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Ep 4: Tax talk, Clare and are you British!? · The Common Sense Revolution Podcast

• Gavin Megaw: This week, more in common put the Conservative Party on 23 points, a point ahead of reform on 22, but both behind Labour's 26. That's reform's joint lowest score in 18 months. And Nigel Farage's unfavorability rating has reached 69%, which is a record for him. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are weighing up a pledge to abolish inheritance tax, and reform want to take nearly 3 million people out of income tax, while Labour are talking about mansion taxes. And tourism taxes. Rissy Sunak has written in the Sunday Times that Britishness must not become a DNA test. The Lib Dems have packed up in Brighton where Ed Davy served fish and chips on the Palace Pier and called for a world treaty to halt superintelligent AI. Labour meet in Liverpool on Sunday, and Westminster cannot stop asking whether Andy Burnham goes to the country in November. It's been a very busy week. Welcome. to the Common Sense Revolution podcast. Every week, three former Conservative Central Office hands try to work out whether the Tory party is repairing itself or falling apart. I'm Gavin McGaugh and I'm joined as ever by Patrick Kidd and Peter Franklin. Welcome guys. Patrick: Morning, Gavin. Peter: Welcome. Gavin Megaw: Right, look, we've got a lot to cover today. There's been a load of talk around taxes, where we'll start, I think. We'll also get into the libdems and we'll also finish up maybe with Rishi Sunak's piece in the Sunday Times around Britishness But Patrick, let's get into taxes. Patrick: I've been keen for us to start focusing on the economic arguments. mean, this is, we need to be looking at what's going to make a difference to people's quality of living, their standard of living. And the Tories have started talking about several taxes. We're going to have more coming into their conference. They've got to present an economic recipe. They've got to say the country is not working, people are not being encouraged to work and that their solutions will boost productivity by getting people back. the run-up to the budget is going to be massive. We're already expecting it to be painful and I think this really sets out a way of difference between the main parties. Gavin Megaw: Patrick, what you've said there is really off the moment in the sense that this debate is becoming more and more between welfare and then taxation. So welfare cuts is what the Conservative Party are pushing for. We see more stuff today around universal credit levels being changed, from Kemi Badenok. and Andrew Griffiths has been out during the week attacking Labour. for a number of potential tax rises, particularly on mansion taxation and also tourism tax. We're seeing real dividing grounds here between the Tories pushing hard for welfare cuts and Labour, potentially putting in place several different rather small beer taxation events to try and get through a very difficult economic situation. Peter: Especially interesting to me is the divide between the Conservatives and Reform. The Conservatives, both parties are offering tax cuts, but they're very different tax cuts, right? Reform are concentrating on lower income voters and they're doing that by saying they'll raise the income tax threshold. Whilst conservatives, as you said, are mulling the abolition of inheritance tax. That will primarily benefit, I guess, richer households and the people that might inherit from them. But clearly there is a class divide there. And it was quite interesting to see reform actually call the inheritance tax abolition idea. immoral and that's from reform which is led by a a clique of libertarians who absolutely hate tax and want to see them slashed everywhere. So it's interesting to see both parties lead into a class divide. Gavin Megaw: Yes. I d I I find it fascinating, particularly in terms of the home counties, because it feels to me as if the Tories are really trying to put together an economic package which is going to be attractive in the home counties in a way that they failed at the last election to bring the home counties with them and the Lib Dems really swept up there. So if you look at the different elements where the Tories are on the front foot, inheritance tax, definitely something that play well in the home counties. The mansion tax, absolutely, particularly in the south of England. so I I think this is really fascinating that they have decided to go quite hard on this quickly. and I can see it working in these types of areas. Peter: That's absolutely right because if you look at a calculation of which constituencies are most exposed to inheritance tax, then of the top 50, 17 are liberal Democrats. Almost all of them are in the South, of course. 