Latest / The Fourcast / ‘A huge HOWL OF ANGER’ - will Labour force Starmer out after election disaster?

Transcript

‘A huge HOWL OF ANGER’ - will Labour force Starmer out after election disaster? · The Fourcast

• 0:00
  This is a huge howl of anger and frustration by the public.
• 0:04
  It it, it seems to be driven by no love for the Prime Minister,
• 0:08
  but also no real sense of hope in the populist parties either,
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  or just had anguish that things aren't working very well as a
• 0:15
  country, we. Just had mistake after mistake.
• 0:17
  You know, every month there's another one you needed someone
• 0:20
  in #10 with a bit of political mouse.
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  A lot of the time he'll do something then, then, then he'll
• 0:24
  get spooked and he'll undo it or he'll go back again.
• 0:27
  And I think this sense that he's sort of trying to be Prime
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  Minister for everyone, he's ended up being Prime Minister
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  for no one at all. Hello and welcome to this
• 0:37
  special edition of The Forecast here in Westminster as results
• 0:41
  come in from the local and national elections across the
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  UK. So Keir Starmer is defiant and
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  says he will not resign despite the devastating Labour losses.
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  But will Labour MPs force him out whether he likes it or not?
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  And what would this even do for Labour's fortunes as the rise of
• 0:59
  Nigel Farage's Reform UK and Zach Polanski's Green Party
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  appears to have ushered in a major realignment of British
• 1:06
  politics, an end to the two party system.
• 1:09
  So to discuss I'm joined by Keir Starmer's former chief of staff,
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  Sam White, Labour MP and former shadow chancellor John
• 1:16
  McDonnell, and political strategist and pollster Scarlett
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  McGuire. John, you're not calling for
• 1:23
  Keir Starmer to go. You're saying a period of
• 1:24
  reflection, but you don't think he's the one to lead you out
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  with this guess? When he won the election I said
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  look, give him his chance and that's what I've adhered to all
• 1:33
  the way through. So I've never called for him to
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  resign. My line has been consistent.
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  The results are pretty grim. So I've been saying, look, don't
• 1:41
  panic. Just Labour MPs and others just
• 1:43
  don't panic. Can we just have a period in
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  which we do a proper analysis of what's happened?
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  What have we got in this situation?
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  What mistakes have we made? What positives there are?
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  What lessons do we need to learn and what do we need to do?
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  And everything needs to be on the agenda.
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  And I've said that, yeah, the leadership is banned, inevitably
• 2:01
  going to be on the agenda. I'm, I'm opposed to any coups
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  taking place. You know, I'll challenge some
• 2:08
  way Streeting or Angie Raine or whatever.
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  That's the last thing we want. But if the leadership is on the
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  agenda and our party members decide there should be a change,
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  we should have a democratic debate and discussion about
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  that. And if Kia has to go, well,
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  let's have an orderly transition to a new leadership.
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  But the most important message I'm getting out there, this is
• 2:26
  pretty horrific in terms of the results.
• 2:28
  Briefly, because we'll come back to this, but why?
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  What are the headlines for why? I think first of all, we we
• 2:34
  haven't been radical enough in the policies that we've
• 2:37
  advocated. That's from my perspective.
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  Secondly, I don't think we've communicated very effectively.
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  In addition to that, we just had mistake after mistake.
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  You know, every month there's another one and it on the
• 2:49
  doorstep. You get to people remember these
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  things and just people say, look, that's not what Labour
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  government should be doing. And as a result, I think people
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  have lost a bit of confidence in Kier.
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  Sam, I mean Kier Salmer himself said.
• 3:00
  We made mistakes. We haven't communicated.
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  We didn't give people hope. Is he capable of turning it
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  around? He himself.
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  This is going to be a difficult turn around, absolutely no
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  question. If I had a pound for every time
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  I've been told Keir's out for the count, I'd be able to pay
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  off the national debt myself. I went to work for him in mid
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  2021, just after the Hartlepool defeat.
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  You know, we're back to -10 the polls.
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  I was told there's no point going in.
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  There's absolutely no way someone can come back from this
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  and we came back from this. So, you know, I think don't
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  count him out. He's highly resilient I think my
• 3:38
  analysis of this election. I'll be interested hear what
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  what Scarlett thinks from her polling is.
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  This is a huge howl of anger and frustration by the public.
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  This might be the most protesty of protesty elections I've ever
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  seen. It it it seems to be driven by,
• 3:56
  as you rightly imply, no love for the Prime Minister, but also
• 3:59
  no real sense of hope in the populist parties either.
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  More just the at anguish that things aren't working very well
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  as a country and haven't been for a decade and a half and
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  things aren't turning around fast enough.
