Latest / The Common Sense Revolution Podcast / Ep 3: David Davis on Reform's £72m, the Cameron call and the crisis that could remake the Tories
Transcript
- Gavin Megaw: Your self on the screen. There is dots all the way Last Friday, a crypto billionaire pardoned by Donald Trump gave Reform UK 36 million pounds. On Saturday, another crypto billionaire matched it because he said his competitive spirit had been stirred. 72 million pounds in a weekend to reform, which is more than every political party in Britain raised in the whole of last year put together. Through all of this, the Conservatives sit at 20% in the polls, third behind Labour and the party that's just banked the money. It's been quite a week, and we've brought in help. Welcome to the Common Sense Revolution Podcast, the show where three veterans of Conservative Central Office ask whether the Tories are repairing or falling apart. With me as ever is the journalist Patrick Kidd and the writer and policyman Peter Franklin. I'm Gavin McGaugh, and I'm delighted to say we are joined by our first ever guest on the show today, here to help us understand what on earth's going on in politics and how the Conservative Party's getting on, is David Davis. David's been in Parliament since 1987. He was Europe Minister in John Major's government, and he said no so often his counterparts in Brussels christened them Monsieur Non, which endeared him further to the party and told you exactly where he was going to stand on Brexit 20 years later. He's been chairman of the party, which means for a while he was probably technically all of our bosses. He's also a cabinet minister and a candidate for the leadership. Alan Clark thought of him an extraordinarily optimistic and self confident person. And Clark did not hand out such praise lightly. When David went for dinner at Clark's Saltwood Castle, he was taken up to the crumbling medieval ramparts. And Clark recorded in his infamous diaries that David walked. David Davis: Okay. you Gavin Megaw: the most dangerous route possible without turning a hair, then strolled back along it again with his hands in his pockets. That's very David. I can promise you that. The the old rogue Alan Clark, like many others, admired David's working class roots and his fiercely loyal attitude. And of course the SAS background, which David is not allowed to talk about. So David, welcome to the show. Patrick: Yeah. David Davis: My pleasure. I've not had such a complimentary introduction for about 20 years. Gavin Megaw: Well, David, I was once your pre I was once your press officer, so I don't think I could do any other sort of introduction. Well look it's been a big week in politics, David. Seventy two million pounds is a hell of a lot of money. What do you make of these donations to reform? David Davis: Well, as you say, they're unique, extraordinary sums of money. In a way, I'm not that surprised because it is after all an insurgent party. It's not conventional in any sense of the word. And Farage has been a sort of an insurgent three times and does attract, one has to say, extraordinary loyalty from people outside politics, which is what all of these guys are. These aren't the first big funders he's had on board. But you're right, it completely outclasses anything the other parties do or all they do together. And it provoked from Labour a reaction which borders on the immoral, frankly, because it's not saying, all right, we're going to change the rules to prevent this in future. It's actually trying to change the rules in the past, trying to destroy this funding of reform. by making it retrospectively illegal, which I view frankly, unconstitutional, improper and unfortunately the sort venal thing we too often expect from Labour. Gavin Megaw: It's also a mistake though, isn't it? Because reform will use that to their advantage. David Davis: Yeah, well, it plays exactly into the by-election that Farage forced at Clacton because what was his motif? His motif was, this is the establishment picking on me. They do this themselves all the time or if they get caught, they forgive themselves. It's only because I'm an outsider and I'm a threat to them that they've done this. That was with his previous finance, the five million. So in a way, they are playing with fire. mean, up until a week ago, I would have said that Farage's financial affairs were a material point in the decline of his party's standing in the polls. It had peaked and started to come down. And there various possible reasons for it, but one of them certainly was slightly odd finances. Now, I mean, it's entirely possible, as you say, he can turn this around and say, look, we are just we are insurgent. We are the new boys on the block. We need more money. We we actually attract people who despise British politics. Why should we know why should we wait? Why should we be punished for that? And, you know, Tony Blair says he's the best communicator in modern politics. He is perfectly capable of making that into a formidable argument. Peter: I think that the first thing that reform should do, of course, is hit back at Labour and say that your attempt to retrospectively deny us this money is itself illegal under legislation that we will pass when we get into government and apply retrospectively. How do you like them, apples? that's what I do. it would be the perfect way of illustrating just how outrageous the government's response is. the other thing reform should do is think very carefully, of course, about how to use the money. And I would take a strategic approach, be very honest about the weaknesses in the organization and invest in addressing those weaknesses. what I think they are more likely to do is to really push it all into their into stuff that they do already, like lots of social media messaging, and I think the bulk of the money is going to go into that, into things that actually won't appear, will be very much targeted through Facebook, etcetera, etcetera. Gavin Megaw: David, you're quite an expert in this because I know you've studied what reform has been doing on Facebook and other channels. Do you think this will make a material difference? Will it change the balance of power or David Davis: Well, Well there was a suggestion online just before I came on that they're actually going to start their own new TV channel. mean quite what that'll do to GB News. I don't Gavin Megaw: Ha ha ha ha. David Davis: know. I mean you're going have Farage as the main presenter on two channels. So that was one suggestion. I do think, I mean I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing from their point of view. I mean I would like it but from their point of view that they do reinforce success. They are the most successful party in terms of use of social media. I mean, I talked to Nigel about this and he actually said to me at one point, said, you know, the most cost effective mechanism for communication with the public is a Facebook advert. He said it's cheap and it gets everywhere, which is more than you can say for most of the political party, the other political parties approaches to this. None of them have his approach. I mean, when he went on, am a celebrity, get me out of here, he and I talked about. And I said, know, that's a bit risky, Nigel. I mean, look what happened to Nadine Doris. Look what happened to Matt Hancock when they went on the same program. Their ratings just tipped off the edge of