports of our friends on the ground uh they reckon about a thousand
00:18:14.980 people turned up going and the thing is this photo doesn't capture it but when you see the video of
00:18:19.860 this they pan around and there's loads of people behind this it's that all the way around yeah uh
00:18:25.320 so we're completely mogging them on the number of activists that we have actually there and you see
00:18:31.760 like this empty bus driving around now you know in their defense they're probably just trying to
00:18:36.320 raise awareness but it looks kind of bad when it's just an empty bus driving around maybe the
00:18:41.260 store would have filled it uh yeah absolutely and people got emails saying well hang on a second
00:18:46.460 uh reform were charging people to go on the bus originally 50 pounds to go up to makefield to
00:18:53.240 canvas for them uh but they've they've reduced it to zero pounds to encourage people to go up
00:18:58.800 so uh so they cut it to zero pounds bus was still empty the bus was still empty and uh as we saw
00:19:06.460 uh they only got about 60 people up yeah whereas everyone for restore are paying as far as i'm
00:19:12.700 we're paying for it out of our own pocket and this this is um where the enthusiasm gap is oh
00:19:20.020 there's yeah there's a bit of a gap yeah yeah and so it's just very strange right why is reform
00:19:26.200 the sort of party that really is it's it's currently you know leading in the polls but
00:19:30.960 unable to actually muster an organic grassroots groundswell of support why is that the case
00:19:37.000 very very strange isn't it and it it could be because the political activists have gone elsewhere
00:19:42.700 deal well exactly that's exactly the point i wonder how many of those activists were reform
00:19:48.180 activists three years ago and how many of them were paid because this uh indian chap who will
00:19:53.360 coleshill um found uh putting leaflets through doors uh refused to talk to him obviously but
00:19:59.960 apparently afterwards a few of our chaps were there and they messaged me going uh we think
00:20:05.180 these were paid uh activists as in um they they they seem to have a kind of like a particular
00:20:12.040 composition.
00:20:15.660 Yes.
00:20:16.540 And they have a small number of groups going around
00:20:18.820 and they think they were paid activists,
00:20:20.640 which is why they had no interest in talking.
00:20:21.580 Is it by,
00:20:22.700 because I mean,
00:20:23.060 it's totally a thing you can do.
00:20:24.640 You can hire people in your local area
00:20:26.600 to go and deliver takeaway menus
00:20:28.100 or double glazing.
00:20:29.880 And they often look a bit like that, Chad.
00:20:32.420 Yeah.
00:20:32.740 And that's,
00:20:33.400 none of the reform activists,
00:20:35.120 the canvassers,
00:20:36.460 want to talk to the media or anything.
00:20:39.200 That's interesting, isn't it?
00:20:40.060 Yeah, the restore ones,
00:20:41.220 there are lots of you can't shut them up yeah exactly you can't shut them up no they grab the
00:20:44.720 mic and give you a 20 minute monologue yeah exactly um so it's just hmm is this a case of
00:20:51.180 there is a reform sort of you know air war going on but actually on the ground war reform are very
00:20:57.940 very weak and don't seem to actually be getting the job done on the doorstep because i mean as
00:21:03.820 you pointed out the daily telegraph did a whole video where they went up to make i love this video
00:21:08.980 and they were trying to ask people you know who interested in talking to and was it not that they
00:21:15.180 didn't find a single reform vote so this video was so funny because they didn't talk about restore
00:21:20.020 at all in their intro or the beginning bit the first 10 minutes they didn't mention restore at
00:21:23.680 all and they're saying we're going to go up to make a field and we're going to find out what's
00:21:26.740 going on between labor and reform right they get up there and they start looking for a reformed
00:21:32.240 person to speak to and all they can find is uh a reformed person speak to all they can find is
00:21:36.640 restore people and this one guy they go and talk to and they come out afterwards and tim stanley
00:21:42.540 who is obviously a bit of a cuck he comes out and he's like he was so reasonable and made such good
00:21:46.760 points i thought that restore were a bunch of raving neo-nazis but this is just a sensible 0.67
00:21:51.320 middle-class guy and then there's an even funnier bit before that where they're stood out on the
00:21:56.860 street right and all these cars are going past honking and they think wow everybody knows two
00:22:04.420 obscure journalists from the daily telegraph and then they look around and realize they're
00:22:08.060 stood next to a restore sign and they're like oh people think we will restore yeah yeah yeah
00:22:15.600 it's like right that's interesting isn't and then again enthusiasm gap yep and and then they go to
00:22:21.160 the reform hq to say we're from the telegraph can we speak to anyone not a person and it's like no
00:22:28.580 you can't you would think the daily i mean the daily telegraph has been running defense for
00:22:33.200 reform for months now so in this country for anyone who's followed we used to call the the
00:22:38.700 telegraph the tory graph it is now a hundred percent the reformer graph yeah just like the
00:22:42.900 daily mail at this point actually um but yeah like you said they were getting honks for restore
00:22:47.960 they found in fact this is only a minute long let's watch this because it's just great you're
00:22:51.580 actually a rupert lowe fan i am yes um i did follow reform for a little while i was a labor
00:22:58.320 support a long time ago right um but things seem to have shifted they don't seem they personally
00:23:04.680 the labor side of things don't seem to be following sort of the sort of working class
00:23:09.600 routes that they sort of started off on um i did start to go to reform and follow a lot of their
00:23:16.180 things i do work um security at an airport so i see a lot of the border issues and things like
00:23:21.860 that um i actually started following rupert like when he was still in reform and then sort of saw
00:23:28.120 what happened and quite a bit disenfranchised really with Farage um I don't really trust the
00:23:36.380 guy um what a lot of things he said he always seems to follow the popular tack and suddenly
00:23:43.400 he'll jump onto things and say oh yeah this is the latest and greatest but looking at things
00:23:48.620 recently with his sort of voting and the thing how much time he's actually spent in parliament
00:23:53.260 rather than smoothing with his pals and going off and going on holidays and all sorts of things
00:23:57.640 um i started forward to rupert low yeah it's exactly what we've been saying right this was
00:24:05.480 farage's to lose and he lost it on his character his argument his point that you know i was a
00:24:11.100 labor voter obviously but labor were terrible so i started following him from because farage was
00:24:14.400 the thing in the media and he got my attention but then rupert low was actually doing the work
00:24:19.640 and so then farage kicked him out and i was like well farage is the used car salesman of british
00:24:24.020 politics i don't really trust him uh and she's just like oh my god a resource but he's completely
00:24:29.680 normal man yes i've i work at the airport and i see the problem it completely blew tim stanley's
