True Patriot Love - TPL Media's UK Update： Is Keir Starmer Finished？ What's Next for Britain？ ft Steve Swift

00:00:00.000 Let's get into it. So, who is going to be the next ruling party of England?

00:00:08.880 Drum roll, please.

00:00:14.500 I am delighted, as always, to be joined by Steve Swift, who gives us the scope of things happening in the UK,

00:00:22.340 as many things have been happening in the UK, many parts of Europe, certainly here in Canada.

00:00:27.160 The world is in a tizzy, as it were, and England is experiencing that in its own very special way right now at the top parliamentary levels.

00:00:37.620 Less than two years after winning a landslide election, Keir Starmer is taking his leave.

00:00:44.520 Steve, thanks for joining us. How have you been?

00:00:47.260 I've been top hole, thank you.

00:00:49.920 That pip-pip.

00:00:52.380 Thank you for legitimizing.

00:00:56.020 I'm all right.

00:00:57.160 It's an extraordinary situation and we're in a kind of, well, nothing's happening at the moment, so we're in a bit of a honeymoon period, but it's kind of, people are thinking, just look what we could have. Just look at the delights we could have. But it's a bit strange. It is our sixth prime minister in, is it 15, 10 years?

00:01:21.920 I believe it's less than that.

00:01:23.660 I think it's closer to nine.

00:01:25.040 Maybe I'm wrong to correct us in the...

00:01:27.080 But yeah, you've certainly had a high turnover there.

00:01:31.060 You have more turnover in your parliament than we do at Tim Hortons here on a staffing front on average.

00:01:37.620 But put that aside, let's try to examine it for a minute.

00:01:40.660 I mean, Starmer came in like guns a-blazing, huge support, the nation expecting so many things.

00:01:49.000 And like I say, less than two years later, what did this? Was it was this personality? Was this actual policy? Well, how did we end up here, Steve?

00:01:59.440 Well, I think the people of Britain forgot what they voted for, which was, let's just get the Tories and Rishi Sunak out. You know, they wanted somebody who was a manager. So, you know, they wanted a 1945 Clement Attlee manager. He's nothing like that. But they wanted somebody who could steady the ship.

00:02:23.420 They didn't want that kind of, well, the Tories have had so many different, different prime ministers. We need somebody who can just take it easy. He got a massive, a massive majority in the House. He always looked to me, I think I've mentioned this to you before, that like he was faintly apologetic, and that he was worried that something was going to happen.

00:02:47.300 and I think it's certainly on my social media feed feeds I generally talk to people who wouldn't

00:02:58.320 be fans of the Labour Party and wouldn't be fans of Keir Starmer and the general feeling is that

00:03:04.500 he doesn't do anything he hasn't done anything he's done an enormous amount and the party has

00:03:11.180 done an enormous amount I mean the list is huge but they've just not got the word out

00:03:15.960 and the general dissatisfaction of can't feel that in my pocket,

00:03:21.820 can't, you know, and events as well, you know, wars and that kind of thing.

00:03:27.280 But he didn't sell it well enough.

00:03:29.340 And he's not the kind of big character that we needed.

00:03:34.640 I do think part of this is personality.

00:03:37.480 I do think there's a certain amount of strategy

00:03:41.200 that could have been put into place to find somebody that maybe...

00:03:45.960 the right personality up against starmer at that time might have also had a landslide depending

00:03:50.760 i think you're right the nation wanted to change they were tired of of the merry-go-round and they

00:03:55.960 wanted something just to change that might stop that pattern i i think we we see that in many

00:04:02.600 parts of the world one of the things that comes to mind is that if he had sort of interacted a

00:04:09.960 little better from a pr perspective posting what the labor party had done where they had gotten to

00:04:16.920 and what kind of achievements uh were coming about but that was not enough as you say up against an

00:04:24.040 economy that is suffering so hard right now social media that is easily you can fertilize so much 0.99

00:04:33.000 idiotic uh and inaccurate social media with people just being broke 0.94

00:04:39.960 you know so I think that was part of the part of the dilemma there yeah and I think that I don't 0.96

00:04:45.920 know who was in his team to give us the good news because we never got it so you know we it was

00:04:53.380 always reactive so if someone said well you're doing this they would say no but we've put this

00:04:59.020 in place and then people would say oh have you oh okay I didn't know that okay that changes the