a cliff. And he said, but David, said, I've got a million followers on TikTok, which may not raise my eyebrows straight away, but you see a million followers on TikTok and they're all under 25. And it's the same audience I'm playing to. So in a way I sort of disagree with Peter. think they may well aim at reinforcing that same audience. That being said, if they expect to become a majority party, I don't think they ever will do, but if that's their target, the other argument you should put, which I guess is Peter's, is they should be looking at trying to get the respectable middle class to vote for them. You know, and that is, that's not a TikTok audience. That is a very different audience. How you do that? Well, maybe starting a new TV channel is it, I don't know. But it certainly, that's certainly, I guess, the next step in their strategy if they were ever to become a mainstream party. Gavin Megaw: David, the middle classes that you reference, they're the ones who will be most annoyed by the way. that the reform party have gone about managing their finances and the scandals that we've seen come out during their party conference, et cetera. So it's a pretty tough balancing act, isn't it, for reform to try and push into new areas digitally, but also bring those people with them. David Davis: Yes, I mean Clearly when they got about 30 % They were beginning just beginning to be the sort of person you could have met at a dinner party that you'd voted for you know And I can think of some stark examples who probably sue me if I were if I repeated them, but some rather grand people saying, I'm going to vote for reform. And that was beginning to happen. And then for possibly a multiplicity of reasons, but certainly one of them was money. I think the other one was taking, as it were, Tory party rejects. It didn't help either. both those things, you know, brought them back under 30%. Now, Even given the extraordinary sort of cheap victory that Labour had last time, I don't think any party can become a government party by itself if it's under 30%. And so that must be their target. Look at their attitude to the Tory party. We'll never do a deal with them sort of thing. Look at their attitude to everybody else. Rupert Lowe and all that. So they have to make that their target and that means they can't just stay with the sort of insurrectionists, the youngsters who never voted before or the people who think our country's gone to the dogs in the last 50 years. The two ends of the spectrum. They've got to get the conventional voting middle class to vote for them. No other way into government. Gavin Megaw: what does this mean for the Tory party though, David, in terms of you you've mentioned the the Tory rejects, which I'm sure will go down brilliantly amongst them. but what does it mean? David Davis: Yeah. Gavin Megaw: What does it mean for the Tory party in terms of the way they campaign? because there's been talk about an early election that Berlin may well call an early election because of the tough choices ahead and them needing a mandate. But I guess this money will take a while to work its way through. But are the Tories ready to battle in the same way reform? Could be in a month or two. David Davis: Well, I think we'll be in a very uncomfortable position, bluntly, because we're what, about 20 points in the polls, plus or minus, which is a lot less than we were at the last election. So we'll be fighting almost a rearguard action under those circumstances. We were going to, we meant to be frank with you, I didn't think. The party did a very good job in just practical campaigning in the last election. I frankly had nothing to do with them. A lot of my colleagues would have nothing to do with them because the actual sort of practicalities were so poor. And this is astonishing for a Tory party. We've been a dominating party for 200 years because we've been able to do the nuts and bolts with anybody else. We had the people on the street. We had the people knocked on the doors. We knew who the Tories were. We could focus our vote. We will get them out on the day, you know. All those things have faded as the size of the party has faded. So it's a tough, tough fight. And I suspect a very different sort of fight to any previous election. Now, what's the upside? One of the upsides we have is that Kemi herself has formidable cut through. You know, she is, she's a very... sharp edge, hope she doesn't mind me saying it, but she's a very sharp edge character, you know. Now in the Commons, this has worked brilliantly well. You know, when you're attacking the person who everybody in the country loves to hate, namely Keir Starmer, that's been very effective and it's elevated her in the polls enormously. Lots of people say to me spontaneously on the street, we like your new leader. And I suspect if we had an election in next few months, the only campaign possibility for us would be to major on her because in terms of public visibility, she's pretty much the only one who stands out. So it would be a very presidential election if we had to fight in the next few months, think, an extraordinarily presidential election, which we've never fought before, really. We've never fought before. mean, Peter: Yes. David Davis: maybe the last Thatcher election, maybe. really? Not really. We still had, we still had. people out, know, the others, the Chris Pattons, the John Majors, and all those out on the broadcast as well. Gavin Megaw: Yeah, it's weird it isn't Odi Kemi, Kemi and Burnham are both more popular than the parties. Farage, interestingly, isn't. So David Davis: Yeah. Gavin Megaw: that's an interesting thing. Peter. Peter: Yeah, I mean after what you've just said about Kemi having the cut through, do you think it would be helpful for the party if we had a leaders' debate? A proper leaders debate this time as part of the election campaign, and what can we do to make that happen? David Davis: Well the answer to whether we should or whether it would be to our advantage is definitely yes. I mean she is of the party leader, is undoubtedly the best debater. I mean the Lib Dem, what's his name again? Gavin Megaw: Ha ha. Peter: I forget. David Davis: Exactly, we all forget you know when he's not in a wetsuit falling off something. We don't know who he is. He couldn't debate to save his life. Burnham, I think, is interesting in this context. Again, a conversation I had with Farage during the by-election where Burnham won, he said, you know, it's really difficult to defeat a mayor. And the reason for that is that these great regional mayors basically spend money or complain that they haven't been given enough money, both of which go down well with their locals. They don't have to raise any taxes at all so far. And as a result, they have a pretty much a one way street. If you look at most of the mayor's second elections after their first elective, they all do brilliantly well, they get extraordinary numbers. Now, that's a very soft game by comparison with a leaders debate. And I think in a leaders debate, Burnham would not do well. Because bear Gavin Megaw: Yeah. David Davis: in mind, in PMQs, although prime ministers hate them and they complain about them and so on, they always have the last word. They have the structure on their side. Whereas in television debate, it's level playing field and I think Kemi would crucify Burnham at this point in time anyway. Gavin Megaw: