The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

00:00:00.000 Hi folks, welcome back to another one of our political chats, and it has been an exciting week in British politics, which is not something you can normally say, but man, a lot's gone on.

00:00:09.460 So we're going to talk about the showdown in Gorton and Denton, the by-election that has been called there because of the resignation of the Labour MP there, and everything that's going on that you need to know.

00:00:20.000 But this is coming in the shadow of today's PMQs, where Keir Starmer got absolutely raked over the coals in front of the entire country by not just Kenny Beidnock, but what's the Lib Dem Pratt?

00:00:35.620 Oh, Ed Davey. Well, he had a weird angle on it.

00:00:37.680 He had a strange angle, but the point is, a lot of stuff started coming out, and Keir Starmer basically fumbled every answer.

00:00:44.020 Superb. And so, it may well be that, essentially, by tomorrow, a lot has changed very, very quickly.

00:00:52.940 And so, you'll get this, hopefully, the same day that we're recording it, but by tomorrow, whatever is happening with that will overshadow a lot of what we're talking here.

00:01:03.940 Now, it's not that it'll render it invalid, because, essentially, all of the dyes are cast now, right?

00:01:10.900 So, all of the people who will be candidates in Gawthorne and Denton are candidates, but the nature of the polling might change very rapidly.

00:01:19.440 That's true, but also, all of these other chats we've done against a backdrop of Keir Starmer probably can't be forced out.

00:01:26.780 Correct.

00:01:27.080 He's probably going to run until the next election, and there's going to be this slow bleed effect within the mainstream parties.

00:01:33.960 It might not be slow.

00:01:34.760 Yeah, and now, it suddenly looks like, I mean, Starmer's position is really tenuous, because, basically, he had to stand up in the House of Cummins and say,

00:01:42.900 I knew that Jeffrey Epstein was a dodgy paedophile, well, as opposed to any other kind, but, yeah, he was a dodgy paedophile intelligence operative.

00:01:54.820 I knew that, and I knew that Mandelson was working with him.

00:01:58.000 I knew that Mandelson was buddies with him and stayed at his townhouses, even after he was let out of jail for being convicted people.

00:02:05.200 Yes.

00:02:06.020 And then, after that, I appointed him as ambassador to the U.S.

00:02:09.920 Yes.

00:02:10.700 Which is not a good look.

00:02:11.940 But it gets a bit deeper, as well, because he knew that Mandelson was the mentor of Morgan McSweeney.

00:02:20.320 Oh, that's the other angle, yes.

00:02:21.400 And he called Morgan McSweeney, quote, essential to his Labour government, and, therefore, you've got really big questions.

00:02:29.820 It's like, well, okay, I mean, he let, for example, in the last cabinet reshuffle, Mandelson be the person who oversaw that.

00:02:36.340 And so, it was Mandelson's.

00:02:36.740 Oh, I didn't know that.

00:02:37.440 Yeah, exactly.

00:02:38.060 It's all just coming out today.

00:02:39.120 That's the thing.

00:02:39.500 We'll cover this all in a lot more depth.

00:02:41.640 Yeah.

00:02:42.160 But, basically, it kind of looks like Epstein's controlling the Labour Party and controlling Kistama's government.

00:02:47.660 And so, it's just like, okay, well, so the point is, in British policy, normally things happen glacially, but then things happen all at once.

00:02:56.260 And things are currently happening all at once.

00:02:57.940 And that will affect the nature of the Gordon and Denton by-election.

00:03:02.640 Because I think what it's essentially going to do is knock Labour out, right?

00:03:06.400 I think that if things go as I'm actually expecting them to go, the Labour vote will just continue to collapse.

00:03:12.340 Well, the standard narrative is, is that, basically, Labour have got until next, well, the coming Mays, by-elections.

00:03:19.160 But if this one is devastating enough, local elections.

00:03:22.660 Yeah, but if this one is devastating enough, then, you know, the Labour-backbenchers might well decide we're not waiting until even May, let alone the next election.

00:03:30.460 And the knives are definitely out for Starmer.

00:03:31.980 Oh, yes.

00:03:32.540 Like I said, who knows where the chips are going to fall.

00:03:35.300 We will cover it in more detail when we have more information, but just be aware, some of these things could change.

00:03:41.520 Although, I think, actually, the essential nature of what's happening here isn't going to change.

00:03:46.000 So, let's get into Gorton and Denton.

00:03:48.440 So, this, as you can see, is a constituency in Manchester.

00:03:52.300 And you'll notice that...

00:03:53.800 Sorry, this is the constituency?

00:03:55.380 Yes.

00:03:55.820 That is a very weird shape.

00:03:57.920 That is a bit of a gerrymandered-looking shape, isn't it?

00:04:00.100 A bit, yeah.

00:04:01.400 It's a bit weird.

00:04:02.500 But I think that what we can do is have a look at it from the ethnic perspective.

00:04:07.260 So, as you can see, over here, we've got...

00:04:10.300 There's Hyde and there's Inner Manchester, right?

00:04:13.160 So, you can see Hyde and Inner Manchester.

00:04:15.740 So, you've got a bit of space there.

00:04:17.660 So, you can assess...

00:04:19.960 Ah, right, okay.

00:04:21.280 So, here are the English areas.

00:04:25.260 85 plus percent.

00:04:26.940 You've got the sort of border areas that are getting a bit weaker.

00:04:29.300 Then you've got the inner minority areas here.

00:04:33.580 But even then, there's still a fair number of English people in these areas,

00:04:37.600 just the minority.

00:04:40.300 And so, what this means is that about...

00:04:43.180 Here are the actual numbers.

00:04:44.940 About a third of the constituency is Muslim.

00:04:49.320 And roughly, we'll just summarize, you know, non-English.

00:04:53.720 And two-thirds are English.

00:04:56.240 So, actually, it's kind of a good representation of the country at large right now.

00:05:02.620 Deeply segregated areas as well.

00:05:06.340 And just going back, it is...

00:05:07.900 I mean, it is native and Muslim.

00:05:09.460 Because sometimes in these sort of big cities,

00:05:11.800 you get, like, the Hindu cluster and the Jewish cluster.

00:05:14.780 None of those are...

00:05:16.400 Well, they were the present, but tiny numbers.

00:05:18.820 It is just, you know, natives and Muslims.

00:05:22.140 Yes.

00:05:22.400 As we've spoken about before, even the minorities self-segregate from one another.

00:05:29.500 So, you have an overwhelming...

00:05:31.560 It's a Muslim area on the left-hand side towards the inner of Manchester.

00:05:36.480 And like everywhere else, the migrants are in the town censors. 1.00

00:05:40.140 And the English go out to the countryside surrounding the town and the city.

00:05:44.400 And that's what's happened in Gorton and Denton, as you can see.

00:05:47.600 So, the Christian and Nun are the English population.

00:05:50.100 Because, of course, a large number of us are atheists now.

00:05:53.000 And then, as you said, there's a couple of thousand non-English, non-Muslim people. 0.86

00:05:59.120 But they're not really going to be swinging the vote, either way.

00:06:02.600 So, this...

00:06:03.240 Like I said, this really comes down to the question of baseness versus Islam. 1.00

00:06:10.100 This is actually a good representation of what's happening in the country.

00:06:14.420 So, the background on Gorton and Denton, people have been...

00:06:18.220 People, local people, have been putting out saying,

00:06:19.940 well, look, it's kind of a classic thing where it was historically separate,

00:06:23.600 but because of the sprawl of the growth throughout the 20th century,

00:06:28.020 they ended up connecting.

00:06:29.400 But, of course, they feel very different.

00:06:32.700 Gorton being the Muslim area is younger, denser, far more ethnically diverse.

00:06:36.180 Denton is settled, older and retains a strong town identity,

00:06:38.740 closer in character to places like Hyder Ashton.

00:06:40.880 So, we've got the shires versus the diversity.

00:06:45.800 Okay.

00:06:46.300 This is a proper clash in one constituency.

00:06:49.580 Absolutely.

00:06:51.220 This is, essentially, what is going to be the way that British politics are

00:06:56.780 in, like, 30 years' time.

00:06:58.300 Probably not even that long, frankly.

00:07:00.160 But the future of British politics, I think, is actually being played out by this.

00:07:04.900 And so, it's just a really interesting thing to have pop up, actually.

00:07:11.360 And then, so we can look at the seat details in more detail.

00:07:16.080 And you see, the turnout is terrible, as the turnout is everywhere.

00:07:19.600 Right?

00:07:20.040 The last, in 2024, not even half of people turned out for this.

00:07:25.000 So, the fact that Labour got 50% of that vote share means they could quite easily have been

00:07:31.940 overthrown if just the other half had turned out.

00:07:35.580 Well, yeah.

00:07:35.980 I mean, and by-elections have much higher turnout as well, because it gets the attention.

00:07:40.520 It gets the focus.

00:07:41.440 All the candidates.

00:07:42.300 If you will not be able to walk down the high street without having somebody in a rosette

00:07:46.020 come up to you.

00:07:46.660 Because there's nowhere else to be.

00:07:48.120 Yeah.

00:07:48.280 All of the party leaders are in Gorton and Denton.

00:07:51.040 Yeah, there's a hell of a lot of focus.

00:07:52.820 They're going to have volunteers for all the political parties coming from all over the

00:07:55.720 country.

00:07:56.440 Everybody is going to get showered relief.

00:07:58.120 So, the turnout is going to be sort of 70, 80%, as it typically is for a by-election.

00:08:03.900 And so, these numbers, I mean, as you can see, yeah.

00:08:05.960 So, 2024.

00:08:07.460 If you look at it, Labour got about 23% of the vote.

00:08:11.620 And they won the 50% share.

00:08:14.420 Of those who actually voted.

00:08:15.500 Of those who actually voted.

00:08:16.220 But of all those who could have potentially voted, that's just under a quarter of the

00:08:20.700 actual voters were Labour voters.

00:08:22.220 So, there is a huge disenfranchised constituency in Gorton and Denton that, of course, all of

00:08:28.120 the parties are going to be like, right, OK, we want these guys coming out and voting for

00:08:30.820 us.

00:08:31.140 But also, look how unbedded that Labour vote is.