00:24:35.180 mind because because in tim stanley's mind restore were just the most extreme neo-nazis imaginable
00:24:40.320 yeah and it's actually just normal people good arguments yeah no i bet i bet he's a dad i bet
00:24:45.220 he's you know married with kids yeah he works doing normal things and he's like oh god we have
00:24:49.740 to change this and who's the one person who's actually saying speaking to him in a way that
00:24:54.080 resonates it's rupert lowe and the reason why the telegraph knocked on that door is because they'd
00:24:58.560 spoken to reform hq before and said what part of makerfield is your prime territory so that's why
00:25:04.720 they went there so it just just remarkable i mean what we we um uh we've got this uh more from the
00:25:11.720 daily mail and we can't show you because you've got to subscribe but dan hodges has been strangely
00:25:16.300 fascinated with restore and as we covered last time it's like they're going to start attacking
00:25:20.780 restore and that's just going to increase the salience he was he was right yeah and he was
00:25:24.100 right and he's been speaking to voters and it's just the same sort of story it's the same story
00:25:28.420 no we're disappointed with farage we're disappointed with reform uh we want something
00:25:32.600 that's actually the red meat of politics and so you saw a lot of um uh like reform sports
00:25:39.180 weiss extreme left-wing journalist burnham sycophant and renowned reform hater dan hodges
00:25:43.740 there oh it's because he's a big fan of rupert lowe no it's because he understands this dare i
00:25:48.820 say it he's doing a bit of journalism right well the thing is he he's established enough that he
00:25:54.000 can actually say what he wants to say exactly yeah he can actually go down and because he's
00:26:00.040 like he's a reform hater he thinks reform are going to win the next election so for him this
00:26:05.000 is already a lost course right there's no point doing activism for dan hodges at this point so
00:26:09.740 he's actually resigned to doing journalism for his sins and so what's he found well he's he's found
00:26:15.900 a lot more support than he expected and this has been a thing that's perennially been popping up
00:26:21.380 for all of them in all of their podcasts have been covering like the times the daily telegraph
00:26:25.540 new statesman they'll say wow there's actually really quite a lot of organic support for us
00:26:29.320 still britain here and they all follow the same format they frame it as we're going to do some
00:26:34.020 investigation to find out what's going on between reform and labor and then they get there and
00:26:38.360 everyone wants to talk about restore yes uh and uh so yeah like this is uh dan hodges did another
00:26:44.700 one on this sorry not dan hodges uh robert hardman sorry uh got the same sort of thing
00:26:50.660 where again look look it's going to be closer than you expected because restore um they
00:26:56.860 can tell that there is something going on in makefield that is not normal in the the traditional
00:27:04.300 paradigm that we are so uh slowly but surely dragging them out of and so unwillingly being
00:27:11.720 dragged out of this paradigm they're like but i love red and blue and nigel farage is established
00:27:16.460 and therefore he fits nicely into the sort of cinematic universe of british politics these
00:27:20.900 people have a simple conception of politics which is there's a right-wing party and left-wing party
00:27:24.600 it's labor versus tory and and in their minds they've just said okay well the form is going to
00:27:29.360 substitute tory but it's the same mechanism it's always been it's all the same politics yeah it's
00:27:33.820 the same container just we're just we're just doing a half-time sort of a substitution that's
00:27:37.560 exactly and rupert lowe has come down like an absolute lion on this and he is causing them
00:27:44.440 hell and they know it and again the daily mail has been the one publishing hit piece after hit
00:27:49.820 piece after hit piece yes they hate us but they can't deny us that's the point uh and like for
00:27:58.180 example you've got so many of these great clips that are coming out this is um owen jones went
00:28:03.420 down to uh makefield come on play this come on owen jones went down to makefield and i was
00:28:08.780 watching his video on it and it was it was incredible all right so say they'll literally
00:28:13.020 millions of people will leave the country they'll be they'll be deported millions millions well good
00:28:19.600 there's a reason that people are flipping to restore there's a reason for it it's because
00:28:28.060 millions of people are going to get deported i absolutely love that owen jones said to her that
00:28:33.740 millions of people would be deported expecting her to recoil like a vampire in the sunlight
00:28:38.520 and she was just good yeah that's where the british people are now yes a large percentage
00:28:46.060 of the british population are at the point where like that's what i want actually yes you can't
00:28:50.560 scare me with this that's that's threatening me with the only the only way you could have
00:28:55.220 upgraded that clip if she has said no it needs to be billion anyway so this is a clip that uh we
00:29:03.460 got because uh luca went up and they filmed an entire street flipping to restore from reform
00:29:09.220 because well why would you want the reheated burger why wouldn't i want the freshly cooked
00:29:15.660 juicy steak and so the activists have gone to the street spoken to everyone on the street
00:29:19.640 and they said yeah no no actually we think you're right we are going to vote for restore
00:29:23.440 we'll put up the restore signs instead of the reform signs and it happened all at once because
00:29:27.620 the signs got delivered all at once yes and so they took down the signs and put it up a lot of
00:29:32.220 reform activists online were very upset by this but um that's just too bad frankly that's just too
00:29:38.140 bad anyway so we've got lots of reports from our guys on the on the ground and makefield because
00:29:42.600 of course we have thousands of people have gone up and canvas for us right so we can just listen
00:29:47.620 to what they say now i don't know whether what they're saying is accurate i don't know whether
00:29:51.640 what they're saying is because of a selection bias or a filter because they're there but the
00:29:56.540 point is this is what our people are saying this is what their experience on the ground is this is
00:30:01.960 what dan hodge's experience on the ground is this is what the daily telegraph's experience on the
00:30:06.660 ground is this is what owen jones's experience on the ground is i haven't been there i can only go
00:30:13.240 from what people are saying but this chap says from the scenes in makefield today is going to
00:30:16.960 be very very close with restore and labor reform are done the tables are flipped restore easily
00:30:21.200 second from what we saw on the ground make film the uk need restore of course so okay i mean i
00:30:26.080 don't know i don't know but all i can say is the people on the ground are saying stuff like this
00:30:31.000 this is just i mean i don't know who this guy is but we've got loads of friends loads of subscribers
00:30:35.260 to the podcast who are in makefield you know saying by the way this this is looking amazing