It's interesting. Well, what about, this interesting situation where the Conservative Party have got an not only at trying to get some reform voters back to conservative ranks, but also trying to pull people back from Labour and the Lib Dems. It's not only people who've moved to the right, it's people in the middle. David Davis: Yeah. Yeah. Gavin Megaw: is Kemi the right person to go both ways? David Davis: I think so. the argument more problematically really is whether our policy suite will go both ways, you know, what we major with and so on. And I'll give you two examples, which I think argue in different directions. On the ECHR, which we've made a big deal out of. I think that's designed deliberately to appeal to reform voters. They're the ones who like to blame foreigners for everything. They're the ones who like to say it's not our fault, or at least people like Jenrick and so on say it's not my fault immigration went up when I was immigration minister. It's because I wasn't allowed to do what I wanted to do. Yeah, well, really. The other side of the coin, an equally radical policy was the net zero policy. Now, I think an awful lot of middle class people will say, yeah, mean, net zero has been a problem. We have done wonderfully well in terms of reducing our carbon footprint by comparison with the rest of the world, most of whom have not tried. And yet at the same time, it's exported our industries, it's made our energy the most expensive in the world, it's had really serious impacts on the way we run business, and so it's made us unattractive as an investment location. Now, I think that's an argument. even though it's radical argument, contrary to the arguments of last 25 years, is actually one which will appeal to a thinking voting class. you know, it'll depend, frankly, which way she leans in terms of her choice of policies, whether we can, well, it's both win new Lib Dem votes and not lose our current ones to the Lib Dems, because, you know, that's equally problematic. That's equally problematic. Gavin Megaw: 'Cause we've lost people like Gavin Barwell from the ranks as a result David Davis: Hmm. Yeah. Gavin Megaw: of I think ECHR and other things, which you know, and you're you're a you're someone who has fought your whole life for civil liberties. So it it is difficult though, seeing people like Lord Barwell, Gavin Barwell leave the party though, isn't it? David Davis: Yeah, yeah, of course, of course it's difficult. you know, the and he won't be the only one. I I assume a whole load of the remainers will will take a similar view, you know, and although normally still Tory, they may they may cease to be after that. So of course, it's difficult. You know, I myself had some trouble with the policy. I would do it differently. I bear in mind, I'm the to brag for a second. I'm the only member. Commons who's actually defeated the ECHR over prisoner votes. You may remember that little episode which we had. So I do think they can be defeated. I do think they can be turned around. And I'd rather try that first before going down the route that that Kemi's talking about. But at the end of the day, a lot of people do think it's it's not doing what it used to do, what it was designed to do back in 1950 or thereabouts. And and so we have to do something about it. And I suspect even the sort of potential liberal voting middle class will understand the problem. After all, something like 80 % of the population think immigration is a very serious issue. And pretty much every country in Europe has got problems with ECHR on immigration, including Germany, France, and a dozen others like Denmark and Greece and Italy and so on. So, you know, it depends, like all these things, it depends a bit on how it's pitched. But at the end of the day, the British public are basically, their center of gravity historically has always been slightly right of center and sometimes quite radical policies do appeal to them. That was what Thatcher did remember after all. So it's difficult to know, but I think if we were looking at election anytime in the next year, and Kimmy asked my advice, then I would say to think very, very hard about what your top five policies are. More than five, it doesn't matter, nobody will remember, but your top five policies and make sure that we test them against the Lib Dem voters as well as against the ECHR voters. Gavin Megaw: Yeah. And think we're seeing that, aren't we? The economics of this are very, very clear. We've seen Andrew Griffith's out today doing Peter: Okay. Gavin Megaw: a big speech, which I think was pretty David Davis: Yeah. Gavin Megaw: well received within the Tory ranks. we've David Davis: Hmm. Gavin Megaw: seen it last week with Kemi talking about reduction in welfare expenditure to put it into defense. So the sort of the David Davis: Thanks. Gavin Megaw: lines are starting to be drawn here, aren't they? And we can see that. David Davis: yes and again interestingly, if it depends how we segment what we're aiming at, think defense is something that will matter to a lot of the middle-aged middle class, right? I'm not so sure many youngsters are quite as persuaded as the rest of us are about that. But that being said, you know, if we get that wrong, you know, this won't be a country worth running in five years time, you know, so we've got to get that right. Where it comes from, on the welfare front, I think there's a huge audience for that. When I have meetings in my constituency, sort of apolitical meetings or coffee morning type meetings where everybody comes, I reckon 70 % of the attendees are very critical. of the stance of current welfare and in particular, most notably, where it encourages people not to work, where you can get more money on welfare, on unemployment benefit in its various forms, than you can, let's say, on the minimum wage. People really resent that. Really resent that. Peter: Yeah. Yeah yes what you're saying about younger voters I think is really important because if the Conservative Party can't shift left or right because you know indispensable sections of the base David Davis: Hmm. Peter: wouldn't like that and you could lose many more than you gain. if you can't do that on an ideological axis, then I think The other way to look at it is a demographic one. Which parts of the electorate, irrespective of ideology, are we clearly underperforming with? And if you look at that, one metric stands out above all others, and that is age group. And this also applies to reform to an almost equal measure. David Davis: Yeah. Peter: You know, compared to a lot of populist parties on the continent, for instance, reform perform abysmally with the younger voter groups. So my question would be what can the party do to the Conservative Party that is, to because I don't think reform is gonna shift meaningfully, but what can the Conservatives do to appeal to younger voters? Because David Davis: . . Peter: It is an absolute appalling situation demographically at the moment. David Davis: Well, the natural response to that would be to take a slightly more consumerist approach, if you like. I have been really a rather fierce critic of our own party over the deal, as it were, that they have given to the younger voters. mean, when I was in my 20s, rather a long while ago now, and Gladstone was in number 10, but when I was in my 20s, Gavin Megaw: Uh-huh. David Davis: 65 % of my cohort were buying their own