00:08:33.520 Because in the previous election, so that would have been the Boris one, when Boris kind

00:08:38.840 of broke the red wall, as they call it, which is, this is going to be one of.

00:08:42.800 It looks like the, who won it last time?

00:08:45.280 This was the one where Kirsten won, after Rishi.

00:08:49.600 And actually, I didn't look before that.

00:08:51.580 I think it's always been Labour, though.

00:08:53.400 I think this is one of those ones that's always been Labour.

00:08:56.300 That Labour are losing.

00:08:58.560 But as you can see, they're losing more than half of what they had in 2024 in the predicted

00:09:04.420 votes.

00:09:05.480 And, of course, where are these going?

00:09:07.500 Well, reform in the Greens.

00:09:08.880 So, the standard shattering effect that we've been talking about, where the Labour Party is

00:09:13.340 getting cracked, and then the shards are just going to reform, and the Green Party, and

00:09:18.080 a couple of others to others.

00:09:19.180 But mostly, they're the prime beneficiaries, as you can see.

00:09:22.460 And this gives reform a 61% chance of winning, according to their...

00:09:25.620 I mean, that said, again, it's not that strong.

00:09:28.240 There's definitely everything to play for.

00:09:29.520 Because if we were to accept the notion, I know we've argued against this in previous

00:09:32.860 episodes.

00:09:33.720 If we were to accept the notion that the Conservative plus reform is the right-wing vote, it's like

00:09:38.960 41%, whereas the left-wing vote, and let's take that as Labour and the Green Party, I mean,

00:09:44.200 it is stronger.

00:09:46.140 I mean, a bit stronger.

00:09:47.420 Especially if you add the Lib Dems in.

00:09:48.840 But not that much stronger.

00:09:50.560 No.

00:09:50.680 And that's on a 50% turnout.

00:09:52.780 Less than 50% turnout.

00:09:54.740 I mean, if the other 50% happen to be... 0.96

00:09:57.700 And the thing is, I don't know which constituencies are the ones turning out in the areas, right?

00:10:03.380 So it could be that actually most of the English people in this constituency just don't turn

00:10:09.920 out to vote because they're disillusioned with politics.

00:10:12.240 And so if that remaining 50% is like 40% Native English, 10% Muslim, well, then that would 0.98

00:10:18.780 actually make this a very deeply conservative seat.

00:10:22.400 It's just those people aren't voting.

00:10:24.080 And so I don't know if that's the case, by the way, just to be clear.

00:10:26.380 But the point is, who knows?

00:10:28.260 But the Muslim communities tend to be very politically active, and because of the sort

00:10:32.520 of tight networks in them, they get out and they get their guys and they make them vote

00:10:36.580 in certain patterns.

00:10:37.600 And the big advantage they've got is they're more likely to act in a coordinated fashion.

00:10:42.620 Exactly.

00:10:43.580 And so the entire community tends to have a good turnout generally in areas where they

00:10:47.840 know they're going to be able to get something out of it.

00:10:49.600 But I would imagine both Labour and the Greens are spending a lot of time sitting down with

00:10:53.200 community leaders and saying, here's the deal that we're going to do for you.

00:10:58.200 Yes.

00:10:58.580 And then that vote will move largely as a block because it would be disseminated down through

00:11:03.340 key individuals and mosques.

00:11:04.980 Correct.

00:11:05.460 But nobody is sitting down with any English community leaders because there aren't any.

00:11:08.820 Well, if you set yourself up as a Native community leader, you get arrested.

00:11:13.020 So there's that.

00:11:14.240 Absolutely.

00:11:14.560 I mean, you would literally be called Tommy Robinson and you'd be persecuted by the state.

00:11:19.100 So the point being is there are a huge number of votes that are unaccounted here, unaccounted

00:11:24.820 for, and I suspect they're probably in the English community.

00:11:28.640 So if you had a revolutionary message, say, look, guys, we're going to just smash this.

00:11:33.860 We're going to turn this constituency conservative.

00:11:36.160 This is going to be a nativist concern constituency.

00:11:38.380 Who knows, you might be able to rally a lot of those people who otherwise, I think, probably

00:11:42.920 feel disenfranchised.

00:11:44.720 But anyway, the issue here, as you said, there's everything to play for, right?

00:11:48.600 Now, this is a really interesting thing because the left is more than happy to tactically vote.

00:11:55.680 You can, as we've spoken about, you can see the percentages of who is in what class bracket.

00:12:01.920 And the conservatives and reform, as we now know, basically represent the working classes of Britain.

00:12:09.160 Yes.

00:12:09.840 And the Greens, Lib Dems, the Lib Dems represent affluent white people.

00:12:14.500 The Greens represent the immigrant bloc and the lefty student bloc.

00:12:19.460 And the Labour Party will also represent like an upper middle class vote that is rapidly dwindling.

00:12:25.000 So the conservatives actually are the ones who may well be playing kingmaker here.

00:12:31.920 They actually seem to be kind of irresponsibly splitting the vote.

00:12:35.340 Because that 9% would be a lot better with reform. 0.89

00:12:38.540 They can't win this.

00:12:39.960 There's no way they're going to win this.

00:12:42.020 And so that 9% is irresponsibly taking away from reform's right-wing vote.

00:12:46.580 Yeah, I mean, I don't think Kemi Bainlock would be able to see it in that light,

00:12:49.600 given that she's being embarrassed by so many Tories, you know, flocking away.

00:12:54.000 Of course.

00:12:54.280 And more will probably go.

00:12:55.480 But yeah, from the Tory voter point of view, yes, it would be irresponsible to vote Tory.

00:12:59.580 Yes.

00:12:59.820 And so that's a genuinely fascinating thing.

00:13:04.040 We've got a ward-by-ward breakdown, which I think really exemplifies the point we're on here.

00:13:10.280 So for each ward that's in the constituency, obviously all Labour,

00:13:15.580 but you can see how they're fracturing.

00:13:16.980 And it's roughly a two-thirds versus one-third split.

00:13:20.160 Oh, that's where you started.

00:13:22.120 That's back where we started.

00:13:23.060 So you can see precisely this is, I think, genuinely going to be reflective of the next paradigm in politics.

00:13:30.220 Now, it won't necessarily be the Greens in each area, but what I think is going to happen is that the left votes will essentially choose a series of regional parties.

00:13:40.340 Like, in Wales, it will be played Cymru, we'll get on to this in a little bit, but it'll be played Cymru.

00:13:45.600 In Scotland, it'll be the SNP.

00:13:47.660 In ethnic areas, it'll be the Green Party.

00:13:51.480 In white areas, it'll be the Lib Dem Party.

00:13:53.960 Right?

00:13:54.120 Because they all basically agree on everything.

00:13:55.640 But they'll just look at the demographics of the constituency, and they'll say, right, okay, if you're left, vote for Lib Dems.

00:14:02.600 And there's already campaigns to do this.

00:14:04.760 It's called the left vote and stuff like this.

00:14:06.300 There's already campaigns to do this.

00:14:07.180 And I think their voters will, like with Kerfili, as I was going to cover later, but we'll cover it now,

00:14:12.420 as with Kerfili in the by-election here, as you can see, they basically just jumped straight to played.

00:14:19.600 Obviously, Wales, deeply Labour area, and had been wherever, but Labour are massively unpopular in Wales now,

00:14:26.940 because a lot of Labour's vote has gone to reform, and so, bam, they went straight to played.

00:14:31.380 I mean, that is interesting about left-wing voters that they're willing to do that.

00:14:34.980 Just flip on a dime like that.

00:14:36.400 Well, it just tells you everything you need to know about the left-wing parties.

00:14:39.780 They're all the same party, ultimately.

00:14:41.600 They all agree on the same thing.

00:14:43.220 They all have the same platform.

00:14:45.440 More immigrants, more woke, more government spending.

00:14:49.480 More NHS, more all of the same.

00:14:51.300 Or possibly it's simpler than that.

00:14:53.620 It's that they don't know what they're for.

00:14:55.400 They know what they're against.

00:14:57.020 And at the moment, what they're against is Nigel Farage, and it's as simple as that.

00:15:00.320 That's the point, isn't it?

00:15:01.140 It's both things.

00:15:03.000 They're all for the same things.

00:15:05.020 Labour, Lib Dems, Plague Cymru, and Greens.

00:15:08.100 And the Conservatives, to be fair, when it comes to actual policy.

00:15:12.120 We'll ignore the Conservatives now.

00:15:14.160 But they're all for more immigration.

00:15:16.180 They're all for minority rights. 1.00

00:15:17.300 They're all for woke stuff, trans and kids, all that sort of stuff.

00:15:21.080 They're all for massive social spending.

00:15:22.760 So if you're a left-wing voter, okay, you're not questioning the substance of what it is they are offering.

00:15:31.560 What the question is is the degree to which they are offering it, right?

00:15:35.260 So you're like, okay, I'm a more realistic Labour voter.

00:15:38.460 I'm not going to vote for the Greens.

00:15:39.640 Yeah, Zach Polanski, I like him.

00:15:41.580 But he's in a dream world, you know?

00:15:43.460 And so I don't think he's going to get that.

00:15:45.220 But I think Ed Miliband will get a lot of that.

00:15:48.420 You know, he'll put in the wind farms.

00:15:49.960 Zach Polanski just won't get anywhere, you know, because he's a dreamer.

00:15:53.000 So I'm going to vote for Labour.

00:15:54.060 It's not that you don't want those same things.

00:15:55.560 You want exactly the same things.

00:15:57.520 It's just the scale to which you get it.

00:15:59.100 And so this makes left-wing tactical voting very, very plausible because they look at the landscape and say,

00:16:06.000 all right, Labour are down to 12%, but Plaid are at 38%.

00:16:09.600 Yeah, I'm just going to have to vote for Plaid.

00:16:10.980 You know, I have to stop. 0.81

00:16:12.320 Nigel Farage, the fascist in reform.

00:16:14.420 It's like, okay, I mean, you're delusional, but that is genuinely how they think.

00:16:19.140 I mean, a quick sidebar on the left's history with tactical voting.

00:16:24.400 One of the, I mean, in 1997, Tony Blair had a huge landslide win.

