Latest / The Common Sense Revolution Podcast / Ep 7: Up, up, up: Kemi’s bounce, Burnham’s Brexit wobble
Transcript
- Gavin Megaw: A week ago, the Conservatives went home from Birmingham in great spirits. This week, they got a boost in the polls as a result, while Labour held Keir Starmer's old seat, taking down Green leader, Zach Polanski, in the process. Brexit returned as an issue, as did Nigel Farage, who outlined reforms plans to close the asylum system for five years. And we've had lots going on in the Commons. Welcome to the Common Sense Revolution. I'm Gavin McGaw and with me as ever, our journalist, Patrick Kidd. and policy thinker and writer Peter Franklin. three of us worked together at Conservative Central Office in the Hague years and we are back to discuss another period of opposition and whether the Conservative Party is repairing or falling apart. Now let's start with you Peter. Did the public actually notice that Tories had a good week last week? Peter: I think they must have done judging by the polls. If the polls are any accurate guides to public opinion, I've seen a group of polls and they're showing plus three, plus three, plus two, plus three. That's pretty good. We'll have to see whether it lasts. That's always the absolute essential caveat. But... I don't see how it could have gone that much better for Kevye Badenow. Gavin Megaw: Now, and there's been no post-conference shambles or scandals, which is always a good thing, isn't it, Patrick? Patrick: it wasn't a bad conference at all. There's not been any embarrassing memoirs. There weren't any scandals, any news of the world, not that that exists anymore, exposés. It has been good. And as Peter says, the polls now it's not just one, they're starting to show an increase. I mean, what will frustrate the conservatives as well as reform, as well as restore for that matter, is if you add the three of them together, you're pretty much getting over 50 % every time now. and even though the Conservatives are into second place, you know, is that they're going to be galling for them that the reformer taking away their vote, just as it was perhaps galling for Farage, the Tories were taking his vote away. things are looking up. We've discussed in the last couple of podcasts how it's becoming more clear where the battle lines are. And this is going to happen in a couple of weeks time at the budget as well, that Labour very much are focused on which to their credit they believe is the winning line about the state taking control and the Tories are starting to speak more and more about cutting taxes, giving more power back to the people. And, you know, I mean, what Andy Burnham said this week about Brexit is well worth us discussing, again, that gives a dividing line. Do we want to fight that all over again? Whether we think Brexit was a mistake or not, do we want to go through those slightly fraught years again? He has quite clearly happy to flash a bit of ankle at the Eurofiles. And then another thing we shall discuss, I'm sure, on this podcast is the Greens are going down and that is helping Labour a bit. It's been a very bad by-election in Hobart and Spankras for, well, for them. I think they must have had hopes a few weeks ago of winning it and they were a distant second. Gavin Megaw: Let's get into that actually, because I think it's interesting across the board really with the results, because a by-election win when you're in government is a good thing. So, Labour will be very, very happy with that. And to see off Zak Polanski really does show that they can deliver in this type of seat, doesn't it, Peter? Peter: It does, and it's very important from a party management point of view. One of the reasons why Keir Starmer fell was because the election predictions were showing green gains all through sort of the eastern half of central London. This seat actually wasn't a top green target. Though the Greens actually did increase their vote share, there is a kind of pedantic reason why that isn't so impressive. That's because last time round, there was an independent left winger who challenged Keir Starmer and did quite well. This time he stepped down and gave the Greens a clear run. If you include his vote and add it to the Green vote, there was actually, last time, what the Greens achieved this time was no progress at all. I mean, they just kind of stayed more or less where that left-wing vote was. So, yeah, not a good result for the Greens. And a lot more is going wrong for them. There's a... an emerging civil war between the new greens, if we could call them that, that kind of alliance of kind of ex-Corbynites, hard left people and Islamic radicals. That's one part of the new coalition. And they're ranged against the kind of what you might call the heritage greens. And Caroline Lucas, who did more than anyone to bring the greens into the mainstream, is starting to speak up on behalf of the heritage greens. And it's quite clear she's not happy. And I just wonder where that's going to end up. Gavin Megaw: I think it's also interesting that the Conservatives didn't have a great night. I mean, was that to be expected? I