00:30:40.540 so i heard this the first few times and i thought no it's too good to be true i can't believe it
00:30:44.780 exactly but it it's like dozens of people that we know that we know are like solid but also
00:30:50.320 are telling us the same thing exactly people who we know personally we've known for years we've
00:30:55.400 like we've worked with four years who've gone there and we know are not hysterical we know
00:31:00.040 they're liars and we know they know they're supposed to check their biases yes we know
00:31:04.220 they know this because they're long too long in the tooth and it's not like they're telling us 0.99
00:31:07.880 something different in private hand on heart they're telling us they're telling us the same
00:31:11.000 thing in private all this and well to be honest with you they're telling us things that sound
00:31:14.100 better than this in private yeah that's true yes but again it's it's it's i'm exactly that
00:31:19.700 i don't want to bring myself to believe it but the thing is my um personal skepticism is why i've
00:31:25.700 called every election for the last decade wrong right yes i call every single election the complete
00:31:30.920 i may as well be the inverse kramer right like if you'd bet on every election i called in the other
00:31:36.180 way you'd have been right almost 100 of the time because i get that self-doubt in the back of my
00:31:41.440 mind i go no that can't be it can't be that we're going to win brexit it can't be that trump's going
00:31:44.700 to win it can't be that you know we're going to get a clean sweep in great yarmouth it can't be
00:31:50.280 that we're going to win makerfield and so i'm i don't know all i've got is that voice of self
00:31:56.700 doubt but all of the signs are like no this is going to be a place where we perform admirably
00:32:02.340 at the very least yes five percent i doubt it right now five percent yeah judging from just
00:32:08.780 the things that we see coming out of it so anyway you've got uh as you said they don't even make
00:32:14.900 the positive argument anymore right um this is just an incredible meme by gramesma games
00:32:19.640 they don't even attempt to argue the policy because every policy they come out with is
00:32:24.800 reforms policy from a month ago restores policy from a month ago right you saw the other day that 0.89
00:32:29.980 nigel fros was like here here's my sub stack oh demographic change in britain isn't good isn't it
00:32:35.400 did i hear just as i was coming into the podcast people talking in the office just as i was going
00:32:39.360 out saying that jenrick has now come out and said millions must go yes i wonder where he got that
00:32:45.320 line from yeah i wonder do you remember they started saying detain and deport as well it's
00:32:50.060 like sorry like we know you're stealing our our recipes and why would i want to eat at your cheap
00:32:58.480 knock-off burger joint when i could go to the steakhouse yes i just don't understand what you
00:33:03.400 think you're winning here and why you have to be a day late and a dollar short on every single 0.97
00:33:08.800 goddamn policy it doesn't make sense that you hamstring yourselves in this way and again i 0.79
00:33:14.160 extend the same offer i mean i read the comments on the video below this when it goes out on 0.98
00:33:17.480 youtube if you're a reformer supporter and you can make an argument as to why reform are better
00:33:21.660 on their own merits than restore make the argument and i read it and i put that out so many times and
00:33:28.240 i haven't seen one argument yet one argument that i've heard me is well they're not racist so well
00:33:34.340 that's a that's a superb argument that's really persuaded me that nigel farage is the man of the
00:33:39.280 hour anyway so let's go on to nigel farage in fact because there's a lot that's happened with
00:33:44.580 nigel farage recently and uh it seems that he is beginning to crack at the seams i noticed a bit
00:33:51.300 it seems that the pressure is getting to him yes because this like we said follows in the wake of
00:33:56.500 actually a bunch of reform failures so we've talked about how they've been dipping in the
00:34:00.580 polls where they should be rising in the polls i mean like reform i mean remember when boris
00:34:05.320 johnson came in he was on 52 percent when kia starmer came in he was on 41 percent something
00:34:10.100 like that yeah that went down a bit of course it went down a bit but nigel farage has never
00:34:13.720 managed to crack more than 31 percent and that yeah 31 percent was where they maxed out in the
00:34:18.780 polls right and that was reform not not his personal approval rating no his personal
00:34:24.840 reform as a party in the polls 31 and that was a year ago right now they they dipped down to 24
00:34:32.260 they're back at like 25 26 so okay a quarter of the electorate supporting you that's not i mean
00:34:38.720 that does put them in the lead admittedly but that's only because we've got such fractured
00:34:42.020 politics at the moment but it's not good and you should be at 40 plus in the polls you should be
00:34:46.740 the right wing insurgent party who's like no we're just going to storm everything and
00:34:50.080 so well what happened in the local elections you underperformed by hundreds of council seats
00:34:54.820 seats labor and the conservatives kept or advanced in some areas like in london where you did minimal
00:35:00.340 campaigning and expected to just sort of swagger in as if it was your time like hillary clinton
00:35:05.780 well i mean i remember kemi baden not celebrating because she only lost like 6 000 seats well no no 0.95
00:35:10.520 500 or 800 or however it was but it was considerably less than she was expected to lose
00:35:16.560 whereas reform they weren't celebrating even though they had won seats because it was considerably
00:35:21.780 less than they were supposed to win they were celebrating that's the thing but it's like but
00:35:25.680 keir starmer has already managed the expectations of the laid party oh yeah we'll lose some but it
00:35:30.480 won't be as bad as you think and it wasn't as bad as they thought and the same with the
00:35:34.780 conservatives where kemi baden was actually celebrating this and of course get vote vote
00:35:39.780 reform get starmer out well he didn't go because you didn't deliver the mortal blow to him and then
00:35:44.880 in gordon and denton you lost to the greens you didn't mobilize the disenfranchised white working
00:35:50.420 class why not and then like i said the other day frage puts out the subset going well the the
00:35:55.000 demographics of britain are a concern it's like yeah but that flies in the face of everything
00:35:59.040 you've said about the demographics of this country stephen edgington sat you down and said are you
00:36:03.860 concerned about the demographics of country and he said emphatically no richard tice well i'll be
00:36:09.960 long gone that's even worse this and this is why yeah people think reform have this kind of used
00:36:18.180 car salesman attitude about them just like well they don't care they're just here to sell me a
00:36:21.940 product and get my vote and then they get money and whatever but they're not here to actually
00:36:26.740 substantively fix any of the problems so anyway he did a press conference in makefield the other day
00:36:32.180 and he did an interview with nick ferrari the other day and these these were very very very
00:36:37.940 interesting we've got the uh we've got the appropriate clips um but so yeah as kevin