00:05:04.480 perspective a little bit yeah yeah but he didn't do it enough that was desperately needed by this

00:05:10.220 party i think from day one that they had a strong press personality because you should point out

00:05:16.300 starmer himself is a little bit lacking in uh charisma i think yeah i mean he's you know he's

00:05:24.220 a lawyer you know he's a human he's a lawyer so um or a solicitor and i think that that kind of

00:05:33.180 we'll steady the ship feel and very early on after and we had this with Tony Blair's government

00:05:39.720 actually um only in a different way he came in had a huge majority and then said well it did

00:05:46.420 the usual thing of well we've been left no money by the Tories so there's very little we can do

00:05:52.000 that was early on and what and what the country is desperately in need of or was desperately in

00:05:57.280 need of was somebody to say come on things are going to be okay um and we might be getting that

00:06:04.360 now maybe now here's the thing you do have financial stress britain is under extreme

00:06:14.460 financial stress in many ways much like we are here in canada uh you're facing what is uh

00:06:21.320 outrageous inflation. Unemployment is at new highs. Yes, there are new trade deals being

00:06:27.840 created around the world that are unsure. Really, whoever takes over does have a challenge.

00:06:34.580 I don't know. And I think, once again, the same deal here in Canada, any party to take over the

00:06:40.380 debt of the previous party post-COVID, post-economic slashing globally, realignment after

00:06:49.220 what's happening with Trump anybody who comes into power is faced with some real challenges

00:06:54.460 how do you think whoever comes into power now is going to be faced with the uh with the Brits

00:07:01.600 they've got very very little wiggle room as you say you quite rightly encapsulated it

00:07:08.020 very well and they've got such little wiggle room and people always say well you can pull

00:07:13.240 the levers of power but if you pull one and nothing happens what do you do or if you

00:07:19.140 pull one of it and it stops what do you do and he's got whoever comes in and I think it will be

00:07:24.680 here we'll talk about this in a minute I'm sure um you've got very little room so what you need

00:07:30.560 is someone with a personality to make us feel good so even if we feel that I can't go and afford

00:07:38.520 another holiday or I couldn't afford to remodel my house or I can't even afford some of the basics

00:07:45.000 But when I see that bloke on TV, I feel better.

00:07:51.340 What are the issues that you think?

00:07:53.540 Before we get, and I think that we're probably,

00:07:56.380 we're not going to be able to make a bet on who comes to power, I think, Steve, unfortunately.

00:08:00.600 But what do you think the major challenges, what's on the minds of Brits right now?

00:08:06.900 What's the top-focused issues?

00:08:09.700 You know, I'll give you some examples.

00:08:11.320 Here in Canada, the economy is one, housing is one, another one is crime and safety.

00:08:17.760 Where do you sit?

00:08:20.960 Most of the items you just mentioned, yes, are live issues for us, but linked to migration and reform, being a party that's coming up from behind, not doing as well as they thought they might.

00:08:39.760 But we'll talk more about that maybe later on. But the economy, housing, jobs linked, seen through the prism of the kind of immigration situation, migration situation.

00:08:56.760 And with a really, a really kind of polarized reform on one side, Greens on the other, you know, acceptable right wing, acceptable left wing and Labour and the Tories in the middle with a two party system.

00:09:14.960 Okay, there's Lib Dems, but with a two party system that isn't really working at the moment.

00:09:21.160 so as far as the economy goes we have a a um a gdp that's not performing it's performing badly

00:09:30.200 but it's not performing as badly as some other countries we could describe or we could compare

00:09:34.600 to um but things like needs um young people not in education training or employment um that's huge

00:09:44.200 We're getting reports from actually ex-Blairite cabinet ministers

00:09:50.040 saying education is not good, needs are not good.

00:09:52.420 And there's a feeling of police being underfunded for many years.

00:10:01.220 So there's a feeling of unsafety, certainly in cities.

00:10:05.340 I think that up against the migration issues in Britain,

00:10:08.420 almost immediately you saw SWAT armed police in streets over protest.

00:10:14.200 You saw outrage from the police in not having the right resources to manage such an increase in population.

00:10:22.400 These things are tied.

00:10:23.420 I think that you're right.

00:10:24.520 The migration, and it's very difficult because you can quickly be labeled a racist to say that migration is an issue.