00:16:28.100 The only reason it wasn't bigger is because all of the left-wing papers were running this campaign to get rid of the Tories.

00:16:34.700 And what they showed is in every constituency whether you should vote Lib Dem or Labour.

00:16:38.900 And so many people followed that advice.

00:16:41.440 It actually limited, if that advice had not been put out, Labour's win would have been far bigger than even the historic landslide that Tony Blair got.

00:16:51.100 The point being the left is very happy to...

00:16:55.100 Tactically vote.

00:16:57.520 Tactically vote.

00:16:58.100 And the right is not.

00:17:00.080 The right doesn't tactically vote.

00:17:01.520 The right essentially votes through loyalty and a sort of more grounded personal interest.

00:17:11.600 Right?

00:17:11.920 Which is why someone like Robert Jemrich could win his seat in Newark against reform as a conservative while Nigel Farage was storming the polls.

00:17:19.940 I mean, he's defected now, of course, so who knows what happens.

00:17:22.580 But the point is, there's more sort of stickiness on the right when it comes to their vote.

00:17:29.100 And this is what makes the...

00:17:30.940 This is what makes the conservative 9% there such a slap in the face because it's entirely possible that about 10% of whatever the remaining vote of the Greens or the Labour Party...

00:17:46.260 And they're in neck and neck for this.

00:17:47.880 But I think that this stuff with Mandelson and the current collapse that Labour are suffering, I don't think they're going to get the 22% that predicted that.

00:17:56.140 I'm sure they're going to.

00:17:56.520 No, but it could easily help the Greens enough.

00:17:59.400 Enough people abandon Labour that go to the Greens.

00:18:01.620 And this really is on a knife edge.

00:18:04.220 Exactly.

00:18:04.800 It's quite conceivable that 10% of Labour's votes go straight to the Greens.

00:18:08.960 And not just because of the Mandelson stuff, but that will just grease the slide.

00:18:14.020 It's like, yeah, no, I was annoyed with Keir Starmer's Labour Party anyway.

00:18:17.180 And now, yeah, I know.

00:18:18.880 And it looks like the Greens are going to be the party that can win for the left.

00:18:22.400 Great, I'm going to vote left.

00:18:23.360 And so the Conservatives basically will end up scuppering reform in the same way that reform scuppered the Conservatives in the last general.

00:18:32.440 And so it's like, right, Conservatives, you have to really start thinking about this in a tactical way, unless you want to hand the Greens a seat.

00:18:40.980 And just to be clear, like, the Labour Party are kind of bonkers, right?

00:18:47.560 They've decided to run a foreign woman, but she's not a Muslim.

00:18:52.160 And she's not English. 0.81

00:18:52.960 She's Greek.

00:18:54.500 Let's watch this.

00:18:55.600 OK.

00:18:58.500 I am a proud Mancunian woman.

00:19:01.800 I have walked the streets of this constituency.

00:19:08.620 Yeah.

00:19:09.420 Proper Greek accent and everything.

00:19:10.660 Yeah, exactly.

00:19:11.520 What are they trying to do?

00:19:12.120 They're trying to split the difference.

00:19:13.280 Are they trying to say, well, are they trying to say to the native half, look, we've got somebody who isn't a Muslim, who looks, you know, well.

00:19:21.620 She's European. 0.96

00:19:22.300 She's European. 0.96

00:19:23.440 And while also saying to the Muslim third, we've picked a foreigner. 0.90

00:19:27.740 They're trying to split the difference.

00:19:29.280 And it's not a random thing, right?

00:19:32.480 They would have, at this level of politics or something like this, they would have sat in a room and discussed this for hours.

00:19:38.260 I mean, just the aspect of the ethnicity.

00:19:41.740 No doubt.

00:19:42.400 And there are wider photos where it's basically all just middle class women who are surrounding her as well. 1.00

00:19:50.220 And so this feels very much like a kind of collective decision that was made in a very managerial style about someone who has paper qualifications.

00:20:00.120 As in, you know, this person is like a councillor here or something like this.

00:20:03.760 And they have been for five years, ever since they moved here from Greece.

00:20:06.760 And so...

00:20:07.380 Is she a first-generation immigrant as well, then?

00:20:08.940 Well, of course.

00:20:09.400 I mean, you can tell by her accent.

00:20:10.460 Right.

00:20:10.660 I'm a proud Mancunum.

00:20:12.620 I can't do a Greek accent.

00:20:13.900 Her name's Angeliki Stogia.

00:20:16.700 It's like, but who the hell does she represent in this constituency? 1.00

00:20:20.480 And the answer is, you know...

00:20:22.040 They're trying to split the difference.

00:20:23.400 That's what they're trying to do.

00:20:24.120 Exactly.

00:20:24.560 But that's, you know, you can't serve two masters.

00:20:27.500 You should have either chosen a Muslim or an English woman. 0.99

00:20:30.040 Right?

00:20:30.400 An English man.

00:20:31.560 Or an English woman. 0.96

00:20:32.640 You should have done that.

00:20:33.820 And, of course, the defeated male is still here for some reason.

00:20:38.080 Andy Burnham is out giving her his full backing.

00:20:40.400 It's like, that is a cucking that is quite phenomenal, really.

00:20:43.740 Because only a week ago, Starmer was being, you know,

00:20:47.360 Stalin-esque in his note.

00:20:48.760 Right.

00:20:49.800 We've executed Andy Burnham's political career. 0.97

00:20:53.080 And now Starmer's currently getting it right up the arse about Mandelson.

00:20:57.200 And it's just like, okay, why haven't you left, Andy? 0.63

00:21:00.360 What are you doing there?

00:21:01.400 And it's like, I'm doing this for a party.

00:21:02.860 And it's like, but Starmer's ruining your party.

00:21:05.700 I suppose the trouble for Labour MPs is they don't have anywhere to go.

00:21:09.360 I mean, I suppose they could go to the Greens, but it's so mental.

00:21:12.260 Even they must blanch for that.

00:21:14.660 They haven't got a reform party to go to.

00:21:16.740 The Lib Dems?

00:21:17.800 I mean, I don't know.

00:21:19.180 But anyway, the point being, I think Labour, obviously, we talked about this previously.

00:21:24.340 Andy Burnham was the only logical choice for Labour.

00:21:26.560 Yeah, obviously.

00:21:26.740 Of course, he represented a present threat to Starmer, which, I mean, it might be irrelevant

00:21:31.960 now, because honestly, I do think this thing is going to kill Starmer off politically.

00:21:35.560 But Starmer nixed that.

00:21:37.860 And now, so he's just there, like, defeated male supporting his own replacement, who happens

00:21:43.640 to be a foreign woman, ironically, who I think has just got no chance whatsoever.

00:21:48.040 I think their share is just going to pay.

00:21:49.240 I mean, by the way, if you're a left-wing man, you're going to have to get used to this

00:21:51.760 being, like, because that is what your ideology leads to.

00:21:55.300 Yes.

00:21:56.040 Yes.

00:21:56.460 I mean, this, yeah, exactly.

00:21:57.680 I mean, how would you even argue against it?

00:21:59.620 What would be the objection?

00:22:01.340 Anyway, moving on.

00:22:02.560 So, Zach Polanski has said, quote, Gorton and Denton by-election is a battle for the

00:22:08.780 soul of our country.

00:22:10.380 And I think that, in a way, it kind of is.

00:22:12.660 And that's what I've been framing this as.

00:22:14.640 It kind of is.

00:22:15.420 Are we going to be a minoritarian country that's run by minorities for minorities?

00:22:20.140 Or are we going to be a nativist country that is run by minorities for the natives? 0.82

00:22:25.860 Because it's the Greens and the Reform Party that are basically on the table here.

00:22:30.180 What does it mean by community power versus billionaire backers?

00:22:33.700 Who are the billionaires in Gordon and Denton?

00:22:36.260 Great question.

00:22:37.260 I don't know.

00:22:37.580 Well, the only billionaire that I can think of is the one connected to the Labour Party,

00:22:40.960 Jeffrey Epstein.

00:22:41.740 But, I mean, he's dead now or somewhere.

00:22:44.660 Allegedly, yeah.

00:22:45.800 Great question.

00:22:47.000 So, anyway, they were like, right, OK, we're going to get our community

00:22:50.020 power.

00:22:51.200 We've got a plumber called Hannah Spencer.

00:22:55.160 He's a plumber?

00:22:55.920 No.

00:22:57.280 Are you going to be shocked to hear that she's not a plumber?

00:22:59.860 I was going to say, if a plumber turned up and it was Hannah Spencer, I'd be like,

00:23:04.900 yeah, but I kind of want the job done properly, love.

00:23:07.120 So, yeah.

00:23:08.020 I mean, every plumber I've ever seen has been fairly burly because there's a lot of physical

00:23:11.960 labour.

00:23:12.640 And, you know, she seems like a lovely girl, but she's not very burly.

00:23:15.960 I'm sure she'd make a great school teacher or something.

00:23:17.620 Yeah, yeah.

00:23:19.100 So, she's a counsellor, a plumber, a greyhound lover, a Green Party candidate with Gordon

00:23:22.540 and Denton.

00:23:23.600 Greyhounds are nice.

00:23:24.660 Sure, sure.

00:23:25.500 Who doesn't love dogs?

00:23:27.080 Well, a lot of the voters for the Green Party don't like dogs, actually.

00:23:30.620 No, that's true.

00:23:31.320 Yeah, yeah.

00:23:31.680 Anyway, so she's their pick and she doesn't seem terribly remarkable, although people started

00:23:39.760 digging into her and they realised, oh, right, actually, she's a clean energy technician, as

00:23:44.500 in she works in an office. 0.98

00:23:45.920 Oh.

00:23:46.160 She is some sort of administrator and she's married to an associate principal scientist

00:23:52.520 at AstraZeneca.

00:23:53.900 Ooh, right.

00:23:56.920 So, she's even got the COVID links.

00:23:59.880 But also, that's elite class.

00:24:03.140 So, the Green voters being the elite class and the immigrants, well, she's the elite class 0.99

00:24:07.220 that's coming up for the immigrants.

00:24:08.580 Maybe that's who Zach Polanski was talking about with the billionaires, all the people

00:24:11.980 backing him.

