Latest / The Common Sense Revolution Podcast / Ep 1: Welcome back, Andy
Transcript
- Gavin Megaw: Somewhere in Birmingham hundreds of people are paying £2,500 for champagne breakfast with Nigel Farage. Down the road in a month's time, the Conservative Party will hold its own conference in the same city with a new Shadow Chancellor and a leader who has spent the summer quietly getting better at her job while her party has not moved an inch in the polls. Welcome to the Common Sense Revolution Podcast. The names borrowed from William Haig's 1999 relaunch. A bold plan for renewal that led directly to the two thousand and one landslide defeat for the party, which tells you roughly how much weight to put on anything we say. The three of us were all at Conservative Central Office in Smith Square in those days, in the same building, watching the party lose repeatedly and then argue about why they had lost. We have each ended up in different corners of politics, which makes us either a broad church or a warning, depending on your view. But every week. We're going to look at what the Conservative Party is doing, whether they're repairing or falling apart, and we'll end with a verdict from each of us. Are the Tories up or down on the week before? So let's begin now by introducing the others. Patrick Kidd spent more than two decades at the Times, edited the diary, wrote the parliamentary sketch, and now writes for The Times, The Telegraph, The Observer, and a host of others as a free man. He turned watching politicians into a respectable living, which makes him the success story here. Peter Franklin is associate editor of Unheard and a columnist at Conservative Home. He was a policyman and a speechwriter back in the day and takes a long view as a matter of principle. Ask him his political hero, and you'll get Charles de Gaulle, which tells you what we're dealing with here. And I'm Gavin McGall, a mere comms guy amongst these intellectual giants back in the day. So my job is to get as much out of them as possible over the next 40 minutes. And yes, they did. Pay me to say that. And this is a great week to start this podcast. On Sunday, Pretty Patel and James Cleverly both quit the front bench. By Monday night, Kemi Badenok had carried out the deepest reshuffle of her leadership so far and sacked her shadow chancellor. On Tuesday, Andy Burham made his Commons debut as Prime Minister, and the ten year guilt yield went to its highest level since two thousand eight. By the way, it's kept going up since. And on Wednesday, Badenok asked the Prime Minister at PMQs to rule out further tax rises in the budget, and he wouldn't. At the time of recording, the Tories have just announced a costed plan to cut welfare, to pay for defence spending they say is needed, while reform have opened their party conference in Birmingham, with people like Jeremy Kyle on the bill. So Let's start with the reshuffle, Patrick. Conservative home called it deeper and bigger than expected. What did you make of it? Patrick: Well, we were expecting some form of reshuffle because Claire Coutinho was going off on maternity leave and a couple of trails about other sideways moves but the big is that Priti Patel leaving off... the shadow cabinet to go and run a sort of an outreach group to conservative organisations and James Cleverley in what I think could be a very good move heading off to stand for London mayor. That wasn't expected and we've seen some interesting people come in. Tom Tugendhat I rate very highly. His knowledge of foreign affairs. He was a very good chair of the foreign affairs committee. He will bring some some intellect and he's been on the back benches for too long. And Andrew Griffiths brings business experience. there's others. we can talk about but I think this is interesting. This is not necessarily a reboot or refresh, it's just a sort of new start, a new term and there's a slightly different line up. Gavin Megaw: Is this just a slightly different line up, Peter, or is it more is there more to it? Peter: Well, I think the first thing first thing to say is that I'm not sure that Kenny Badenoch meant to have such a big reshuffle just yet. this has been rather forced upon her by some people departing, including Helen Grant, the Shadow Attorney General. so it it did require a refresh and a rather bigger one than she was. Doing. And if she if she had been planning a big one, then the obvious time to do to have done it was at the beginning of the summer. Because for a start, the people that you sack can have a nice holiday, and the people that you promote have got plenty of time to prepare for conference and parliament coming back. So it's really weird to do the big reshuffle now. And I think it's more a case of circumstances than a big master plan. Gavin Megaw: Well, I'm the floating the floating voter o amongst us, and yet I'm the one jumping in to defend the Tories here straight away. To me though, the timing works really, really well, doesn't it? Because they have seized the moment. They've been front page of newspapers, with Baidenok showing her par and her control of the party in a way that they haven't been for many, many months. Surely it's a good thing for them. Patrick: I disagree with Peter here. I think the narrative was all about the new Prime Minister at the start of the summer