17 are Lib Dem, 20 are Labour. and only 11 are conservative, which shows you how many well-heeled constituencies the conservatives have lost. So in the past, most of those would have been conservative. So I think the conservatives have spotted a real opportunity here. And with Labour obviously targeting the South and obviously targeting property for a tax raid, then I think they're really on to something. Gavin Megaw: Yeah, it's a real dividing grind, isn't it? And an opportunity for the Tories to push hard because people are angry about this, really, really angry. Patrick, how do you see this playing out Patrick: Well, I think they do have to be careful not to be... too heavily on the side of those who really have immense wealth. I mean, they've got to protect those interests. But on the mansion tax, I got really quite annoyed at a tweet from Andrew Griffith this week where he was using the fictitious example of a young woman called Claire who has a flat, a very small flat, apparently it only has one bedroom and a sort of enough room for a put me up in zone one. And she lives there because she doesn't like to travel by public transport to get to work. one and a half million and he's saying it's outrageous that Claire is going to be stuck with an extra couple of thousand on the Manchester Act. I actually thought... I would use a rude word about Claire here. If you're a young person in the one and a half million pound flat, then you can bloody well move out to zone four and try and travel in on the Northern line. Where people have been really stung, and I know I'm speaking as a middle-aged man here, so I have my own interests, is families who have made a base in the Southeast. They've seen property prices increase massively. They don't want to sell. They can't sell. They've got their children in schools and things like that. They don't actually have much disposable cash. not living in zone one. And that's where the trap of the mansion tax comes in for people who threw no choice of their own about where they move. mean, Claire, if she's living in a one and a half million pound flat, knew exactly what she was getting. The choice should be on the side of the ones who are trying to do the right thing and have been wronged. So I think Claire should be told to go off to Morden or somewhere. we should be looking at those who, one and a half million in certain suburban areas doesn't get you a huge amount of house. Gavin Megaw: Yeah, the I d I'm not sure to Morden is the policy idea or paper that Andrew Griffiths really wants to write, but I do accept your point because I think the attack on Labour on that should have been around hardworking people doing everything they can to put their families in good positions and now facing yet another tax increase. and they've seen it on different fronts. You know, a lot of parents putting their kids into private schools are not rich people, they're just middle classes trying to work hard to get the best for their kids. And they often live in these areas, have huge mortgages, and they're now facing something else. And I think focusing in on that would have been a smarter play, but also the hardworking service industry around it. You know, people will not be putting money into the property in the sense of developing it, in the sense of adding more value to it, because they'll be worried about additional taxation if they reach the threshold that Labour set the new mansion tax at. And I think that's very, very dangerous for the economy. and I think it would have been an easier attack for Andrew Griffiths and the team. Though I will have to say it does please me to see politicians on both sides getting out quickly and trying to have a debate on things because we went through a period where they didn't really do that. At least that's happening again. Patrick: think you're absolutely right, Gavin. It's things like home improvements. If there's no incentive to make your house potentially more valuable or just nicer to live in. But also... it's more expensive to do home improvements now. The cost of materials has increased massively. And so people are really feeling squeezed on all sorts of levels. And if they just think scrimping and saving and trying to get that extra bedroom conversion done and then being punished for it, they just won't. And so that's money not going into the service sector. Gavin Megaw: Peter, talk us through what reform have proposed in terms of income tax, because it does sound a little bit far fetched coming from them. Peter: Well, what they've done is they're going to put up the threshold, i.e. the income level at which you start paying income tax to 15,000 pounds a year. It's about, I don't know, it's a few thousand lower than that at the moment. That will take, as you said before, millions of people out of income tax, which sounds wonderful. But two problems. Firstly, it narrows the tax base. So you've got millions of people that just don't care what the Income Tax level is, the rates, because they're not paying it anyway. And the second problem is that it's enormously expensive. And at a time when the money markets are looking at Britain, looking at our national finances and say, this country is, you know, it looks... you know, like it's teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. So