00:10:31.020 But it's not just an issue for the original residents of that country. 0.82

00:10:35.600 When you set up immigration en masse like this, 1.00

00:10:39.560 and we've experienced it in Canada, 1.00

00:10:41.240 you don't have the right resources for the people that you've invited to be here.

00:10:46.160 And you leave them in a lurch once they arrive.

00:10:49.780 And it costs everything that they can to get there.

00:10:52.680 They make every move they can in their life financially to make that change.

00:10:57.480 There is no turning back for many of these people,

00:10:59.920 and what they've arrived to is a difficult scenario.

00:11:02.460 Yes and it's a conversation that should be had and it's a conversation that's not being had so certainly reform and parties that would seem to be further right than reform like Restore are having that conversation and are using that area or rather not using but claiming that area extremely well.

00:11:29.820 Certainly, Labour doesn't really want to talk about it, is the perception.

00:11:33.720 And we haven't had any kind of, let's sit down and talk about this then.

00:11:38.520 I don't know whether that will be different in the future.

00:11:40.700 It's very difficult.

00:11:42.640 Two white-bearded white guys sitting talking about migration in either of our countries,

00:11:47.840 it stirs up ire that stops conversation that could be solutions for both sides,

00:11:53.180 the migrating and the receiving country.

00:11:57.140 Until you have those conversations,

00:11:59.280 how are we going to find the right kind of work?

00:12:01.740 How are we going to find the right kind of housing and lifestyle

00:12:05.740 that suits everybody accommodating?

00:12:09.000 And I think that that's a difficult thing right now in Britain.

00:12:13.120 Yeah, I mean, I think that getting that conversation out of the open

00:12:17.320 and sitting down, and, you know, I think I mentioned before to you,

00:12:19.960 I remember the 70s because I'm pretty old.

00:12:21.960 And I remember, actually, politicians at peak time on primetime TV

00:12:26.300 sitting down and having a debate about the situations of the day one of which

00:12:30.260 was the common market you know the EU of its time and should we go in and all of

00:12:34.280 that and there was a free vote from the ruling Labour Party at the time and it

00:12:38.960 was good TV and people talked about it we don't have that now because policies

00:12:44.360 made on the hoof on social media and also everyone's their own citizen

00:12:48.620 journalist so if I say something and a hundred people crowd in and say agree

00:12:53.780 you steve then that becomes the situation so you know that that kind of echo chamber thing um

00:13:00.340 or a feedback loop really is yeah that echo chamber is so dangerous you don't get anywhere

00:13:07.300 yeah and i think that's one of the reasons why um the cities in journalism is one of the reasons

00:13:13.380 why the two main parties don't don't gain respect from many very many people because they are the

00:13:19.380 the voice of authority but what is the voice of authority you know I can I can now say say anything

00:13:24.860 I want to people on social media because I'm because I'm I'm behind an avatar and they may

00:13:30.940 reply to me and then we may have a ding dong on social media and you know I feel excited by that

00:13:38.940 because I've reached I've reached that but it sort of brings those people who are the voice of

00:13:44.440 authority down and we've we voted for them to be the voice of authority whether we like it or not

00:13:51.220 we voted for them to do that to make those choices and if you're having a ding dong on social media

00:13:57.000 with me then you're not the voice of authority anymore you're just having a squabble yeah it's

00:14:03.600 very interesting how i i love the notion that uh you recognize in our youth we watched our

00:14:09.640 politicians having real debate on the news or otherwise on a scheduled time slot and they

00:14:16.780 slugged it out pretty pretty well uh you would hear both polarized sides you would hear uh the

00:14:24.380 the uh mediated side of it by you know the the press of the day that were there at the table

00:14:29.720 you're right that's vanished into social media uh garbage in in my opinion in a lot of ways

00:14:35.560 where conversation only creates a shoe point,

00:14:40.020 and I will use this the rest of my life,

00:14:42.440 a ding-dong between voices rather than real solution.

00:14:47.260 Yes, and the good side of the social media thing

00:14:51.080 is that it could be seen that,

00:14:54.220 well, you can't be at this table.

00:14:55.620 So in the 70s when I grew up,

00:14:58.320 politicians were at the table,

00:15:00.280 and there might be an audience member

00:15:01.800 who might ask a question.