and of course Andy Burnham. wasn't in parliament when he became Prime Minister. He went straight off on recess and went on his Tesco tour, as I think of it, around the country, saying every little helps to people. And you were perhaps not going to get much traction in the papers if you were shuffling then. Whereas we are back now, Burnham is having to face parliamentarians and I think Kemi was... quite clever in preempting this by going in the day before parliament returns and saying, OK, welcome back, Andy. Here's my side that's taking you on. Gavin Megaw: And what do we make of the Pacific moves? So Andrew Griffiths has come in as shadow chancellor. He's a very business friendly person. I I I know from his work at Sky and just eat, so he's really, really keen on listening to business voices and making sure that's part of his work. What do we make of that? Peter: Well, by one calculation, he has more private sector experience than the whole of the Labour cabinet put together. So that's quite good. And I guess I agree on the timing of this. I think it's more by luck than design, but whoever's whoever's behind all of this has brought in people at the right time. And it does look serious, you know. You've got Andrew Griffiths is someone who I think scares the Labour front benches, which is why they've tried to attack him and try to try to sort of smear him as a sort of second coming of Liz Truss, God forbid. Patrick: It's very odd someone who was in Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet when others resigned. But Burnham stayed there, slamming someone for being a truss backer. Gavin Megaw: Yeah, so but it's not it's not gonna stick that, is it? They they it does show though they are worried about him and I think they're worried about his business links. And there will be donor aspects linked to that as well. I think that you'll see the the fundraising side of the Conservative Party increasing with someone like Andrew Griffiths in that role. Patrick: That's a true point. suppose we remember having been at a Conservative central office at the start of the millennium, though a business background doesn't necessarily mean your success as a parliamentarian. Dear old Archie Norman, wonderful success in business both before and since and still continues to be a powerhouse in the city. But he was not very comfortable in parliament. He didn't like the dispatch box, the way that things went. He was quite baffled. by the of the confrontational quality. Andrew Griffiths has been there a bit longer and it's doing alright actually from what I've seen but you know it is just a warning that being good at business doesn't make you a great parliamentarian. Gavin Megaw: I think it's very different here in this case. And I say that having with Sheridan Westlick, the wonderful Sheridan Wesley, worked with Archie Norman back in the day, so we can probably be to blame for that. But Archie probably was never going to work in the Commons just 'cause of his style and his approach and his focus. But as a business leader he's extraordinary and the things he's done have been brilliant. I think Andrew Griffiths is a different thing. He's been in Parliament for some time. He's been a minister, he's been a shadow minister, and he's a bit of a bruiser, I would say, as well, which is back to the the point you've made earlier around Labour being slightly worried about him. I think that's true. so I think he's very, very different to someone like Archie Norman, and both got their own skills, and doesn't mean that every businessman he comes in is the same. But I think it's a fair point, but I don't think it's necessarily that relevant for Andrew Griffiths here. I think we need to put him in different place. What about the changes in the foreign affairs team, Peter? What do do they make sense? Peter: Totally. Tom Tougahart Tugenhart is one of the most serious foreign policy and security thinkers that British politics has had for a very long time. He was a very impressive select committee chairman and compared to his predecessor Priti Patel who didn't really have much to say on The geopolitical crisis that Britain and Europe faces. Tom Tuganhart has thought very deeply about these issues. And in particular, how is it that Europe defends itself if America is disengaging? The Conservative Party is an Atlanticist party. If that Atlantic link isn't as reliable as it used to be, then we've got a huge rethink to do. And Tuganhart with his very deep knowledge of European politics, is ideally placed to take forward that work. So a very good move, the best move. Gavin Megaw: Why why why did pretty but pretty's gone to do this slightly different rule, hasn't she, Patrick? Why why has she done that? Patrick: Well, she's been around a long time. I know she went away and then came back and maybe the feeling is that she is just too associated with the past. She is going to go and foster links with conservative parties around the globe. I think they've got a bit of a... discussion that needs to be had with the Italians after Kemi went to meet Georgia Maloney and the Tories briefed Maloney had emphatically told her not to form a pact with reform and then when that was put to her in Italy they came back and said there was no such discussion about that. But I think it is important that you're