00:36:43.620 points out here right Nadja Farage's uh response to Nick Ferrari here is just very bizarre let's
00:36:49.020 watch this do you want to be prime minister do you know something Nick not for the sake of the
00:36:53.780 office or the title because I couldn't give a damn about that never been interested in that
00:36:58.440 for me politics is not about is is it's it's not about what I become in terms of a personal status
00:37:05.540 is about what i can do right now i believe i'm the only person that's got sufficient public report
00:37:15.260 and the courage to take on the establishment and do what needs to be done right now i'm the right
00:37:20.740 person may well be in a couple of years time or more somebody else comes along who's better
00:37:25.180 equipped right now i do believe it's me so you okay so two points here first of all the bit where
00:37:33.100 he does that yeah which he's been doing a lot lately yeah yeah yeah the second thing is he's
00:37:41.480 already talking about quitting before the next election yeah two two years is before the next
00:37:45.900 election i mean this is really weird like this is a stress response yes where he's like you know
00:37:50.660 this is what i do when i walk into the room and my kids have made it's it's it's i think it's a
00:37:55.940 specific stress response because i i mean i i've only ever seen um whatever i'm 46 years old now
00:38:01.460 I've only ever seen people do that when they have screwed up and it's their
00:38:07.040 fault and they bloody know it.
00:38:08.580 So,
00:38:08.720 I mean,
00:38:08.940 a few years ago I watched somebody basically for no conceivable reason
00:38:13.660 driving to the back of a car and he did that.
00:38:18.820 That is the face that you make when you know you screwed up.
00:38:21.220 Oh yeah.
00:38:21.460 It's the face I make when I know I've let my kids play on their own for too
00:38:24.940 long and they've wrecked one of the rooms.
00:38:26.860 Yeah.
00:38:27.160 It's like,
00:38:27.580 oh,
00:38:27.700 I should have.
00:38:28.460 Yeah.
00:38:28.880 This is my own fault.
00:38:29.920 I knew it was my own fault.
00:38:30.880 but again another couple of things on this is really weird um he's like i'm the only person
00:38:36.920 who can who i don't i don't care about being premier so it's like i don't really believe that
00:38:40.400 um i've been following nigel farage for long enough to know that he is an egotistical man
00:38:44.800 and he does like the prestige and social status that comes with all of uh his position and he's
00:38:51.480 he's viciously defended this social status in the past yeah and this is why restore britain even
00:38:57.220 exist because remember the first thing he came out and said after kicking uh ripple out of the
00:39:02.320 party was he was trying to take over the party it's like but that's that's that's a question
00:39:06.300 of status he can't possibly have had the actual mechanical ability to take i mean there's no way
00:39:11.040 to do it exactly there's just no way to you don't have elections or anything he can't wrench the
00:39:15.620 company off your own company's house there's nothing he could have done so it was all about
00:39:19.640 prestige it was all about who the perceived popularity exactly right so i don't believe
00:39:24.980 that for a second right don't believe that you don't consider this a big popularity contest i
00:39:28.960 know you do right but secondly he's like oh i'm the only person who is prepared to do what needs
00:39:33.440 to be done in the face of the establishment so okay but why don't you do it then like because
00:39:38.580 you are in parliament you have a suite of tools at your disposal to actually do things yes do
00:39:45.040 anything clangton you don't put the parliamentary notes in i mean you literally tend to one to
00:39:49.560 rupert lowe's parliamentary notes you don't actually do the things that this office empowers
00:39:54.960 you to do well for example you could have done the thing that you'd promised to do
00:39:59.680 the the rupert lowe then ended up doing that has been released today which is the great the rape
00:40:04.340 gang inquiry right again you said you were going to do things but you don't and then you come and
00:40:09.400 say well i i just want to do the right thing to say the country well well then do it yeah nothing's
00:40:13.660 stopping and bear in mind the reason why rupert lowe did the rape gang inquiry he didn't actually
00:40:18.400 make that commitment it's just that he was he was sat next to Nigel Farage when he made that
00:40:24.880 promise and Rupert Lowe felt that because he was on the bench next to Farage in the party when that
00:40:31.540 commitment was made when he realized that reform were not going to do the rape gang inquiry he
00:40:37.260 felt but he felt beholden to do it because it was part of his promise by being there he was in the
00:40:43.020 party when the promise was yes so his personal commitment compelled him and he spent an enormous
00:40:47.880 amount of his own money doing this but he felt personally compelled that he had to do it i mean
00:40:53.840 i didn't i i'm only about 15 pages actually into the rape game i bet it's horrific it was released
00:40:59.360 about an hour before we started recording this i haven't had that much time to read i was in the
00:41:02.280 podcast i haven't seen it yet it's awful i mean jesus christ like horrors like you wouldn't believe 0.75
00:41:07.820 yeah but again you didn't do this nigel you could have done any of it you promised to do it 0.66
00:41:12.920 you didn't do it so all i'm saying is i don't really believe and for 90 for 90 percent of the 0.75
00:41:19.460 time when lowe was doing that restore was a was a movement not a party yeah so anyone including 0.95
00:41:25.500 reform could have said okay we come on board and do it pick it up with you so of course nigel can't 0.91
00:41:30.080 do that because of the bitchy way that he tries to destroy his political opponents um but anyway 0.89
00:41:35.100 so they you had um like so this where he again and and that's the third point that you made like
00:41:41.040 why are you basically checking out before the election right now i'm the only person who could
00:41:46.480 do it but what i realize my star's on the decline i realize that i'm not going to make it to the
00:41:51.100 next election i'm teeing up zia yusuf or robert jamrick or whoever i'm going to put a muslim or 0.86
00:41:55.760 a tory in charge so that you you know they get to be the prime what are we saying here nigel 0.82
00:42:01.140 like and as this is why i got this chap's comment here it's like it's just weird he he brags about 0.92
00:42:06.660 being ahead in the polls 200 polls consecutively uh but can't just say yes when he says he wants
00:42:11.480 to be the prime minister that is by far the easiest answer to give it's if that were me i'm
00:42:16.620 like well yeah and judging by the way the polls are it looks like i'm going to be so here's what
00:42:20.280 i'm going to do right this is what happens when the british people millions must go in terms of
00:42:24.980 political interview that is that is teeing you up to then give a three-minute monologue on all the
00:42:30.140 things you're going to do in government tony blair would have knocked that out the bar i mean you
00:42:33.400 You would have lost the rest of the interview to Tony Blair
00:42:36.000 while he started doing his Blair hands, talking about everything.