I look back at polling results from the past for this constituency before boundary changes came into play. And in the past, the Conservatives would get up to 20 % of the vote. They got 7 % this time. And OK, they came third just ahead of reform by a couple of hundred seats. Is that just to be expected? Patrick: it's no different really to the last general election. They got 7.2 % at this election, they got 7.1 % at the general election. You're right Gavin, that they got 21 % once back in 2015 when the Tories had a candidate called Blair, by the way. His name was Will Blair. Maybe that helped to sway a few votes away from Labour. But you know... I don't think they should be disheartened. They weren't contesting this. Their focus was very much on getting through their conference and speaking to the nation, not speaking to Hobernans and Pankras. It's not been a constituency. They've really had any chance of winning. And they were quite happy with this being a debate between the Greens and Labour. And the thing is, you're right, that there was an independent at the last general election who endorsed Zach Polanski. And if you add what he got to what the Greens got last time, it's pretty much what Polanski got this time. So they've not gone backwards, but you know, if you're the leader of a party, you're hoping to advance. And Polanski's line in the interviews afterwards was that on the doorstep, the fabled doorstep where all politicians find the wisdom of the world, people were saying, we'll give Andy Burnham a chance. Maybe that's true, but actually I just think they were also saying, we've had a look at the Greens and we don't like the look of you. Gavin Megaw: You mentioned leaders there Patrick, we've also seen this week a bit of a beginning of the end feel for the Lib Dems haven't we? mean Peter you flagged to us offline that there was a lot of discussion going on about his future. mean could this by-election have played into that for the Lib Dems because they were nowhere to be seen either. Peter: They weren't, but I don't think the Lib Dems were expecting to do well in this seat either. What happened this week, Tuesday evening, was a meeting of the Lib Dem parliamentary party, which these days is quite big, know, 72 MPs. Lately, there's now so many of them that they actually have a front bench now. but a couple of front benchers resigned, apparently in protest of Davies leadership, but the meeting last night did not sort of undermine Davies position any further in that there were plenty of expressions of support. However, I think he's been put on notice that he needs to improve. So let's come back to this in a year's time and see where we are. If he hasn't really done anything to steady Lib Dem nerves, especially with Kenny Badenok breathing down their necks in a lot of their new seats, then I think he might be in more trouble than he is exactly at the moment. Patrick: The interesting thing will be where the Tory gains and the polls are coming from. Are they taking them away from Labour or are taking them away from Lib Dems and what are they getting back on the doorstep? As they say, yes, Lib Dem MPs wanted to speak last night to Ed Davey. One of the interesting interventions he made this week was on the Brexit issue when Andy Burnham went on another lesser podcast hosted by Bada $ $ and Rory Someone and basically said that if it wasn't for the Russians, Brexit would never have happened. That certainly was the implication. He then rode back as he realized that blimey, people listen to Aleister Campbell's podcast. And he made a statement in the Commons, which I sketched in the Telegraph, in which he effectively said, we know the Russians were trying to interfere in 2019 and it's beyond. doubt at all, it's inconceivable they weren't trying to interfere in Brecht, which is not the same as saying that they changed the result, which is what he was implying. Having said that... Davey then got up in the Commons and praised Andy Burnham for his courage in saying that Russia had managed to screw the result against Brexit. I don't think he'll have been very happy with Davey for being so effusive in his praise for that because Burnham was definitely trying to wriggle off the hook. But this is a problem that Burnham is having a lot. He says something and then he has to row back. Gavin Megaw: Yes, and we'll come back to that in a moment, think, Patrick. But before we do, I just want us to touch in on what this last week has meant. We've seen the polls. We've seen what's happened in the Hallburns and Pankras by-election. What does this mean for the Tory strategy ahead of the next election? Because we're increasingly of the view that there will be an early election. It won't go all the way through because Andy Burnham cannot afford for it to go all the way through and to get a mandate to really change things on his terms. You'll need more time. So that's the suggestion that early next year, possibly spring next year, he will go to the people and ask for their backing. If he does that though, what is the Tory strategy? Because they've not had time really to build up and build up and build