00:15:03.540 We have a show at the moment called Question Time,

00:15:05.560 In which there's a panel of experts, experts, some politicians, some business people, some social media people, perhaps, and the audience ask questions.

00:15:14.380 And I've asked one, I've been on it. So you get picked and they go and see you and they talk to you and all of that.

00:15:20.880 But it's where you can just ask your question. You can't be with us.

00:15:26.020 And in some ways, I appreciate that people want to talk.

00:15:31.000 They want to be able to get somebody in a corridor afterwards and say, can we have a chat?

00:15:35.560 about what you said because i'm on your level and there is a feeling that we're up here in the in

00:15:41.960 the lofty heights of politics and you're just asking a question and you can go back to your

00:15:47.320 job on monday so i appreciate that social media is a great leveler in that respect but what it

00:15:53.240 does it does come in equal measure with sorry go on it comes in equal measure with that echo chamber

00:16:02.040 danger. Yeah, it does. I mean, it, it, it identifies, I mean, it, it, it strengthens

00:16:09.380 your view because you know, one, I will try and talk to people who are not of my political stripe

00:16:16.680 and say, but why do you say that? Or you've, you've quoted a poll here. Where's it from?

00:16:23.720 And sometimes people will come back to me and, and, and tell me where I can go. And sometimes

00:16:28.640 people will say oh okay well let's just have a chat about that but um generally you get or if you

00:16:35.520 make a comment about something then people will pile on you because they're all mates and that's

00:16:41.040 understandable but social media just strengthens your view no matter what it is no matter how far

00:16:48.160 out there it could be that's really dangerous yeah my algorithm shows me some pretty pretty

00:16:53.680 far out there stuff and and uh i think to myself am i believing this is this why my algorithm

00:16:59.280 yeah you have to be uh you have to be careful you know it's interesting uh just as an aside

00:17:04.160 a couple of months ago i had a conversation with a uh a notable liberal politician in canada and

00:17:12.400 uh we were talking about mark carney and uh the successes of mark carney in their opinion and

00:17:19.120 you know so i'm actually quite impressed with some of the things that i see the prime minister

00:17:23.680 do and other things i question but we got talking about how the previous government

00:17:29.120 created an anti-woke movement in canada and you know that was me just being echo chamberish with

00:17:37.040 this person but she said to me what do you mean by woke what is woke you have to define that for

00:17:43.120 me mike because i don't really think everything we do is woke and i don't really like that phrase

00:17:49.120 because it's almost a label that discredits you and i'll be honest with you steve by the end of

00:17:54.800 the conversation with that liberal individual i felt a little embarrassed because i felt that i

00:17:58.880 had echo chambered a little bit myself and when it came to conversation what she said to me was

00:18:05.280 really beautiful she said well i understand where you're coming from do you understand where i'm

00:18:09.920 coming from what an interesting position to be in you know so rarely yes and and we don't get that

00:18:20.480 and we have spoken before about if this was in the pub you would have that conversation or in a bar or

00:18:26.480 you know on a walk you'd have that conversation and with your mates and if you said something

00:18:30.880 that was out there they'd say come on mate defend your position but you're right there's that there

00:18:35.680 are certain shorthand semiotic phrases um the ones i come across i mean woke is one of them

00:18:43.040 there are two more socialist and working class and so i say what is working class then am i working

00:18:50.080 class am i you know i was i was born to working parents but you know they earned a lot of money

00:18:57.760 but they were working and they worked shifts you know is is is a person who works in a steel

00:19:03.840 a steel company who earns 80 000 pounds a year is that person still working class is it about

00:19:09.360 cultural is it about aspirational um but these things are used as a basis and i always try to

00:19:16.640 say well let's unpick it what does it mean but that shorthand isn't helpful because it becomes

00:19:22.560 a slogan an attack yeah i'm sorry steve i was guilty of it i caught myself but it was pointed

00:19:28.560 out to me but you're right uh it is interesting when you when we start to do this it does discredit

00:19:35.040 the conversation okay let's get into it so who is going to be the next ruling party of england

00:19:45.760 drumroll please it will be the prince across the water well actually not across the water

00:19:50.880 across the m25 um andy burnham it will be him now he's tried twice before to be labour leader

00:20:01.360 failed both times he has been the mayor of greater manchester for some years incredibly popular not

00:20:10.880 with me but incredibly popular in general so i'm in the minority i would say um he's

00:20:17.840 He's become the MP of Ashton in Makerfield,

00:20:23.140 commonly called Makerfield,

00:20:24.880 annoyingly to me because I'm very pedantic.