00:24:13.060 Maybe.

00:24:13.740 Who knows?

00:24:14.280 And so, it's like, no, she's not a plumber, she's a clean energy technician, she doesn't

00:24:18.020 install pipes or anything, you know, I know what you think of when you think of a plumber,

00:24:22.020 she is not that, she works in an office. 0.99

00:24:23.580 What is a clean energy technician?

00:24:25.520 Is that an advocate for spending money on...

00:24:28.900 It's going to be someone who sends a lot of emails during the day to organise, like,

00:24:32.980 you know, wind farms or whatever.

00:24:34.320 And has meetings.

00:24:35.280 Has meetings.

00:24:35.580 At least seven meetings a day.

00:24:36.980 Exactly.

00:24:38.200 She's going to be an administrator of some sort and she's married to an associate principal

00:24:41.220 scientist at AstraZeneca, which sounds like a pretty important thing.

00:24:44.280 It's an important job to me.

00:24:45.640 And so, it's like, right, okay, interesting.

00:24:49.160 And she came out and did this video of her doing plastering, which is like, okay, but

00:24:55.140 plumber's, do they do plastering?

00:24:56.940 And then look at the boarding behind her.

00:24:59.580 Right.

00:24:59.780 Look how, that's weird and messy.

00:25:01.820 Who did that? 0.91

00:25:02.280 That's been through the walls a bit.

00:25:03.580 Yeah.

00:25:04.340 Right.

00:25:04.800 I mean, you know, I've seen a few rooms being redone.

00:25:07.100 Never looked like that.

00:25:08.360 But anyway, she's got this as if she's now a builder, which was weird.

00:25:14.340 And people who were builders were like, well, hang on a second.

00:25:18.280 Like, hang on a second.

00:25:20.340 I watched this video.

00:25:21.420 She can't plaster. 1.00

00:25:22.140 That's never going on the wall.

00:25:23.180 She can't board out.

00:25:24.420 She, we can assume this is some sort of prop or personal project.

00:25:27.300 Nobody's paying for that amateur job.

00:25:28.740 You know, this is all a PR fakery, which it seems like it obviously was.

00:25:35.480 Yeah.

00:25:35.880 This is like, she's bought property that has a barn attached to it and she's turning it

00:25:40.860 into an art studio or something like that and doing something like that.

00:25:44.040 And like in the, in the video, she's like spinning that board around and slapping the, 1.00

00:25:46.900 the plaster onto it.

00:25:48.700 Right.

00:25:49.220 But she's doing it in a very inarticulate, unprofessional way. 1.00

00:25:53.860 And so plum, the builders were just like, she's never done this before.

00:25:57.860 You know, this is not what she does. 0.95

00:26:00.600 So, okay, fine.

00:26:02.080 And it's fine.

00:26:02.740 You should have just been honest.

00:26:03.660 Should have just come out and said, yeah, she's an office worker from Gorton and Denton 1.00

00:26:07.340 or Manchester, the local area.

00:26:09.200 That's fine.

00:26:09.940 You know, if they'd just come out and said, you know, she's just an office worker, it

00:26:12.480 would be like, okay, yeah, a lot of people are, you know, nothing.

00:26:15.940 And you wouldn't think about it any further, would you?

00:26:17.240 When you hear her accent, it's clearly a local accent.

00:26:19.360 It sounds like a working class accent.

00:26:20.760 You just be like, yeah, okay, local office worker from the, from the area.

00:26:24.400 Yes.

00:26:24.780 Perfectly normal candidate.

00:26:25.780 But, you know, even if she's married to some principal scientist at AstraZeneca.

00:26:28.620 Yes.

00:26:29.140 Okay, fine.

00:26:30.000 You know.

00:26:30.740 But they really tried to focus on the plumbing thing, did they?

00:26:32.700 They caught, they literally called her a plumber. 0.67

00:26:36.080 Right.

00:26:36.760 In fact, the BBC, I think, even called her a plumber.

00:26:40.480 Right.

00:26:41.680 There we go.

00:26:42.220 The 34-year-old plumber.

00:26:43.940 She's not a plumber. 0.62

00:26:45.920 Yes.

00:26:46.600 Just, sorry, what are you doing?

00:26:47.800 And she's a councillor at the Greens, with the Greens on Trafford Council.

00:26:51.940 So it's like, right, okay, I don't know why you're lying about this.

00:26:55.180 But, okay, let's, there's the Green candidate.

00:26:57.560 I'm sure she'll do fine, because they'll, like you said, there'll be backroom deals. 0.99

00:27:02.380 They're currently speaking to community leaders and saying, look, we're the Green Party.

00:27:05.920 See Mothin Alley?

00:27:07.000 See Zach Polanski?

00:27:08.260 We're here to get you paid.

00:27:10.540 We're here to extract those resources for you.

00:27:12.700 Benefits are going up if we win.

00:27:14.000 So trust us, patronage network, solid.

00:27:17.520 The Labour Party are doubtless making the same pitch.

00:27:20.080 But, of course, the Labour Party are dying, and the Muslim vote can see it. 1.00

00:27:22.760 And they've been abandoning it anyway, which is why we've got the Muslim independence. 0.98

00:27:25.720 There's been a general peeling away of the Muslims from Labour, because Starmer is a Zionist, frankly. 0.79

00:27:31.200 And they know it.

00:27:32.920 And so, speaking about Muslim independence, isn't there another party, Jeremy Corbyn's thing?

00:27:38.220 We'll get to those.

00:27:39.320 Ah.

00:27:39.920 We'll get to those.

00:27:41.060 Right.

00:27:41.340 The Liberal Democrats know they can't win this.

00:27:43.380 And so, they've announced Jackie Pearcey as their candidate.

00:27:47.160 Right.

00:27:47.680 She's got no chance.

00:27:49.160 Just a complete non-entity.

00:27:51.160 Yep.

00:27:51.580 Moving on.

00:27:52.540 So, let's talk about the left not splitting the vote.

00:27:56.260 Because Galloway, this is the kind of constituency that Galloway has historically fought very aggressively and won in.

00:28:05.220 Yeah, well, because he's got name recognition.

00:28:07.380 He's plain speaking.

00:28:08.640 So, at least, I mean, I actually quite like the guy.

00:28:10.860 I would never vote for him, but I don't mind him that much.

00:28:13.680 He's a great rhetorician.

00:28:14.740 But the thing is, do you remember the Respect Party in Bradford?

00:28:17.360 Yes.

00:28:18.140 But he really galvanises the Muslim vote.

00:28:21.260 Exactly.

00:28:22.060 He goes out there and says, I'm going to be the champion of the Muslims.

00:28:25.240 And he's a great campaigner.

00:28:26.720 Campaigns very hard.

00:28:27.560 And I think if he were to win this, he would be the MP in British history who had won the most elections.

00:28:35.200 He's been in Parliament like eight times or something.

00:28:38.180 And he moves his seat every time as well.

00:28:40.220 Every single time.

00:28:40.960 Yeah.

00:28:41.160 And what he does is he cynically galvanises sectarian votes in whichever constituency, gets them to vote for him, gives the communist foreigner rhetoric. 0.69

00:28:51.580 Like, you know, the last one was about Gaza and things like this, obviously.

00:28:56.040 Oh, the next one probably will be as well.

00:28:57.460 Yeah, doubtless the next one will be as well.

00:28:59.700 And so he could have done a lot of damage to the left in this constituency and possibly even won it himself.

00:29:05.780 Right.

00:29:06.220 But he's not going to do it this time.

00:29:08.220 But he's not going to do it this time.

00:29:09.600 Right.

00:29:09.800 Is that because of a deal with the Greens?

00:29:12.320 Well, not publicly known yet.

00:29:14.820 Right.

00:29:14.920 But he did say Labour have woefully failed the people of the constituency.

00:29:20.360 In fact, this is a great statement.

00:29:22.300 And to be honest with you, I agree with you.

00:29:23.980 I like hearing George Galloway talk.

00:29:26.700 You know, without a doubt, he's a superb rhetorician.

00:29:29.740 And we have very few people.

00:29:31.680 It would be so funny to have him back in Parliament.

00:29:33.600 Oh, yeah.

00:29:34.740 I don't agree with him on almost anything.

00:29:36.980 No.

00:29:37.220 Apart from this.

00:29:37.940 He says Labour was the enemy of the British people.

00:29:40.280 Adding the British people have become poorer while the government spent money on a wasteful war in Ukraine.

00:29:45.760 And he also opposed the introduction of digital IDs.

00:29:48.800 And added, this by-election was triggered by Labour in an attempt to replace Starmer with a new acceptable face.

00:29:52.820 Whoever wins, Labour lose, and Starmer must resign.

00:29:56.760 Oh, yeah.

00:29:57.120 I agree with him.

00:29:57.740 Solid.

00:29:58.220 To be honest.

00:29:58.780 Yeah.

00:29:59.080 Solid.

00:29:59.520 Anyway, so the left, you know, the sort of like troublemaker on the left, Galloway, isn't fielding a candidate.

00:30:06.920 Neither are your party.

00:30:08.000 Now, I get the feeling it's not so much that your party are actually tactically voting.

00:30:14.080 Although that is the broad frame of what they say.

00:30:16.540 I honestly think it's incompetence.

00:30:18.520 And the fact that your party haven't got their stuff together yet.

00:30:22.340 And so haven't actually got any boots on the ground here.

00:30:25.020 As you can see, the single greatest threat to this country is far-right reformed government.

00:30:29.300 This danger is actively being facilitated by a failing Labour government, which is prioritising the interests of the rich and powerful, blah, blah, blah.

00:30:34.600 Your party is currently holding our first leadership elections, after which the work of formally constituting branches will begin.

00:30:40.160 Right. 1.00

00:30:40.380 You haven't got your shit together. 1.00

00:30:41.600 They're still squabbling over who's going to be leader. 1.00

00:30:43.800 Yes.

00:30:44.380 Because remember, they voted against the MPs being the leaders.

00:30:48.880 I forgot on that.

00:30:49.800 Zahra Sultana, obviously Corbyn was meant to be the leader of your party, but they had a vote because they feel they have to have a vote on everything.