up. People will still remember 14 years and frankly, some of those years were a real mess. So how do they pay that? Peter: I think the Tory strategy is to stop that early election from happening. Everything they've done at the moment is to make Burnham think again about doing that. And if they are, you know, if the polls... It's not just that they're going up by two or three percent in the polls at the moment. It's not just a fact of that Tory advance, whether it lasts or not, it's how it underlines the current volatility in the polls. That relatively short term events like a party conference can shift the polls appreciably, then what on earth would an election campaign that is more successful for one party than another actually do? Burnham get a really risk two to three years of a triple figure majority on such a dicey proposition. he was, if Labour was, you know, consistently hitting 30 % or nearly 30%, he might go for it. At the moment, it's just a very dicey proposition. So he'll keep his options open, but we can't assume. that there will be an early election. But the Conservatives nevertheless have to... Gavin Megaw: Patrick, despite Peter saying that, there is a risk, there? Because Burnham is never going to be more popular than he is right now. And we're going to come back to the issues that came out of the rest of his politics, podcasts, etc. But those type of things do travel. And lots of people are hearing Burnham being a very good communicator and liking what he has to say. So there is a risk, isn't there? Patrick: Yes, certainly. mean, that has, despite his occasional gaffe, he is a good communicator. The argument against that is Theresa May in 2017, who went for a very quick election within a year of her becoming Prime Minister. She made it presidential, which is odd for a woman that doesn't have much actual personality. And this was quickly exposed that the country looked despite the fact she was up against Jeremy Corbyn Fighting a campaign based on and as I remember that the banner saying Theresa May's team Was a drag I wonder, know, the Tories are quite heavily behind their leader in the polls. Kemmy Badenock is stronger personality than the Tory brand. Whether that is something that will make Burnham think again. Look, we're going to see. The key thing is actually the budget. In two weeks time, we are going to have a definite... definite vagueness if you can say it because he may not answer every question but we are going to have a financial event in which they are going to set out some of what they hope to do both in this parliament and the next and how people respond to that both in the polls and in the chatter and how the markets respond is going to decide whether there's an election. Yesterday I sketched Wes Streeting before the Defence Committee and I think Streeting has lots of virtues but he was under a lot of pressure because basically he couldn't say whether there's going to be any more money for defence. He could say that John Healy wants to spend money, but we all know Healy resigned over it. But nonetheless, he is talking about NATO warning us of a possible war and him saying, I don't know if I'll have the budget to prepare for it. A lot of departments are going to be like that. And so really, we're going to spend two weeks of footsieing around and in two weeks time, we might have a better idea of whether an election is possibly fightable. Gavin Megaw: I think you're spot on with that. think it will be really, really clear post the budget what approach Andy Burnham is going to take, because if he ducks the hard decisions in that budget, that to me is signaling that he does want to go early. And I think that is going to be fascinating. And if that does happen, the Conservative Party will have to fight an election on the basis of trying to... really get as close to them as possible to reduce the majority, because a really tight majority post a financial event, which may well happen, by the way, there will be some type of economic downturn. We all know that. And Burnham needs to get ahead of that, or he's going to be in real trouble. It's going to be a really difficult premiership if he's in that situation and he doesn't have a big mandate. And I suspect that if there is that situation arising when he is in post with a small majority, then he will not be able to hold on to his backbenchers when he has to put austerity through. And that'll be fascinating. And that'll be why the Conservative Party, if there is an early election, it'll all be about reducing the size of the majority to try and allow something like that to happen. But you're right, you know, who knows? But the budget will signal, I think, direction of travel on this. Patrick: The other thing to bear in mind on that is the budget will set out the fiscal travel, you're right, but but streeting was pressed yesterday in the defence committee about the spending review and that's set up for next autumn. And I mean he was being attacked by Labour members of the committee quite heavily, getting a lot of friendly fire, saying how on earth can you be talking about preparing to fight a war in 