home. Pretty much everybody was expecting to get a decent job and make progress in it. The sort of meritocracy, social mobility issue was a big deal. Britain was one of the leaders of the world on that. People were not over-borrowed. They certainly didn't have a circumstance where most youngsters today have a mortgage without a house. in the form of their student loan. I thought the student loan policy was a disaster from the beginning. And we were very stupid to carry on with it when we won, when coalition won in 2010. So there's a whole package of things there about housing, about education, and so on. However, we started this conversation talking about You know an imminent election and I think that this is dear. I don't think there's going to be an imminent election I actually think that Burnham is going to run nearly the whole distance nearly the whole distance for the very simple reason if he does he'll have been Prime Minister for longer than his three or four predecessors, you know So he'll have a nominal chance at least to do something now If he goes that sort of distance, we then should think back to Another Thatcher style tactic And Thatcher's tactic back in the day, when she was at her best anyway, was to do really difficult things quite early on and then spend three years justifying them. She always went for election at basically year four, but it was when the things she'd done early on, which were very often were unpopular, were starting to deliver some result or other. Now, we're not in a government position, we can't do that, but we can spend three years making the argument. And I think this is one of the virtues of Kemi's cut through that she would be able to hold attention on these arguments. That's why I think the sort of the net zero thing is working broadly, because it's taking time, but it's gradually getting through. Now, imagine we made these arguments about, let's say, cutting the number of university places by a quarter. replacing them with other mechanisms and finding other ways of financing the people's higher education. Imagine we start to say, okay, all right, we don't want to invade the green belt, but we do maybe think there's an answer, that there is an argument for whole new towns in certain sectors of the country and so on. Those arguments will be by definition controversial, but there are real gainers in exactly the demographic you were talking about, Peter. That's what I would do in terms of the attack line if I was writing the strategy today. Gavin Megaw: David, we mentioned earlier that reform were unlikely to get above 30% of the vote. The Tories David Davis: Yeah, well. Gavin Megaw: sit at around 20% at present. What does that mean then for after a next general election? Are we gonna have to deal with reform, liberal, whoever, because Tory voters are increasingly disliking reform? David Davis: Well certainly when people ask me now, should we do a deal with them, should we do an electoral pact, I always say no. And part of the reason, well one of reasons is I don't agree with their policies, but the other reason is exactly what you're saying, that they're getting less and less popular with conservative voters. Conservative voters like to have a respectable government. They like to have a government they can feel proud of, as it were, and I think the respectability of index of reform is going down at the moment for whatever reason. The second thing I'd say to you before I answer the actual question is to say that in two or three years time, I think this country is going to face at least one crisis. It could be an international financial crisis. It could be a domestic financial crisis. Selling British government bonds is getting more more difficult. Nobody has to buy them. It could be a military crisis. It could be a multiplicity of military crises. You could see You could see problems with Russia and with Iran and with China and they're independent problems so they could happen at similar times. So those things alter the nature of politics. One of the people forget, again, I'm getting rather boring and repeating Thatcher examples, but when Thatcher came in, it was 1979, the country was seen to be broke, we'd had to be bailed out by the IMF and so on, and she could therefore do things that she probably... couldn't have done, and also of course, the government had been overthrown effectively by the National Union of Mineworkers a few years previously. So she was able to do things that wouldn't have been acceptable before. And that may be the circumstance in three years time. It may be that the country's up for a more radical option. And we have to make a judgment off the back of that. Now, as to whether there will be deals after an election, well, I'm afraid the hard truth at the moment, if have an election in the next year, nobody would win. Nobody would win. And if we're still in the same place in three years time, no one will win that because if you don't get over 30%, you can't get a majority of the seats. And so you're forced into either a left wing coalition or a right wing coalition. Frankly, we did today, we're left wing coalition. You look at the numbers, it's 46 % right and 54 % left in terms of where the numbers fall if you count green as left. they probably should be called red not green but the so so so what happens well again let me tell you a story this time is David Cameron the Friday noon the day after the 2010 election I got a telephone call from David and he said what what should we do about the the possibility of a coalition And I said, and nobody talked about coalition with the Liberals until then, not a word, right? Gavin Megaw: Mm-hmm. David Davis: And I said, well, you've got no choice. The numbers dictate the outcome. We're the biggest party, but we don't have a majority. With them, we have a clear majority. Their home affairs policy is the same as ours. I know I wrote both of them. I was being arrogant, but never mind. I was rubbing it in. Their Orange Book members are more right-wing than we are when it comes to economic policy. And on what you like to call all this green crap, David, unquote, they agree with you. So least they agree with the green policies. I said, you've got areas where we've got differences, but the numbers are such that even if there's a difference, you could tell them they could abstain. And as long as all they did was abstain, you'd still win. You then say, well, what if they say no? And I said, don't be ridiculous. They've never been in government for their lifetimes and they just stop their mouths with gold. Of course, that's effectively what happened. Now, the point about the story is that it was the numbers that dictated the outcome. If there is no circumstance in which a single party can form a government, imagine if we've got 250 seats. and reform have got, let's say, 100 seats, then there's only one combination that would work unless, I say that, if we chose to do it, nobody else could do it, unless we went liberal, unless, let's say, the liberals had 100 seats as well, then we'd have a choice. But as it stands at the moment, nobody wants to do a deal with anybody. Except for the Lib Dems who only way into government is through that. wants to do a deal with anybody. It would be electorally disadvantageous. It would mean you'd to stop aiming for 325 plus seats, is a fatal decision for party leaders to make, to admit that they can't make