seen by outsiders as a serious party. So that may help, I think actually it was just looking for a reason to move her on. James Cleverley, on the other hand, I think the toys haven't been competitive in London for quite some time and I think he brings something. He is a Londoner, he came up through London politics, he is a very adept performer in the media and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with that campaign. Gavin Megaw: It's interesting, isn't it? Because he was also probably the person people thought might be a future leader amongst the top team. certainly he had a chance previously, he just didn't get the numbers to work in parliament for him to make it through to the last stage. and if he had, he may well have been a leader. So he was potentially a bit of a threat there, was he? And this is a great move for him. If he can make London work and get into a role there, that would be impressive, wouldn't it, Peter? Peter: Absolutely. and you know, for a future leadership contests, obviously we've seen before that being a Conservative Mayor of London is a very good launching pad for a bid for the Conservative leadership, but it does take time. It will take several years before that becomes a possibility. Gavin Megaw: And then finally just on the reshuffle, Patrick, we're seeing a lot of the twenty twenty four intick come in here. Is that by design or is there just no one else left? Patrick: Well, they're not shuffling with a full pack. They've got only 120 or so MPs. What we're seeing is a bit similar to what happened when we were in central office under William Hague, that you have a couple of years to see what the new kids are like, and then you bring on those who are talented. So Theresa May came into the shadow cabinet pretty quickly under Hague. And we're seeing now someone like Katie Lamb, who I rate highly. I think she is a really good performer. She is good at doing short videos, which I think you need to these days to appeal on social media, but she's also competent at the dispatch box. And I actually, I know her from way back because when she was an undergraduate, she was at my old college in Cambridge and we shared a director of studies and she organized a anniversary party for him and invited his former pupils. That's the first time I met her. And then since then we stayed a bit in touch. and we actually launched a fundraising campaign so that state school kids could go to Cambridge to study classics. We did that together in his name after he died a couple of years ago. The other thing I like about her is she has hinterland, which I think is so important in politics that you're not just a politics nerd. She writes musicals. She is the the Tim Rice in her partnership with Andrew Lloyd-Rober and she's written five musicals, one an adaptation of The Railway Children, which may have made her a candidate for Shadow Transport Secretary perhaps. Gavin Megaw: Ha ha. Patrick: I look forward to her writing a musical about our time in central office. think be called Gerald! after the famous Guardian of the Post Room. Gavin Megaw: That's a very inn joke there. And I I think a lot of people will be cancelled if someone did write anything about those days. Maybe it'll be like Hamilton, but Baden Ock, the musical, and whether that whether that sinks or swims, one will see in the future. so this reshuffle though, folks, it didn't really lead to anyone changing their mind about the Conservative Party. But what it's probably done is strengthened Bade Nock, strengthened the party's credibility a bit there, 'cause they look serious. Is that fair? Peter: Think it is fair. clearly the the the two big appointments are of very serious people and it has brought forward a lot of the of the new talent. There were twenty-six new Conservative MPs at the last election, and I believe that the majority of them have got promotions in this. So this does give a sense of rejuvenation. And really Cammy Badenoch should be surrounding herself with people who may one day succeed her as leader. I think it's a sign of confidence that you surround yourself not with weak yes men and women, but the most substantial people that you can find. And I think she's done that in a rather rushed way. and it could have gone a bit further, but it is a big positive step forward for Patrick: Speaking as a journalist, I'm slightly disappointed that she's advancing all these talented new members because we could always do with some who are embittered or bonkers just so they can brief the press or to be characters. actually speaking about embitterments that there has not been that i've seen or even heard any briefing against her there's not obviously there were losers in reshuffles but i thought mel stride gave the most dignified departure statement and i feel a bit sorry for him i i know he wasn't always rated by some but i thought he brought reassurance competence a bit of grown-upness to the shadow chancellor's job and he is going to the back benches i'm sure he had a serve I do wonder though whether moving him was partly because, as we've seen in the papers today, the Tories are starting to talk about cutting welfare and he was the welfare secretary who saw an increase in the spending on that. Gavin Megaw: Yeah, that's an interesting point. I also would say I would agree agree