Latest / The Fourcast / Do Starmer and Reeves have a ‘big idea’ to save the economy?

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Do Starmer and Reeves have a ‘big idea’ to save the economy? · The Fourcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to the political Forecast.
• 0:02
  It has been another turbulent week for the UK economy and
• 0:05
  politics. So how much of a mess are we all
• 0:07
  in? And can Keir Starmer and Rachael
• 0:10
  Rees really turn it around? The Prime Minister says it'll
• 0:13
  take 10 years to solve some of the chronic issues facing the
• 0:15
  UK. But will he even get his second
• 0:18
  term with Labour support sliding in the polls and Nigel Farage's
• 0:21
  Reform UK breathing down his neck?
• 0:23
  To discuss all this and more, I'm joined by the Financial
• 0:26
  Times columnist and fellow podcaster Katie Martin,
• 0:29
  syphologist Luke Trill and our political editor Gary Gibbon.
• 0:32
  Gary, let's start with you. How big is this hole that
• 0:35
  they're in? It's much bigger than you'd
• 0:37
  expect for a government coming in with this majority, a young
• 0:41
  government I'm talking to speed dating all the New Labour MPs
• 0:44
  that are at some pace and amongst them they've got certain
• 0:49
  majorities than past Labour generations of MPs, quite a few
• 0:53
  of these people. And there there's real unease
• 0:55
  and they bring up are. They surprised by how miserable
• 0:57
  things are the new ones. Yes, they're they're quite
• 1:00
  young. The average age I think is 42,
• 1:03
  but a lot of them in their 30s. But they've been around politics
• 1:05
  a long time. They know how it works and
• 1:09
  they're they're quite right. This is this isn't really odd
• 1:12
  debut the the introduction to government is not working well.
• 1:17
  Luke, you've had a poll out I think today.
• 1:20
  Miserable numbers, right? Miserable.
• 1:22
  Just tell us about those numbers.
• 1:23
  Give us the raw data and explain to us why people are saying
• 1:27
  these things. Miserable and sort of totally
• 1:29
  bizarre actually, for British politics.
• 1:32
  Our poll, which was out today, had three parties all within one
• 1:37
  point of each other. And they are we.
• 1:39
  Had the Conservatives on 25% of the votes.
• 1:42
  So basically what they got in the general election not really
• 1:45
  moved. Labour on 24% of the votes is
• 1:48
  significant, about 10 points down for the general election.
• 1:51
  And Reform UK also on 24% of the vote, up nearly 10 points from
• 1:58
  their general election performance.
• 2:00
  And this is pretty consistent across the polls now, that
• 2:03
  decline for Labour, that rise for reform and the Conservatives
• 2:07
  struggling to build much beyond what they got last July.
• 2:11
  And Katie, given the fact that these polls are so miserable and
• 2:15
  looking at the economic landscape, are you surprised?
• 2:18
  I am surprised and what we, you know, at the FT we're very
• 2:21
  focused on the business community.
• 2:23
  And what they're telling us is that they're not terribly
• 2:25
  inspired by the start from from the Labour government.
• 2:28
  You know, they would like to hear more kind of shovel ready
• 2:32
  product projects and they would like to hear maybe, you know,
• 2:35
  the the AI stuff is fine. So the government has said it
• 2:38
  wants to make a big push into artificial intelligence, use it
• 2:40
  across public services and that's fine.
• 2:43
  But it still feels quite conceptual.
• 2:45
  And I think what actually would inspire businesses more is
• 2:48
  something around, you know, being able to get employees
• 2:51
  from, from overseas, from being able to have builders that are
• 2:54
  ready to, to get to work on projects.
• 2:57
  So it, it, it's a bit of a scrappy start, I would say from,
• 3:00
  from the Labour government. I wouldn't say we're, we're
• 3:03
  picking up, you know, panic or, you know, blood in the streets.
• 3:06
  But it but it is a bit of a shock because when they were the
• 3:10
  opposition, they did such a good job of getting the city on side.
• 3:13
  Yeah, getting business on side. And so for those for that sort
• 3:16
  of reason, it feels like a bit of a disappointment.
• 3:17
  It's the main problem there, National Insurance, employers,
• 3:20
  National Insurance, or is it just a, you know, the a lack of
• 3:22
  a message to business about what they think growth actually
• 3:27
  means? It's the latter.
• 3:28
  And you know, what we hear is that the government is preparing
• 3:31
  to put forward some sort of more forceful message around growth
• 3:34
  rather than being about the doom and gloom of look at this mess
• 3:37
  that we've got to fix about being much more positive.