2030 if you're not actually going to know until 2027, the autumn, what your budget is. And you know he made the fair point that when he was health secretary people were saying you should less and when your defence secretary will say you should spend more. But you know we have some instability and a spending review that is going to happen a year after a budget gives us lot of instability. Gavin Megaw: Now, another thing which is very likely to be part of any election campaign for Burnham is Europe. He's signalled to us very, very clearly at his conference, but also in the Commons this week and on the rest is politics, podcasts as we've referenced his views on that. Peter, you have listened closely to this. It's back on the agenda. Is that good or bad for the Tories? And what will Burnham do? at the election whether it's next year or sometime in the future in terms of holding another referendum. Peter: Well, it's quite interesting that in her conference speech, Kenny Bader-Knoch was fairly keen to downplay the whole Europe issue. All she really said about it is, my goodness, Andy Burnham, are you really sure you want to open this up again? This is the last thing we need right now. So she wasn't banging a Europe drum at all. It was the opposite. However, if Labour really are serious about this and there is a sort of election in the next 12 months, then the question of whether or not they would go for rejoin without a referendum or with one or whether there need to be two referendums suddenly becomes very live because they will one way or the other, they will need the mandate in their manifesto. And I'm not sure that Andy Burnham has fully thought through all the implications of whichever path he chooses to pursue on this. And I wonder that when he does really start thinking about what he's been saying, whether he'll come to the conclusion that, my goodness. This really isn't a can of worms I want to be opening. And it's certainly not why I want to fight an election on. I can you imagine fighting an election Gavin Megaw: But it... Peter: on, we're going to rejoin, but you're not going to get a referendum? That would be madness. Gavin Megaw: won't he make that? But would it be? I mean, look, let's just take a step back and consider this, because if he did it that way, he would in effect be saying to the Lib Dem voters and the Green voters and all those people who are so vocal on this issue, if you really want this to happen, you need to lend us your vote. Peter: Right, and that means Patrick: Yes. Peter: that both reform and the Conservatives would have a massive weight to bash him with because he would be proposing a very unsatisfactory mandate. At general election, people vote on a whole range of issues. That should never be taken. as a mandate to take us back in, overturning the 2016 referendum Gavin Megaw: Ha Peter: without a national vote? No way! Gavin Megaw: But would it not be smart political strategy or electoral strategy to do that if you were Hampty Burnham? Peter: No, because it means that you lose all of the progress you've made in the North with your reform-curious Labour vote. I think there's no better Gavin Megaw: But he's already moved on though. Peter: way of driving the red wall back to reform than trying to tell, leave Labour voters that they're going to have everything that they've fought for taken away with them without a referendum. It is insane. And by the way, a lot of those Lib Dem, you know, Southern voters, once we get on to rejoining the EU would mean at least 20 billion pounds of contribution into the EU's coffers, possibly being forced to join the euro and scrapping the pounds. And then exposure to an extremely dodgy situation with France on the bond markets. It would take over the general election campaign. It would wipe out Bernham Schtick about being the unity, the man of national unity. No, no way. He'd be insane to go down that path and it will blow up in his face. Patrick: Peter, bless you. You know how much I adore you, Peter. This is nonsense. There is no suggestion in the slightest that Burnham is going to, or could, take us back into the EU. This was brought up in the debate, which I watched in its entirety on Monday. He repeatedly said the people will be... the boss, the people will decide if we... But he wasn't even saying we are going to go, he was saying he's going to negotiate a certain more advantageous Brexit. And we can certainly dispute whether it will be beneficial and I think Kemi made good points about giving away his negotiating position and stuff. But he implied that nothing in terms of rejoining the EU would happen without a referendum. And a Tory MP, I think his name was Patrick Walker, MP for Epistwich, got up and said, aha, in that case, if you're saying that there won't be a referendum, then do you propose to take us back unilaterally? And Burnham got up and said, no, full stop. Now. Maybe you can disbelieve him. mean, politicians do lie. But that was as blunt a response as you can get that he's not going to take us back. I completely agree with you. It would overhaul everything else he tries to do. But it is a bit, you