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  You went and I won't get the reasons why you went or
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  whatever, but you needed someone in #10 with a bit of political
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  nouse who when some of these ideas came up like the winter
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  fuel allowance, someone just had a bit of political nouse and
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  said can you rethink that? Two child limit was always going
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  to be contestable, particularly amongst our traditional
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  supporters and those of us that said, look, we can't we can't
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  vote for this. You lose the whip.
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  I lost the whip for a year. After 12 months they're
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  introducing the policy. I lost the whip over and there
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  there was that lack of stability in the decision making.
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  You went, but you you went because people thought you were
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  too cautious. Actually, we needed a bit of
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  caution on avoiding the errors. Mandelson appointment.
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  Who in his right mind would have actually appointed Mandelson to
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  be honest? Of course that reflects on Kia,
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  but if any lesson comes out of this, at least he start.
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  Maybe he starts listening to people again.
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  Scarlets. So I mean, in terms of why, you
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  know, is it little individual missteps or big individual
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  missteps depending on how you see them or is it just public
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  fed up, years and years of struggle?
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  They want someone to blame. They're blaming Labour and the
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  Conservatives because the Conservatives are having a bad
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  day too. I think it's definitely both.
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  I mean, if you look at Keir Starmer, I do think it's quite
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  remarkable. And we, we've had this
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  conversation a couple of Times Now over the last few months.
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  But voters across the spectrum really dislike him and he unites
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  them in a particular view of him, which is that he is weak,
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  he doesn't stand for anything and that he has failed to
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  deliver the change that he stood on when he won that 2024
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  election. And you see that in voters all
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  the way from Green, Lib Dem, Labour, Conservative reform.
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  They, they, they really do all say the same thing about Keir
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  Starmer. It's very, very hard to and a
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  member of the public for something good to say about him
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  as a character, but. What?
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  What do they say about why? Because I've never quite
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  understood why people dislike him quite as much as they do.
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  So I think the weakness is important.
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  I think there's this sense that he U turns a lot.
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  U-turn is a word that comes off, comes up often and he
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  oscillates, I mean. People don't see that as
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  listening. Well, no, I don't think they do
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  at all. And as John said, I think that
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  there's this problem with Keir Starmer where the public
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  perceives that he doesn't stand for anything.
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  And I think quite a lot of the time he'll do something then,
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  then then he'll get spooked and he'll undo it or he'll go back
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  again. And I think this sense that he's
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  sort of trying to be Prime Minister for everyone.
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  He's ended up being Prime Minister for no one at all.
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  And that's where he is different from previous leaders like
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  Jeremy Corbyn or Boris Johnson, who always had people in their
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  camp. I mean, Sam, you know, the
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  question is if you have a diagnosis which is a combination
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  of these things, you know, some of it is beyond the party's
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  control, it's just the mood of the public, some of it is
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  mistakes. But overall it's a question of,
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  well, we haven't quite articulated what change is.
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  How does Labour decide what the change should be when it is
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  losing votes to both reform on one side and the Greens on the
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  other? Yeah, I mean, look, that is that
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  is the root of the problem. You're bleeding on both sides.
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  But you asked about the sort of diagnosis of it.
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  I have a slight different diagnosis, I think than we've
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  than anyone said quite yet. My diagnosis is the scale of the
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  problems in this country in 2024 were really bad.
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  You know, when I was in the Treasury 20 years ago, debt was
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  about 1/3 of GDP. Now it's about 100%.
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  You know, we're paying a hundred, 120 billion just to
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  finance the debt. That's the second largest
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  government department, right? There's a whole series of
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  problems, the longest waiting list of the NHS, schools
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  literally crumbling, no productivity gains for nearly 15
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  years, no increases in living standards, really 15 years, you
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  know, almost no investment since Brexit.
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  We have so many problems piling on top of each other.
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  And the government initially came in and started to make that
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  case. Kier made a speech in the Rose
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  Garden where he said, I'm going to level with the public.
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  This is absolutely diabolical. It's going to take a decade to
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  renew it. And then and then, and then we
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  somewhere online lost that, lost that message, lost that.
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  Message, but he's still. We started, we started to sound
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  like we're apologising. For but he's still there because
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  even today in his explanation of what's gone wrong, he was saying
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  this morning, I think we, we, you know, people understand that
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  the country was left in a bad way, but we didn't offer them
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  hope. Well, you know, you couldn't do
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  both, could you? You couldn't both say you really
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  need to understand how bad things are while really offering
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  a message. I think I.
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  Think you can because what you need to, the honest message that
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  the public needed to hear, and this is what really scares me at
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  the moment with the populist writing.
