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The real Mr Darcy set to be PM · The Front

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  Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart sneaker
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  Speaker 1: the news from the Australian.
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  Speaker 2: From the Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: It's Tuesday, June twenty five. The Albanese government is to
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: tell the Aboriginal Justice Service NAJA to show leadership on
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  Speaker 2: family violence. That's after The Australian's revelation its chairman beat
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  Speaker 2: up his pregnant partner. The lead author of the government's
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  Speaker 2: Defense Strategic Review has warned the debate over Peter Dutton's
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  Speaker 2: nuclear energy plan has the potential to run off the
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  Speaker 2: rails and turn Australians off nuclear together a threat to
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: the Navy's future submarine program. That story is live now
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: at the Australian dot Com dot a U. A fresh
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: scandal is engulfing the UK's Conservative Party, with allegations five people,
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  Speaker 2: including a police officer with links to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak,
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  Speaker 2: bet on the election date before Sunac announced when it
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  Speaker 2: would be. Voting is in just two weeks and everyone's
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  Speaker 2: betting Labour's Keir Starmer will be PM. But there's something
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  Speaker 2: about Starma, a dashing former human rights barrister that might
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  Speaker 2: surprise you.
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  Speaker 3: Hello, darling, how's it going.
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  Speaker 4: Mother's trying to fix you up with some to force.
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  Speaker 3: Human rights barrison, a pretty nasty beast apparently.
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  Speaker 1: Who deem tong.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe this time Mom had got it right.
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  Speaker 4: Come on.
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  Speaker 2: One of the greatest characters in modern movie history is
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  Speaker 2: Mark Darcy, played by Colin Firth in the Bridget Jones's
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  Speaker 2: Diary franchise. He was a charming, handsome, almost unbearably pompous
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  Speaker 2: lawyer named after Fitzwilliam Darcy, the hero of Jane Austen's
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  Speaker 2: eighteen thirteen masterpiece Pride and Prejudice.
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  Speaker 5: Mother, I do not need a blind date, particularly not
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  Speaker 5: some verbally incontinent spinster who smokes like a chimney, drinks
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  Speaker 5: like a fetch, and dresses like a mother.
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  Speaker 2: His nemesis and rival for Bridget's affections was suave TV
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  Speaker 2: executive Daniel Cleaver played by Hugh Grant, a cad for
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  Speaker 2: the ages there fight scenes two men who don't know
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  Speaker 2: how to fight, reveling at each other our cinema classics.
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  Speaker 4: Do you have any idea what's century we actually live in?
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  Speaker 4: Are you're gonna sit outside.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna have to drag you.
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  Speaker 4: I'm gonna have to drag me.
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  Speaker 2: They fall into a fountain and have the least dignified
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  Speaker 2: brawl ever caught on film.
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  Speaker 3: Do you know what, mate, Because you're so obsessed with
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  Speaker 3: Bridgete Jones, why don't you just marry her?
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  Speaker 1: Because then she definitely shagged me. It has long been rumored,
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  Speaker 1: ever since it came out that Keir Starmer was the
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  Speaker 1: inspiration for mister Darcy, the handsome but slightly stuffy human
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  Speaker 1: rights lawyer who is the great love of Bridget Johns
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  Speaker 1: and Bridget Joins's diary.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Richard Ferguson is the Australian's National Chief of Staff. We
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  Speaker 2: should note that Helen Fielding, the author of the Bridget
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  Speaker 2: Jones books, has denied basing Mark Darcy on Kiirs Starmer.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's hard not to see him as a
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  Speaker 1: kind of mister Darcy figure. Keir Starmer has led an
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  Speaker 1: incredibly interesting life. He was very much a lawyer rather
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  Speaker 1: than a politician, never really involved in student politics, ended
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  Speaker 1: up in the Chief prosecutor in England.
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  Speaker 2: He is how Britain's Channel four News framed it.