00:30:57.340 And Zahra Sultana ginned up sufficient members of your party to vote against Corbyn being the leader and having non-MPs as the leader.

00:31:06.420 So they're having a party, a council, a constituency leadership or something.

00:31:11.580 And it's just like, right, this is going nowhere. 0.97

00:31:13.020 You guys are incompetent. 0.61

00:31:13.680 This is just the Monty Python sketch over and over again with this party. 0.98

00:31:16.980 They haven't moved past square one in whatever it is, two years they've been operating.

00:31:22.360 Total student politics.

00:31:23.960 Yes.

00:31:25.320 Beautiful to see.

00:31:26.160 Love to see it.

00:31:26.920 But the point is, they're not there splitting the left-wing vote. 0.88

00:31:29.860 Not because they don't want to, but because they're incompetent.

00:31:32.700 And then you have people like Vince Cable from the Liberal Democrats.

00:31:40.660 Now, he's not the leader, obviously.

00:31:41.720 He's a foreign party leader.

00:31:42.900 But he did tell the iPaper that the Lib Dems and progressive voters should unite behind Labour in Greater Manchester in order to stop Farage.

00:31:52.040 So there are, so you've got the sort of soft left types who are like, yeah, vote Labour.

00:31:57.140 And you've got the hard left types and the immigrants who are probably going to vote Greens.

00:31:59.680 So maybe the left vote will actually be split.

00:32:04.540 Well, he's looking that way, isn't he?

00:32:06.060 Right?

00:32:06.720 And so that makes it all the more incumbent on the Conservatives. 0.99

00:32:09.880 Don't you fucking dare split that vote. 0.99

00:32:12.340 Right? 0.99

00:32:12.940 Like, you know, we all have our problems with Nigel Farage.

00:32:15.880 We all have our problems.

00:32:17.020 But better to have our guys winning these totemic seats that are symbolic of what's going on than allowing it to go to the left.

00:32:26.660 And it's entirely possible the left will just shift entirely.

00:32:29.400 Yes.

00:32:29.640 It may well be the bougie left, Vote Labour, and the commie left, Vote Greens. 0.76

00:32:36.040 I mean, if I've got any faith left in the, you know, general public, I think they will get this message, though.

00:32:42.460 I hope so.

00:32:43.040 It's not a difficult one at this point.

00:32:44.820 I think the average working class person in Gorton and Denton...

00:32:48.060 Yes.

00:32:48.540 ...outless supports reform.

00:32:50.480 I mean, what are they going to be looking at with the Tories that makes them think, yes, that's what I want?

00:32:54.900 I mean, apart from a handful of boomers who made up their mind 30 years ago and haven't changed it.

00:33:01.320 Remember, that 9% is actually about 4.5% of the overall constituency as well.

00:33:05.620 Yeah.

00:33:06.240 But that 4.5% could be the thing that swings up, right?

00:33:09.820 So if you are a white working class person in Gorton and Denton, honestly, you've got to get out and vote, Farage, even if you're not normally a vote.

00:33:16.540 Those numbers you showed before, that was from the last election, and it was very questionable back then as to what momentum reform we're going to have.

00:33:25.700 Now, they clearly have had solid momentum.

00:33:28.100 Yeah.

00:33:29.200 So I can't see that Tory vote holding up at all.

00:33:32.220 No.

00:33:33.480 And fingers crossed it doesn't.

00:33:35.060 But also, fingers crossed, as you said, it could well be the focus on the constituency in the national press, with all of the party leaders there campaigning for their men, means that the turnout is a lot higher.

00:33:48.380 And also, fingers crossed that we are correct in our assumption that the majority of people who just aren't turning out are the white majority in the constituency.

00:33:56.960 And they're like, no, actually, we are going to go and give the government a bloody nose.

00:34:00.780 We're going to give them a black eye over this.

00:34:03.280 Because reform's candidate is Matt Goodwin.

00:34:06.800 Right.

00:34:07.220 Matt, friend of the show Goodwin, who's been on the show many times and I've talked to fairly regularly.

00:34:12.820 So that's an interesting move.

00:34:15.960 Yeah.

00:34:17.500 Matt's been spending the last few years polishing his bona fides on the right.

00:34:23.220 Yeah.

00:34:23.520 I mean, he comes out with a fairly strong line these days.

00:34:26.460 Yes.

00:34:26.820 I've got to say, I was suspicious of him to begin with, because he was an academic who said, I'm studying the far right.

00:34:32.940 It's like, ooh, what does that mean?

00:34:34.120 And I can normally guess.

00:34:36.320 But no, he's been saying the right things.

00:34:38.440 He gives a good interview.

00:34:39.760 Yes.

00:34:40.100 And I've had lots of, you know, I've hung out with him and had many personal meetings with him just to talk about politics and have dinner and just like discuss the issues.

00:34:48.260 And he's very concerned about demographics.

00:34:51.000 And it's hard to, I mean, this has been his primary line.

00:34:54.360 He was the one who put it in the, was it the Telegraph a few months back where he was like, look, by 2044, Britons will be a white majority in their own country.

00:35:03.960 White Britons will be a minority in their own country, sorry. 1.00

00:35:06.640 And he was the one who's been mainstreaming that.

00:35:09.420 And it's like, okay, if that's containment, if that's the hope not hate candidate, what are they containing from?

00:35:15.960 Because that seems to be the far right position of, we're going to be a minority in our own country.

00:35:19.640 We want that stock.

00:35:20.280 Oh, he seems to have committed.

00:35:21.920 Yeah, certainly.

00:35:22.680 Yeah.

00:35:23.000 And if he's not committed, this is very deep cover.

00:35:26.120 Like, so, you know, I can't read the man's mind or anything, you know, but I personally don't get the impression that he's trying to deceive everyone.

00:35:34.640 I mean, I've heard that not just from you, but everybody who I know that knows him is, is it's legit.

00:35:39.940 So I'll just take the view that, you know, he was in deep cover while he was in academia.

00:35:44.160 I don't even think of it as that, because there's a video in, like, in 2011 debating Tommy Robinson on TV.

00:35:50.120 Oh, yeah, I saw that the other day.

00:35:51.140 Yeah, and it's funny how young they both look.

00:35:53.460 But the fact that they're having that conversation shows that Matt's interested in the subject.

00:35:58.580 And I think what simply happened is the numbers have changed, right?

00:36:01.800 Because back in 2011, yeah, okay, yeah, we're not going to, okay, the immigration's not great, but it wasn't like it was...

00:36:09.640 It didn't feel existential back then.

00:36:11.180 Exactly.

00:36:11.620 It didn't feel existential.

00:36:12.960 But post-Boris Wave...

00:36:14.540 Yes.

00:36:14.820 Sorry, hello, are you looking around?

00:36:17.520 And Matt's got, you know, daughters.

00:36:19.260 You know, he doesn't want to have them grow up in a country that isn't England.

00:36:22.980 And so, actually, he's got a good...

00:36:25.180 He's got a high public profile, and he's generally actually got a fairly clean figure when it comes to this kind of politics, right?

00:36:32.480 He's got a couple of personal scandals in his past, which is about, you know, having an affair with a woman, divorce and stuff.

00:36:38.360 But it's not, like, the end of the world, and it's not, like, unique for a politician either.

00:36:42.920 But also, he's pretty solid on the issues.

00:36:45.480 He's not, like, some sort of, you know, boggle-eye radical who's going to start going off about something insane.

00:36:51.780 Is he a Manchester-led as well?

00:36:53.440 He is also from Manchester, yeah.

00:36:54.960 Right, okay.

00:36:55.560 He grew up in Manchester, and then, of course, in his academic career, you know, moved to London or wherever.

00:37:00.840 But he is actually from the Manchester area.

00:37:03.240 I don't know what area of Manchester.

00:37:04.420 Not personally Gordon and Denton.

00:37:06.220 But he tweeted the other day that he used to deliver pizzas in his first car, you know, in Gorton and Denton.

00:37:12.560 You know, so he's from that area.

00:37:14.540 Yes.

00:37:15.000 He knows it.

00:37:15.760 He can speak credibly on it.

00:37:17.380 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

00:37:18.420 And, like, he, in the Tommy Robbins interview from 2011, where Tommy was accusing him of being from London, he's like, no, I'm from Manchester.

00:37:25.300 But, you know, way before it was mattered.

00:37:27.080 So, you know, he is from Manchester.

00:37:29.740 I totally see why Reformed picked him.

00:37:31.320 Exactly, right?

00:37:32.040 So, actually, Matt Goodman is not a bad candidate, I think, here, because he's intellectually credible and, I think, relatively popular with the grassroots.

00:37:41.460 And the average Reformed voter is going to see, oh, here's a white Englishman, academic, which they like.

00:37:48.260 Or a Manchunian. 0.94

00:37:49.360 But an academic who's on their side is always a well-loved thing.

00:37:53.160 It's like the aristocrats.

00:37:54.480 The white English actually don't have much in the way of class envy, actually.

00:37:59.120 No, they don't.

00:37:59.820 What they like, what they hate, is when the upper class are against them.

00:38:04.100 Right?

00:38:04.260 No, you're our Pokemon.

00:38:06.020 You're meant to be on our team.

00:38:07.000 Well, there is a reason why Downton Abbey is so wildly popular.

00:38:10.280 Absolutely.

00:38:10.700 Yeah.

00:38:11.140 Oh, some posh people we can like.

00:38:12.760 And it's the same thing with Boris.

00:38:14.280 Right?

00:38:14.480 Boris just did a very good job of putting it across.

00:38:16.880 No, I'm on your team.

00:38:18.000 I'm on your side.

00:38:18.620 And they can be like, great, we've got a guy.

00:38:20.600 You know?

00:38:20.840 And Matt can fulfill that role.

00:38:23.100 So, who knows?

00:38:24.820 I don't think he's an innately objectionable choice for the candidacy and the constituency.

00:38:29.660 And I think that the white working class there, he'll be persuasive to.

00:38:33.540 I mean, he's the only candidate on this list who I haven't thought is questionable.

00:38:36.280 Every single other one, I've just thought, why are you doing that?

00:38:38.440 Yeah, why that person?

00:38:39.420 Yeah.

00:38:39.720 Why are you lying?