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  The honest message you need to hear was we've had 15 years of
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  really going backwards, you know, the decision not to invest
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  in the economy and have low productivity under the Osborne
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  years leading to the Brexit debate, which was a disaster for
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  Britain. That's cost us another eight ton
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  of our GDP. All of that is a serious
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  problem, but it's solvable. What you need is a steady
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  government that's given 10 years to turn around these things by
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  doing the difficult and long term things like in investment
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  infrastructure. I worked on Cross Road.
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  If I just if I just can, I worked on Cross Road 2004.
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  It is a bomb for transport special adviser and that opened
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  as Elizabeth line two years ago, right.
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  That's the sort of scale you need to be thinking about when
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  you're making investment in high productivity 250 infrastructure
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  gains. You cannot let the public think
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  this is going to be turned around.
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  In 5 minutes. I mean Obama is, is Obama right
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  when he says I think people understand how bad things were.
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  Do they? I think that that was why they
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  they gave Labour the majority they did was because they
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  thought things were really bad. And I think we can get a bit
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  distracted thinking, are Labour losing more to the Greens or are
• 9:28
  they losing more to reforms? Because actually, even though
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  Labour to reform switches and Labour to Green switches
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  disagree an awful lot of policy they have been, they actually,
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  there's a lot that they have in common which has driven them
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  away from the Labour Party. So if you look at those groups
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  of voters, they have much higher distrust in politicians, in the
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  institutions. They're much more likely to
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  think the economy is unfair. They're more likely, I think
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  things are unaffordable and they're more likely to think the
• 9:52
  system is rigged against them. And that's why I think a very
• 9:54
  good starting point is to go back and to look at some of the
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  fundamentals as to why they've gone, rather than talk about how
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  they're both difficult and populist in one way or another.
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  And to think about what what it was, why these voters voted for
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  Labour in the 1st place because they were deeply unhappy with
• 10:07
  the state of the country. And then what has since driven
• 10:09
  them away? The General.
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  View of getting the doorstep. The impression is nothing's
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  working for me, the system's not working for me.
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  And then if you don't have a government that says here's a
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  programme that will work and will explain to you in some
• 10:22
  detail and within the context and overall narrative, they lose
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  faith as well. That's the problem.
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  And when they lose faith in the mainstream parties, they go to
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  others. And for us, the big thing for me
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  is we've lost the progressive vote on the Persuasion UK report
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  2 days ago. So the people.
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  Who were going to the Greens? Yes, well, and.
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  And and the Libs now, so on the Persuasion UK report, what they
• 10:43
  said, they came up with all these issues just as we've
• 10:45
  discussed and they said, look, for every 10 Labour defectors to
• 10:49
  reform, 16 are going to parties to the left of us.
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  That means we're losing that progressive.
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  Vote These results today look like Is it some It's not.
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  And and that that slightly mistakes the problem.
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  The when you look at the loss of loss of our voters from 2024 to
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  the blocks to the left or blocks to the right, we're losing 17%
• 11:08
  to the right and 15% to the left.
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  So the idea there's a simple solution by moving left, it's
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  not an answer nor probably moving right.
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  It's a much more complex. I agree with that.
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  It's making sure that we're addressing those issues that are
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  facing, first of all, our progressive base, which has
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  always been our base, and then also those that have moved to
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  reform. There's some that have moved to
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  reform on Brexit that are beyond our reach now, but the others
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  actually are the ones that we can win on the same arguments we
• 11:37
  can use with the progressives, which is about is the system
• 11:40
  working for you? It's about wages, it's about
• 11:42
  being able to afford a roof over your head, whether it's rents or
• 11:44
  mortgages. And it's it is also about
• 11:47
  feeling that there's the public realm is properly invested in.
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  So. So are you agreeing with Sam
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  that it would be a mistake to identifiably move Labour to the
• 11:55
  left? No.
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  Because you would quite the reverse make it.
• 11:58
  Impossible I. Think you're wrong to bring?
• 11:59
  Back those people, I think. It's not about a radical.
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  So if it's about making sure we're addressing those issues
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  that that progressive base of ours need to address.
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  And they're very similar to a section that have gone to reform
• 12:14
  as well. And it's largely around the
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  system working for them. It's about the cost of living.
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  It's about wages. It's about making sure people
• 12:21
  can afford a roof over their heads.
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  It's making sure actually as well prices are controlled.
• 12:25
  Why do? You think sections are?
• 12:26
  There this. Progressive Alliance is not a
• 12:30
  runner for, you know, to save the Labour Party, you know that?
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  Or just explain why you think that's wrong, I mean.
• 12:36
  A number of reasons purely in in, in sort of mathematics, like
• 12:41
  if you got every single Switcher to the Greens and Lib Dems, you
• 12:44
  could not get a majority right. That would prevent the Labour
• 12:47
  Party getting a majority right. So that is not an electoral
• 12:50
  strategy. So no one's.