• 3:40
  And I think that would go down well.
• 3:42
  In the polling, I mean, is it specifically about the economy
• 3:45
  is about, is it about the fact that they're like Sir Kia
• 3:47
  Starmer? What's going on?
• 3:49
  If you dig down to the yeah, it's.
• 3:50
  It's, it's a range of things. I mean, there is no doubt that
• 3:53
  Kia Starmer's personal popularity has taken a huge hit.
• 3:57
  In fact, his net approval rating is down from plus 11 just after
• 4:01
  the election to -39 today I. Mean is that compared to seeing
• 4:05
  that goal? It is.
• 4:06
  It is for a newly elected Prime Minister, it is pretty much
• 4:10
  unprecedented in modern times that speed of decline.
• 4:14
  But it's also it is to do with the economy and it's just
• 4:17
  through the sense of people are a bit disappointed.
• 4:19
  They felt they were voting for change at the election.
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  And yet what they've heard, to build on your point, the public
• 4:25
  have heard that doom and gloom too.
• 4:27
  And they're saying, gosh, is it really going to be more of tough
• 4:30
  choices. We've had that for the past 14
• 4:32
  years. What comes now?
• 4:34
  And I think they've struggled to tell the story of what comes
• 4:37
  after and instead been defined by things like winter fuel
• 4:40
  allowance, which if I can pick warm policy, which has just been
• 4:43
  toxic to the ratings, it was that.
• 4:45
  Gary, when you seek Sir Keir Starmer speaking, you, you know,
• 4:49
  you asked him if you, you know, poignant questions yesterday.
• 4:51
  He never looks as if he's having much fun.
• 4:55
  I mean, is he having any fun at all?
• 4:56
  And do they look into the mirror and think, my God, we've screwed
• 5:00
  up here or don't they? I think there are some levels on
• 5:03
  which Keir Starmer regrets with decisions he's made.
• 5:09
  I mean, he hugely regretted the Sue Grey 1.
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  He was almost out on his own when he made that appointment.
• 5:14
  But I, I must say, talking to some people at the top of the
• 5:16
  Labour Party, they're all sort of rather overly dumping on his
• 5:20
  first chief of staff. I mean, there clearly wasn't a
• 5:22
  perfect plan for government, but the idea that you would
• 5:26
  franchise that out in completely to one individual while you
• 5:29
  focused on campaigning is, is for the birds.
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  Of course you should get to know on that yourself.
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  And if he had been doing that, Keir Starmer would have noticed
• 5:36
  this wasn't an oven ready package.
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  Remember when Gordon Brown comes in as Chancellor, the Blair
• 5:41
  government 97 and they walk into the Treasury and they say
• 5:45
  actually we want to make the Bank of England an independent.
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  Apparently the Treasury on the other side of the table said
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  well that'll be a six month review.
• 5:51
  Very interesting idea. He said no it won't.
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  You pushed a piece of paper across and said this is how
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  we're going to do it. We've worked it out.
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  Nothing like that, you feel. And why is that?
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  Because the one question I keep getting from people is that they
• 6:02
  have had 14 years to think about old ideas.
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  I know there's been a change of regime, you know, Miliband,
• 6:07
  Corbyn, Starlin, but you know, the Labour Party's been in
• 6:10
  opposition for long enough to come up with some, you know,
• 6:13
  oven shovel ready, bold stuff to put in on Day 1, I think.
• 6:16
  Part of it goes back to the way they decided to fight the
• 6:20
  election. Morgan McSweeney, the campaign
• 6:23
  chief, felt that fighting a mandate election, a space to
• 6:27
  govern elections, it's called in the in the jargon, just wouldn't
• 6:32
  work. He'd seen it happen with Nick
• 6:33
  Timothy, who devised such a campaign for 20 in 2017 for
• 6:37
  Theresa May, being very open with the electorate about the
• 6:40
  cost of social care. He said he'd seen it in other
• 6:42
  countries, I think, and he thought it didn't work.
• 6:45
  So he shrank the size of the target on Keir Starmer's backs
• 6:49
  and foreswore all sorts of taxes, foreswore anything really
• 6:53
  that might lose them votes, and you end up with a second chief
• 6:57
  of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who has to govern after an election
• 7:00
  that didn't create much space for it.
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  But I think there's another thing which is I think that they
• 7:05
  thought that this was going to be 2010 in reverse when they got
• 7:08
  elected, that they could say we're going to do unpopular
• 7:11
  stuff but it's all the last lots fault and it wouldn't matter.