00:42:38.780 But Farage just makes that face and is like, well, I...
00:42:42.300 Why is he putting his head in his hands here? 0.56
00:42:44.960 Why does he look like, as you said, he knows he's screwed up?
00:42:48.900 This wasn't the only time.
00:42:50.420 In this press conference at Makerfield,
00:42:54.760 Beth Rigby asked Nigel a question.
00:42:56.500 Now, Beth Rigby is asking him to needle him,
00:42:59.320 as UK John here points out.
00:43:00.720 He is right.
00:43:01.980 She's definitely doing this for a reason.
00:43:03.400 But why doesn't Nigel Farage have a good response to it?
00:43:05.980 Let's watch.
00:43:06.440 And when it comes to Makerfield,
00:43:08.700 Restore are doing well here,
00:43:10.900 and it could really hurt you.
00:43:14.020 What's Rupert Lowe got
00:43:15.800 that it's appealing to some people over you?
00:43:19.320 Thank you very much.
00:43:20.520 Elon Musk, thank you.
00:43:24.480 Most people here who say Restore,
00:43:27.880 and by the way, it's not a very big percentage,
00:43:30.220 most people here would not recognise a photograph of him.
00:43:33.400 This is stuff that pops up on their phones.
00:43:36.160 That has been the problem with it.
00:43:37.800 I do not believe for a moment it will last.
00:43:40.680 And look, whatever the family said in Belfast,
00:43:44.500 the fact is things kicked off in Belfast.
00:43:47.620 Well, he goes on to about Belfast.
00:43:50.040 Again, like, where was the...
00:43:52.380 Yeah.
00:43:54.060 Just, like, again, this looks like stress and tension
00:43:58.700 that he can't manage properly, right?
00:44:01.640 Yeah.
00:44:01.800 And his answer, oh, it's Rupert Lowe.
00:44:04.660 It's Elon Musk, sorry.
00:44:06.000 It's like, no, Rupert Lowe, like, Elon Musk personally promotes him, sure.
00:44:12.040 But, I mean, why isn't he personally promoting you?
00:44:14.820 But Rupert Lowe's primary social media outlet is Facebook.
00:44:19.800 He's got, you know, 1.6 million followers on Facebook.
00:44:24.140 The numbers are just staggering.
00:44:25.660 Something like half a billion impressions a month, something like that.
00:44:28.100 It's wild, because, of course, they post very regularly,
00:44:30.100 and these go very far on Facebook.
00:44:31.800 And the normies who are still on Facebook are like,
00:44:34.960 oh, yeah, this is pretty good stuff.
00:44:36.680 It's not the Milk Toast Farage nonsense.
00:44:39.840 And so, like...
00:44:40.760 The thing is, right,
00:44:42.320 we know that Farage has continually assassinated...
00:44:46.680 I mean, even Stephen Wolfe, who used to be on this podcast,
00:44:49.840 he was one of the guys assassinated.
00:44:51.740 I mean, in his case, slightly more literally,
00:44:53.720 in that he had somebody actually beat him.
00:44:56.360 But he...
00:44:57.300 Kilroy Silk...
00:44:58.180 I mean, there's too many names to mention.
00:45:00.040 Dozens.
00:45:00.560 Yeah.
00:45:00.860 It literally does.
00:45:01.420 dozens of names so he is he has kicked out dozens and dozens of people over the years to make sure
00:45:07.660 that nobody becomes more popular than him being popular being the top girl in the class is is
00:45:12.940 clearly a very important thing to him now before he did that to rupert lowe so if you go back to
00:45:18.000 the last election uh the entire right were huge for our fangirls we used to have him on our video
00:45:24.280 wall for our lads hour because he was the only guy we could put our name behind he had so much
00:45:28.880 adoration he could go out into any street and people be like nigel that doesn't happen anymore 0.63
00:45:35.440 yeah and and he he's no longer the most popular girl and it is eating him and he and the the 0.82
00:45:44.700 thing is as you said he's the person to blame there's no one else who can point the finger
00:45:49.300 out here if you're feeling besieged by rupert lowe you're gonna ask yourself well why isn't 0.73
00:45:56.800 he a reform mp because he was a reform mp nigel like you brought him into the parliament and he
00:46:03.620 would have boosted your star 100 because if if the more popular that rupert land rupert lowe was 0.80
00:46:09.060 becoming very popular at the point they kicked him out it would everyone would have looked at
00:46:13.420 that and said look nigel's doing great he's got great people underneath him like rupert lowe it
00:46:19.140 would have it would have boosted him because he's on top of the organization but the and he couldn't
00:46:24.720 But also, Nigel thought he could control the direction of politics in this country, right? 0.79
00:46:31.660 And so he was like, oh no, Rupert Lowe wants to deport the Pakistani rapists and their families because they're complicit.