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  Saying that well. You appear to be saying we reach
• 12:55
  out more to to. To what I'm saying is we need to
• 12:57
  ensure that we're holding our progressive base because then
• 13:00
  actually what you can do is ensure you can make inroads into
• 13:03
  what we've lost to reform. We're losing our progressive
• 13:06
  base at the moment so. That I don't disagree with.
• 13:08
  I think as as as strongly. I think the way things are
• 13:11
  shaking out where you've got about 1/3 on the left, about 1/3
• 13:14
  on the right and about 1/3 in the centre and a third on the
• 13:16
  left and the third on the right, actually share a lot of world
• 13:20
  views around distrust in politics, distrust in
• 13:23
  institutions, companies, AI and actually the centre are quite
• 13:27
  different. The next election may well go to
• 13:30
  whoever can kind of maintain enough of their block and reach
• 13:33
  those centres, but. That's what we do.
• 13:34
  Do you think an established party, whether it's the Labour
• 13:38
  Party or the Conservatives, can address those people who have
• 13:42
  gone off to reform in the Greens because they no longer trust the
• 13:46
  establishment and they see those two parties as the
• 13:50
  establishment? I mean, maybe, maybe you know,
• 13:53
  in a couple of generations time you can bring them back.
• 13:56
  But by the next election, do you think it's possible to bring
• 13:58
  them back? So I think this is a huge
• 14:02
  protest election. Yeah, I think this is the most
• 14:05
  protesty emotion I have ever felt.
• 14:08
  Listening to focus groups or talking to people about it
• 14:11
  there, there is such a sense of frustration that people have
• 14:14
  lashed out. I don't think that's the same as
• 14:16
  saying this is the new permanence.
• 14:18
  And I think a lot of people have jumped the gun to say this is
• 14:20
  the end of two pipe politics. This is the new world
• 14:23
  Scarlett's. Putting her face why I.
• 14:25
  I don't agree. I I think that this is just the
• 14:28
  latest in a long stream of electoral evidence that we've
• 14:31
  had that the two main parties are falling behind.
• 14:34
  And I actually just did this big piece of research before the
• 14:36
  local elections. And I think it's just, you know,
• 14:39
  the Labour and Conservative parties want to turn their
• 14:41
  fortunes around. I think they have to understand
• 14:42
  the reality of the landscape. And the reality of that
• 14:45
  landscape is this might only be the beginning of the fracturing
• 14:48
  of our politics. So we did this research with
• 14:51
  Charles B strategy. We we asked Green and Reform
• 14:54
  voters, if these parties let you down, what will you do?
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  Only 14 that is one 4% say they would go back to Labour and
• 15:02
  Conservatives. 1/3 of them said they would look for something
• 15:05
  new again, you know, and then the rest of it was a mix of stay
• 15:08
  with those parties, not vote, stay at home.
• 15:10
  But there is so much reluctance in that part of the electorate
• 15:14
  just to go back to how it was before.
• 15:16
  And I think you know, yes, these are protests.
• 15:18
  This is a protest vote. This is a protest set of local
• 15:21
  elections. But the last general election
• 15:22
  was actually also a protest. You're.
• 15:24
  Saying they can't come back within three years I'm.
• 15:26
  Not saying they can't come back, but something very fundamental
• 15:28
  would need to change and at the moment the odds look stacked
• 15:31
  against them to come back. And I'm not saying the
• 15:34
  complacent argument that we do nothing and they come back.
• 15:36
  I don't think that's true at all.
• 15:37
  You have to earn them back. But I also think there's an
• 15:39
  element of of protest and giving the government a bloody nose out
• 15:42
  of frustration feels like. Brexit doesn't.
• 15:45
  It it. It to some degree.
• 15:46
  It does. It does.
• 15:47
  It's beyond. That I think it's a bit.
• 15:49
  It could be the Canary in the wine.
• 15:50
  That's my worry from Labour's perspective.
• 15:53
  So I don't, I don't think we shouldn't think this is just a
• 15:56
  protest vote. I think it's part of a trend as
• 15:58
  well. And if you remember, the Labour
• 16:00
  vote has gone down numerical terms from 17 to 19 and 24 was
• 16:07
  pretty low. We got a large parliamentary
• 16:09
  majority because of the electoral system that we have.
• 16:12
  So there's a trend there that we need to wake up to.
• 16:15
  It might be a different type of politics for the future where
• 16:17
  there are coalitions beyond the the mainstream parties working
• 16:21
  with others. And of course then what happens?
• 16:23
  We have a discussion about proportional representation in
• 16:25
  our electoral system. Well, I mean.