let's whack up the rate at which we lend money to the government. That worsens our fiscal position and makes us look even a dodgier proposition than we were before. So all of this talk of tax cuts, and it's not just conservatives and reform. as we might come onto, the Lib Dems are getting in on the Act too, and in a funny sort of way, Labour too. Maybe we can talk about that too. It's this ridiculous auction of promises that totally ignores the fiscal, dire fiscal position that this country is in. And it's so irresponsible. Gavin Megaw: We have the irony though that we've heard this week that both Andy Burnham and Healy weren't a hundred percent sure about just how bad it was when they came in. And I I just think that's one fascinating, but also so worrying. But also what I find interesting about it is that we're not really seeing significant changes to the fiscal situation being proposed. They're not there's no rolling the pit. For some big announcements. It's all small beer. It's all relatively small amounts of of taxation, but that will hurt certain parts of the country that they're going after. And I think that's really bad, not only for those parts of the country, but it's an opportunity for the Tories that, by the way. But it's really bad for the whole country and the situation you've just outlined, Peter, because no one's getting real about the problem. And we were told Andy Burnham would do it differently. He's gonna have to do it very, very differently based on these first few weeks, when it comes to taking tough choices fiscally. Peter: Absolutely. Of course, they're haunted. by the experience of the Stammer government where Rachel Reeves, who was then chancellor, came in with a very negative outlook. Blamed it all on the conservatives, of course, and made up this mythical black hole in the country's finances. And, but she created such a sort of doom laden prediction for the country that people think that that alone has helped to tank growth. So, Burnham came in and it was all sort of roses and sunshine with him. And, you know, then they discover, take a good look at the figures. and they discover that, dear, we're gonna have to somehow raise money, whilst at the same time, find enough money to buy off their voters in case of a early election. So that means a lot more handouts. It might mean some tax cuts targeted at the low paid, but they are suddenly waking up to reality. And that in itself, the fact that they've done this publicly, really doesn't help the country's credibility. Patrick: I would add. I can see why we're from attacking the bottom end, but actually all the brackets need to move up. And one of the big... damages of growth is the 100,000 cliff edge when you start paying a 60 % tax that disincentivizes people from working harder and I think the Tories should be looking at increasing that. I mean if we're to have the triple lock for pensions I really don't understand why the same thing can't apply to people who are generating money to the workers. It should just become It shouldn't become harder each year because it's not keeping up with inflation. The other thing is Robert Jenrick has promised to resign. He has said if he doesn't, in his first budget, Peter: Yes. Patrick: deliver these cuts to income tax or the raising of the threshold, then he will go. mean, that's interesting. We've often heard politicians make big pledges saying that they will resign if they don't win on certain issues. Nigel Farage once said he would resign if he didn't win South Thanet for UKIP. And he didn't win South Thanet and he did resign and then the party told him they didn't want his resignation. So I mean you could see that maybe happening with Robert Jenrick that he would symbolically resign and then they would say no actually you'll pull it together. But you know putting your reputation on the line matters. But will Jenrick be there? The MRP poll we've seen this morning from the Times and Sky shows that Jenrick and Suella Braferman would both lose their seats. maybe we should just talk a little about this but I know polls are polls and MRP polls people have differing views on whether they are credible but a year ago that was showing reformer heading for a landslide that's now got them down to winning fewer seats than the conservatives still 120 massively up from the eight that they have now we keep on forgetting they only have eight MPs but you know it is showing the country is heading for a a split parliament and one where probably the Greens and the Lib Dems are going to have to prop up Labour. Gavin Megaw: What's had the effect on reforms vote share there or and number of seats? Do you think it's Labour and Andy Burnham and a bit of a bounce from that? Or is it reform's own behaviour which has dragged it down? Patrick: They seem to have taken it equally or lost equally to Labour and the Conservatives. I think there's a competence thing. think possibly Kemi is making the Conservatives look a little bit more credible. I think Farage is definitely the whiff