entirely with your what you say about the positivity coming from people who have left office, but also the rest of the party about these changes, because a year ago that was not the case. A year ago Kemi Badenok was in trouble and people were talking about Robert Jenrich coming in, remember him? and a lot of the backbenchers and junior ministers were working closely with Robert Jenrich to sort of understand how he did his digital work and things like that. So there's been a big change in a year, and that probably came to what happened at party conference when Badenok wasn't actually that popular amongst the party, but the donors said that if they made if anyone made any changes at the top, they would not back the party. And she stepped up and she had a great party conference season. And what we've seen here is her enter the party conference season really on the front foot. And she's it's a really important time for Peter because The new Prime Minister is nigh in place, and that is a problem for her as well, because he is popular, isn't he? He's incredibly popular. She was ahead of Kia Starmer, she's not ahead of Andy Burnham. Peter: Yes, I mean it's it's an extraordinary change. And despite being a conservative myself, I felt this enormous sense of relief that we now have a Prime Minister who can talk. I mean i it was just painful listening to Starmer just sort of stumble through every sort of statement so robotically. And now to have a recognizable human being leading our country. yes, that's bound to have boosted labor, although it's not that big a boost, it has to be said. I think someone from reform has described the Burnham bo boost bounce as a soggy trampoline. but yes, but Badenok does have to slightly Change and adapt her style to a more human and sympathetic opposite number. I think she's beginning to do that, and I think she has the emotional intelligence and the adaptability at the dispatch box to do that. And I think we saw that at BMQ's this week, but we'll see how things develop. once we get once we hit the first period of turbulence for the new government. Patrick: we go into the conference season, the polls are still really quite tight. The Tories have just... taken as a narrow lead over reform, pushing them down to reform in one bowl. But you know, for the last 18 months or so, reform been up front and actually really the top three are within a couple of points of each other, with the Greens and Lib Dems not far behind. But there is a worry for the Tories that they are facing two ways. They lost lots of seats in home counties, constituencies to Surrey and wherever to the Lib Dems, but they are also facing the coastal town threat from reform. And we saw in Dover, recently in a by-election in the last week that the Conservatives reform and restore, who are another problem for both the Tories and reform, got 55 % between them. But the Greens came through to win the by-election, I think on only 28%. So weird things are going to happen. And it's very hard to get a narrative of whether you're up or down without knowing how people are going to respond to your opponents. Gavin Megaw: It'd be interesting to see how Andy Burnham does with reform supporters as well, because I suspect he will pull some into his orbit just by being such a good communicator and so effective in that way, 'cause he's had a cracking start, as Peter said. and it will have an impact, I'm absolutely sure, on the reform foot. We've seen that with the polling, haven't we, as well? Patrick: He has to win the rugby league seats, if you like. The ones across the north that are a solid working class should be Labour. But they started to crumble and reform moved into second place in a lot of them. Gavin Megaw: But where's the weakness here for Andy Burnham? Is it is it the economy? Peter, what do you reckon? Peter: absolutely it's the economy. You mentioned the the the bond yields reaching record levels. and that basically means what how much it costs for the government to not only borrow more money but to service the existing debt. And ex a national debt, which by the way, is not far off hitting three trillion pounds, right? so any increase in the effective interest rate that the government has to pay on that absolute mountain of debt is just going to knock holes through the budget. and we're gonna see the new Chancellor come under a huge amount of pressure to rein in public spending and to get those borrowing costs down. And what does reigning in Public spending mean? It means cutting welfare, essentially. and we saw how bundling that damaged Starmer. And so we're heading for another crisis on that front, and we'll have to see how the new Prime Minister can deal with that. And so far, he's just not being serious, he keeps on talking, or his people. keep on hinting at new sort of watches of public spending, that's gotta stop. It's gotta be the opposite. What's he gonna cut? Not what is he gonna increase spending? Gavin Megaw: I think you've hit the nail on the head, haven't you, in terms of the great weakness there? And I think I'm surprised he hasn't come in and talked about very hard choices and been very clear with the public and honest with the public about that situation, 'cause I think he needed to to build that in to gain public support for making changes, and he hasn't done