• 16:27
  If Labour was to move in the direction you're saying it
• 16:30
  should move, don't you end up just squeezing that end of
• 16:34
  politics? You know, the you make the the
• 16:36
  ability of a Labour Green SNP alliance with maybe with Clyde
• 16:41
  for the for the sake of argument, less likely to
• 16:44
  outnumber the Tories and reform. I think you.
• 16:46
  Have to try and bring that progressive base solidly
• 16:50
  together. My view is more solid if it's
• 16:52
  based within the Labour Party, not just the Labour Party in
• 16:55
  alliance with other parties. That's the first thing.
• 16:58
  Then that gives you the base upon which you can reach into
• 17:00
  that vote that's moved to the right.
• 17:03
  Our problem is as part of the strategy that's been pursued, I
• 17:06
  know this is denied, but it has been true.
• 17:08
  We have seemed to have thrust most of our, certainly our
• 17:11
  communication around moving to the right.
• 17:14
  You know, this argument out reform, reform.
• 17:16
  I don't put it as crudely as that, but that's what's
• 17:18
  happened. It's alienated so much of our
• 17:20
  not just traditional support, the new support, particularly
• 17:23
  the millennials. I mean, isn't.
• 17:24
  Isn't the answer fam inevitably going to be?
• 17:27
  The Labour Party needs to have a left right leadership election
• 17:30
  and that's probably what it's going to end up having.
• 17:33
  You know it's going to have W streeting versus either Andy
• 17:36
  Burnham or Angela Rayner and it's going to have to slug it
• 17:40
  out over where what what what it's future direction is I'm
• 17:44
  I'm. Not convinced that the answer to
• 17:46
  all our problems is yet another change of Prime Minister, right?
• 17:48
  I think the Tories tested that to destruction.
• 17:50
  But how do you have? That debate without it being in
• 17:52
  a leadership election, Well, the debate might.
• 17:54
  No, John. And I have the debate now the.
• 17:56
  Debate. The debate might result in that,
• 17:59
  but that shouldn't be the start of the debate.
• 18:02
  It's a much more, I think it's a much more interesting debate
• 18:04
  that has to be had about the nature of our economic
• 18:08
  circumstances and political circumstances that we face.
• 18:11
  And if of if the Labour leadership issue is on the
• 18:14
  agenda, which it certainly will, it'll evolve into, well, what
• 18:17
  form of party leadership do we want?
• 18:19
  And again, it's whether Kier learns some of those lessons or
• 18:22
  there's someone else that needs to replace him.
• 18:24
  I have to say as well, it isn't just about Kier.
• 18:26
  There's a cabinet there. They've gone along with these
• 18:29
  decisions as well. So there's they've gotta,
• 18:31
  they've gotta. Take the responsibility, of
• 18:32
  course they. Do yes.
• 18:34
  I I would say we have had this debate to some extent over the
• 18:37
  last few years. We had a period beyond 2015
• 18:41
  where we we tested the destruction, the idea that, you
• 18:44
  know, you could just move left and and Corbynism would deliver
• 18:47
  anything. It delivered the worst defeats
• 18:49
  the Labour supplies had for 70 years.
• 18:52
  In 2019. It delivered a interesting.
• 18:54
  More votes than Kier got in 2024.
• 18:57
  I'm glad. You brought that up, John,
• 18:58
  because you it seems to come up every time the left defenders
• 19:00
  argument, they got more votes and they won the argument.
• 19:03
  How do you think a government is formed in there?
• 19:05
  Is that the party was the most well, I know seats or the party
• 19:08
  was the most votes, but yeah, but.
• 19:10
  All I'm saying is of course the electoral system meant that we
• 19:14
  had a large majority, but you should not neglect that we've
• 19:17
  had a a decline, A historic decline in our votes from
• 19:20
  literally the almost the last decade.
• 19:22
  And blaming Jeremy Corbyn or me or whatever actually ensures
• 19:28
  that you don't address that particular issue.
• 19:31
  I have to say also I, you know, as far as I was concerned,
• 19:34
  having half the Labour Party bureaucracy and MPs undermining
• 19:38
  your administration might be a problem.
• 19:39
  That's why I'm trying to avoid that now and say we need a
• 19:42
  better honest debate rather than fact.
• 19:44
  But if? If this Labour government
• 19:45
  suddenly started to look more like the Labour Party that you
• 19:49
  and Jeremy Corbyn were running, the one that was rejected by the
• 19:53
  electorates, you know, wouldn't you come under so much attack
• 19:58
  from other politicians, from the public, from the media as having
• 20:02
  no legitimacy? Well, let's have that.
• 20:03
  That that was. Tried it was rejected.
• 20:05
  You can't just pull it in through the back door because
• 20:07
  you've had a couple of bad like no, we've.
• 20:09
  Moved on some then let's have that debate now.