know, a scare story to suggest he's going to do it. I really don't believe he is. Peter: I'm really not so sure. Both Jess Phillips and Emily Thornberry have been doing the rounds this week making the case, exactly that case, that we should rejoin without a referendum and that a general election manifesto declaration would be a sufficient mandate. They're not in the cabinet but neither have they been silenced. Patrick: but they're not in the cabinet and they have strong well-known positions on Europe. Peter: And I'm not sure we have had a definitive statement from Burnham that this will not happen. I don't know what you heard. I don't think it's the official position. Patrick: Wait, he said no full stop. He was bluntly asked and he said no. Gavin Megaw: Guys, I love this. I love that we're getting bit of passion going again. I don't love that it's on the same issue though that caused the country to pretty much put its head in the sand for a few years, but it is going to be fascinating. The one thing I'll just keep returning to is the electoral strategy based on how people say they think about this issue. I don't really want it to be front and centre of anything because I'm bored of it and I think we should all move on electorally. But that said, there is a large large group of people who are still incredibly passionate. I was a Remainer, I was pro staying in before and I was passionate about that. Lots of people are still on that position. So you can see the electoral strategy that could be there, no matter what he wants to do. But Patrick's right, Burnham is someone who's asking to be trusted. I think it'd be very hard for him. He's also said the same thing about an election, yet we're still discussing that. And I think that if these things were to happen, would have to happen because of something else happening in the world for him to say this is the best option forward and it's been caused by this. But let's see what time shows. mean, that's Patrick: I think he would have to get an almighty good offer from the EU to rejoin and say this is something we can't turn our noses up at. And at the moment he's just sort of talking about allowing students to go and have a gap year and stuff like that. Gavin Megaw: That's the point. I don't think it would ever be to fully rejoin. I think it would be something else. even I think that's what he would do through an electoral plan for a general election. I think that's the only thing I can see is conceivable. But I could certainly see it being something that would popularise an election campaign for him and potentially continue his strategy of pulling votes away from the Greens and the Lib Dems, because that's clearly what he's doing. Patrick: As long as we unite for the Ryder Cup, even Nigel Farage gets behind a United Europe for that purpose. Gavin Megaw: Right, okay. What about PMQs and everything else in the Commons this week? How did Kemi get on on PMQs today, Peter? Peter: Well, even when the moment where Burnham fought back, when he made fun of her fumbling the interview on the Iron Dome, so-called Iron Dome system that she promised at conference, she was able to, and she did make a mess of that, and the press officers, it's always the press officers, Gavin, who mess things up. Gavin Megaw: Yes, yes, yes, I know, it's always our fault. It's always our fault. Peter: And they called this Britannia Shield system an iron dome. It absolutely isn't. But anyway, she got into a bit of trouble with that. But when Burnham tried to score points, she came straight back and said, that's strange. You were talking about trying to find common ground, not scoring points. And he was immediately shut up by that. So... way she thinks on her feet now, the transformation from her first outings at PMQs is quite unbelievable and she is in genuine command of the House and Burnham doesn't really look like he's enjoying it and he also doesn't look like he wants to be attacking the Conservatives. This is a really key point. He's always trying to attack reform. He doesn't really have an anti-Tory strategy at the moment, and I think that's quite significant. And I think we're going to come back to that in future because it's quite clear that Labour still see reform as their main enemy, but perhaps they're not. Gavin Megaw: Okay, Burnham praised Kimmy Bagnock today at PMQs for what she said at her conference speech in terms of race and her identity. And he called it eye. And this is all part of his problem solving, not point scoring approach, which I think all three of us will remember from back in days of old. Different party leaders always say that's what they're going to do when they come in. Different prime ministers always say it as well. But when your backbenchers are deeply unhappy because they're not getting anything to rabble rise over, soon it changes. Are we going to see a change from Burnham? Patrick: Yeah, I I saw some interesting polling today that the Kemi Badenoch's popularity increases when Britain's has shown a clip from her speech attacking reform on English identity, as you say from the conference speech. People actually like that. And so