it. Why would you vote for a party when... when you're not sure what the coalition is that you'll end up with at the end of the day. So, Kim is entirely right to say, no, I'm not going to touch them with a barge pole. But of course, those things change the day after election, if as is would be probable today at least, there's no overall winner. Peter: just picking up on what you just said about possible coalitions and why it's incredibly difficult to discuss them ahead of time. what about setting out red lines, though? The absolute core of what you do in government and absolutely insist upon. And if you could set out sort of three absolute red lines for Kemi to say this is what we will do no matter what, take it or leave it, what would they be? David Davis: Well, I don't know. That's the problem. I was about to ask you exactly that question. know, what red lines would actually do two things? Would give people enough of a steer that they know where you're going, but on the other hand, not switch off all the people you're trying to win back from, whether it's reform or Lib Dems or whoever. The other thing as well, and this is a really rather old fashioned thing on my part, but I have long thought that the one of the great attractions of the Conservative Party is that it's a broad church. Now, this is not just a sort of general comfortable, you know, I like to get on with everybody type thing, albeit I do. It's something else too. It equips you for things that you never foresaw. I mean, why did Boris fail? Boris didn't fail because of lacking delivery of Brexit, which is what he made the election about. He failed because he couldn't cope with the pandemic. Why did Theresa May fail? Well, facing something other than Brexit, she might have been a really good prime minister. She was very conscientious and so on. And I won't go into why Liz Truss failed. But the simple truth is that Having a wide suite of policies, sometimes they apply well in some circumstances and sometimes they apply well in other circumstances. And maintaining that internal flexibility, I think, is a real strength of party. You look at what the Conservative Party has been over two centuries, know? Free traders, different attitudes to... to tax and spend over the time. We've been a Keynesian party, we've been a monetarist party. In the 30s, we had really interesting internal conflicts over welfare and so on and unemployment. And one of the reasons we've been so successful is because we've had the right people at the right time. I often say this to leaders that tomorrow's leader is often today's minority. That's good in a variety of ways. They've got different policies. It also means they're probably strong enough to stand up and stand up for a less common policy. So, no, don't think the red line approach would work. I'd be very interested if you thought there were red lines we could put, but I can't think of one off top. Gavin Megaw: Now, David, let's let's just conclude talking about what it's like in opposition, because you are one of those MPs who really enjoys opposition. You get stuck in on so many different issues. and we were all around in the last long period of opposition, obviously under Higue and IDS and all those things. what do you think the learnings are from those previous wilderness years that could actually help Chemi and the party move forward this time around? David Davis: Yeah, well the first one I actually made the point to when she when she was first elected or when she first became leader And that was that in the first year or two Trying to present new policies many new policies anyway doesn't really work Because people say you were useless. That's why we threw you out What you're now saying is do X or Y. Why didn't you do X or Y when you were in government? I mean, that's too easy. That's what Haig faced. Haig did, in many ways, brilliant job rhetorically in terms of dealing with Blair. mean, Blair was a much tougher opponent than anybody who's around today, but certainly tougher than Stamber. But the... The truth of the matter was that no matter how clever he was, no matter how many points he scored against Blair, the public still had the back of their mind, you your government screwed up. That's why we threw you out, you know. And the same has been true to some extent for the first couple of years of this parliament. That's why the ratings of the party are still low, you know, and why Kenby's been able to escape that to some extent. But that being said, she has an advantage, as I said earlier, that the person she was attacking in the form of Keir Starmer became hated by everybody. And that became a positive virtue. She was, I mean, her style, let's face it, is a formidably aggressive style. Scarily aggressive sometimes. And, you know, that doesn't always work. formidable aggression is good in some circumstances, but it has worked in terms in the last two years. It's going to be an interesting exercise the next few months, how she accommodates to Burnham's rather more touchy-feely common man approach. So that's an issue in terms of style. There's an issue in terms of how you present policies. I don't think... Frankly, when we were in opposition, really until the last bout under Cameron, I don't think we really had a stable set of policies. We kept flicking all over the place, partly because leaders like Hague were looking over their shoulder at Portillo and trying to buy off that faction or buy off this faction and so on. And the public can see that. They understand that. Whereas now, I think... To be fair to the front bench, they have a pretty steady set of policies, not a lot of new ones yet, one or two, but a pretty steady set of policies. And we're also gonna have to come up with some really practical ways of dealing with the things that dominate people's minds. Immigration is one of them. But the other ones we were talking about earlier, housing, education. job opportunities. mean, in the days of AI, I mean, nobody ever faced AI in the past. And the simple truth is that AI is eating the jobs of new starters in work, know, people coming out of university, the starter jobs in the law firms and the banks and accounting and in draftsmanship and medicine even in due course, I suspect, are being eaten by AI. you know, the the middle classes of the West are facing the sort of assault that the manual working classes faced in the Industrial Revolution, you know, and we haven't got a way dealing with that yet either. So there's we can only learn so much from from the Hague Howard era. But the things that we can learn, I think either changing or chemies learning them already. Peter: on the really interesting point you made about how the party has through the decades it's evolved and shifted in quite extraordinary ways, really. it shifted a lot between ninety seven and twenty ten. I mean it's what made us electable again. but that process was marked by a lot of open disagreement within the party. I'm sure you remember it. I'm sure you remember how both you know both in public and beside but behind the scenes sometimes it really got quite vicious. A big contrast this time, and I realize we're only two years into into this David Davis: Hmm. Peter: period in the wilderness, but a big contrast this time is that what Kemi calls Psychodrama has been suppressed to an extraordinary extent. And the 2024 Leadership Contest, for instance, was virtually stage