• 20:11
  So let's have a debate around individual policies or policy
• 20:14
  program. Let's have that debate now and
• 20:16
  start testing that as well with the electorate in different
• 20:19
  forms. I think look what I've been
• 20:21
  trying to say is we've been saying on the doorstep, Labour's
• 20:23
  introduced some great policies. Actually, interestingly enough,
• 20:26
  a lot of the policies were based upon what we were arguing for
• 20:29
  public ownership of rail, rail rent reforms or rent, renters
• 20:33
  rights, that sort of thing, investment in public services.
• 20:36
  However, they haven't been sufficiently radical to hold out
• 20:40
  a progressive base together. And I, I used the example, the
• 20:43
  renters rights. So in the sense of that for my
• 20:46
  constituency, it's great that renters rights is is now in an
• 20:50
  act and we've got rid of Section 21, but it still gives the
• 20:53
  ability of landlords to increase rents.
• 20:55
  And therefore the what the Sadiq and others are calling for us in
• 20:58
  terms of rent controls is really what we need.
• 21:00
  But the Labour government wouldn't go as far as that.
• 21:02
  And that's where the other organisations can then out left
• 21:05
  it. How?
• 21:06
  How Scott? How do you think the public
• 21:07
  would react to to this government suddenly delivering
• 21:10
  change? You know, I mean, you know,
• 21:13
  that's what people wanted. Yeah.
• 21:14
  Change. Change in that form, I mean not
• 21:16
  very negatively if it was in a wholesale copy of the Corbynite
• 21:19
  platform in 2019. You know, I think what's really
• 21:22
  interesting is there are parts of that platform which hold
• 21:25
  appeal across party. So if you look at things like
• 21:28
  some of the economic populism, if you will, or more left wing
• 21:30
  economics, that actually holds appeal to conservative and
• 21:33
  reform vote as well. Not in every element of it, but
• 21:35
  there are some if you if you're talking about hostility towards
• 21:38
  big businesses, utility companies, taxes on the wealthy,
• 21:41
  and you can dispute all of these things, whether they be good or
• 21:43
  bad for the country, there's actually quite a lot of support
• 21:45
  out there for them. However, if you're thinking
• 21:47
  about what like the median voter feels, you're now in a very
• 21:50
  different based on something like immigration.
• 21:52
  So there's huge amounts of Labour voters, for example, and
• 21:55
  even some Green voters and Lib Dem voters.
• 21:58
  I believe it's a majority of Lib Dem voters or at least a
• 22:00
  plurality support mass deportations.
• 22:02
  Now, they might not want to talk about them in the way that a
• 22:05
  party like Reform is talking about them where they're, you
• 22:08
  know, where they're making sort of a very big deal out of it.
• 22:10
  But it's just, I think there's quite a lot of misunderstanding
• 22:12
  about where what we think of as the centre ground of British
• 22:16
  politics actually is these days. All the time.
• 22:20
  Anyways, the populism of the left and right being quite
• 22:23
  popular at the moment and these elections absolutely bear that
• 22:25
  out today. My real worry is the the
• 22:29
  problems the country actually has to deal with rather than
• 22:32
  some of the symptoms. The real core stuff we need.
• 22:35
  We need to grow. The irony of of spiring out to
• 22:38
  the left or the right is you'll get the exact opposite.
• 22:40
  There's been enough studies over different countries over
• 22:42
  different periods that all populist left and populist right
• 22:45
  governments have the same impact.
• 22:47
  An average drop of GDP of 10%. They make you poorer.
• 22:51
  And it's no more Karl. Also raises the, the, the
• 22:53
  question not just of immigration, but of immigrants
• 22:55
  who are here and, and isn't the truth that reform has now
• 22:59
  activated an opinion in the country about blaming the
• 23:05
  newcomers and, and, and, and it's got an argument about
• 23:09
  getting rid of a lot of them. And that that's going to make
• 23:11
  things, you know, better in some way.
• 23:14
  I mean, how does Labour react to the way people are feeling about
• 23:19
  immigration when net immigration is already plummeting?
• 23:22
  Might be at 0 by the time we get to the next election.
• 23:25
  And so you can't say, well, we're going to stop net
• 23:27
  immigration. You've got to do something about
• 23:29
  the people who are here because people perceive as as unfair.
• 23:32
  You confront the argument. You confront the argument, you
• 23:35
  you explain the reality of the situation.
• 23:37
  You bring people. No, you, no, you just bring
• 23:40
  people together. You use example after example,
• 23:42
  you bring communities together. Say let's discuss this.
• 23:45
  You know that when you have the different discussions in your
• 23:49
  community, you'll always get someone get up and say there's
• 23:51
  too many migrants here and all the rest of it in my community.
• 23:54
  Well, just look around you. We're all you know, my
• 23:57
  background is my I'm an Irish family.