00:38:40.460 This one makes sense.

00:38:41.500 Exactly.

00:38:42.000 Matt actually makes quite a lot of sense here.

00:38:44.300 So, that's, you know, actually not a bad choice.

00:38:47.620 But then we have some other problems on the right.

00:38:50.440 Not the problem complexities on the right.

00:38:53.880 So, another candidate for Advance UK is friend of the show, Nick Buckley.

00:38:58.800 Now, I like Nick and I like Matt.

00:39:01.440 And I haven't got a particular preference between them.

00:39:04.540 And a lot of people have been like, oh no, what if you split the vote sufficiently?

00:39:08.680 And that's actually a real question here.

00:39:11.320 So, I haven't actually met Matt.

00:39:12.440 I have met Nick and he's a good chap.

00:39:14.940 Very good chap.

00:39:15.520 But Advance just doesn't have the air cover at this point, though.

00:39:18.220 Exactly.

00:39:18.720 But what if it does get like 5% to 10%?

00:39:23.100 Slices out that from reform.

00:39:24.200 I see your point.

00:39:24.840 Yeah.

00:39:25.640 And so, and now a lot of people are saying, right, it's irresponsible for them to run.

00:39:29.380 But the counter-argument is, well, they're a political party who's competing for the seat.

00:39:33.440 Of course, they're going to run a candidate.

00:39:35.120 And actually, Nick Buckley is not a bad candidate at all to run.

00:39:37.860 He knows his stuff.

00:39:38.640 He's from the area.

00:39:40.120 And he's got an MBE for his charity work in the area.

00:39:43.320 Right.

00:39:43.820 So, he is a, frankly, why isn't he in reform?

00:39:48.700 This is one of those things.

00:39:49.960 Don't get me wrong.

00:39:50.380 I like Matt and he's great.

00:39:51.860 But if you think about it, actually, Matt probably would have been better in like Sussex or something.

00:39:58.340 Right.

00:39:58.520 Being an academic who has the track record and can speak to middle-class audiences on Question Time, yeah, maybe he would have been better in the South.

00:40:07.920 And actually, Nick Buckley would be good as the reform candidate in Manchester.

00:40:11.940 Being a Manchester lad with a credentialed history of charity work, they've got a bloody MBE for.

00:40:16.820 I suppose the reason why he's not in reform is Nigel Farage's sheer hostility to the online right.

00:40:21.640 Exactly.

00:40:22.980 And despite that, Matt, the space between Matt and Nick is really minimal.

00:40:29.840 Like, politically.

00:40:30.840 They're going to agree on just about everything.

00:40:32.800 Exactly.

00:40:33.920 Absolutely everything.

00:40:35.260 And so, it's just one of those kind of like, oh, God.

00:40:37.480 The only issue it comes down to, can you tolerate the fragile ego of Nigel Farage and all the problems that come with that?

00:40:45.000 And one of them has decided I can tolerate it and the other one has decided I can't.

00:40:47.980 But not just that, for Nigel, a lot of it is credentialism, right?

00:40:52.560 As in, is this person a sort of, you know, known quantity who will definitely be a good boy at all times?

00:40:58.940 Yeah.

00:40:59.140 Nick, he's not like a controlled guy, you know.

00:41:02.740 He's not like, oh, I have a hand over me, so I'm going to make sure I don't say the wrong thing.

00:41:07.700 He'll say what he thinks is the truth.

00:41:09.380 And so, you know, he is, I guess, slightly more outspoken on certain...

00:41:13.840 Matt has more of a filter than Nick.

00:41:15.480 Exactly.

00:41:15.840 Yeah, Matt has more of a filter than Nick.

00:41:17.340 Like, not that that's in any way a negative on Nick, because obviously, you know, I agree with him.

00:41:21.320 No, I like that.

00:41:22.020 Yeah, exactly.

00:41:22.520 I like that.

00:41:23.500 But I can...

00:41:24.520 But the point is, Farage should be past this need for, like, an extremely sanitized filter at this point.

00:41:31.840 Yes.

00:41:32.280 Long past it, right?

00:41:33.660 The risk mitigation that he does all the time is far too extreme.

00:41:38.340 It's getting tedious now, it really is.

00:41:39.580 And really, Nick Buckley should be running for reform.

00:41:43.220 And if you were doing a sort of Trumpian takeover of the UK by just bringing the right together and saying, look, we're all in, lads, we're going for it, like Trump did in America, Nick Buckley would be the ideal candidate for this.

00:41:54.000 Yep.

00:41:54.640 But he can't do that because, I mean, he created Advance by getting rid of Ben Habib in a really personal way.

00:42:00.460 And now the cast-offs are coming back to haunt him.

00:42:04.800 And it's like, okay, God.

00:42:06.240 So basically...

00:42:06.920 And I just hope he doesn't govern like this, because if he governs for the next five minutes when he's in 10 Downing Street, I mean, it's going to be this all the time.

00:42:15.840 Things are going to come back and blow up on him.

00:42:18.220 Yeah.

00:42:18.720 It's like, it's not ideal, right?

00:42:21.600 And so, basically, sorry, Nick, I have to say, I think people should vote for Matt, because he's in the commanding position at the moment.

00:42:31.540 And actually, I do think that Advance shouldn't have been contesting this, just because of the frailty of the nature of the lead that they have.

00:42:41.600 So...

00:42:42.000 But, I mean, I'm not going to cast him under the bus or anything and say, Nick's a bad guy for doing it.

00:42:46.340 No, no, there's a rival political party, and that's a strong argument.

00:42:49.980 Totally fine.

00:42:51.000 Totally fair.

00:42:52.040 You know, good luck to everyone involved, but, you know, I could see this being a problem further down the line, right?

00:42:58.240 So, anyway, let's see who the Tories are running.

00:43:00.380 The Tories have chosen Charlotte Cadden, and honestly, she is the perfect mix of everything that's wrong with the Tories.

00:43:07.480 She looks like a police chief or something.

00:43:09.460 That's really, really interesting, because she was a police officer for 30 years in both the Greater Manchester Police and the Met.

00:43:18.100 And she really is basically everything that's wrong with the Tories.

00:43:21.500 She's got that DEI public sector look about her that just makes me think, you know, I'm wary straight away.

00:43:35.260 It's like a poisonous plant or a lizard with multi-colours.

00:43:37.840 I'm sure she's loving it.

00:43:38.800 Whatever, yeah.

00:43:39.360 I'm sure she's loving it.

00:43:40.380 She's not bad, right?

00:43:41.440 But it's one of those typical Tory, I have a foot in both camps.

00:43:46.940 And it's like, okay, but who are you trying to win then?

00:43:49.760 You know, you can't serve two masters.

00:43:51.520 You want your left wing or your right wing.

00:43:53.020 You have to pick a wing and stick to it, right?

00:43:54.860 So, she, again, she's got her virtues, right?

00:43:59.640 She said she wanted a proper inquiry on the grooming gangs.

00:44:02.940 She wants to get rid of carbon tax. 1.00

00:44:05.480 Good.

00:44:06.100 But she also set up and chaired the Police Sex Equality Network.

00:44:12.720 What does that look like?

00:44:14.860 It's a feminist network. 1.00

00:44:16.020 Ah.

00:44:16.780 Women's Equality Network in the police.

00:44:18.420 Which is actually suppressing the careers of men artificially.

00:44:24.640 And artificially advancing the careers of women. 1.00

00:44:27.180 Okay, I don't like that.

00:44:28.540 You remember that image of the blonde girl and the Muslim girl at the door? 0.99

00:44:32.660 It's that sort of thing, right?

00:44:34.260 It's advancing women artificially through the ranks. 1.00

00:44:37.060 I mean, if there's one career where you really do need big, burly men,

00:44:42.440 I mean, the police is pretty high up on that list.

00:44:45.620 Yeah.

00:44:46.260 Police, fire department.

00:44:47.880 Yes.

00:44:48.180 Army.

00:44:48.840 Yes.

00:44:49.860 No women, sorry. 1.00

00:44:51.140 Yes.

00:44:51.520 Big, burly men, because it's a physical job and you will be demanded.

00:44:54.720 We've also, in those videos, go up on social media of two police women

00:44:58.520 trying to arrest a man who doesn't cooperate.

00:45:00.200 Who just pushes them off and then walks off.

00:45:01.960 And what either happens is he gets away or a member of the public,

00:45:05.200 a man steps in.

00:45:06.140 Yeah.

00:45:06.600 And then they're able to complete the arrest. 0.91

00:45:08.340 But it is a ridiculous thing. 0.71

00:45:11.140 Yeah, so she set up the Police Sex Equality and Equity Network 0.92

00:45:14.660 to challenge work-based discrimination based on sex.

00:45:17.420 It's like, right, so you've got your right-wing views,

00:45:20.260 you have your very left-wing views, and so what are you?

00:45:25.400 A Tory.

00:45:26.260 Exactly.

00:45:27.700 Exactly.

00:45:28.140 Like, you are just your average conservative who's trapped between two worlds

00:45:31.960 and doesn't know which master they serve.

00:45:34.200 Yep.

00:45:34.560 She is a TERF, though, so that's good.

00:45:37.260 Okay, another good point.

00:45:38.460 Yeah, but she's still one of those things. 1.00

00:45:41.360 So, like, okay, not a strong candidate.

00:45:44.140 She doesn't look like the most magnetic person either,

00:45:46.780 which is important in politics.

00:45:48.100 Yeah.

00:45:48.260 Really, and Jacob Rees-Mogg put out a video the other day saying,

00:45:51.940 look, the Conservatives just shouldn't run anyone.

00:45:53.880 Like, you know, we shouldn't be splitting the right-wing vote here.

00:45:55.960 It's actually imperative that reform win.

00:45:58.240 We've got to start denying wins to the left generally,

00:46:01.240 broadly about who it is.

00:46:02.580 So, come on, they ran someone anyway, obviously.

00:46:05.320 I mean, the same issue is throughout all of this.

00:46:07.500 They're not thinking about country.

00:46:09.300 They're not even thinking about parties.

00:46:10.600 They're thinking about their own career.

00:46:13.020 Starmer is trying to hang on to the leadership of the Labour Party.