00:46:38.100 And as he said in the press conference the other day, that was too far right.
00:46:42.160 We had to get rid of him and that's just how things are going to be, right?
00:46:45.000 No, how things are going to be, Nigel, is that you're going to get dragged to the right by Rupert Lowe with you, like it or not, right?
00:46:50.340 no matter what happens, you are going to scramble to catch up to Rupert Lowe setting the agenda of
00:46:55.800 the country. Because at the moment, Rupert Lowe is setting the agenda of the country. He comes out,
00:47:00.700 gives a very sensible position that happens to, in our insane politics, fall far to the right of
00:47:06.380 whatever the Blairite, Cameronite consensus is, that you're trying to ingratiate yourself into,
00:47:11.060 and you are dragged to it, physically dragged to it. Now, that could have been because he could
00:47:16.120 have been your bright star in your party and Rupert Lowe comes out and says something you have
00:47:21.100 to go on Sky News and Beth Rigby's like do you really stand by Rupert as I said and you can look
00:47:24.940 at the popularity and go well I mean it's it's quite a hard-line thing but really there's something
00:47:29.680 to it isn't there Beth which is why everyone's supporting it and that's why he's in my party
00:47:34.140 and there's nothing that Rupert Lowe has said that would raise an eyebrow from either a conservative
00:47:39.200 or a Labour supporter in the 1960s they would have just gone what we we have massive amounts 0.92
00:47:45.720 of Pakistani rape camp. 1.00
00:47:46.880 Yeah, of course. 1.00
00:47:47.180 Just like the woman
00:47:47.900 talking to Owen Jones. 0.94
00:47:49.180 Millions would go.
00:47:50.480 Good.
00:47:50.740 Good, yeah.
00:47:51.900 That's the point.
00:47:53.400 It's only because
00:47:53.920 we've been so bent out of shape
00:47:55.440 with the Great Awokening
00:47:56.560 over the last 20 years.
00:47:58.060 The Western nations
00:47:59.100 have lost their mind.
00:48:01.000 That's why Rupert Lowe
00:48:02.080 appears to be right wing.
00:48:03.580 Yeah, and so you've seen memes
00:48:04.820 about this all over Twitter.
00:48:06.220 And, you know,
00:48:08.000 this is not good optics
00:48:10.300 for reform, right?
00:48:11.560 It's pretty much indefensible
00:48:13.220 that when Farage is put
00:48:14.460 in a spot under this sort of pressure he's folding he's not doing a good job and so I mean
00:48:22.700 if you're the public you're looking at this like well why don't this guy because I mean like every
00:48:26.640 time you see Rupert Lowe he's got a bit of a cheeky chappy smile on his face like no we're
00:48:30.780 on to something good here and we're going to win and every time he's challenged he just says I
00:48:35.320 don't care and I'm not backing down when I mean and it's every issue as well so oh when he when
00:48:40.240 he's talking to um what's her face on the news agents um simply emily matliss and she's like 0.93
00:48:46.360 well you're a racist rupus i don't care what what about this activist in your party who said these 0.84
00:48:51.660 things so we don't care we're not going to police the membership we're here to win yeah we're not 0.99
00:48:54.880 here to like you know british citizens can back whatever party they want exactly but we're not
00:48:59.860 here to like morally police the tone police the the things that members of the party say on twitter
00:49:05.320 that's just irrelevant nonsense and farage is here for that that's why rupert lowe's been kicked out
00:49:10.980 that's why you got kicked out and that's why like bow that's why so many people was no shortage of
00:49:15.960 people who've been kicked out of reform and he just thought there'd be nowhere else for you to go
00:49:19.300 that's what it was he thought there'd be nowhere else anyway so apparently um harry cole has uh
00:49:25.780 reports from the sun has reported that nigel farage sought donald trump's advice on how to
00:49:30.400 deal with elon musk's increasingly deranged attacks on reform and support for rupert low
00:49:34.000 uh well i mean what could you do like what are your options here i mean you're trying the only
00:49:40.440 thing that you know how which is to adopt his positions but it doesn't seem to be winning
00:49:44.900 well you could get behind you could you could you could do everything in your power to make
00:49:48.840 sure that keir starmer remains prime minister and x gets banned i guess that's your only option
00:49:55.680 actually at this point um but that's the point isn't it if farage is now like ring up donald
00:50:02.080 trump who has been distancing himself from farage for some time uh not convinced they are actually
00:50:07.200 the buddies that he thinks they were um well you look at the first trump election he had
00:50:12.100 stage with his arm around him second trump election uh farage said i i'm going to take
00:50:18.260 a break from gb news to come and campaign for you and trump was like no you're not wasn't even
00:50:22.920 invited yep and so yeah so now and now if he's like donald i need help donald trump doesn't like
00:50:29.220 losers i mean i'm amazed that he managed to get the call through if yeah i mean it's a bit ambiguous
00:50:34.180 as to whether trump took the call or not yeah i imagine he asked his advisors for advice you know
00:50:38.660 um but then you had gwayne towler out doing expectation management on times radio and this
00:50:45.440 is just very interesting i think it's a very very hard ask i really do um i think if it was
00:50:52.080 anybody but burnham i think we'd be a shoo-in but burnham does change the weather let's be honest
00:50:57.360 about it and we've also had this uh experience where tory supporting and labor portion papers
00:51:05.700 have made a massive massive effort to big up the presence of restore um i have as you know kate
00:51:13.280 by calling us nazis mate great towler has seen the reform internal polling
00:51:21.280 and is setting up a narrative for what comes after the media ginned up restore support yes
00:51:28.160 and what does he immediately talk about he talks about labor probably winning and restore coming
00:51:34.080 second that's that that is that is what he's inferring yeah that seems to be what he's implying
00:51:38.980 and so again i mean that and that that doesn't sound unplausible to me it doesn't sound and it
00:51:45.980 will actually be that reform was splitting the votes and allowed burnham in if that's the case
00:51:50.800 and again i don't i'm not making any predictions i don't know you can't you can't think that's too
00:51:55.020 crazy because that is exactly what happened at the last election so so the the the narrative
00:51:59.460 was from um you know uh peter hitchens and all the rest don't vote reform because you'll split
00:52:05.500 the tory vote and actually it turned out that it was it was the tory splitting the reform vote well
00:52:10.500 i mean technically the tories did get more votes than reform so yeah but i mean very very soon
00:52:16.080 after the election that Tory support just melted away yeah and and and if the right had back reform
00:52:21.560 then we wouldn't have had a Labour government so yeah reform were the direction of travel it's just
00:52:26.400 the election was like a snapshot in time on that journey yes well this is another one of those
00:52:30.660 cases where there's a direction of travel here and reform and now the snapshot in time in the