managed to avoid any real debate. Do you think that whilst that might be helpful in one way, it's actually taking the energy? out of the party's intellectual development and that the ideas have to come from somewhere and some somewhere dynamic and sometimes almost violently dynamic and that's just not happening. David Davis: Well, two things. Firstly, you write about the psychodrama. The nevertheless, even back in the middle of the great battles over Europe, I mean, I was a whip at one point, you know, the fiercest battle, the master battle. But I intervened on four different occasions. mean, the one I'll mention is Nick Budger, you're too young to remember him, but he was leading. You're a skeptic and there was an attempt to to deselect him and I stopped it. The same argument I've been making already that today's minority is tomorrow's leadership as it turned out eventually not him But others from that section and if we had expelled them, we'd have a very different party today secondly, I think the the then you've got to understand that the actual complexion of the party is incredibly young by historic standards, you know and relatively inexperienced and their experience has been of observing the psychodrama You know, so they will themselves not want to repeat it. The third thing I'd say is that the quite a lot of the thought processes are critical to new policy development and sort of been subcontracted to think tanks and so on. There's a lot more. I mean, again, to jump back to Thatcher and the risk of looking obsessive. In her day, there were basically two. There was the IEA, which was the sort of long-standing one, and she created the Centre for Policy Studies herself. And that was pretty much it. And the expectation was the ideas were generated within the party, or groups within the party, like the Boe Group and people like that. That's less true today. You you've got policy exchange, you've got CPS, you've got the IEA, you've got all sorts of bright blue, you've got all sorts of factions as it were outside the parliamentary party, that's no bad thing. That's no bad thing. And the hard truth at the moment is that that you got 100 or so MP, 120 MPs by one, on our side in the Commons. We're pretty bloody busy attacking the failures of the current government. That was not true in Blair's day. Blair did next to nothing for his first term, almost nothing. There was nothing to attack. He was just cruising along on old Tory policies. It's not quite the same today. And whilst politicians are like other people, they're like any energetic person. They look for things to do. And if you give them plenty to do, plenty to fight, then they won't fight each other. Gavin Megaw: David, what about the talent on the benches these days? Could you see a really exciting group of people coming through or do they need to step up further? David Davis: It's too soon to tell. There are some very clever ones, but what is missing is experience. And this is not just true of our benches, it's true of every bench in the Commons. To be honest, I can't see a single member of the government bench that is on a par with the Thatcher cabinet or the major cabinet. They were broadly the same people. You know, of the Labour people stand out? mean, John Heath is a perfectly workman-like character, but he's not Nigel Lawson, you know? And so on, could go through all of them on the same basis. Gavin Megaw: Well he's we're we're hearing Haley is becoming increasingly unpopular in his own party. Particularly in number ten, by the way. David Davis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's right. You know, because he's because he's forcing them to face up the decisions they have to face, you know. The other thing I'd say is that we are despite the psychodrama of the past several years, the problems facing government today are harder than they have been for some time. They in fact, they rather reminded me of the 1970s in that respect. The financial room for maneuver is next to nothing unless you're willing to do unpleasant things. Not just unpopular things, unpleasant things. Things with unfortunate consequences for parts of the population. And the demands, you mentioned defense earlier, the demands are terrifying if we don't meet them. In that respect, it feels like 1937. So you've got that too and frankly, again, people don't have time to, well, they shouldn't have time to fight amongst themselves. Ironically, Labour do find time to fight amongst themselves. I mean, I think partly to be honest, because I think about 100 of them only expect to be there for a few years. I mean, I've heard them say, I'm a one term MP. And that's had an interesting effect on their on their willingness to obey their whips for example, you know So so difficult to say I don't I don't think I don't think the psychodrama has been repressed so much as It's been deflected Deflected onto the other onto serious issues Gavin Megaw: So David, we always ask two questions to finish on. that let's let's ask you those questions. is Kemi up or down, is the party up or down in the last week from your perspective? David Davis: The last week's about flat, frankly. mean, we haven't, mean, politics hasn't even necessarily been the front page. mean, today's Times, I think was the, you know, is ADHD still going to be considered an illness or something like that? I didn't, didn't, I didn't read it in detail, but the, so we haven't had the sort of stark up or downs. Also, frankly, I think Burnham is... deliberately trying to maintain a sort of level, even keel, not very turbulent, I mean, he'll fail, but that's what he's trying to do between now and his party conference, which I think he's, understand Burnham or the people around him, I'm not sure which, are past masters of press management. They're much better at that than they are anything else. And so that's what you're seeing. Kemi is, I think in the last few weeks, I make it three weeks rather than one week, in the last few weeks, is sort of finding the range. You know, she's like an artillery general. She's finding out exactly how far you fire these shells and how fast, right? And we haven't quite exactly got the range yet, but I reckon within about four weeks, it'll be very noisy around Mr. Burnham. Gavin Megaw: And David, we always end with recommendations. I think we've probably got to recommend your new podcaster here. It's coming out with Ghetto Harry. Is it politics unleashed? Is that right? David Davis: yeah, that's right. That's right. Politics Unleashed will be unleashed in the middle of October, where we're preparing it all now. I mean, the plan behind it, it's a little similar to what you're doing. The plan behind it is we're both in the establishment, but not of the establishment. I mean, I am, for example, perfectly willing to be very critical of, let's say, the water privatizations, which you will remember back in the day. I was critical then. because I they were disaster or to be critical of the fact that we adopted student loans and things like that. On the other side, I'm fiercely critical of many labour policies and so on. it's hopefully, but when you add to that, what I'm acutely conscious of is, as I said, the problems facing us. Some of are almost existential and they're really difficult. And what we want to try and talk about is solutions. So that's where that's going. You want me to give you something to read or listen