this was a more in common poll. It's interesting that Burnham praises her for that. Maybe he is just thinking that two party politics suits both of them and if they can squish reform between them. you know, squish the Greens, but they seem to be squishing themselves. Then they can get back, come on election, to just fighting on Tory v Labour grounds. I think her speech was really good on that point about Britishness. I think it will resonate with a lot of people. And it's not a bad thing occasionally to say you did the right thing. I think people will also like Burnham for that. They'll admire his honesty and his decency on it. Peter: It's interesting though that Burnham did slightly mess up again when he made that point. He implied that Reform was saying that Kenny Badenock's children weren't British. No one from Reform has said that. It stands from a rather dodgy point that Suella Braverman's been making about Englishness being an ethnicity alone and not a culture. So what he said about reform wasn't quite true and I think they've got, I think they've actually got cause to take him up on that. But, and that's not the only silly thing he said in P &Qs. he said two other things that he might regret later. He said, first of all, quizzed about the Green Party and its Zionism is racism conference, he pretty much ruled out going into coalition with the Greens or doing a deal with the Greens. which I think it would be very commendable if that's what he really thinks. But if he's serious about bringing in proportional representation, another one of his distraction tactics in my view, if he is serious about that, then he'd need the Greens as part of a left-wing coalition government. So I really wonder if he really meant to say that. He also made a very clumsy reference to the Anne Widdecombe trial in which he talked about the defendant as the man responsible for the murder. Well, you can't say that about a trial. You have to be really careful with the way you phrase things. I think that's something else he needs to walk back. Gavin Megaw: Yeah, think. Well, Patrick: Bring back lawyers in Downing Street, Gavin Megaw: it is interesting because I was watching just a small section of the debate, the Opposition Day debate in Parliament this afternoon as well, and a couple of times during that debate, the closing remarks from the Shadow Home Secretary, the deputy Madam Speaker jumped in to ask him not to make mistakes with his language in that regard, Peter, where there are court cases going on. I found that interesting because she pulled them up in a couple of things which did not seem to be issues, but I wonder whether that is the House reacting to the mistake earlier by Burnham. It's fascinating. But if we just move on to reform here, they've had a very busy week as well. What do the polls show us, Patrick? Patrick: Well, the polls generally show them slipping back a bit. But as I mentioned this poll earlier about when voters are shown a clip of Kemi's conference speech, and one thing I wanted to add to that is conservative voters are better inclined to her by 8 % when they've seen the clip. And they liked her anyway, so it's going up to 83. Labour voters like her more by 12%, it goes from 35 to 47. Reform voters, shown the clip in which she criticises reform's position, increased from 40 to 57. So reform voters really Gavin Megaw: Wow. Patrick: like what they see of Kemmy Badenock taking on their positional. Now I still think that Badenock's main attack should be on Labour because they are in government and if you want to be the leader of the opposition you should attack... party in first place, not the party now in third. But nonetheless, you know, if she is starting to peel off some people, and we've seen the Lib Dems going back towards single figures, I think gradually this two-prong attack is starting to work. Nonetheless, she is still only on 23 and she is four points behind Labour, so there's still a long way to go. Gavin Megaw: Farage came out this week swinging again on immigration and asylum. He was talking about stopping asylum for five years in totality and he had an extraordinarily well-organized press conference. It looked like it was very expensive to do but I suppose he's got all the money now, he can do that. Does it cut through Peter or is he just speaking to the people he was always going to win over? Peter: I rather think he is and I'm not sure he is cutting through. I don't think that reform's big swing on tax that we saw at their conference cut through particularly. If you ask most people, do they think reform is going to raise the income tax threshold to £15,000? I don't think most people heard of it and I don't think most people are going to hear about this asylum policy either. And if they do and if that policy is interrogated they might have questions about it because clearly there are some people that do require asylum. The system is utterly dysfunctional. It's being exploited every which way, possibly no more than a small fraction of all claims are genuine but nevertheless some of them are and are we just going to shut our doors to everyone? I think as soon