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  Speaker 5: I've used to run the Crown Prosecution Service. Fiber was
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  Speaker 5: Director of Public Prosecutions. Director of Public Prosecutions.
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  Speaker 3: He wants you to know about these five years in
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  Speaker 3: his career, the job for which he was knighted.
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  Speaker 5: I've taken down terrorist gags in my.
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  Speaker 1: Path had some controversies. For example, you know he never
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  Speaker 1: prosecuted the terrible BBC personality and later revealed mass pedifile
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  Speaker 1: Jimmy Saville.
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  Speaker 2: The evidence is now overwhelming that one of Britain's most
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  Speaker 2: beloved entertainers, the late Sir Jimmy Saville, was also a
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  Speaker 2: predatory sex offender.
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  Speaker 1: But he was considered to be a very tough on
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  Speaker 1: cream prosecutor, went for big sentences and then he joined
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  Speaker 1: the Labor Party got into Parliament in twenty fifteen.
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  Speaker 2: That was when David Cameron's Conservatives scraped into coalition government,
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  Speaker 2: leaving Labor ed Miliband and Starmer on the opposition benches.
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  Speaker 1: So he thought he was joining kind of the new
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  Speaker 1: ed Meliban government after a rackety coalition between the Tories
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  Speaker 1: and the Liberal Democrats. Instead, he's been forced to Leve's
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  Speaker 1: years in oppositionion and Lever's years in oppossession under Jeremy Corbin.
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  Speaker 2: Corbyn was the hard left Labor leader whom Starmer would
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  Speaker 2: eventually replace after a thumping defeat of Labor at the
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  Speaker 2: twenty nineteen election, and.
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  Speaker 1: It has made him a ruthless figure, but also a
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  Speaker 1: very safe and sometimes people would say slightly gellibella figure
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  Speaker 1: when it comes to policy.
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  Speaker 2: In particular, Starmer is promising to rebuild the public health
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  Speaker 2: system a clean energy transformation, and he's sent a chill
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  Speaker 2: through the middle classes with a plan to put the
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  Speaker 2: broad based VAT tax on private schools.
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  Speaker 1: It's a very Daniel Andrews esque policy. It's essentially putting
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  Speaker 1: up what we would call a GST on private school fees.
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  Speaker 1: Now private schools have a little bit of a different
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  Speaker 1: relationship I think than here in Australia. I think a
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  Speaker 1: lot more people use private schools Australia than they would
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  Speaker 1: in Britain. But it has slightly dented his attempts to
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  Speaker 1: portray himself as somebody who supports aspiration, as somebody who
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  Speaker 1: supports people who want to grow wealth. And after Jeremy Corbyn,
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  Speaker 1: who is a Marxist, admitted that by his own admission,
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  Speaker 1: he had worked very hard to try and re establish
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  Speaker 1: Labor as a party that can work with business. It's
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  Speaker 1: a more kind of classic labor corporadist sort of socialist left,
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  Speaker 1: probably a little bit like Anthony Albanezy.
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  Speaker 2: So he's not going to ta down the establishment.
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  Speaker 1: He's definitely not going to tear down the establishment. He
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  Speaker 1: does have a knighthood, after all, he is Sir Kiir Starmer.
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  Speaker 1: He's really made a point of trying to reintroduce patriotism
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  Speaker 1: into the Labor Party. Of course, Jeremy Corbyn famously didn't
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  Speaker 1: sing God Save the Queen, was an avid Republican, turned
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  Speaker 1: up to tripping the color in donkey jackets and things
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  Speaker 1: like that. He is very much portrayed himself as a
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  Speaker 1: supporter of the king, obviously a supporter of the late Queen.
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  Speaker 1: He does want to make changes to the House of Lords.