00:20:27.440 And he won that seat handily.

00:20:32.120 It was a two-way...

00:20:34.100 Now, was he placed in that municipality?

00:20:38.360 He was strategically placed, correct?

00:20:40.660 Very much so.

00:20:41.320 That's not the...

00:20:41.760 Right, okay.

00:20:42.480 Yeah, the sitting MP, who had a 5,000 majority,

00:20:44.940 um he left he resigned so for no other i mean i don't i didn't see why i looked for it i didn't

00:20:54.220 see why there was not i'll tell you why steve we needed a different guy running there come on

00:20:58.660 we absolutely but the kind of i want to spend more time with my children that might have been

00:21:04.100 one of them oh yeah you know yeah i've used that excuse before yeah it's not been used for years

00:21:10.100 in this country but Andy Burnham ran a campaign really it was it was uh Labour versus reform um

00:21:18.180 reform through an awful lot of resources at it um they came up short quite badly actually

00:21:27.220 so 5 000 majority doubled so it's almost a 10 000 majority now um for Andy Burnham so very quickly

00:21:35.700 he became the mp for maker field virtually the following week keir starmer um took the advice

00:21:42.900 of some of his party i think it was a bit like um visiting the party visiting margaret thatcher

00:21:50.100 and saying you must go margaret you must go um so i think it was that he had vowed to fight on

00:21:56.340 as she had and he he he went surprisingly i was i i thought you won't go and there'll be

00:22:04.260 some blood on the carpet here but it seems to be what has been called in the magazine article i read

00:22:09.460 recently a bloodless coup he is the prince across the water he will move in probably um on unchallenged

00:22:19.380 the only other challenger would be west treating he resigned his health secretary okay i was going

00:22:26.340 to say is this part of the cabinet shuffle that moved around as well i mean but is there is there

00:22:33.460 a great distance between the popularity of the two?

00:22:38.160 Yes. I mean, the...

00:22:40.340 I think what did for Burnham, though, just quickly,

00:22:42.660 is that Streeting had gone,

00:22:44.540 and people expected him to stand, and he didn't.

00:22:47.800 And I suspect he's spoken to Burnham, you know,

00:22:51.380 in the greasy pole of politics to say, what can I have?

00:22:56.180 But what really did, I think, for Starmer

00:22:58.680 was John Healy, who's an excellent politician,

00:23:03.460 Who I've met a few times and always been impressed. He was our defence secretary. He resigned on a point of principle because he said that the new defence deal, monetary deal, wouldn't be enough. I think that's what finally did for Starmer. It's always those, the things you don't expect, isn't it? So I think it's that that did for him. Burnham should be, he should walk in. He should walk in within the next two weeks, I think it is.

00:23:31.860 Is this the Labour leader that people expected to have, maybe?

00:23:35.740 Is this really...

00:23:37.220 And, okay, so now he falls into power there,

00:23:39.900 which is fantastic, and for the Labour Party.

00:23:42.480 Do they maintain this now with this leader?

00:23:47.740 I think there's a really good chance of this.

00:23:50.620 There's a phrase, isn't there?

00:23:52.320 He speaks human.

00:23:54.580 And what he does do, you know,

00:23:56.340 he is kind of, hey, how you doing, guys?

00:23:59.120 He's not like that.

00:24:00.360 he's not like a manager but he's kind of he's got that sort of um that sort of feeling that he he's

00:24:08.120 human he's a nice guy he's calculating and we know that but that's kind of done in an ironic way

00:24:15.400 you know i'm i've still got my season ticket for everton football club i you know i go running

00:24:20.280 even though i'm a bit out of shape you can see me doing that and he's very good at the vision thing

00:24:25.320 to use another phrase that's often used so he's very good at that kind of we as a nation deserve

00:24:31.320 better we as a nation are brilliant do you know what he is is the flip side although very similar

00:24:37.400 of boris johnson i think and i'm peddling this i'm peddling this belief and this thought so i'll

00:24:43.640 do it on this show as well i think there's a boosterism about both of them so boris johnson

00:24:48.920 was kind of pip pip ho ho uh tally ho and aren't we marvelous come on put you turn those frowns

00:24:54.680 upside down this is marvelous marvelous andy burnham's a similar way but just not using those

00:25:00.040 kind of words so it's you know i'm here to help you i mean i'm here to help you i've got some

00:25:06.120 great ideas let's do this together we're brilliant and people come away thinking it's all right

00:25:12.920 isn't it i feel a bit better and with those animal spirits um in voting but also in um

00:25:18.760 But in shares and stocks and shares and in Canary Wharf, that really helps.