that. Peter: There is a reason why he hasn't. And if you remember when Starmer first came in with his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, they started off with a very negative downbeat message. and it had a fairly bad effect on economic confidence. And I think they've overcorrected. I mean they should be positive on the economy, but hard line on the public finances, and I don't think they're quite capable of distinguishing the two strands yet. So that's gotta be their big their big priority now. And Baidanach and her new shadow chancellor have got to focus on that. Gavin Megaw: There there's a difference, isn't there, between following the public's perception and views and leading the public on these issues and I think setting out those hard choices but also a plan to get you to growth, to get you to better times, to get you to happier times is the way forward. And Burnham could have done that, I felt, already, and he hasn't. And I'm really, really surprised by that. Patrick, what a Patrick: What he was in Peter: No, he's avoided Patrick: this Peter: the issue. You know, he's done all of this stuff on regionalism, which is great. You know, I I'm all in favour of devolving power to Greater Manchester or wherever else. But it all looks like a bit of a a sort of look over there strategy, not a not a focusing the public on the on the top priorities and leading public opinion, as you say. Gavin Megaw: Yeah. Patrick Heist is gonna work presententially for Cammy going forward against Burnham. Patrick: Well, she has a limited time with him and then they're breaking up again for the party conference. So she's not been face to face with him since he came in at the end of July. They went off for the summer recess and she's had one PMQ, so there'll be one more and then off they go again. So actually... That will resume in mid-October and for her it's having a good conference. Last year I think the party conference rescued her, as you say, not just with the grassroots but the donors. And I think she needs an eye-catching speech. She's starting to get front pages though, which is important. But for Burnham, he's got to work out how to handle his back benchers. And again, it's the problem of limited time. He's not been with them. He's not been with the PLP much. and remember Steinman was stymied by them not backing his proposals. Labour have a huge majority, Burnham has that advantage, but unfortunately if they don't play with him then a huge majority just makes you look very weak if you can't get anything past your own party. Gavin Megaw: Yes. Okay. Well it's also a busy time with reform with their party conference as well. So Kemi getting ahead of that this week has been important too. have reform hit peak reform yet, Peter? Is this conference going to be big and bold with I mean it's sold out, I think, the standard tickets and they've got two and a half thousand people there, in in the premier class having glasses of champagne and business lunches, but Have they reached peak reform or are we over reading that? Peter: Well, we've suddenly got past a peak for reform. this time last year they were on thirty plus percent in the polls. They're down nearly ten percent percentage points on that. I think the current average for them, polling average, is twenty-four percent. so they are they're on the back foot. Whether they can recover from that depends on two things. Firstly, that the funding row doesn't get worse for them, and secondly that they deal with their internal factional issues, which as we've seen with the suspension of Tim Montgomery, just for offering some constructive criticism. publicly, which he always said he would do when they recruited him. he was suspended by one particular faction of reform. And there's, you know, there's other stuff going on behind the scenes which could blow up, especially if for any reason Nigel Farage were to step down as leader in the next year or two. in which case things would go from bad to worse for reform. Gavin Megaw: Yes, it's unlike Farage to step down and to fall out with everyone, isn't it? Something he s something he has done Peter: Yeah, yeah. Gavin Megaw: repeatedly in every single organisation he has been part of, which I think we've got to keep front of mind. And it's one of the reasons why I think that the Tories shouldn't be focused on reform. They should be looking wider to Patrick's point from earlier. But Patrick, did you think Clacton and you know six weeks in Essex and High Summer and a comedy candidate becoming runner up in the race was a a triumph or an own goal for Very in reform. Patrick: It certainly didn't give him what he wanted. He wanted to say that he had taken on the establishment, he'd beaten the old parties and shown that he was still master. And look, he is still, by a big majority, the MP for Clacton. But I think it was very shrewd of Kemi and the other parties not to stand. And if we're all just trying to spin that beating a man with a dustbin on his head and stopping him getting only 27 % of the vote is a triumph, that's... I think that's deluding himself. We may of course have another by-election in Clacton and then the narrative does change because the circumstances of that are not pre-empting the inquiry but if it happens it will be because he's been told he's broken the rules