of scandal. I said before that I'm not sure this 72 million actually helps them because I think such huge amounts of sums being given by people in industries that no one really understands like cryptocurrency may make some people think something's dodgy going on, even if there isn't. But I think also just the more they get to see them, the less they like. Gavin Megaw: what's the MRP poll say about the Lib Dems? Because they had their conference last week. but despite that, we saw some other polling where people were asked to describe the Lib Dems in a word or two before the conference. And the sort of the biggest answers were things like don't know and not sure. so they look pretty irrelevant. But that said, they are doing pretty well in the seats that they had gotten into at the last election in terms of grassroots movements of getting people out to understand who the Lib Dems are, haven't they? Peter: Yeah, absolutely. Although, you know, having a look at that MLP pole, it shows very little change for the Lib Dems. They're still on 70 odd seats in the same places. So for the moment, they look, if not exactly solid, then fairly stable. However, I think there's a definite sign that the Lib Dems are worried about the Conservatives and the tax pledges. And we saw this extraordinary attempt by Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, to almost outdo reform on taxes. Not only did they promise also to raise the threshold to 15,000 pounds, they also promised to raise the threshold at which the higher rates of income tax comes in. And that was about by 6,000, which is quite a lot. So they are promising now, unusually for Lib Dems, a huge amount of tax cuts. yes, and also fuel duty cuts too. So that's a major package of cuts. And the most extraordinary thing, is how they say they're going to fund it. They're to fund it by effectively reversing Brexit. They want to join the customs union and the single market, right? Now, there are some economic models that show that Brexit has cost us something like 8 % of GDP. Those are absolute nonsense. Everyone knows they're nonsense because If you compare our our actual GDP to our European neighbours, we've mostly held our own, right? We've all done equally badly, actually. That's the story of the last decade. Now, if you assume that our GDP would be considerably higher than if we hadn't left the EU, that would presuppose that a remain Britain massively outperformed our European neighbours. There is absolutely no economic basis for believing that to be true. It's pure nonsense. And even if you do believe it, you have to assume that somehow Britain could rejoin in a sufficient period of time Gavin Megaw: Yeah. Peter: to allow the Alibden government to fund these promised tax cuts. It's a Jenga pile of absolute nonsense and really Ed Davey and his party should be ashamed of putting this forward because it makes reforms economic policy look credible. I'm amazed there hasn't been Gavin Megaw: Yeah. Peter: more coverage because it is, and I'm sorry to use the word, it is coddler's. Gavin Megaw: Yes, but it's probably sensible politics, isn't it? I mean, look, all the parties are living Clyde Cuckoo land in terms of taxation and the real fiscal situation in this country. No one is telling the truth. Not one party. I mean, even the Conservative Party have started talking about, yeah, we're going to remove welfare expenditure, we're going to put it in defence. That's not enough on its own. There needs to be a reduction in expenditure and there needs to be more money coming in. And no one's telling the truth to the country. And the lip dams are just part of that. You can't just single them out, Peter. Peter: Well, it's a question of degree and, you know, weirdly the tax cuts that the Conservatives are promising are actually more modest than the Lib Dems in extent. So I never thought I'd live to see the day. But for the Lib Dems to go so far out on a limb on this, I think does show that they're genuinely worried. I think Ed Davey is worried about his position as leader as well. And as you say, the polls show that no one has got a clue what the Lib Dems stand for. So this, I suppose, is an attempt to cut through. But it doesn't work because at the same time, they lean to the centre-left on everything else. You can't have centre-left pledges on government expenditure. and centre-right tax cuts. It just doesn't add up. you know, this is Britain's most fraudulent party. Gavin Megaw: I did laugh recently when we got a we live in a Lib Dem seat that used to be conservative. The former conservative MP before the seat boundaries changed was useless. We never heard from him. he spent most of his time doing a a job alongside being an MP, and genuinely was shocking. the Lib Dems since they've come in are all over everyone. They have sent leaflets out regularly, but the leaflets say things like conservative economic chaos in one corner and then are saying we're going to fund all these things over here with in another and it's it's incoherent. I accept that. But it