• 7:14
  And the flaw there of course is that works when people go, well,
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  I don't like the last lots. I'll give you a bit of time even
• 7:20
  though I don't really like it. Of course now we've got this
• 7:22
  third party in Reform UK, so people are going, I don't like
• 7:24
  the Tories. Labour has taken away my
• 7:27
  granny's winter fuel. So I'm going to give that Nigel
• 7:29
  Farage chap a try. That's what we're seeing
• 7:31
  happening and that was the miscalculation, I think.
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  And of course, you know, last year we heard that incumbency
• 7:35
  was the shallow grave of any number of parties.
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  But governments around, you know, the world and they've now
• 7:40
  become the incumbent party, right?
• 7:42
  Well, absolutely. If there was one rule that held
• 7:46
  across elections in the last year, the biggest year of
• 7:49
  elections I think in democratic history, it was that if you're
• 7:52
  an incumbent, you lost vote share.
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  You know, even people like Modi that people thought was sort of
• 7:57
  impenetrable in India lost voucher.
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  And of course, yeah, Labour have taken that on and they've taken
• 8:02
  on board that huge sense of impatience amongst the public
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  who just don't think the country's working.
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  We'll get on to growth in a minute, Katie.
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  But it it's struggling, struck me as rather ridiculous that
• 8:12
  people were asking whether Rachel Reeves, one should go to
• 8:14
  China or whether she should actually stay in office or be
• 8:16
  kicked out. I mean, it would be absolutely
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  cataclysmic, I think, for Keir Starmer to get rid of her now,
• 8:21
  but is it at all fair to turn her into a lightning rolt for
• 8:25
  some of the government's problems?
• 8:27
  I think broadly speaking, no, there there is an issue in the
• 8:30
  UK government bond market, right?
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  So it, it, we have bond prices falling, which means that the
• 8:36
  yield's picking up, which means that your mortgage and mine gets
• 8:39
  more expensive. And so you know this isn't this
• 8:42
  is an issue. Explain to us why that is.
• 8:44
  Well, that's the thing. There's a lot of people who are
• 8:46
  very quick to point the finger at Rachel Reeves and point the
• 8:48
  finger at the budget in October and say this is all your fault.
• 8:51
  That's frankly a bit silly. So there is a there is a big
• 8:55
  move going on across global bond markets, led by the US, because
• 9:00
  it turns out inflation is really sticky and it turns out the US
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  economy is really healthy and the US interest rates really
• 9:06
  don't need to fall as much as we previously thought.
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  So bond prices are sinking globally.
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  And that sort of sucks the UK into its orbit so much as people
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  are sort of very keen to drum up a story that there's some sort
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  of problem with UK policy and there's some sort of problem
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  with Rachel Reeves. Really, we're just dancing to a
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  global tune here. But how much of this are, you
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  know, are these problems germane to the island?
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  You know, the, the plummeting # which is arguably fallen more
• 9:31
  than, you know, even the euro. I know the dollar is very strong
• 9:35
  borrowing costs you know at an all time, you know at a 205025
• 9:38
  year high is that is that you know our problem or is that a
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  global problem as well? A little bit of it is our
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  problem in the sense that yes, sterling has fallen a little bit
• 9:47
  more than the euro and UK government bonds have fallen a
• 9:50
  little bit harder than say German government bonds, but
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  it's a pretty marginal difference to be honest.
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  And the problem I, I was writing about this the other day and I
• 9:58
  was describing the UK as the ugliest horse in the glue
• 10:00
  factory, right? And that's what's going on.
• 10:02
  You know, all government bonds are.
• 10:03
  Falling the glue factory, right? That's a wonderful image.
• 10:06
  It's going to stick with you for some time.
• 10:08
  Oh my God, you're going to have that for free.
• 10:10
  So, yeah, you know, all government bonds are falling.
• 10:12
  UK government bonds have fallen a little bit harder.
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  And that's because there's a very recent memory in bond
• 10:18
  traders and bond investors minds about the Liz Trust moment when
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  when the bond market really ceased to function.
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  And there are people jumping up and down now and saying this is
• 10:26
  a, you know, a crisis of a similar scale.
• 10:28
  That's simply not true. Gary, I wonder if in the glue
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  factory the problem is if you keep banging on about growth the
• 10:36
  way that this government does, you kind of you have to decide
• 10:39
  growth at what cost? Because, you know, you say, OK,
• 10:42
  I want growth, but I don't want growth.