00:52:36.580 direction towards restore I think it's very analogous to 2019 yeah and so it very much is
00:52:41.920 and so as you said
00:52:44.060 Gwaine is kind of
00:52:45.240 managing expectations here
00:52:46.680 by saying look
00:52:47.180 as you say
00:52:47.900 I've seen the internal polling
00:52:49.160 just saying
00:52:51.640 it's not going to be good for us
00:52:52.580 and I need a narrative
00:52:53.440 and I'm setting it up now
00:52:54.720 yep
00:52:55.140 and so
00:52:56.140 you're the ones who have
00:52:58.020 bigged up restore
00:52:59.520 and it's like no
00:53:00.200 the thousand activists
00:53:01.800 who turned up
00:53:02.360 who didn't turn up for you
00:53:03.400 because you kicked their guy
00:53:04.700 out of the party
00:53:05.240 but they could have turned up for you
00:53:06.560 they could
00:53:07.480 I mean again
00:53:08.080 it didn't have to be
00:53:09.220 that Rupert Lowe started his own party
00:53:10.500 you could just be like
00:53:11.440 okay well
00:53:11.800 what we're going to do is i mean and this has always been the problem with farage he's afraid
00:53:15.520 of the media he's terrified of the media he's always been afraid of it he is a creature of
00:53:18.680 the media he's always used the media to his advantage and for some reason he just didn't 0.81
00:53:21.960 have the balls to go uh full trump on this and be like okay we're just going to do exactly what
00:53:27.400 owen jones is doing and we'll have uh something that is so concretely desirable but also so 0.95
00:53:33.520 demonstrably outside of the current consensus that merely uttering it will be oh yeah that
00:53:39.220 sounds great and they won't be able to not tell people what we intend to do right so the whole
00:53:43.960 the whole trump playbook exactly the whole trump playbook and then we'll just have this massive tent
00:53:47.960 so we'll just get everyone in literally from like you know richard tice to stephen laws was get
00:53:53.820 everyone in so everyone is just singing from the same hymn sheet it's reform blah blah blah and
00:53:58.800 then we will win everything all the time everywhere yeah i mean i will just point out the what what
00:54:03.640 Farage did is exactly the same mistake that Starmer made so reform basically cut off the right wing
00:54:10.560 yep um and that has obviously backfired on but but Labour did the same thing where as soon as
00:54:16.000 Starmer came in he he just starlinged a whole bunch of him I mean he even tried to kick out
00:54:21.940 Diane Abbott and on the assumption that the left would have nowhere to go and they've all got and
00:54:26.600 formed the Greens now and the Greens are going to eat their lunch in a bunch of seats yes a bunch of 0.98
00:54:31.000 so so what was happened is is both the hegemons on the right and left have made exactly the same
00:54:36.140 mistake and i just come back to my earlier prediction it's going to end up being greens
00:54:40.800 versus restore oh yeah that's one i don't know when it gets there but it will get in like a
00:54:44.680 decade's time yes it's definitely going to be yes you know maybe a lot sooner exactly it could be a
00:54:49.480 lot sooner but that is the direction of travel and i think it's inevitable at this point uh anyway
00:54:53.980 so we see the weakness of reform everywhere as we covered last time uh their leaflets are turning
00:54:59.860 suspiciously like our leaflets like they just have to be using the dark blue on their website
00:55:04.380 they've changed the dark blue rather than the teal that everyone recognizes and no picture of
00:55:08.100 nigel farage on the leaflets of right interesting and that's because uh oh sorry another one as
00:55:14.020 well gemrick has now started coming out millions must go who the hell said that in their in in
00:55:19.620 their announcement video when they were announcing their brand new party it wasn't nigel farage was
00:55:24.360 it nigel farage no i don't want mass deportations to my name now is millions must go millions
00:55:29.660 must go is basically the online catchphrase for restores that's exactly it's what we say all the
00:55:35.600 time i mean it was in the it was in the uh video that he put out yes it was yeah and then that's
00:55:41.100 where it really originated and then um reform like okay but we can go on the mainstream media
00:55:48.820 and we can borrow this phrase and pretend it came from us yes so again once again they've just
00:55:56.240 caught up with rupert lowe's rhetoric with restores uh policy which means again whether
00:56:02.240 you like it or not nigel we're dragging you to the right rupert could have done that in your party
00:56:07.060 but you couldn't take it and so now it's going to happen outside of your party and you're probably
00:56:10.880 going to lose because of it and when polls lord ashcroft polls did a very interesting thing about
00:56:17.760 restore reform voters which party would you vote for a general election if for some reason no
00:56:22.820 reform candidate was standing in your constituency wow that's a pretty large percentage for restore
00:56:28.060 britain you remember what i was saying about preference cascades yes at some point it becomes
00:56:33.640 apparent to everyone that actually no i don't want this thing i'm just going to go for this thing
00:56:36.800 we're just going to do it and that's what happened to reform in the 2024 election right there was a
00:56:41.580 preference cascade in favor of reform yes because it was clear the tory that was the point i was
00:56:45.920 trying to make earlier yeah yeah they declared the tories which is terrible and a large number
00:56:49.400 of people are like yeah okay we're just going to do that well that's already happened inside
00:56:52.440 reform but i mean what this is telling us right because i know i've said several times that i've
00:56:57.160 been asking reform voters what is the positive argument apart from we're more likely to win
00:57:04.180 because that is the only argument they've got what this is telling me is if restore come second
00:57:08.440 or first in makerfield against labor 42 of the vote have no reason not to immediately peel away
00:57:16.620 enjoy restore yes so that's about 10 percentage points yes polls let's be like i mean probably
00:57:22.100 probably a bit more probably like 12 percentage points in the polls yeah so like yeah okay well
00:57:25.420 i'll support restore then because i just want the right to win is what they're saying right yes okay
00:57:29.680 yeah great you know i want a patriot strong patriot party that's going to win well this this shows that
00:57:35.360 you are actually a kind of hollowed out shell now right so the preference cascade has already
00:57:39.660 happened in reform you're just the current thing the blockage that's holding things up it's like
00:57:44.940 well i guess while we're here we've got to vote for reform but when they disappear i'm going to
00:57:50.200 restore say almost half of their own voters and that is wild that's absolutely wild i mean a large
00:57:57.580 number of them won't vote more but like still that is that is terrifying if you're reformed
00:58:04.240 because what that means is that essentially you have to keep that don't split the vote narrative
00:58:09.040 going for as long as you can because the second somehow got to do it for three years yeah exactly
00:58:14.640 because the second that narrative buckles even slightly,
00:58:18.360 half your votes are gone.