00:25:23.920 That kind of boosterism really helps.

00:25:26.880 He's really good at that.

00:25:29.060 I think it's interesting that we're starting to see leaders that are really good boosters, I should say.

00:25:36.080 You might have seen our prime minister at Davos.

00:25:38.040 He gave one hell of a speech, made Canadians real proud.

00:25:41.300 He's given it several times since.

00:25:42.580 It seems to be his patent speech.

00:25:44.240 But having said that, it is a time for those kind of leaders, especially up against what we see in the U.S.

00:25:54.540 And people will say to me, oh, you're a Trump hater. I don't like his personality.

00:25:59.900 That's the truth. But many people don't. He doesn't really care much about that.

00:26:04.720 In the face of that, we're starting to see more leaders globally come out that represent the human discussion side of things.

00:26:12.780 Meanwhile, they might be at the highest corporate levels pulling these levers, as you point out.

00:26:19.100 But what the public really wants is that vision board politician that says, we've got this.

00:26:25.660 The future's bright over here. We've created this strategy.

00:26:28.740 Our strategy has all of these memorandums of understanding, which mean nothing, and we're moving forward.

00:26:35.680 But there is something that that affects.

00:26:38.200 It affects the bureaucracy, the people who run the civil service.

00:26:42.860 It changes the attitude on the street among people.

00:26:45.660 It's hard to complain when you've got a positive person at the top.

00:26:50.220 You know, you look negative when you do that.

00:26:53.560 Yes, absolutely right.

00:26:54.720 Because I take your point entirely because there's very little else to work with.

00:27:00.600 You know, there's very little economically to work with.

00:27:02.540 You know, it's difficult worldwide, difficult in Canada, difficult in the States, difficult in the UK, so there's very little to work with. You can't say, look at all these trillions of pounds I bought in new money. Can't say that. So you might as well say, look, I'm a nice guy. And he's, Burnham is the kind of guy who, kind of bloke, who you feel you can go for a pint with a bit like Nigel Farage.

00:27:29.900 He's the anti Nigel Farage obviously, but he does have that kind of come on

00:27:35.020 I'm just gonna go and we'll have a we'll have a point and a chat and we'll have a laugh

00:27:38.360 And you'll feel a lot better coming away than you did going in

00:27:43.020 Well, I I'm very excited myself to see what happens. What did you say two weeks now?

00:27:48.780 Yes, I think it's I think it's two weeks. I think it's yeah, I think I mean you should go in unchallenged

00:27:54.680 his the first

00:27:56.680 real

00:27:57.680 issue for him is his cabinet

00:27:59.900 I know there are reports that Angie Rayner is coming back, not in a cabinet position, but that she's working with him to deliver housing, you know, because he's made some big pledges.

00:28:15.140 And one of the main pledges he's made, Mike, is that he has said, because he's a Manchester bloke, he's Wigan and Lee, he's Liverpool, he's Manchester, he's Greater Manchester Mayor.

00:28:28.140 And he said that number 10, there will be a number 10 of the north.

00:28:33.540 And it will be in Greater, in Manchester, actually, not just Greater Manchester, but in Manchester.

00:28:38.700 So certain parts of it will go to Manchester.

00:28:41.660 Gordon Brown tried to do this and succeeded he sent parts of the civil service to Leeds

00:28:49.380 and it it really which is a northern town and it really it made it it made that that town grow

00:28:57.120 hugely um and if he's I mean it's it's it's an idea whose time has come so number 10 being in

00:29:05.600 the north and all of that would be something a bit special and people it's that vision thing

00:29:10.500 isn't it he's made big comments and big comments about house building and all of that with very

00:29:15.820 little very little detail but you just announce it people go that sounds great and look at his

00:29:23.200 eyelashes aren't they lovely you know and all of that you know he's got those big thick eyelashes

00:29:29.120 those blue eyes people go andy so i think that he can he could be our leader look at him he's

00:29:35.260 Well, you know what? In Canada, we did that. We certainly in Ontario, north of us, there's Sudbury, there's Thunder Bay and in different parts of Canada that are fairly remote or rural.