• 10:44
  Which if it means getting back into the single market, yes, I
• 10:47
  want growth, but I don't want growth if it means that, you
• 10:50
  know, I'm going to have no regulation at all.
• 10:51
  I'm going to allow, you know, Elon Musk and the likes to come
• 10:54
  into the UK yes, I want growth, but I don't want growth if AI is
• 10:58
  going to be, you know, ditching jobs left, right and centre.
• 11:01
  Is that the problem? We kind of want to have it both
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  ways and we can't I. Think that is part of the
• 11:05
  problem, I think in terms of the government's problem, do you
• 11:07
  feel there is a very clear message on growth?
• 11:10
  And was it the dominating message from the moment they
• 11:12
  walked in the door? No, because they were talking
• 11:14
  about previous governments problems.
• 11:16
  They the only new policy for which they were known was the
• 11:19
  wind fuel allowance for ages. And we waited as the dust
• 11:23
  whisked around for a budget. And that eventually comes at the
• 11:27
  end of October. That was a long time too long.
• 11:29
  Yeah, before there was a shape on what what it was they wanted
• 11:32
  to do. And then there's another pause
• 11:33
  because we're waiting to for lots of reviews about growth and
• 11:36
  apparently Rachel Reeves is going to call in lots of
• 11:39
  regulators to tell them about they've got to come up with how
• 11:42
  they're going to contribute. I don't remember that being a
• 11:44
  sort of central part of Labour's message in the election
• 11:47
  deregulation, but it is now because they're pulling on every
• 11:49
  lever they can find and there is a slight whiff of desperation to
• 11:53
  it. But as you say, Europe is still
• 11:54
  the untouchable it seems. But I wonder if there's also a
• 11:56
  problem about how you measure success, right.
• 11:59
  So if you, if you talk about growth, what does it actually
• 12:01
  mean to most people you know, and how do they feel?
• 12:04
  And then if you then go to specifics like NHS waiting
• 12:07
  lists, I mean, OK, it's great if they can say the waiting list
• 12:09
  are down from 10 hours to four hours, but if I have to wait
• 12:11
  more for than half an hour at A&E, I'm going to be very upset.
• 12:15
  Are they setting themselves impossible targets?
• 12:17
  Metric targets the the way the. Way Kier Starmer talks about it
• 12:21
  is he talks about people will just feel that something's got
• 12:25
  better and it'll be the the, the money in their pocket, the
• 12:28
  disposable income, the fact that they know anecdotally talking to
• 12:31
  people that they're getting into hospital a bit quicker, that
• 12:34
  something's getting better pretty.
• 12:36
  Nebulous though, isn't it? Yeah, but he thinks that's as
• 12:39
  good as it gets, and that's where our politics is, that
• 12:41
  unless you feel that you won't vote for him, and that's as good
• 12:44
  as it's going to get because it won't be much more than that.
• 12:46
  But they're not feeling it in the polls, are they, Luke?
• 12:47
  They're certainly not feeling it and there is a sense that it's
• 12:50
  not going to happen. The public are incredibly
• 12:53
  cynical. But I do think you hit on an
• 12:54
  important point when it comes to the metrics.
• 12:56
  And I think this is whilst it wasn't delivered, I think this
• 13:00
  is something that Boris Johnson actually recognised in 2019,
• 13:03
  that you can have growth, but if it's just benefiting the City of
• 13:06
  London, you're going to to do nothing to tackle causes of
• 13:09
  populism, discontent. So there's got to be a how do
• 13:12
  you feel it in Blithe? How do you feel it in
• 13:14
  Merseyside? How do you feel it around the
• 13:16
  country? And I think perhaps by moving so
• 13:19
  quickly away from the Tories, levelling up idea not delivered
• 13:23
  though it was, they've lost something there in the sort of
• 13:25
  actual tangibility of people's day-to-day.
• 13:28
  Katie, what's the one economic factor that, if it was going in
• 13:32
  the right direction, could make a big difference to how people
• 13:35
  feel? Is it interest rates?
• 13:37
  Mortgage rates? That would certainly help, I
• 13:41
  think. But I think it it, it does go
• 13:42
  back to your point about this being sort of quite nebulous.
• 13:45
  People want to be able to get into A&E without sitting around
• 13:48
  for us. You know, you look at some of
• 13:49
  the reporting that the Liverpool Echo has been doing on the
• 13:51
  situation in hospitals there. You know, it, it's pretty tough
• 13:53
  reading, you know, but economically, you know, the, the
• 13:56
  jobs market is pretty healthy. The economy is not in anywhere
• 13:59
  near the bad shape that that it was.