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  Speaker 1: He wants to stop all lords over the age of
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  Speaker 1: eighty being active participants in the Second Chamber, and he
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  Speaker 1: wants to get rid of head reditary peers and people
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  Speaker 1: who become lords by birth. The manifesto is that eventually
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  Speaker 1: the House of Lords will be abolished, and I mean
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  Speaker 1: this has been the opinion of Towny Blair and Gordon
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  Speaker 1: Browne as well, but it's about lake the Republican Australia
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  Speaker 1: for the Labor Party. It mate saying diod in theory,
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  Speaker 1: but I think when it comes to the practice, they're
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  Speaker 1: less keen to run into it. But I think that's
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  Speaker 1: another example of hope. This is not a prime minister
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  Speaker 1: who's going to tear down the establishment anytime soon. This
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  Speaker 1: is no Jeremy Corbyn.
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  Speaker 2: This campaign kicked off last month in a downpour. It
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  Speaker 2: was the campaign launch a snap election called by Pam
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  Speaker 2: Rishi Sunak in an attempt to get the jump on Labor,
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  Speaker 2: complete with a Churchill esque speech out the front of
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  Speaker 2: ten Downing Street. But Sunak's team clearly forgot to look
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  Speaker 2: out the window first, and seconds after Sunac opened his mouth,
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  Speaker 2: the heavens opened and he was drenched.
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  Speaker 5: Over the next few weeks, I will fight for every vote.
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  Speaker 5: I will earn your trust.
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  Speaker 2: And then someone with a loud speaker started blasting Sunak
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  Speaker 2: with things can only get better, the nineteen nineties anthem
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  Speaker 2: and Labour's unofficial theme song.
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  Speaker 5: China is looking to dominate the twenty first century by
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  Speaker 5: stealing a lead in technology and migration is being weaponized
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  Speaker 5: by hostile states to threaten the integrity of our borders.
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  Speaker 2: I think your take out from his appearance in the
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  Speaker 2: reign was that he was a bit of a drip.
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  Speaker 2: Now as his campaign improved it all since the beginning.
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  Speaker 1: No, he's not just a drep. He's a whole stalking puddle.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, he's lost in the puddle. It may be
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  Speaker 1: the most disastrous political campaign and modern Western politics since
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  Speaker 1: oh who knows. I mean, he mixed both short and
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  Speaker 1: entries of me looks like campaign geniuses, makes Hillary Clinton
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  Speaker 1: look like a competent campaigner. You know, to just be
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into
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  Speaker 1: what I call the basket of deplorables, right the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, islamophobic,
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  Speaker 1: you name it. It's been a terrible campaign and it's
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  Speaker 1: not all of his fault, but a lot of it
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  Speaker 1: is his fault. He has no eye for politics. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: the skepping of d D was a completely not disaster,
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  Speaker 1: which I think Kelder's campaign stone dead.
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  Speaker 2: That's where Sunak flew home early from D Day commemorations
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  Speaker 2: in France to give an interview to ITV that delivered
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  Speaker 2: one of the most toe curlingly awkward moments in modern politics.
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  Speaker 3: Have you ever gone without something?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: I mean I grot. My family emigrated here with very little,
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  Speaker 3: and that's how I was raised. I was raised for
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  Speaker 3: the values of hard work.
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  Speaker 4: What did you go.
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  Speaker 1: Without as a child?
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  Speaker 3: Lots of things, right, because my parents wanted to put
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  Speaker 3: everything into our education and that was a priority. So
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  Speaker 3: what sort of things had to be sacrificed? Lots of things, right,
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  Speaker 3: I would give me an example, all sorts of things,
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  Speaker 3: like lots of people. There'll be all sorts of things
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  Speaker 3: that I would have wanted as a kid that I
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  Speaker 3: couldn't have, right, But famously SkyTV that was something that
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  Speaker 3: we never had growing up.