00:29:49.460 Our government at one point said, OK, we're going to set up part of our bureaucracy in these areas and and, you know, run major offices for in Sudbury is the CRA, the Canada Revenue Agency.

00:30:04.220 And, you know, all of these, Ottawa has a huge amount of government buildings.

00:30:09.640 Hull, Quebec, same thing.

00:30:11.260 And what it does is it does invigorate.

00:30:13.500 It creates this job base where there's equal earning among a lot of people.

00:30:18.240 It creates more community because people are feeling positive.

00:30:21.140 It brings families.

00:30:23.360 It creates families that are actually going to have children.

00:30:28.180 And, yeah, it can be a very positive thing.

00:30:31.020 I think that will work out well.

00:30:32.720 I think housing's maybe a bit of a tightrope, though.

00:30:35.300 What do you think, Steve?

00:30:36.380 Yeah, I mean, he announced tons and tons of housing

00:30:39.660 because he sounds good.

00:30:40.880 You know, we need more housing, yes.

00:30:43.060 The tightrope you mentioned,

00:30:45.780 the housing building for Labour

00:30:47.760 has fallen off that tightrope

00:30:49.020 over the past few years, couple of years.

00:30:51.320 And to say, we're going to make loads of housing,

00:30:53.380 people go, more housing, fantastic.

00:30:55.760 There was nothing behind that.

00:30:57.260 So that was pointed out by commentators.

00:30:59.560 But generally, by then, he's already said it.

00:31:01.600 and you know he's wearing he's wearing a t-shirt underneath the jacket he seems like the kind of

00:31:07.100 fella that i could get on with and he's wearing jeans so that's the kind all of that people really

00:31:13.740 seem to like i mean i just think seen it all before you know i was alive during the blair years

00:31:19.120 at which point he was a cabinet minister in that government but um it was health minister actually

00:31:26.140 But people seem to think he's the guy we want.

00:31:30.820 And he might make a go of it, because by not doing much,

00:31:35.920 but seeming like a really nice bloke,

00:31:38.840 he could manage this and bring Labour's fortunes back up.

00:31:44.340 I do hope that it makes a big change.

00:31:48.000 I think Keir Starmer was a nice idea, maybe.

00:31:51.400 It seemed like a good idea at the time.

00:31:53.160 But when you do very little, or it appears that you do very little, the net result is this.

00:32:00.740 And I don't know that he actually had the druthers to hang in through this drought of media love.

00:32:08.840 But it does look like you guys have a new charmer on the way.

00:32:13.300 Yeah.

00:32:14.860 You know, Steve, I'm disappointed you didn't run.

00:32:18.180 But I do understand you have other concerns in life.

00:32:20.800 I would hope that if this falls through, you will step up.

00:32:24.920 I have worked on an Andy Burnham campaign before.

00:32:29.680 And he didn't even mind me calling him Bambi Burnham.

00:32:33.420 He just laughed.

00:32:35.620 Ah, well, isn't that nice?

00:32:38.340 He is a man of the people, after all.

00:32:40.220 He's got the eyes and the eyelashes, you see, Mike.

00:32:42.480 It's so lovely.

00:32:44.040 Oh, so do you, Steve.

00:32:45.140 I mean, there could have been a competition here.

00:32:47.580 Steve Swift, our UK correspondent and link to what's happening on that side of the pond.

00:32:54.460 I really appreciate this.

00:32:55.860 You'll find us doing this once a month.

00:32:57.500 If there's something you want to know about what's going on in the UK, send it to us.

00:33:01.300 Comment on what we've talked about here today and we'll pick it up in the next conversation.

00:33:04.880 Thanks, Steve.

00:33:05.980 Thank you very much.

00:33:07.020 Great to see you all.

00:33:08.420 And I love doing this.

00:33:10.640 Pip, pip, cheerio.

True Patriot Love - July 12, 2026

TPL Media's UK Update： Is Keir Starmer Finished？ What's Next for Britain？ ft Steve Swift

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