• 14:02
  Inflation has come down a lot. And you know, as, as Luke was
• 14:05
  saying, pretty much all the election last year, incumbents
• 14:08
  got carted out because voters hate inflation and we've got
• 14:12
  inflation somewhat under control.
• 14:14
  So all the kind of ingredients are there.
• 14:16
  But you know, certainly the city wants to hear a somewhat more
• 14:18
  positive and so. This leads me to my next
• 14:20
  question. If the ingredients are there,
• 14:22
  you know, if you've got, if you had the, you know, the
• 14:23
  government Bake Off and you've got your flour and your sugar
• 14:26
  and your milk and, you know, and a few little pearls of chocolate
• 14:28
  and you know what I'm talking about, Gary.
• 14:30
  I'd like to see you doing that in a apron.
• 14:32
  Are you? Telling me that I can't, we'll
• 14:35
  do a Bake Off, right? OK, I think there's some cookies
• 14:37
  anyway. But OK, so you've got all the
• 14:39
  ingredients and what binds them together is, you know, a
• 14:43
  political leader who comes along with a fabulous speech or sends
• 14:46
  the right messages. Now, I know the boosterism is
• 14:48
  very much out of fashion and the government keeps telling us
• 14:50
  everyday that they're not going to be boosterish.
• 14:52
  But I wonder if there's a secret source there that Keir Starmer
• 14:56
  is missing where you want to raise the rhetorical level of
• 14:59
  what you're saying. You know, don't sound like a
• 15:02
  like a defence lawyer, sound like someone who's actually
• 15:05
  making a case. And then maybe over time people
• 15:09
  will either feel feel it or they won't feel it.
• 15:12
  But that's an important ingredient.
• 15:14
  His political rhetoric, I, I sense has shifted a little for
• 15:18
  the 1st four months of this government when business was
• 15:22
  getting a bit gloomy and everybody was wanting him to
• 15:25
  talk up the economy and sound a bit more boosterish.
• 15:27
  He didn't. And the advice to him was don't
• 15:30
  do that. The voters will think you've
• 15:31
  lost your marbles at, at, at the AI speech on Monday, when, when
• 15:36
  I asked him, you're not going to get productivity gains from AAI
• 15:40
  in the public sector that quickly.
• 15:42
  It's going to take 10 years. I was actually quoting what
• 15:44
  Labour had said in opposition. He said, no, no, no, it won't be
• 15:46
  like that. It'll be, we could get it really
• 15:48
  quickly. I think this has become a lot
• 15:49
  more lot more quickly. I don't want to sound booster,
• 15:51
  but it's going to come very, very quickly.
• 15:53
  There we go, There we go. And I thought you're reaching
• 15:55
  for, are you reaching for that to help us, you know, guide us
• 15:59
  or are you reaching for that in desperation?
• 16:00
  Because it wasn't in the main body of the speech.
• 16:03
  It didn't pass that test, but it but he said it nonetheless in
• 16:05
  the Q&A. Do you think they're missing a
• 16:07
  sort of big destination that that would explain, you know,
• 16:11
  some of the stuff that's going wrong?
• 16:12
  Let's say, OK, you know, and I know they say the destination is
• 16:15
  growth. The destination might be, you
• 16:17
  know, NHS waiting is coming down, but something a little bit
• 16:19
  bigger that makes people understand.
• 16:21
  And really this is the essential question of Britain today.
• 16:24
  What are we all about? What is global Britain all
• 16:26
  about? Luke first.
• 16:28
  I totally agree. I think lots of what they're
• 16:30
  doing at the moment when we talk to people in focus groups seems
• 16:32
  a bit random. They sort of say, well, he's
• 16:34
  he's spending all of his time abroad and we never get a good
• 16:37
  deal out of that anyway. And he's gone after pensioners,
• 16:40
  farmers and small businesses. But but why?
• 16:43
  It all just looks very bitty to people.
• 16:46
  So I think you've got to explain in aid of what, and I totally
• 16:49
  agree on the boosterism. In fact, the best quote which
• 16:52
  sticks with me now, it was a couple of months ago was guy
• 16:55
  says he keeps saying he doesn't want to be Mr. Popular, but why
• 16:58
  doesn't he just try? Why does he try and be popular
• 17:01
  and start from there? And I think that would give
• 17:03
  people a sense that we're doing tough stuff, but it's for this.
• 17:06
  This is where we want to be in 2029.