as people ask questions, I'm not sure if this is the smartest policy, I think they're just trying to push to ever greater extremes to see off restore Britain, their rivals on the right. And we heard a ridiculous thing from Zia Youssef yet again, Gavin Megaw: you Peter: talking about authorizing the Navy to use lethal force in stopping the boats. That again was just taking things a bit too far. Well, a lot too far if you really meant that, but he's been walking it back because he's had to, people want to see change, but they want to see it. implemented in a sensible way. And right now reform are looking like they're thrashing around every which way, trying to, you know, win back the magic that put them over 30%. This is completely the wrong way to do it. They're silencing the wrong people in the party and amplifying also the wrong people. They keep on making mistakes. That's the real thing. take home from this week. Gavin Megaw: Patrick, reform were also all over the place, really, on Ukraine during that press conference. They talked about retaining the Ukraine settlement plan that was in place and not deporting Ukrainians who were fleeing a war after all, which you'd hope so. But they also, Farage kept jumping in and sort of really following what seemed to be Russian talking points about Ukraine. I was really surprised. Patrick: or White House talking points these days. mean, I think one of the stories of the week is Donald Trump's disgraceful position on Russia. And in the debate in the Commons, Sir Roger Gale, MP for Thanet, an area that is fertile reform territory, called him a traitor and asked for Burnham to denounce him. I think the fuel deal and the announcement of a ceasefire that Russia very quickly ignored shows that Trump is no longer very interested in defending. defending Ukraine and for all Burnham's talk about supporting Zelensky, he met him today, I think actually it's clear America is not on that side. Reform clearly aren't quite sure where to go, they wonder whether they should be supporting Trump and they don't know if it's going to be popular. There's certainly online plenty of people who will be anti-Ukraine because they're pro-Russia. I don't know he's all over the place but just to go back to one thing, the Prime Minister spoke in the Commons on what he had done over the last month on Monday for almost three hours. Nigel Farage wasn't there. He wasn't in the Commons. Richard Tice is a perfectly good understudy and asked a decent question. But actually if you're not going to be there to question the Prime Minister then I think many people will wonder what the point of Nigel Farage is. Gavin Megaw: that's a good point to move on here and ask the question we ask every week. Are the Tories up or down this week? Because a lot's been happening here and it's pretty hard to get through all the noise. So it's your job to do that. Peter, you start. Peter: Well, obviously they're up. I think they're more up this week than any week we've done so far. I've been struggling to find, you know, as a glass half empty sort of a guy, I like to point out the downside, but I've been struggling to find one. Possibly it's only the niggling little criticism of their tax policy, which is that they're... policy on inheritance tax and their policy on stamp duty in respect of encouraging people to downsize and put, liberate more homes into the housing market. People have noticed that those two tax cuts are actually contradictory in the incentives that they provide to downsizers. At moment, no one's interested in that apart from policy nerds like me. So overall, up, up, up, up, up, up. Gavin Megaw: trick. Are they up? Patrick: Well, not that many ups, but yes, definitely Peter: Ha ha ha! Gavin Megaw: Hahaha Patrick: up. We had a discussion offline. Peter, I think, pointed out someone saying that the chemist's response to Andy Burnham on Monday was just a knockout blow and it's done. I didn't. I thought she was fine. I think she did what she needed to do, but actually Burnham was shooting himself in the foot and that was more damaging. I think some of the attack lines, as I said, to West Street over defence spending were coming from Labour MPs. Burnham was getting attacked. Melanon, for instance, the Labour MP for Grimsby gave him a good bashing over the Brexit. There were times when the Tories actually had to sit back and let the Prime Minister mess it up on his own and so I don't think Kemi dominated, I don't think she needed to, but the poll evidence shows that things are going well. That could be a conference bounce. Let's see, we have two weeks to go. This is going to be the biggest response of her life to the budget and bear in mind the Leader of Opposition response to a budget, not the Shadow Chancellor Gavin Megaw: I would just say I think there's been a bit of the Tories getting away with it and getting a bit lucky with events over the last few weeks. But you make your own luck, don't you, They're not making any cock-ups. They are going up in the polls, not down. Whilst I think a conference binds is never a real binds, it'll only be there for a small period. It's still going