• 23:59
  We're a migrant community. And then you look at the
• 24:01
  resources that have been brought to the country by the migrants
• 24:04
  themselves. It's just you engage in the
• 24:07
  debate, you don't run from it. And at the moment we seem to be
• 24:10
  running from it. Again, my diagnosis is you've
• 24:13
  got to get to the fundamentals. This country has not been
• 24:16
  growing, no increase in productivity and politics is
• 24:19
  easier with a growing pie. No, I agree.
• 24:21
  Completely share things. And therefore you get into a 0
• 24:24
  sum game, you get into the game of blame.
• 24:25
  Yeah, you blame immigrants, blame billionaires, blame wealth
• 24:28
  creates. But everyone's looking for
• 24:29
  blame, whether you're that's a populist left or populist right.
• 24:31
  A classic. Right wing strategy, isn't it
• 24:33
  almost leaning towards, well, in that sense, yeah.
• 24:35
  No, no, the blame thing isn't, you know, you blame Rich.
• 24:39
  People. No, you don't.
• 24:40
  What you do is you ensure you have fair distribution of
• 24:42
  wealth. And what when it comes down to
• 24:44
  what the right are doing, they're doing that classic,
• 24:46
  almost 1930s style. Who are we blaming this and it's
• 24:50
  migrants or, you know, all the Islamophobia and all that's
• 24:53
  correctly. Exactly.
• 24:54
  It's exactly what they always do.
• 24:57
  So what the left has traditionally done is you cut
• 24:59
  through that with rational argument.
• 25:02
  You won't win everyone over, but you'll do it.
• 25:04
  But what you also, I completely agree with you, you make sure
• 25:07
  that people's standards of living is improving as a result.
• 25:10
  And that is around state investment in particular.
• 25:13
  It is about making sure you have a longer term strategy on many
• 25:16
  of the industrial sectors that we've got and Labour has done
• 25:19
  some of that, but not enough and we haven't been bold enough on
• 25:21
  that. But in addition to that, you do
• 25:23
  have to confront the inequality in our society and the need for
• 25:26
  redistribution of wealth. And the way you do that is
• 25:28
  through taxation, some, I mean. I know, I know you don't want to
• 25:31
  confront the idea, but if at some point in time over the next
• 25:34
  few weeks or days, Keir Starmer, he looks at himself in the
• 25:37
  mirror and says the game's up. Who?
• 25:41
  Who is the standard bearer for you to keep Labour in the game
• 25:46
  or to get Labour back into the game at the next election, I
• 25:50
  mean. I'm I'm not much of A factional
• 25:53
  player in these things. I try and take what is the best
• 25:56
  interest to the country and how do you build a political
• 25:58
  coercion? What's the point of that?
• 25:59
  Question. It's pointless this stage.
• 26:02
  Well, it's not because. It's the question you'll have to
• 26:04
  have. Eventually, but you have to lay
• 26:06
  the foundations about what what is the analysis that we've got,
• 26:10
  what is the program we need to go forward on.
• 26:12
  And then you look at, well, who's the best advert but the
• 26:14
  Labour Party? Doesn't agree on that that's the
• 26:16
  point no, I think people I think people like you and you actually
• 26:19
  know I. Think we've got, we've got more
• 26:20
  points of agreement than we have of difference we overlap.
• 26:23
  We also don't agree like let you know there's new arts, but
• 26:26
  that's the. Broad church, the Labour Party
• 26:28
  isn't. It's always been like that.
• 26:29
  My problem at the moment, a lot of that broad church has been
• 26:32
  closed down and it's been too factional from one side.
• 26:35
  If we'd have been listened to the broader church, we wouldn't
• 26:37
  have mistaked the mistakes. We'd have more dynamism than we
• 26:39
  have. I can't let.
• 26:40
  That pass. I mean the Corbyn faction has
• 26:42
  been pretty factional in it's time.
• 26:44
  That's not true. That's the issue.
• 26:46
  When Jeremy got elected, I was the one who constructed his
• 26:48
  cabinet. I went around everyone.
• 26:50
  Everyone was open to it and that's it.
• 26:52
  We had Hilary Pennis, foreign secretary, and all the rest of
• 26:55
  it. They resigned and I even went
• 26:57
  back to them then and said look, come back on board.
• 26:59
  A number of Labour MPs were facing deselection.
• 27:02
  It was us who went round and said no steady of the ship,
• 27:04
  these people are doing a good job.
• 27:05
  So actually there's a myth that's been developed there
• 27:08
  itself. The factionalism that came.
• 27:10
  We did have a certain non believing within our bureaucracy
• 27:13
  under a mic. At one point we discovered they
• 27:14
  were running a separate general election.