• 17:09
  Yeah. And that that's why I felt like
• 17:11
  the, the the AI announcement was, was kind of weird in the
• 17:14
  sense that, you know, there's nothing in that speech that
• 17:17
  Rishi Sunak couldn't have written.
• 17:18
  You know, it felt it felt very Rishi to me.
• 17:21
  You're talking about AI and potholes.
• 17:23
  Yeah. And you know, I I don't what?
• 17:25
  Is it about potholes, by the way?
• 17:26
  They have to. Everyone's gonna bring up
• 17:27
  sodding potholes, you know. I, I do not know, but you know,
• 17:31
  I, I don't have a dog in this fight.
• 17:33
  I don't have a strong view that AI is a bad thing.
• 17:35
  I think it's probably a good thing.
• 17:36
  There probably are some efficiencies here.
• 17:37
  But is that really what the average voter wants to, wants to
• 17:40
  hear about? I think they'd rather hear
• 17:41
  about, you know, energy projects and network projects and
• 17:45
  transport projects and stuff that actually gets staff into
• 17:48
  hospitals where, where we need them to be.
• 17:50
  So, you know, I'm not a political wonk by any stretch of
• 17:53
  the imagination, but but that sounds like the direction that
• 17:56
  that voters and the city are all kind of looking.
• 17:58
  For So it's a sort of combination of specific stuff,
• 18:01
  but not too much in case people actually measure the reality
• 18:03
  against your plan and the timetable and then some big
• 18:07
  idea, right? So what's the big idea?
• 18:10
  What is the big idea he actually has but he's not telling us?
• 18:13
  Or isn't there 1. There isn't one.
• 18:14
  There isn't one. There isn't one.
• 18:15
  There is. There is no clear shape to
• 18:18
  Starmerism. It's, it's migrated in front of
• 18:22
  our eyes all the way over from from from where he was with
• 18:27
  Jeremy Corbyn to where, where he's ended up.
• 18:31
  There isn't a shape to it. It's why he can't actually
• 18:34
  really in, in, in any sort of in any term, medium term, short
• 18:40
  term that I can envisage. Get rid of Rachel Reeves because
• 18:43
  what are you replacing her with? What's the, what's the new
• 18:45
  policy? They say, oh, put Pat Pat
• 18:47
  McFadden there, though, Pat. McFadden that's going to really
• 18:49
  stop people in their tracks. Rachel Reeves was that without
• 18:52
  the Rwanda VIVRA, it doesn't get you anywhere.
• 18:55
  It's the same. It's the same policy.
• 18:57
  What about West Streeting? Well, that might get you
• 19:00
  somewhere, but Kier would have to have signed up to what we
• 19:03
  think is where Streeting's core set of police, which have an
• 19:06
  awfully strong resemblance to Tony Blair, third term public
• 19:09
  sector reforms and choice and involving the private sector.
• 19:13
  And when Keir Starmer is standing next to where
• 19:16
  Streeting, he supports what he's doing.
• 19:17
  But when he's standing next to Bridget Phillipson, he supports
• 19:20
  the rather different image of public sector running and reform
• 19:25
  that without ever adjudicating between the two.
• 19:28
  Because I don't think he came into politics.
• 19:29
  I think he came into politics to become attorney general and he's
• 19:32
  a sort of accidental leader of the Labour Party, Prime Minister
• 19:35
  who who never really had a very, very strong shape to his
• 19:39
  politics. Yeah, he's got that in common
• 19:41
  with Donald Trump, who probably never thought he was going to
• 19:43
  get to the top job back in 2016. And then did you know, although
• 19:46
  slightly different, slightly different, slightly different.
• 19:50
  I want to ask you something, Luke.
• 19:52
  I mean, it's still, I found it amazing that the Labour Party in
• 19:56
  2024, despite its historic victory, got fewer actual votes
• 20:00
  than Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party did in 2019.
• 20:02
  That is true, right? OK.
• 20:04
  But they've got a massive majority Is the problem here
• 20:07
  that they've got a lot of power in the House of Commons, but
• 20:09
  just not much popularity on the street outside?
• 20:12
  Yeah. And that's a, that's a
• 20:13
  dysfunction that you know, that either works in your favour or
• 20:16
  it doesn't. Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:17
  I mean you, when we talk about the drop in their support, it
• 20:19
  was from quite a low base. You know, getting that that
• 20:22
  landslide majority in Parliament on such a low show of the vote
• 20:25
  is unprecedented. But it also means that they've
• 20:29
  got this really strange coalition where you've got
• 20:32
  Labour MPs from, you know, 5 Darlington, but you've also got
• 20:36
  them in Aldershot in Buckinghamshire and places like
• 20:39
  that. It's really hard to keep that
• 20:41
  coalition together. So it's a broad coalition, but
• 20:44
  it's really shallow and I think that's going to be a struggle
• 20:47
  throughout the term. If you were guessing now,
• 20:50
  knowing the polls, which of those set of it Labour MPs are
• 20:53
  most at risk? Is it the ones in what we used
• 20:56
  to call the red wall with reform breathing down their neck?