to? Gavin Megaw: Yes, if you've got one to recommend. Yeah, brilliant. David Davis: Well, you know, it's going to be very obscure because one of the things I read every month is MIT Technology Review. And the reason is because politics or society in general has never been more subject. to massive technological changes, whether it's AI, obvious thing, just a huge rate of impact on consumer society of different phones and all that sort of stuff, biotechnology, longevity, healthcare, all these things are enormous. So for example, one of the things I was looking at the other day was an article about a completely alternative approach to handling climate change. And it was as scary as hell. It was talking about putting up reflective particles in the upper atmosphere to reflect back the sun. And I sat there thinking, great if it works, but how do you reverse it if you go too far and you get yourself a new ice age or whatever? But things like that are now being countenance. People are talking about things like that. Scientists are talking in serious terms. So if I had a refer people to read something, it will be the MIT technology. Gavin Megaw: Well, thank you, David. And thank you for joining us today. It's been absolutely brilliant to David Davis: My pleasure. Gavin Megaw: hear from you again. And we look forward to maybe coming back and having another chat Thank you so much. David Davis: Yeah, yeah, will do. Gavin Megaw: Well, that was interesting from David, wasn't it? What do you rink of that, Peter? Peter: I think it was really interesting what he said about the Lib Dems and that, you know, parts of the party, of the Conservative Party that Patrick: you Okay. Okay. Peter: is, are still more inclined in that direction than to reform. And that Kemi Badelock is right to be careful not to incline in either direction because she could alienate. large amounts of her base. And this week we've had a and I've written about this for unheard, but we've had quite a lot of polling evidence to show that if anything, the conservative voter base is becoming more hostile towards reform and Nigel Farage. that's not everyone by any means and probably overall Patrick: Okay. Okay. Peter: party leans further to the right than to the centre. But don't underestimate the number of people that would be alienated on our own side by a pact with reform. Gavin Megaw: I think that's a very good point. Patrick, what did you take from it all? Patrick: Well, it's always good to hear from David. I remember I first met him when I was at central office back in 99 and I went to speak at a university event in Birmingham with him and I said to him, so are you standing down at the next election then? Because I assumed he'd had his ministerial career and that was it for David Davis. He went on to prove, of course, not only did he run for leader six years later, but he had a ministerial career. So my point making is David has 40 years of experience in Parliament and you know that is something that Kemi should be tapping to have that sort of knowledge of how things work. I was really interested about what he was saying about the upcoming election that he doesn't think there'll be an early one and also that's a good thing because the party machine really needs to get its act together. The 72 million that reform have received I think he is right to say that Labour should not retrospectively start banning things because they don't like it. But you know, I wonder what effect it will actually have. You may find they go for rather better wines at Boysdale. But actually, you've got to have the ground troops, you've got to have the quality of people. And you can have all this money, but do they have people who want who are there to spend the money on? So I think the Tories have a good operation that they need to beef up and the longer they've got to do that, the better. And David's right, just give it time. Gavin Megaw: Yeah, I find David fascinating in the sense that he's always trying to find innovative new ways to do things, and you know, you he mentioned his conversations with Farage, and people will be surprised by how often they speak. But David's got a track record of this. He you know, Ben and him were very, very close, used to speak regularly. Him and Farage speak a lot. It doesn't mean he's ever going to go to reform and You know, trust me, he's not a fan of reform. He likes Farage as a person though. But it's interesting that they are chatting about what works and what doesn't work. and for instance, Facebook adverts being the cheapest and most effective for reform. And I I think David's really interesting on that. And you can see what he does in his own constituency, sort of tries to replicate some of that stuff. so I find that really fascinating. I also I find his admission about the party machinery interesting, but also Patrick: Okay. you Gavin Megaw: his real unease around the ECHR position from Badenok, I find that fascinating as well, 'cause he is a very senior Tory with a real reputation out there. So that's one to watch, I think, for sure. Patrick: Yeah, he is a wise old head and you would hope she's just, you know, he's been a party chairman so he knows how the grassroots operation works. He's been a cabinet minister. I think he can sort of speak truth to her. I have my worries about the ECHR position, not what the party's position itself is, but the idea that if you're not with us, you're going to be out altogether. We're all speaking to people around Tory politics who feel a bit disquieted that they can't be a bit more big tent about this. But I think to go back to what Peter was saying earlier, the turnoff of reform for many people, I think the 72 million will turn a lot of people off. They'll look at, they'll think it's a bit dodgy. given that they know Farhad is under investigation for crypto issues anyway. I'm not saying it's anything illegal but people will just think, well, you know, this money is coming in from sources we don't really feel comfortable about. Gavin Megaw: Well well, you know, I asked a couple of Conservative Party donors, big ones, this week, what their view of like these donations were. And both of them said exactly what you just said, Patrick, that they think people will feel very uneasy about it. and I find it fascinating coming from donors to the party. Peter, did you have any other thoughts? Peter: Yes, I was very heartened by what David said about the party. If it can't shift reposition either to the left or to the right, then it's got to look at finding new voters. and that is very obviously younger voters because you know, fun fact, at the last election, if you take all eighteen to twenty four year olds, whether they voted or Patrick: Okay. Peter: stayed at home. just two percent of them turned out to vote conservative at the last election. Two percent, right? Patrick: Okay. Peter: That is atrocious. And David seemed to get that we need to make an offer to younger voters and that's got to center on housing. you know, and home ownership. Patrick: Okay. Peter: he clearly understands that I'd love to see a Conservative leader who clearly understands that too, and so far I don't think we've had one. Patrick: Yeah, on that point, I think I mentioned on the last podcast, I'd been to this optimistic picnic in Hyde Park, I'd written about a piece for the Telegraph anyway, in which there were more than 100 gathered who wanted to speak about