and that 10 % of his constituency have said they don't want him. Then the main parties will come in. Farage may still win but he will actually have to then have a proper battle. Gavin Megaw: Would the Tories have a chance in that? Patrick: Well look, they've... They've had an MP in Clacton before. And of course they had a UKIP MP in Clacton, Douglas Carswell, was a Tory who defected and then did the honourable thing, note Suella, note Robert, and put himself up for election. And he did rather well. But that doesn't mean the Tories can't win in Clacton. It's a bit of a mixed constituency actually, because the town centre is fairly deprived. lots of vape shops and the things that Burnham was wanting to take on over the summer. You've then got J-Wick, which is very deprived, but you've got affluent pockets too, like Frinton, which only allowed a pub 20 odd years ago and didn't allow a fish and chip shop. And while I was down there for the by-elections, someone said to me, it's a constituency that's got two areas that have never left the 1950s, one by choice and one by poverty. And so it be interesting to see, I imagine the toys will target the front and areas quite heavily. Gavin Megaw: She'd be quite punchy, hasn't she, Kemi, about reform and the people who left to go to reform. She's not backed down at all. She's really kept going hard with her language about them, Peter. Peter: yes, somewhat unnecessarily, I think. I I would if I'd been her, I'd I'd actually sort of offer an olive branch. I think that would actually paradoxically, I think that would be more destabilizing if within reform, given how factional it is behind the Farage facade, If some of the defectors like Danny Kruger were seen as potential returnees to the Conservative Party, I think that would actually do more to to destabilize reform than her rather sort of aggressive language, which you know I I think sometimes you know. honey catches more flies than vinegar, and I think she should offer it to both sides of the conservative spectrum, actually, both to the reform-oriented people and to the Lib Dem type people, like your good self. I just think she should be a bit more of a unifier while sticking very firmly to her principles. But person, in person in terms of Personal relationships, I think she should be just a bit nicer. Gavin Megaw: Think j I d I don't think I like being described as a libdem. I think a centrist would be the better way to describe yeah, but yeah but but but Peter: A centrist, sorry, I d I don't mean I don't mean to I don't mean to sort of libel you with such a disgraceful allegation. Gavin Megaw: but but I mean we have seen, you know, the Gavin Barwell news, etc. in recent months. That doesn't help on Peter: Yes. Gavin Megaw: that side at all, does it? Peter: Yes, Gavin Barwell, Lord Barwell, someone who used to be quite high up in the party, was Theresa May's right hand man after the snap election disaster. And he's been critical. He's he's he's with Prosper UK is his sort of organization, and that does put forward a sort of centrist socially liberal sort of vision of conservatism. not one I agree with, but it I don't think he should have been deprived of the whip just for expressing his opinions. He's not a front bencher. that was unnecessary. it's all part of a summertime offensive on Kemi Badanox part, which I don't think really helped anyone. so it's just another example of of making of picking needless fights, and I don't see the strata strategic logic behind it at all. Gavin Megaw: No, it is very odd. But it but there's also this sort of slightly contradictory point that again, if we go back a year, the party was all over the place, there was lots of briefings against the leader, and that's not really happening now. I mean she her whips are doing a good job, Patrick, aren't Patrick: Yeah, Chief Whip Rebecca Harris is someone who worked with us many years ago. I think they are being pretty disciplined. They realize that after she got through the wobble last autumn, she is their best hope as leader and she will be allowed to go into the election. There's no obvious leader in waiting either. And so that will help her. You know, if there isn't whispering of people saying X would be doing better at this job, that's when you really get undermined. Gavin Megaw: So look, every week we're going to finish with a couple of things. The first being whether the party is up or down, whether Kemi Bagnock and the party have had a good week or not. And those things aren't always the same because Kemmie's polling is way above the parties at the minute. But has her and the party had a good week, Peter? Or the up or down? Peter: I think after that poor summer that I mentioned, this week has reset the narrative. it looks dynamic, it looks purposeful, even if it was slightly accidental. so yes, all very well handled, very nimbly handled. I think someone who was on holiday for most of the summer has clearly come back, has clearly got a grip. So yeah. Pretty good week so far. Gavin Megaw: What about you, Patrick? Patrick: I agree, I think here we are at the start of the Reform Conference and the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph have got positive front pages about the Conservatives. They are slightly ahead of Reform in one poll, just one poll, but nonetheless they