• 20:58
  It is absolutely because Reform are in second place in almost
• 21:02
  100 Labour seat, not just the red wall seats that they lost in
• 21:07
  2019, but also cabinet ministers, people like Yvette
• 21:10
  Cooper, Ed Miliband, all at risk because that's the area where
• 21:14
  Reform are making gains. So does Reform have an economic
• 21:18
  plan that makes sense as far as you know?
• 21:20
  If it does, I haven't had it articulated directly to me.
• 21:24
  But one big thing to bear in mind here, you know, we're
• 21:26
  talking about, you know, is some sort of reshuffle necessary?
• 21:28
  Is there's, does Rachel Reeves need to move?
• 21:31
  You know, there's a lot of very clever analytical stuff that
• 21:33
  goes into what is this bond worth and where should Sterling
• 21:37
  be traded? But a big part of it honestly is
• 21:39
  just vibes. And, and the, you know, the, the
• 21:43
  image of Rachel Reeves either being ousted or voluntarily
• 21:46
  going would be precisely the wrong thing for UK markets at
• 21:49
  the moment. You know, so I think there's
• 21:51
  just, there's just some sort of mischief making going on.
• 21:55
  What? Do the markets make of Nigel
• 21:57
  Farage's souffle like rise in the opinion polls?
• 22:01
  Honestly, I haven't heard investors bringing it up
• 22:04
  because, yeah, because ultimately we've got 4-5 years
• 22:08
  before we need to worry about this again.
• 22:09
  And so I think you know that investors are kind of working on
• 22:12
  the basis that this is a done deal and this is going to, you
• 22:14
  know, carry on for them which. They quite likely to their.
• 22:16
  Portfolios, which is? However boring it is, they've
• 22:19
  got continuous. They like boring.
• 22:20
  Boring is good. If you said the words to the
• 22:23
  Nigel Farage Prime Minister, will they blanche?
• 22:25
  I mean, will they? Will they pile out of the
• 22:28
  island? It depends on their personal
• 22:29
  politics. Some people that I speak to in
• 22:31
  the city would be perfectly cool with that, some of them would
• 22:35
  not. How much of A threat is reform,
• 22:38
  given the fact that we've got 4 1/2 years before the next
• 22:40
  general election? Gary, as Luke was saying,
• 22:44
  they've they're they're the second place in nearly 100
• 22:47
  seats. But that means you'd think their
• 22:51
  maximum growth in a very, very good year for them, a good
• 22:55
  general election year would be a low, a number in the low one
• 22:58
  hundreds because they might just, you know, have an
• 23:00
  extraordinary rise and get some other ones where they're in 3rd
• 23:03
  place. Some of them are in quite close
• 23:05
  third place around the country. So you don't make it to number
• 23:09
  10 on those numbers. But I tell you, the conversation
• 23:12
  that absolutely dominates around Westminster, you sit down with
• 23:14
  any MPs and they start talking about whether the right can do a
• 23:19
  anti left tactical voting scheme at the next election phenomenon
• 23:25
  to match what happened in the other direction of the last
• 23:28
  election. And it is, it is one of the
• 23:30
  hottest topics and Labour people talk about it as much as Tories
• 23:34
  and it opens up enormous issues about, you know, is Kenny Baydon
• 23:38
  not the right leader to do that? Can anybody have, would Nigel
• 23:41
  Farrell play second fiddle to anybody?
• 23:43
  Does he not think the world's at his feet now?
• 23:45
  Would he really want to play and help a a legacy party like the
• 23:49
  Conservative Party when he's the new guy down the block?
• 23:51
  It opens up a huge number of questions, but why are people
• 23:53
  talking about it? And given the fact, Luke, that,
• 23:55
  you know, voters are shopping around, you know, they're, you
• 23:57
  know, they're fairly fickle and, and they like to kind of change
• 24:00
  their mind, you know, is, is it possible that, you know, the
• 24:05
  Tory Party sees this as they've done before and say, let's get
• 24:08
  rid of Kimmy Bang and put someone else in?