00:46:15.580 Kemi is trying to hang on to the leadership of the Conservative Party.

00:46:18.640 Farage is trying to hang on to the leadership of the...

00:46:20.900 Everybody's just trying to hang on to their job.

00:46:23.860 It's remarkable, actually, isn't it?

00:46:25.240 Yeah.

00:46:25.680 When you put it that way, that is correct.

00:46:29.420 Anyway, one party on the right that isn't splitting the vote is UKIP.

00:46:34.920 Nick Tenconi put out a statement, which, honestly, was a good statement.

00:46:39.500 UKIP were not interested in splitting votes to allow leftists to gain power.

00:46:42.920 We were interested in uniting the right and preventing the communists

00:46:44.960 from gaining further political influence over Britain.

00:46:47.420 UKIP will be standing candidates in the 2029 election,

00:46:50.540 but would not be looking to sabotage efforts to keep the left out of power.

00:46:53.940 While we build our Christian army, 1.00

00:46:56.200 UKIP's strategy will be to help unite the right.

00:46:58.500 That's actually a really responsible thing to do.

00:47:00.900 Every time I see something from UKIP these days, I think, solid.

00:47:04.300 Yeah.

00:47:04.820 The problem is, is they're a busted brand.

00:47:09.360 If you had held the line with, oh, who was the guy, Gerard Batten.

00:47:14.540 Yeah.

00:47:15.340 But no, they did the dirty on him, and then was it Richard Brain or something?

00:47:19.020 Yeah, he was great.

00:47:19.760 Yeah, he was good.

00:47:21.040 But they've just, it's not a functional party anymore.

00:47:25.160 Yeah, moral collapse, unfortunately, in UKIP.

00:47:28.020 But that was a responsible statement,

00:47:29.820 and made that this was the final list.

00:47:33.980 So you've got Labour, Reform, Green, Conservatives, Lib Dems.

00:47:37.920 The Social Democrat Party, Sebastian Moore,

00:47:40.200 don't know anything about them,

00:47:40.920 but they're going to poll very poorly.

00:47:42.420 The Libertarian Party.

00:47:43.460 You have a Libertarian Party?

00:47:44.900 I didn't know that.

00:47:45.600 Apparently, they're going to poll badly.

00:47:47.460 Right.

00:47:48.120 Advanced UK, they've got the Monster Raving Looney Party.

00:47:50.780 I do like them.

00:47:52.140 Really?

00:47:52.840 Yes.

00:47:53.380 For people who feel that politics doesn't apply to them.

00:47:57.520 No, I think if I was living there,

00:48:00.000 I probably would go for Matt Goodwin first,

00:48:01.940 and then Sir Oink-a-Lot as my second choice.

00:48:05.240 I'd go for Nick second.

00:48:06.320 Oh, okay, Nick, yeah, fair.

00:48:07.500 But then you've got a rejoin EU party,

00:48:09.760 led by an Irishman.

00:48:11.060 Thanks, bro.

00:48:11.760 What's the point of that?

00:48:12.960 Yeah.

00:48:13.340 Why do you just vote for Lib Dem, for God's sakes?

00:48:15.440 Yeah, exactly.

00:48:16.040 Yeah, exactly.

00:48:17.300 Why wouldn't you vote for the Lib Dems if you wanted that?

00:48:19.320 But anyway, then you've got at the very bottom,

00:48:21.000 the Communist League.

00:48:22.400 Oh, of course.

00:48:23.800 Obviously.

00:48:24.080 Didn't know we have one of those either, but why not?

00:48:26.180 No, I'm shocked that they can be legal.

00:48:27.920 But anyway, so that's...

00:48:29.220 And also, the Communist League has got the poshest name on the entire list.

00:48:33.720 He's a Hugo.

00:48:35.220 Yes.

00:48:35.800 Yeah.

00:48:36.420 Yeah, I didn't look into them because they're not going to go anywhere.

00:48:39.260 But anyway, so that's the list.

00:48:41.060 And so, as we can see, it's all to play for from basically every side.

00:48:49.140 Reform are in the lead, but that lead is not insurmountable, nor is it guaranteed.

00:48:53.880 And honestly, with the current events at the moment, it may well overtake the Labour Party anyway.

00:48:58.740 Yeah.

00:48:59.080 Labour gets flushed out, Green Party vote goes up, Green Party win.

00:49:01.920 Yeah, exactly.

00:49:03.460 So it's going to come down to reform and the Green Party, I suspect, with the Conservatives

00:49:08.360 essentially being the kingmaker here, the Conservative voter.

00:49:12.320 Does the Conservative voter vote Tory and split the vote and ruin things?

00:49:16.000 Or do they swallow their pride, vote for reform, and actually secure a right-wing seat?

00:49:22.160 I think that's what it's going to be.

00:49:24.160 And just to be clear, it's not...

00:49:26.880 Reform...

00:49:27.920 Not only is this a problem, but reform aren't even in the clear, even if the Conservatives

00:49:33.720 do choose to do that.

00:49:35.120 Because you're aware that Tommy Robinson is wildly popular among reform voters.

00:49:40.820 Oh, yeah.

00:49:41.660 Wildly popular.

00:49:42.460 Yeah.

00:49:43.040 They've had internal wranglings for a long, long time.

00:49:46.000 Over the leadership's hatred of Tommy and the base's love of him.

00:49:51.900 Because they view reform as an anti-Islam party.

00:49:56.820 Most reform voters really do think this is an anti-Islam party.

00:50:00.300 I mean, it's bizarre because, I mean, I've talked about this before.

00:50:03.180 The people who are supporting reform are ethnats. 0.95

00:50:06.640 The people leading reform are civnats.

00:50:10.160 But Tommy kind of is a civnat.

00:50:13.380 He's a bit of a bridge between both worlds.

00:50:15.140 He is a civnat, but he does have nativist leanings, right?

00:50:20.380 So...

00:50:20.700 I mean, he is probably more aligned politically with the reform leadership than the reform membership.

00:50:26.980 Yes.

00:50:27.240 And yet the reform membership love him.

00:50:29.080 And the reform leadership can't help but slamming him all the time.

00:50:34.760 Correct.

00:50:35.200 I mean, ideologically, there's not much difference between him and Nigel Fry.

00:50:39.580 There really isn't.

00:50:40.220 In fact, what's the difference between Matt Goodwin and Tommy Robinson?

00:50:44.360 You know what?

00:50:44.780 The Labour Party have been tweeting that out a lot, actually.

00:50:48.880 Because I haven't actually got the link.

00:50:51.120 But the Labour Party literally tweeted out a clip of Matt Goodwin saying,

00:50:56.220 well, there's not much difference between me and Tommy Robinson.

00:50:58.480 There isn't.

00:50:58.840 Because there really isn't, right?

00:51:00.400 They're not raving racists, but they are nativists who are concerned about the demographic changes

00:51:04.900 in the country.

00:51:05.360 Who's the other one?

00:51:05.860 Douglas Murray.

00:51:06.960 I mean, he's like a one-for-one politically with Tommy Robinson, except he sounds posh.

00:51:13.360 Yes.

00:51:14.600 But the point being, who does the working class vote in Gorton and Denton support?

00:51:22.600 Oh, yeah.

00:51:23.980 Exactly.

00:51:24.780 They're going to be friends of Tommy Robinson.

00:51:27.740 And so it's kind of weird that Danny Kruger went on TV and was like, we don't want his

00:51:31.600 support.

00:51:32.320 Because this isn't even Nigel Farage's line anymore, right?

00:51:35.680 Nigel Farage, he's been battered by his own electorate and constituents to the point where,

00:51:40.780 because he used to be, oh, no, I hate that Tommy Robinson.

00:51:42.680 Don't want him anywhere near me.

00:51:43.940 And now he's like, oh, well, Tommy and I are just doing different things.

00:51:46.620 You know, I think he's done good things on the grooming gangs, but he's not a politician.

00:51:49.380 So I'm just getting on politically.

00:51:50.540 That would be a better answer.

00:51:52.120 Right?

00:51:52.400 Let's watch this quickly.

00:51:54.280 Danny, I just want to ask you, because there is a by-election coming up in Greater Manchester,

00:51:58.340 in Gorton and Denton, and your candidate, Matthew Goodwin, who's the candidate for reform,

00:52:03.980 he's been endorsed by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

00:52:07.160 I mean, are you comfortable with that?

00:52:09.000 No, not at all.

00:52:09.860 No, we don't want his support.

00:52:11.980 And it's up to him who he chooses to endorse.

00:52:14.460 But, you know, people are free to do that.

00:52:16.080 We had Bonnie Blue endorsing us too.

00:52:17.540 We don't, you know, we're not going to make a particular welcome to that.

00:52:20.080 People will endorse us if they want to.

00:52:21.880 But no, we absolutely stand against what Tommy Robinson stands for.

00:52:25.360 We have a vision of a civic nationalism, of patriotism for this country, no matter where you come from.

00:52:30.780 And that message is resonating across the country.

00:52:34.080 What an atrocious answer.

00:52:38.420 What an unforced error.

00:52:39.860 I mean, why?

00:52:41.020 Okay.

00:52:41.720 So, every patriot in Gorton and Denton, which I'm guessing there's quite a few,

00:52:48.360 because they've got about a third of the vote off the bat before any of the campaigning had even happened,

00:52:53.740 are going to hear, no, I like Tommy.

00:52:56.740 I thought you guys were the base patriot party.

00:52:59.420 I mean, if Tommy wanted to, he could speak up at this point and really poison the chances for reform.

00:53:06.120 But he hasn't yet.

00:53:06.980 No.

00:53:07.280 As a time.

00:53:07.860 He probably won't.

00:53:09.260 Absolutely.

00:53:09.820 But the reason is, like, Danny Kruger has really kind of interjected this into the debate,

00:53:14.480 because, of course, Labour have been hammering Matt Goodwin over and over,

00:53:18.920 saying, four days ago, Matt Goodwin was asked to distance himself from far-right extremists.

00:53:23.100 Tommy Robinson endorsed him, and he failed to do so.

00:53:25.180 The only people who care, Labour, are people who are going to vote for you anyway.

00:53:27.880 Exactly.

00:53:28.240 They wrote green.