are in the fight and I think she's got something to build on after her first PMQs. Next week I expect her to do well against Burnham and then send her party off to Conference Season happy. Gavin Megaw: Yeah, I would agree with both of you. I think it's been an upwake for sure. I think the headlines after the reshuffle were very positive and very much helped her. Even the FT had a front page story on it, which is remarkable, really. The Conservative Party are not used to getting that at the minute. It's mostly reform and labor. So that's all very positive. And I think the announcement today, in terms of defence spending, also we've seen front page coveries for that. So that's interesting. So I think In a really difficult week potentially, with Burnham's first parliamentary engagements and the start of reform conference, it could have been tough. And she's really stepped out ahead of the ahead of the traffic on that. And and I think it's a big successful week. And we'll have to watch the space to see how they continue that, not only in the next few weeks, but into par her own party conference where there's been more policy announcements. And then of course we have move into October, which is culminates with the budget, which will be a very, very big moment for everyone, I think. I think we will be talking a lot then about what that shows us for the next year ahead, because it'll be an amazingly important one. Right. So let's get on to recommendations. We're going to finish with a recommendation from each of us. It doesn't have to be about politics, doesn't have to be about anything serious, but let's start with you, Peter. I'm guessing it will be serious coming for new. Peter: It will be quite serious. It's an op-ed by Tom Tugenhart, who we mentioned earlier, the new shadow foreign secretary, in the telegraph on Tuesday. and it's about the threat to European the European car industry and therefore effectively all of European manufacturing from cheap Chinese electric car. Imports. I think the shift from petrol to electric is a very good thing. But the Chinese got ahead of the game whilst the Europeans were still messing about with awful diesel cars. They got ahead of the game and they are exporting some very competitively priced vehicles. And it could conceivably wipe out Europe's car industry. And thank goodness we've got a shadow foreign secretary who does understand these existential threats to our way of life and is is engaging with that agenda, so well worth a read. Gavin Megaw: We'll put that in the show notes 'cause that's an important one. Thanks for sharing that, Peter. And Patrick, what about you? Patrick: Well, I will regard this as my hinterland slot where I'll talk about something away from politics. I've... just reviewed a book for the Times by Rachel Morley that's called Church Crawling and it's my book of the year. I've really loved it. She is the director of a charity called Friends of Friendless Churches that was set up 70 years ago by people like T.S. Eliot, John Betjeman, Young Roy Jenkins to preserve these crumbling elements of our history and the point she makes and she goes around visiting all these fascinating Saxon and Norman and Tudor churches is that it's not so much about theology, it's about history and above all it's about humanity. That when you wander into a church you're seeing the porch step that's been worn down by thousands of foot over the years, you're seeing the hard work of the craftsmen that built it, you're actually seeing what makes man, and particularly English man and English woman, live. And I've really enjoyed it so I recommend that heartily if you want something to lift your spirits. Gavin Megaw: Well I hope they include the Northern that as well, Patrick. Patrick: Yeah, you have a differential church out there, but yes, of course. Gavin Megaw: Right. Well, look, my recommendation isn't in the political world either. It's what a book I read one holiday, and I have to say it was just lovely. It's called Trustee from the Tour Room by Neville Shute. And it's a story of a just a pretty normal guy called Keith Stewart, who was a unassuming model engineer. He writes for a hobbyist magazine, and his wealthy sister and brother-in-law die in a shipwreck, and he's left as a trustee. Of his n young niece. And this is a story about him going across the world to try and get her inheritance, really. And it's the book which really stands out to me because it's not about plot t twists, it's not flash in any way. It's really about the dignity of skilled manual work and how quiet honest integrity can win over people across the world in all walks of life. And it's just really lovely and pleasant and just competent. and maybe that's a good approach for the Conservative Party to be competent, credible, and trusted. Right. So that's the common sense revolution for this week. If you enjoyed it or you disagreed with any of it, please leave your comments, but please subscribe and share. because we're just trying to get up and going with this. This is the first episode. and please help others to find us. and we're going to be back next week, won't we, chaps? Patrick: Yeah. Peter: Yes. Gavin Megaw: So well, we're back with more chat, undoubtedly, about the Conservative Party and all things political. Thank you very much for joining us. Bye.