• 24:10
  Is it possible that the Labour Party will do what they don't
• 24:12
  don't normally do, which is to get rid of, you know, the Prime
• 24:15
  Minister? Take a leaf out of the Tories
• 24:18
  book. I think the problem with that is
• 24:21
  that the Tories have almost exhausted that playbook to some
• 24:25
  degree. So you think?
• 24:26
  It mildly there, yeah. But but the sort of people are
• 24:29
  saying another one that I mean, it just genuinely would be their
• 24:32
  reaction to get rid of them. Because you've got to remember,
• 24:33
  it's not just that people are miserable about public services
• 24:36
  not working to say. They also just think our
• 24:37
  politics is exhausting and has been since 2016.
• 24:40
  And I think the idea of getting rid of Keir Starmer, at least
• 24:44
  for the foreseeable future, would play into that of God,
• 24:47
  Labour are just as bad as the Tories.
• 24:49
  They can't run the show we say. I'm not sure that that would
• 24:52
  work. I also don't think it would play
• 24:53
  in the Tories favour with Badenoch as well because again
• 24:56
  it would reinforce that these guys just love the knifing
• 24:59
  rather than the governing. We're going to end on Tulip
• 25:01
  Siddiq, Gary. Tulip Siddiq.
• 25:03
  And I don't look so surprised. I mean, that was a big story
• 25:05
  yesterday. I mean, is this a lack of
• 25:07
  judgement from the Prime Minister that she was allowed to
• 25:09
  stay there for that long? I mean, we knew about her
• 25:11
  problems back in the summer, if not before.
• 25:14
  Was was it a lack of judgement to a pointer in the 1st place,
• 25:16
  given her connections to a family which only fell from
• 25:19
  power in August last year? It's true after the election,
• 25:22
  but which had a pretty grotty reputation for despotism.
• 25:27
  Oh, terrible. I mean, and, and fell under
• 25:28
  very, you know, dramatic, brutal circumstances.
• 25:31
  And and she wasn't a distant family relations.
• 25:33
  So I think the question of judgement goes back a bit
• 25:36
  further. Labour say absolutely not and
• 25:42
  you can't visit the crimes of relations on, on, on the
• 25:45
  minister. But yeah, I think it does put a
• 25:47
  giant question there. And then the fact that he, he
• 25:49
  says, knowing what we all now know, he says the door's still
• 25:54
  open. It shows a bit of a blind spot.
• 25:58
  Final one to you, Luke, very briefly, I mean, Taylor Swift
• 26:00
  tickets, Arsenal tickets, you know, Lou Hague having to resign
• 26:05
  now she's had to go. I mean, does this, has that
• 26:08
  formed an opinion amongst your the people you polled?
• 26:10
  It has. I mean, I didn't think actually
• 26:12
  the ministerial resignations do that much other than it said
• 26:15
  Taylor Swift. But freebies did because it
• 26:17
  really got into that sense of are these people really in it
• 26:20
  for the right reasons? Are they doing through?
• 26:22
  I think and also they promised they were going to be so much
• 26:25
  better than the last slot who they prosecuted on this.
• 26:27
  It's the hypocrisy which I think is stuck with people as much as
• 26:31
  the ACT. And of course tulips, I would
• 26:33
  say, I mean, she denies any wrongdoing.
• 26:34
  We have to mention that. That's certainly true.
• 26:36
  But it just you do wonder whether that their political
• 26:39
  antennae have been sort of cut off at the end there's.
• 26:42
  Something also about certain types of politicians.
• 26:44
  And I think Keir Starmer falls into this bracket.
• 26:45
  He has a very strong idea of his own moral uprightness.
• 26:49
  You had it with Gordon Brown as well.
• 26:50
  I can do no wrong. Yeah.
• 26:53
  And he he would find it very hard for anybody.
• 26:56
  He thinks he's that. Some part of him, I think
• 26:59
  believes that gives him a bit more range or certainly that
• 27:03
  he's not challenging himself because he feels very
• 27:05
  comfortable that he has a strong moral compass.
• 27:08
  And I think he was baffled as this stuff came to hit him.
• 27:12
  But as everything we hear in focus groups polls, the freebies
• 27:16
  thing is still out there. Still out there and it won't go
• 27:18
  away. It's one of those things that
• 27:19
  people can get their head around.
• 27:21
  I've got to get my head around the time, which is that we've
• 27:22
  run out of it. So thank you very much, Katie
• 27:24
  Martin, Luke chill, Gary Gibbon, thanks to all of you.
• 27:27
  That is the political forecast. See you next time.
• 27:29
  Goodbye.