00:53:29.740 Exactly.

00:53:30.440 Like, the white working class in Gordon and Denton, being so close to the Muslim community there,

00:53:36.260 are going to be very aware of the problems that Tommy Robinson has been raising,

00:53:40.060 and probably very sympathetic to him.

00:53:41.540 Matt Goodwin has done the correct thing here.

00:53:43.380 Some builder's labourer in Manchester is not going to see that tweet from the Labour Party and go,

00:53:48.860 oh, right, oh, no.

00:53:49.980 Oh, no, not Tommy Robinson.

00:53:51.400 Yeah.

00:53:51.760 They're going to see Tommy Robinson saying, mate, I love you.

00:53:53.920 And I've seen it.

00:53:55.680 Like, when I first met Tommy, I'd been, you know, I'd been recognised in the streets plenty and stuff like that.

00:54:00.940 But I noticed the kind of men who had come up to Tommy regularly, and this was back in, like, 2017,

00:54:05.820 they'd just be like, mate, love what you're doing, love what you're doing, you know, really intensely,

00:54:09.160 you know, because this is serious to them, right?

00:54:11.080 And the Labour Party are like, yeah, well, Matt Goodwin didn't diss himself.

00:54:13.780 Well, that's probably wise, right?

00:54:15.300 Because Matt Goodwin is going to be relying on a lot of Tommy Robinson fans in Gordon and Denton.

00:54:20.100 I mean, basically, what it goes to show to me is Matt is a lot more switched on than Danny.

00:54:24.300 100%.

00:54:24.740 Matt has taken the measure of what the temperature is here and has completely understood that this is just a complete kick in the face from Labour to themselves.

00:54:33.960 Because, of course, as we've talked previously, a large percentage of Reform's current voter base are ex-Labour voters from the white working class

00:54:42.020 who are fundamentally the ones who agree with Tommy Robinson themselves.

00:54:44.680 So, the student activist who is running the Labour Party, social media, has failed to understand Tommy Robinson's position in this entire discussion.

00:54:54.520 And so, Matt has actually really skilfully just, he hasn't really engaged with it.

00:54:59.940 It's like, no.

00:55:00.600 Which is all you need to do.

00:55:01.900 It's all you need to do.

00:55:03.100 And even Farage is at the point where he's just like, well, you know, Tommy can do as he likes, we're just getting on with our job.

00:55:07.540 I mean, it took Farage a long while to figure that out.

00:55:10.020 It did.

00:55:10.540 But still.

00:55:11.000 A lot of rakes to the face to get to the point where it's like, oh, no, I'm pissing off.

00:55:14.420 Everyone who supports me, am I?

00:55:15.700 Okay.

00:55:16.340 It's fine.

00:55:16.660 And so, anyway, Danny Kruger has kind of smacked into that, which has not been wise.

00:55:21.880 But the response from Labour has also been kind of bizarre.

00:55:24.920 So, that's like the Labour student section who are like, oh, he's failed to do that.

00:55:29.820 It's like, that's, I mean, again, like it's like Boris Johnson with the Letterboxd and the Bumboy.

00:55:34.540 It's like, yeah, make everyone see that.

00:55:36.020 Because, actually, there are a lot of people who like Tommy and don't like you.

00:55:39.380 If Matt Goodwin really wanted to win, he would hold a rally with Tommy in the middle of whatever it is, Denton.

00:55:46.940 Maybe.

00:55:47.780 Yeah.

00:55:48.400 And that's the point, isn't it?

00:55:49.380 Like, they're signalling to all of the pro Tommy guys and Denton and Gordon and Denton.

00:55:54.220 Yeah, no, no.

00:55:54.740 Matt's for this, actually.

00:55:56.700 And so, no, keep signalling.

00:55:57.840 Keep telling everyone.

00:55:58.800 Yeah, by the way, he's the Tommy Robertson candidate.

00:56:01.080 Oh, brilliant.

00:56:01.660 Really?

00:56:01.840 And he's an academic and he's a patriot.

00:56:04.120 Excellent, right?

00:56:05.380 So, another line of attack that the Labour have gone on to is that Matt Goodwin isn't really British.

00:56:13.660 So, this guy is attacking Matt Goodwin for not being British.

00:56:19.400 This is an Indian Labour MP called Dr. Jeevan Sandhur is attacking Matt Goodwin for not being British.

00:56:27.360 Should we watch it?

00:56:28.400 Yeah.

00:56:29.920 Your face.

00:56:31.040 Your face just, what?

00:56:34.360 The thing about Matt Goodwin is he's not very British.

00:56:37.920 The same actually goes to Tommy Robertson, who's just endorsed him.

00:56:41.500 Matt thinks you can't really be British unless you're one, white, and two, you have the right great-grandparents.

00:56:47.520 Now, Goodwin's definition means that Winston Churchill isn't really British, and I don't think Churchill would like that very much.

00:56:53.320 But it's about a lot more than that.

00:56:55.360 Goodwin doesn't get our British values, our history, our culture.

00:56:58.580 Britain is and has always been made up of different communities, different communities that come together.

00:57:05.260 Dozens of different accents.

00:57:07.400 You say Bath in London and Bath up in Loughborough.

00:57:10.240 When different migrant communities came from across the Irish Sea, from India, from across the world, in fact, what was a former empire.

00:57:18.320 Those different communities came together to forge one British nation.

00:57:23.300 That's an amazing statement, isn't it?

00:57:26.700 You can't be British without foreigners. 1.00

00:57:29.220 It's not that you're English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish, Cornish, whatever.

00:57:36.080 No, no, no.

00:57:36.920 You can't be British without Indians. 1.00

00:57:39.440 You can't be British without Irishmen. 1.00

00:57:41.120 You can't be British without people who come from across the seas.

00:57:44.180 That's his and the Labour Party's perspective.

00:57:47.020 It's a hell of an inversion.

00:57:48.680 And I've got to admire him for playing the long game, because if that's a troll, it's beautifully done.

00:57:53.840 I mean, he's worked really hard for this.

00:57:55.880 I kind of want to move to Delhi, live there for 30 years, and then make a video like that, explaining that, you know, I'm the Indian.

00:58:05.080 Narendra Modi or whatever, he's not Indian, because he's not Indian. 0.97

00:58:10.580 It's just like my brother in Vishnu, you are literally an Indian.

00:58:18.020 Matt Goodwin is as English as the day is long.

00:58:22.900 Look at him.

00:58:23.840 Like, you know, if you were, like, looking at a lineup of different European ethnicities, you'd be like, yeah, he's the Englishman.

00:58:30.580 Yes.

00:58:30.880 He's the Brit.

00:58:31.640 You know, you can tell Matt Goodwin is from this place.

00:58:34.500 Yeah.

00:58:35.240 But not, says Dr. Jeevan Sandberg.

00:58:38.640 It's just like, okay, that's not a very strong line of argument, I would suggest.

00:58:46.280 And so, yeah, what it implies is the Labour Party basically are out of narratives, right?

00:58:52.880 Where are they going with this?

00:58:54.560 Where are they going?

00:58:55.080 So we'll go back to this just to end up on.

00:58:57.700 So, basically, I think Labour are toast at this point.

00:59:01.540 I think they don't have anything.

00:59:03.840 I think the Greens will out-promise them on the patronage networks for the minority communities.

00:59:09.100 And I think the reputation of the Labour Party in these communities has tanked anyway.

00:59:12.780 Because, I mean, Zach Polanski has been hard against Israel, despite the fact that he himself is Jewish.

00:59:17.180 Whereas Keir Starmer is a Zionist. 0.92

00:59:19.500 And this Israel-Gaza thing is a massive reason that the minorities are going either independent or to the Greens.

00:59:25.400 So I think the Greens will clean up there and they'll take the Muslim vote over to them with them.

00:59:29.360 I think the Labour Party is losing the white working class vote.

00:59:31.960 And fingers crossed, a lot of the white working class who previously didn't vote are going to come out for them in large numbers.

00:59:37.220 And if you're in Gordon and Denton, definitely think about getting these people who didn't turn out last time.

00:59:43.280 You know, Arsene, did you vote in 2024?

00:59:44.940 And if they say no, they'll be like, look, we need you now.

00:59:47.140 When is it?

00:59:47.800 When is the election?

00:59:49.180 It's in, I don't know, I can't remember.

00:59:51.960 It's in a couple of months.

00:59:53.000 Oh, it's got a while.

00:59:54.440 Well, I'll make a prediction.

00:59:55.400 Reform 29,000, Greens 27,000, something like that. 0.61

00:59:58.280 Let me quickly, I didn't even think to get the date.

01:00:05.680 I mean, I think the rate that things are moving, God knows what the state of the Labour Party is going to be by then.

01:00:12.160 26th of February.

01:00:13.560 Oh, okay.

01:00:14.260 So it's not even that far away.

01:00:15.680 No, a couple of weeks.

01:00:16.860 Yeah, so exactly, three, four weeks away.

01:00:19.540 Three weeks away.

01:00:20.200 So, yeah, it looks like from the best information that I can find now, basically, you need to get the white working class out. 0.99

01:00:30.840 They have the numbers.

01:00:32.260 I don't think they're going to go to the Labour Party.

01:00:34.760 I think they are going to go to reform.

01:00:37.060 They need to smash it.

01:00:38.280 Sorry to the other right-wing parties, but, you know, Matt Goodwin would be a good guy to have in Parliament, right?

01:00:46.820 He would at least be able to deliver a solid right-wing message.

01:00:50.660 He's a friend.

01:00:51.240 So, hopefully, you know, things would be moving in the right direction if we got Matt in.

01:00:57.160 And it's better than any of the alternatives.

01:00:58.560 I don't want any of them getting any ground at this point.

01:01:00.560 No.

01:01:01.180 So, yeah.

01:01:02.340 So, all to play for.

01:01:03.720 And it's actually quite an interesting representation of what the country is looking like.

01:01:07.460 And, honestly, I think it just comes down to we, the English, have to go out and make it happen.

01:01:12.140 We've got the numbers.

01:01:13.080 We just need the motivation.

01:01:13.940 And Matt's a good choice, frankly.

01:01:17.040 So, let's get out and do it.

The Gorton and Denton Showdown

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