works because they're a bit like bamboo in your garden, the lip dems. Once they get in, it's so hard to get them out. Isn't that right, Patrick? Patrick: Yeah, and it must be very frustrating for them because they have nine times as many MPs as Reform do and yet they struggle to get any attention. mean, the Times and the Telegraph barely covered their party conference and they are the papers of Tory voters who might be wavering between Lib Dems and Conservative and so they have to do slightly wacky things. The Tempe fuel tax was fascinating because I remember back to when we were at central office when I was the transport research officer and we very briefly briefly took the lead in the polls over fuel tax, but that was over promising a 1p cut. And I remember the arguments that went on for ages. Michael Portillo was then the Shadow Chancellor. insistent that we had to find savings to fund this one P cut, some wanted to go as far as two P, you know, there was a real rigour to try and make it look like a credible policy. And the Lib Dems have just bumped up and I know this is 20 years on, but even so a 10 P cut is significant. But also they said it would only apply to the end of the year and they're not actually in government. So it was a completely pointless policy. They were effectively calling for the government to take the slack on this. I do worry for the Lib Dems' that they still have some social issues that are really going to play badly with the Conservative voters. They had the vote on refusing to recognise the Supreme Court on trans issues and whether trans people can use women's toilets. I know an awful lot of Conservative voters really care about that and I think the Lib Dems are shooting themselves in the foot by making this such an issue. Gavin Megaw: Right, well let's let's move on to another issue which I'm sure a lot of conservative voters care about. And Richie Sunak wrote in the Sunday Times a really interesting piece about how Britain has been built on successful multi faith, multi ethnic democracy. but said it was under strain. Peter, you read this with interest, I know, and you also wrote a piece for Unheard in response to it, didn't you? Peter: Yes, mean Rishi's key point is that Britishness should not become a DNA test. Now what he meant by that is that there is some chat on the right and this is bubbling under rather than being much of a sort of mainstream party issue. But there is chat about what is Britishness. what is in particular Englishness? And a lot of people are saying, you know, again, I'm talking about, this is a very online conversation, but that, you know, Britishness and Englishness is essentially about ancestry. And that someone like Rishi Sunak is not in fact English because his ancestry is from know, South Asia, India, via, you know, the British Empire in East Africa. And that is, I think, a pretty poisonous conversation. And Rishi Sunak is absolutely right to be outraged that people are saying that he can't be English. You know, if your eyes were shut and you were listening to Rishi Sunak. You would never guess that he wasn't English. He sounds English, his mannerisms are English, his hot style is deeply English. And to say that people can't be English because, you know, their parents and grandparents came from somewhere else, I think is pretty poisonous. It's clearly wrong, but it's based on a confusion between... there's different aspects of any nationality. can be, know, ancestry is obviously one, deep history, right? Another is culture, which is much more recent. And the third one is civic nationality. Are you a citizen of a country? Do you have the rights and responsibilities that come with citizenship? And I think those three aspects, those three dimensions of nationality, in this debate are becoming hopelessly confused. Gavin Megaw: Yeah. I think it's all I think it's a very toxic area of debate, 'cause people go to extremes. And I've always been someone who initially was surprised at how diverse the Conservative Party's backing was when I first got involved in politics in the nineteen nineties, and how the Conservative Party were really on the side of allowing anyone in the UK, where no matter how they got here, to feel British and to be proud to be part of. A a British Isles that was moving forward in the world. but we've seen so much toxicity come into the play. And you know, I see this on a regular basis. Well, some of the other things I do professionally, where there are amazing people who have come to the UK in the last 10 years and who are actually prouder to be here than people who were born here, raised here. these people want to give back, they want to be putting time into civic society and into their communities and yet they can be dismissed. I think it's an absolute joke actually. And I really it's the area where reform are which really makes me cross. Peter: Well, let's be clear that Reform aren't saying that Rishi Sunak isn't British. They're not saying that being British should be a DNA test. And indeed, their likeliest next leader