00:58:19.520 Yes.
00:58:20.100 And that is terrifying for them.
00:58:23.160 And so, again, this is why you see them turning to the right.
00:58:26.400 Again, like, this is the funniest thing, right? 1.00
00:58:29.020 So you remember that guy who said that he was going to melt down Nigerians 1.00
00:58:31.480 and turn them into pot hole filler? 0.96
00:58:33.100 Yes.
00:58:33.420 And they were like, oh, you're out.
00:58:34.780 They haven't made him shadow transport minister.
00:58:37.340 Not yet.
00:58:37.880 Right.
00:58:38.180 But they have reinstated him quietly.
00:58:40.040 Okay.
00:58:40.600 After kicking him out.
00:58:41.620 It's like, yeah, but why did you kick him out then?
00:58:43.000 That was a bit performative.
00:58:44.000 exactly why kick him out because you're afraid of them because you don't understand they're the
00:58:50.320 enemy and you're trying to gain acceptance from them and so like you've got um what's his name
00:58:55.240 uh i can't remember kenyon uh robert kenyon um for him making silly comments right it's just
00:59:02.100 silly comments that he made online because whatever uh and carol vorderman has been out
00:59:06.380 here demanding an apology over him sexualizing her which is like oh come on sexualizing carol 0.98
00:59:12.880 woman who went out and bought the tightest knitted top that she could find when she was on
00:59:18.340 countdown for she she has been sexualizing herself for decades yes in public against my will frankly 0.67
00:59:25.540 yes i know about carol vorderman's sex life because it's constantly in the newspapers yes 0.54
00:59:31.460 yes i don't want to know about carol vorderman's sex life so for her to be like oh i'm gonna get
00:59:36.940 very precious about this man sexualizing me on a twitter post obviously not that 12 people saw 0.53
00:59:41.780 15 years ago no i'm sorry carol i'm not buying that but but what i hate is the way that kenyan
00:59:47.240 responded to it he had obviously been given media training and and advice maybe from tice
00:59:53.300 which is this is how you apologize on on question time for this it's the wrong tactic he should have
00:59:58.960 just turned around and said yeah i'm a plumber and i banter with my mates what of it it was a joke
01:00:04.100 don't care yeah and you know what right finally after stepping on this rake over and over and
01:00:10.160 over frage finally got dragged to that point as well and he finally got dragged to this point
01:00:15.940 on the past social media comments i'm going to say this you know these comments were posted a
01:00:20.920 decade ago uh they've been taken wildly out of context but they're the sort of comments
01:00:29.860 that you won't necessarily get if you're an oxford educated career politician living in a
01:00:38.020 nice postcode in london but i tell you what they're the kind of comments you'll hear in every
01:00:42.460 pub in the country every evening and we should be unapologetic that rob is an ordinary bloke
01:00:50.840 who's carved quite a career for himself had the guts to set up a business served as an army
01:00:55.980 reservist is a patriot likes his rugby likes the odd pine and said a few laddish thing on
01:01:01.900 things on social media 10 years ago do you know what i'd say to that
01:01:05.800 i'd say so what and what about that is so similar to what we said on this show last week with connor
01:01:19.360 yes why can why did it take a week of them raking you over the cold well presumably because somebody
01:01:26.060 reform had to watch our stream from last week and then go to farage and say oh i've got some more
01:01:31.740 brilliant political you know i always come to you on a wednesday nigel after having some brilliant
01:01:36.820 political insights but it's wednesday again yeah and i've just had a new political brilliant
01:01:41.960 political insight what you do is and nigel was like yeah that's bloody good this guy's good
01:01:46.560 isn't he did rupert lowe also do that yes he did he said i don't care yeah well then that'll be but
01:01:51.040 why wasn't this your first step forward two years ago because like he doesn't really believe this
01:01:57.020 stuff exactly because he's not courageous he doesn't really believe it and we're at the point
01:02:02.080 where he has been dragged to the right wing and forced to stand on his own candidate because of
01:02:08.440 course he can't replace kenyon i mean you know if this had happened six months ago he would have
01:02:12.460 just kenyon out don't want any media storms new person in who's never had a social media presence
01:02:18.360 and it's not very interesting or anything like that it's too little too late is what i'm saying
01:02:22.460 nigel and so i i mean like i said it's going to be uh by the time you get this will be tomorrow
01:02:27.900 that we get the makefield election results um i think they're going to be very interesting and
01:02:33.520 i think from as you said from gwayne tallow's response from farage's stress the reform internal
01:02:40.680 polling is not good we know the restore internal polling which is about 20 to 24 percent and has
01:02:46.260 been repeatedly over the past couple of weeks so all i'm saying is that this was yours to lose
01:02:52.760 and it looks like you've lost it