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  Speaker 1: Actually, this scandal where members of the top Tory campaign
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  Speaker 1: team are now being investigated for betting on the election
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  Speaker 1: date because they had found out the election date before
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  Speaker 1: the Prime minister announced it has I think shocked people
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  Speaker 1: and it was reminiscent of the party Gate scandals under
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  Speaker 1: Boris Johnson and where people were having parties during COVID
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  Speaker 1: lockdowns and Tory staffers were having parties during COVID lockdowns,
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  Speaker 1: in which it seems to be one role for Tory
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: staffers in one role for everybody else. His top cabinet
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  Speaker 1: ministers are basically out there admitting they're not going to
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  Speaker 1: win and that it's all about stopping labor from having
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  Speaker 1: massive majority, and he looks completely defeated. Resisternaki looks as
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  Speaker 1: if he doesn't want to be there. I think he's
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  Speaker 1: thinking about his next job in Silicon Valley. But it's
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  Speaker 1: a very sad end for the Tory Party's fourteen years
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  Speaker 1: of power.
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  Speaker 2: There are predictions hard to fathom that the Tories could
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  Speaker 2: see their three hundred and forty four seats chipped down
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  Speaker 2: to just one hundred in Britain's six hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 2: seat House of Commons. That would be worse than the
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  Speaker 2: conservatives nadir the nineteen oh six election when they were
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  Speaker 2: reduced to just one hundred and fifty six seats. Coming
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  Speaker 2: up the populist firebrand who's stealing all suon acts thunder.
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  Speaker 2: The Australian's full of expert analysis from politics to business.
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  Speaker 2: We'd love you to join our subscribers and always be
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  Speaker 2: the smartest person in the room. Check us out at
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  Speaker 2: the Australian dot com dot a U and we'll be
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: back after this break. There's certainly a dynamic voice on
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: the Conservative side of UK politics. But it's not one
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: of the Tories. It's Nigel Farage, the populist anti europe
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: campaigner who's now turned his attention to securing Britain's borders.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Nigel Farage really came on the scene to advocate for
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Britain's exit from the European Union really before it was popular.
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  Speaker 1: In many ways. One of the reasons that David Cameron
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: called the Brexit referendum in twenty sixteen was to head
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  Speaker 1: off Nigel Farage doing what Nigel Farage appears to be
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  Speaker 1: doing no, which is completely gobbling up the Tory vote. No.
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  Speaker 1: He ended up doing very well when he ford something
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  Speaker 1: called the Brexit Party when Theresa mel was failing to
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  Speaker 1: get in Brexit done. And he ran again obviously in
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, but didn't do very well because Boris Johnson
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  Speaker 1: managed to get a lot of that vote that he
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  Speaker 1: was taking back. But this time he's been able to
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  Speaker 1: really establish himself as a very very powerful voice. He
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  Speaker 1: has made a major stumble though, I think, in that
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  Speaker 1: he's basically revealed himself as soft on.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: Putting hang on a second. We provoked this war, of course,
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: it's his fault he's used but we provoked the invasion.
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  Speaker 4: And very interestingly, once again ten years ago, what I
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: predicted this? By the way, I'm the only person in
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: British politics that predicted what would happen, and of course
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: everyone said I was a pariah for daring to suggest it.
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  Speaker 1: He said that the EU had a lot to blame
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: for the situation in Ukraine, and I think a lot
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  Speaker 1: of traditional Tories who are very anti Russia and very
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: pro Ukraine may be turned off by that. So I
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: think that was a mistake on his part. But things
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  Speaker 1: are looking good for him. He's running in Clacton, which
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: is a seaside town which has the second oldest population
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  Speaker 1: of the electorates in Britain, so I think he'd have
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  Speaker 1: a very good chance there. But famously he did say
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: before he decided to run in selection, which was not
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  Speaker 1: a sure thing, he said, do I really want to
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: spend every weekend in Clacton? Well, they see what they've
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: WoT to say about that.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Richard Ferguson is The Australian's National Chief of Staff. You
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  Speaker 2: our subscribers at the Australian dot com, dot au