is Zia Youssef, who is of Sri Lankan and Muslim heritage. So they're not that sort of party, but there's a key wrinkle in all of this, which is people like Suella Bravaman is saying that she is British by citizenship, but she can't be English because of her heritage. And what she's doing there, and she's not the only one, there are other people. who are saying that, like you, Britishness is something that is inclusive, but Englishness is something that's ethnic. Now there's an obvious problem with that argument, which is that, say the UK broke up, right, and England Patrick: Thank Peter: was once again a sovereign state, you'd have to have an English citizenship. are people that follow Suella Bravaman's argument saying that she couldn't be an English citizen or that Rishi Sunak couldn't be an English citizen. That's an obvious nonsense. Gavin Megaw: But Patrick, there is a the Norman Tebet cricket team test was something we heard a lot about in the past. And I know you write a lot about cricket. Patrick: Yeah, so the Tebbit test was first posited in the 1980s, bizarrely in an interview with the LA Times that Tebbit gave, and he said that a test of true integration was whether you supported the country where you live, not your ethnic background. So if you're an Indian who we brought up in England, you should be supporting England. He actually tempered it 15 or so years later when there were a lot of Asians coming into the... into the England cricket team and saying that he thought integration was now happening and it was a good sign. But I think being proud of your background isn't actually a bad thing. I remember Tulip Siddique, the Labour MP who has connections in Bangladesh, saying in the Commons that she was often asked who she supported at cricket and she said, well being English I always support the underdog and so therefore I tend to support England. which I thought was a rather nice and a very English sort of understated self-deprecation actually. But you know have a very good university friend who was born and brought up in Bradford, the son of Indian immigrants and he is very much, when it's India versus England, he will support India but he will support England otherwise and I think that's good. I think the true Tebbit test is whether you like cricket. If you like cricket then you're in. And the sign that Ed Miliband was never going to become Prime Minister was when he said he preferred baseball to cricket. Gavin Megaw: Yeah. Look I can Peter: That is poor. That is very poor. Gavin Megaw: I can say this honestly, chaps. I don't want to be English. I'm very proud to be Northern Irish and I have no interest in becoming English, despite having lived in this country for more than more time than I lived in Northern Ireland. but look, with this this is a toxic area, and I get why Rishi's writing this because there's he's trying to create an intellectual route through everything we're hearing, particularly in terms of People coming into the country now sometimes illegally, and he's trying to create a more cohesive approach to that. so so the reality is this is an intellectual argument, isn't it? It's not something which is really going to change votes. Peter: actually think it might because there's an equal and opposite error here that rarely gets up a lot of people's noses which is that there is no such thing as English ancestry, English ethnicity, English indigenaity. I think it's wrong although I don't see that as the only dimension of Englishness. It is a dimension of Englishness. and I think it's wrong to deny it. For instance, the EU only recognizes one indigenous people in Europe, right? And those are the, that's the Sami people, or what we used to call the Lacklanders, right? That is a crazy official designation. And it makes the great Gavin Megaw: Yeah. Peter: majority of native Europeans feel, this is our home, of course. Of course we come from here, of course we're indigenous to here. I think it's a basic matter of respect to recognise that. Not to limit Englishness to that, but to recognise that the majority of people living in this country are deeply, deeply rooted in this country's national story. Here's a fun fact for you. If you're a native English, if you're an ancestral English person, you've had relatives here going back a long way, do you know what proportion of people in the early middle ages you are related to? All of them. You are descended by all the sort of 1066 people that were here and have descendants to the modern day. If you're English, ethnically English, you're related to literally all of them. Those connections are real. Those connections might count for something and course they should be recognised. Gavin Megaw: I'm very maybe I'm a bit too new thinking on this, but I don't think this is complicated. I think if you feel in English and you want to be English and you're giving something back in England to the community, then you can be English no matter where you come from, what your background is, anything. And you look at things like the football