up. I think the thing which really makes me think it's an up week is that a year ago, reform through UGov seat projection polling were on 311 and the Tories on 45 seats. Last month, was the Conservatives on 134, 123. So things really have bounced back in that regard. you will see a lot more happening, I suspect, post budget. And that's going to be an exciting time to observe as someone like myself who's just watching to see what is happening and whether they really are repairing in a sustainable manner. Right, let's move on then to recommendations. Patrick, I'll start with you for your, I'm guessing, arty cultural recommendation. Patrick: Can you recommend something that's been around for a century? I hope so, because I'm going to. Today, as we recall, this October the 14th, is the centenary of Winnie the Pooh being published. I've written a piece in The Telegraph about it today, about the various controversies actually, the fact that President Xi of China didn't like the fact people mocked him for looking a bit like Pooh, so banned him on social media, that some Christian parents in Kansas tried to ban him from the library and the sort of things like that. Actually, is a great force for good in the world. And the thing I love about Pooh is he is surrounded by friends who encompass all the different psychological traits in society. Gavin is clearly a tigger. Every time I meet him, he is bouncy and upbeat and a bit ginger. Peter: Ha! Patrick: I think Peter is a wise rabbit, maybe a wall, but I think Peter is a rabbit. He's a sort of sensible one. I am definitely a bear of very little brain. So I'm probably Pooh with a touch of eeyore. in it, but we can all identify with Peter: Hahahaha Patrick: the books and we should go and read, I recommend re-reading them. But I would just say that my favourite bit, and this to bring back to politics in Winnie the Pooh, this sums up the difference between the parties, where Pooh is walking through the woods with Piglet and Piglet said, suppose a tree falls on top of us, and Pooh thinks about this for a bit and then says, suppose it doesn't. And I think that's why I'm a conservative because basically, suppose it doesn't is my view on most emergencies. Gavin Megaw: Well, thank you, Patrick. And thanks also for ensuring that no one in our huge Chinese listenership will now be listening to us because we'll be banned in China for you referencing Winnie the Pooh. Peter, do want to get us back on political front? Peter: Well, I was going to recommend, after hearing that from Patrick, I was going to recommend the Ashdown Forest, which is very close to where I grew up, which is the fictional home of Winnie the Pooh. And it's an absolutely beautiful and very under-appreciated part of the world, not far from London. Go in for a sit-in if you can. Gavin Megaw: It's got a great golf course. I will say that. I played it at the start of the summer. Peter: It's got, it's probably got several and it's got fantastic hotels Patrick: and a bridge for poo sticks. Peter: and everything like that, but it's great. Now for my actual recommendation, it's an interview on the Quite Right podcast, which is Michael Gobe's podcast, and he interviews Nick Timothy. Now for most of it, it's, you know, as you'd expect, Nick Timothy talking about his brief, but at the end of it, There's a very interesting segment in which Timothy talks about his economic theories. And for those of us who do have some questions about the Conservative Party's economic policy and its overall ideas of how to put Britain back on track and to get the economy growing again, I'd recommend a very close listen. Because Timothy mentions, you know, our key problem is our balance of payments deficit and how we finance that and how that financing, which basically involves importing large amounts of foreign capital, is distorting our economy, it's driving up house prices, it's leading to value extraction in our utilities and all sorts of things like that. problems with private equity, doing damage to, long-term damage to our economy. I'm really glad there are some Tories that are woke to this issue because it's really, really fundamentally important to our future. Gavin Megaw: Well, thank you, Peter. I'll stick on the political front as well with this. And I just want to recommend Alice Thompson in the Times, her comment piece which appeared today, which is about too many Brits have become happy to coast. And it's focused not on those out of work, but those who are in work and are sort of coasting through. And there's a lack of desire for for some working environments these days and progression. And I find it insightful and it replicated a lot of the things that I saw when I was in business. well that's it for the Common Sense Revolution for this week. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed seeing Feisty Peter in action. If you disagreed with Feisty Peter, let us know. but please do subscribe, Peter: Very tight. Gavin Megaw: please do, and subscribe and leave a review, by Feisty Peter if you want, because that's how anyone finds us. We'll be back next week and we'll see you then. Goodbye.