• 27:16
  Scarlett do. You think any of the polling or
• 27:18
  opinion group research on like the successors is is is
• 27:23
  meaningful given it's all it's all notional and it's in a
• 27:27
  different environment to different context?
• 27:29
  Yeah, I don't think it is particularly meaningful
• 27:31
  actually. I think all hypothetical
• 27:33
  polling, it has very limited uses.
• 27:35
  It is interesting to look at. It can tell you somethings.
• 27:38
  What it tells us at the moment is Andy Burnham is both better
• 27:41
  known and more popular than the other people in the race.
• 27:43
  However, I do not, I don't think there's anything that tells us
• 27:47
  whether that survives contact with actually being in power in
• 27:50
  Westminster and making those decisions.
• 27:52
  Because I look at this landscape and you know, we look at the
• 27:54
  previous the nose lives of ratings for previous prime
• 27:58
  ministers. We look at the mood of the
• 27:59
  public that there's a fact that now the majority of the public
• 28:02
  do not feel like a political party represents them despite
• 28:04
  the fact they've had no, no, they've never had more choice.
• 28:07
  Nigel, it looks like reform are going to be the winners, but
• 28:10
  they're going to go probably down slightly in the projected
• 28:12
  national share. Zac Planck's race has gone down
• 28:14
  last week. There is no one out that is
• 28:16
  really convincing the public. And I mean all of that to say, I
• 28:19
  don't know if anyone, at least no one that we can see on the
• 28:21
  political scene at the moment, survives contract contact,
• 28:24
  sorry, with this electorate and the issue in the.
• 28:26
  I'm not a flag bearer for Andy Burnham or whatever.
• 28:29
  The issue in the Labour Party is that if we're going to have a
• 28:32
  discussion, if the leadership does come onto the agenda as an
• 28:35
  issue, we can't have a discussion where candidates are
• 28:38
  blocked from standing and what are the issues as he was.
• 28:41
  As he was. But also when Kier took over,
• 28:44
  they changed the threshold for nominating candidates to protect
• 28:47
  Kier. And I just think you've got to
• 28:49
  have as a, as a leader, you've got to have the confidence to
• 28:52
  say, look, if if people want to stand, let them stand.
• 28:55
  Do you think they should let? Him back in if he finds the MP
• 28:57
  to step down. Who?
• 28:59
  Andy. Yes.
• 29:00
  Oh yeah. I've worked with Andy in the
• 29:01
  past. We're in the treasury together
• 29:03
  many happy years ago. I've got a lot of respect for
• 29:05
  him and what he's done as mayor of Magic.
• 29:07
  Never been blocked, Should he? So, so, you know, like I think
• 29:10
  we, we've put all the times of people on, that's where we're
• 29:12
  going to end up. Isn't the truth.
• 29:13
  But I mean, I know. I know we've had a lot of
• 29:15
  conversation around let's have a, let's have a long
• 29:17
  conversation, isn't The truth is there's only one person who
• 29:20
  Labour MPs can basically agree on right now.
• 29:24
  I think it's much more. But see, with Keir Starmer, I'm
• 29:26
  not. Quite so persuaded yet, because
• 29:28
  I mean, as Scarlett says, you're not part of the government,
• 29:32
  you're not you're not having to take the really horrible
• 29:33
  decisions that this government is taking, given the inheritance
• 29:36
  and and and and the reality will, you know, will
• 29:40
  unfortunately affect anyone who goes into that role's
• 29:42
  popularity. I also think we cannot rely on
• 29:45
  any strategy that Adam's heart says the bond markets don't
• 29:49
  exist because that strategy is going to fail.
• 29:51
  I think this trust proof think he.
• 29:53
  Really misspoke. Misspoke on that one.
• 29:54
  He pulled back eventually so I won't and and taking defence.
• 29:57
  Out of Yeah, I won't. The balance sheet.
• 29:59
  I'll take you pretending. Defence even last week
• 30:01
  pretending defence borrowing isn't borrowing isn't really no
• 30:03
  facing up fiscal reality. I wouldn't know that.
• 30:05
  Against him, all I'm saying is if we move towards a discussion
• 30:09
  about leadership, it should be a a democratic one where people
• 30:13
  are not blocked from standing. And actually I think that will
• 30:16
  strengthen the party. When when Kier, when Kier
• 30:19
  blocked Andy, I thought it was stupid.
• 30:20
  What I would have done is let him come through and giving him
• 30:23
  a job straight away of winning the next election.
• 30:25
  We must incorporate him. We must leave it.
• 30:27
  There I feel I feel we're we're ending on an Andy Burnham's
• 30:30
  probably in the future notes, but we'll see.
• 30:32
  That's the forecast. Thank you all very much.
• 30:34
  Bye bye.