team, the English football team is a great example of this. And I know some people will say, Gavin's being woke and all of this, but it is. It's fantastic, you know, coming together of people who've Backgrounds in lots of different places, but their families are here and they've been brought up here and they are part of this the English country and they have English heritage as a result. So I just think we overcomplicate this. I think we it's it's it's the difference between a CRD policy man, Peter, and yourself, and a comms guy here. Patrick: Yeah. Gavin Megaw: where I think that the real people are not really getting into the intellectual argument. And when they say, yes, this is what I think about Englishes, it changes when they speak to someone else who maybe has a slightly different background. But they see them as English. And I think if people want I think it's it's a sell you you decide whether you're English in my view. I think that should be the rule. It's not up to other people to say. Patrick: think you could make a very Peter: Thank you. Patrick: good Englishman Gavin. There is just an interesting point I would make Gavin Megaw: Never, never. Peter: sure about. Patrick: on this. which is the tool is being used that some people just can't ever be English. And when Labour announced their candidate for the Hobernuss and Pankras by-election, Zia Youssef was very quick to point out that she was a Somalian refugee. He didn't talk about whether she was a lousy counsellor. She may be, I have no idea. But he just said, do you see what's going on here? And my thoughts went to another Somalian refugee, one who was knighted, who won several gold medals competing in the vest for our country. of course is Mo Farah and and you know are we going to say that he is not not English because he wasn't born here? I can see Peter doing his Mobot sign right now. Gavin Megaw: Mm-hmm. Patrick: I think it's how you buy in and you know should she win in Hoban and St Pancras this can be judged on how she behaves not her background or... how she looks and Zia Youssef, you know, as you said, he came here as the child of Sri Lankan refugees. Actually, he was born in Scotland, so maybe he's not English either, but he certainly likes to talk about British values and I congratulate him for that. Peter: I just come in and say that I do agree with what both Gavin and Patrick said, except that when you talk about people integrating, you've got to be conscious as to what they are integrating into and where it came from. And that deserves respect and recognition too. so, you know, and leaving that undefined or even worse, problematizing it. only sort of talking at it negatively, the sins of the British Empire and all of that, you are creating a space for the extreme right to start exploiting. So I would absolutely urge the multiculturalists just to be cautious and to remember, you know, what is the base population here? What are we, you know, what is this family that we've we've become and understanding the origins is as important as understanding the present day and the future. Gavin Megaw: okay, well, I think we should probably draw this all to a conclusion before anyone gets cancelled, Peter. that's let's get into whether the Conservative Party is up or down in the last week. That's what we always do, and I think it's still important to do. So Peter, let's start with you. Is it an up week or down week? Peter: definitely up the polling evidence this week that shows in some polls, not all of them, but the Conservatives moving into second place. That's enormously encouraging and you know a few weeks ago I wrote an article saying that an early election would be a disaster for the Conservatives because they'd lose their position as the official opposition. That's no longer the case maybe. So yeah. we're much more hopeful than we were a few weeks ago. So up, up, Patrick: I got a text from a friend who's a Labour MP this week saying that he is starting to think there'll be a November general election and part of that is because things will only get worse for Labour and they want to cut and run. I think the fact, I don't think it would suit the Tories to have an early election so the fact that they're moving up in the polls may make Burnham think again and that's good for them so therefore a slight gain. As David Davis said last week they need to get their organisation, their fundraising and their operation moving before they can be ready for an early election. Gavin Megaw: Yeah. I think with Labour Party conference up next, I have absolutely no doubt that Bernon and his team will be planning something big for conference. Now what that is, we don't know. So I think the Conservative Party moving into a healthier position, now it's still nowhere near where they used to be, but it's healthier than it has been for a while in the polls. that's a very good week for Kemi Badenog and the party. And I think also the dividing grounds are becoming much, much clearer. I think Labour pushing this story out to roll the the pitch in terms of the mansion tax being decreased to a a lower level is very, very dangerous for them in the south. And I think they're sort of writing areas off really. and that's interesting for the conservatives again, particularly where they can maybe have a louder voice in the Lid Dems. So I think it's been a good week, but I would just say this. Labour will not be going into their conference quietly. There must be something big. And if there's not something big, they're in real, real trouble. Right. Let's get on to our recommendations. I'm gonna start this week, if that's okay. I have read for the second time actually, the book by Graham Brady. So, sir, Graham Brady, Lord Brady now, called Kingmaker, which is about his time as chairman of what's really the the trade union. Of Conservative MPs, the 1922 committee. And I just find it fascinating. I think Graham's a really interesting person, someone we should definitely get on the podcast soon. and it just pulls out so many interesting stories about his interactions with prime ministers and the media and him not actually giving any answers away to how many letters he'd received, etc., throughout this period. So I really warmly encourage everyone to have a read of Kingmaker by Graham. 'Cause it just reveals a lot of what happens behind the scenes and anyone who's interested in politics is interested in that type of thing. Peter, what about you? Peter: Well I'd like to have recommended the war game on Sky, which is a sort of simulation of a situation in which Russia was attacking Britain and they gather together a range of retired politicians. mean you've got Michael Gove standing in as Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister is Nicola Sturgeon. You've got you've got various other sort of well-known politicians there and it's supposed to simulate an emergency for the country. I thought it wasn't that good, I've only seen the first episode. I just didn't think it was a plausible scenario. Yes. Gavin Megaw: Can I jump in there, Peter, and say I listened to the podcast, which came first, set up by Tortoise and Sky, and Deborah Haynes was behind it, I think. it's really worth going and finding. It is really, really good. So go back and and there was different people around the table. so a different prime minister, different home secretary, a different foreign secretary, like Jack Straw Peter: Okay. Gavin Megaw: was the foreign secretary, things like that. So Go back and check out the podcast because it is really, really good. And I think it brought up some interesting questions for Britain today. Peter: Okay, well certainly. What I can recommend however, also from Sky Stroke HBO and streaming on Now TV, this is quite an old drama now, but it's Chernobyl. And this week I've been watching it for the first time. It is stunning. It is a, well, it's a dramatization of the Chernobyl meltdown in the nuclear disaster in 1986 in the Soviet Union. It is not an easy watch, it is deeply harrowing, but my goodness, is it a sort of fantastic portrait of institutional failure? Every politician in this country should watch it again because it tells some universal truths, not just about communism, but about how institutions go wrong. Gavin Megaw: Patrick. Patrick: Yeah, my cultural recommendation as ever this week is a play I reviewed for the Sunday Times last weekend called Golden Boy, which is on at the Almeida. It's superb. I give it five stars. Gavin Megaw: Is is this about Peter? Patrick: It is about Peter, yeah. it's written in the 1930s by Clifford Odetz, who's sort of that Tennessee Williams sort of style of writing about a young boy in America or a young man who is an immensely talented violinist but decides he wants to become a boxer because that's where the money and the fame is. The character is played by Josh O'Connor, who you may remember from The Crown playing Prince Charles, and he is superb. It's his first stage appearance in a... It's brilliantly put together. I haven't got time to go into some of the wonderful stagecraft, but it is sold out, but coming to National Theatre Live in cinemas in November and will be on their website. I really recommend it. And from a conservative point of view, it gives you the challenge of chasing wealth and fame is great, but actually do you lose something in your soul and your heart by leaving behind what you love? And we should always remember that if we have talents from making people happy... then we should also pursue that. Gavin Megaw: lovely. Well, look, thank you all. And that's it for the Common Sense Revolution podcast for this week. Next week, Libra will have been to Liverpool for their conference and the Tories will be a days away from going to Birmingham for theirs. So we'll have a look at the conference season, what can go right, what usually goes wrong, and whether there's still such a thing as a conference bounce. So whether there has ever been such a thing as a conference bounce. Subscribe, please, and leave us a review if you can, because that's how people find us. See you next week.