a brighter tomorrow. They were almost all young, but also what I found is speaking to them, they were really conservative. And not in a social way, but they want building. They want investments. They want growth. They are optimistic about the future, but they need the government to help them. I think also the news we had yesterday about the likely interest rate rises, I'm very glad they hit that day and didn't put it up. But the fact that inflation is now going to go above 4 % is really, really worrying. And the government doesn't have great cards to play. But this is an opportunity for the Conservatives. If they can somehow find a credible economic position that says to the whole country, not just pensioners, they must remember they have more than pensioner voters, that we are optimistic for the future and we are going to build and we are going to be generating productivity, then they have something that's different from Labour. Gavin Megaw: Yeah, I think that's a really, really good point. And and he was quite optimistic about Baidenok, wasn't he? In terms of he described her as an artillery general, just getting her range in. But also he was talking about how the Labour MPs weren't as optimistic about their chances at the next election. And there are ramifications for that for any early election call, because you'll have, as he said, around a hundred MPs just not happy about that because they know they're potentially losing their jobs. So I find all that interesting. so that sort of leads us on, to whether it's been a good week or a bad week for Bade Nock and the party. I mean, he da David described it as a flat week. We're not allowed to do that. We've got to be either up or down. That's the rules. He it was very unlike David to sit on the fence. what do you reckon then, Patrick? Up week or a down week? Patrick: Well, I mean, I'm tempted to sit on the fence. think David was right. It's a shame there wasn't a PMQs on Wednesday, that they only had two days in parliament. I think it's probably been a slightly good week in the long run, but for bad reasons, because I think that the revelations about the state of the economy, I think will help the conservatives. John Healy saying he didn't realize how bad things were. I someone did point out you were in the cabinet for most of the last two years, but you just not paying attention when they discussed Gavin Megaw: Ha ha ha. Patrick: it. So I think That would be a week. There's not been any disasters for the toys, but there's not been any great headlines either. Gavin Megaw: Yeah. Peter? Peter: Well, I think seventy-two million for reform has to make it a bad week. and if they use that money to target conservative held seats, and or to run a spoiler operation in seats where we're up against the lib dems, which they could do, just you know, if they haven't completely dropped their ambition to kill off the Conservative Party, then it has to be counted an extremely bad week. Because I don't know how we counteract that. one bright point, however, and that is what the inheritance tax proposition, where we might possibly announce that we're going to abolish it if we get into government. And reform coming out and saying, that would be immoral. Now that's a dividing line, a clear dividing line between conservative and reform, and that might yet come in handy. Don't know yet. But on what we do know, Patrick: Okay. Okay. Peter: I'd have to say a bad week because of that donation. Patrick: I thought Gavin Megaw: Yeah. Patrick: the timing of the inheritance tax, if I just button for it, is very odd. I thought that would be a rabbit that they'd have announced before their own conference. I found it strange it came out now. Gavin Megaw: Yeah. I did find I did find that odd as well. What I would say is I think I think Andrew Griffiths was again out this week doing interviews on today programme. He had his speech and that's I think that's great. He's sort of getting those dividing lines very clearly established, which I think is all good and is what you need to do in opposition. But I do think the donations from reform are massive, and that means it's a Bad week for the Conservative parties at no fault of their own, actually, which is which is interesting. It's the you know, they're not they're not making mistakes in the same way. It's others getting ahead for other reasons. so an interesting week. And you know, we've got a few more interesting weeks coming up with different party conferences as well. So more to watch. So let's end with recommendations then. Any recommendations to make, Peter, other than your amazing piece for Unheard, Patrick: Okay. Gavin Megaw: of course. Peter: Well, I'm gonna be even more immodest and recommend another piece I wrote. this is back in twenty twenty-three for Con Home, but it is in honour of our guests. it's a piece about the Prime Ministers we very nearly could have had from 2010 onwards. And David Davis is one of those. we forget. Patrick: Okay. Okay. Peter: How close it is that he came to winning the party leadership. The Cameron team over the summer of 2005. They came really Patrick: you Peter: close to throwing in the towel. If they had, it would have been Davis versus Ken Clark. David Davis would have won because he's a Euroskeptic. Ken Clark wanted to join the Euro. And then the 2010 Patrick: Okay. Peter: General election would have been very different. Gordon Brown couldn't have used the No Time for a Novice line, not with David Davis. There wouldn't have been that bizarre big society manifesto that confused everyone Patrick: Okay. Peter: from us. And in the televised leaders debate, he would not have said, I agree with Nick. there would have been more clear blue water. I think we'd have won that election with a majority. Gavin Megaw: Well look, someday we need to go back and have a look at all that because as you all know, I was watching Patrick: you Gavin Megaw: from a very close proximity through IT Patrick, what's your recommendation? Patrick: Well, two very quick ones. I've just seen the most exciting news that the Culture, Media and Sport Committee has said that they're going to hold an investigation in why we're so bad at Eurovision. Next Gavin Megaw: Ha ha ha ha. Patrick: year is 30 years since what I think is the best ever Eurovision winner. Katrina and the waves love sign of life, but we've only come higher than 15th on one occasion in last 15 years. So I'm looking forward to Parliament finally tackling the most important things facing the country, which is why we're rubbish at that. Gavin Megaw: do you want Patrick on that? Do you want that in the next Conservative manifesto then? Something about Eurovision? Patrick: Yeah, a top 10 target, maybe top five. I don't Gavin Megaw: Uh-huh. Patrick: think it's we've had some rubbish songs, but I think it's also the rest of Europe hates us. But as a recommendation, I'm normally 10 years behind the rest of the country in TV watching this time I'm only two years behind. I started watching Ludwig, the BBC drama with David Mitchell about the crossword solving detective and it's rather lovely. So I've enjoyed getting into it a little bit behind everyone else. Gavin Megaw: I find it very funny that you say that, Patrick, because one of things I wanted to say to you is every advert I see for that reminds me off you Patrick: Well, was all bearded doddery Cambridge guys. Gavin Megaw: Sorry, right, sorry, to be a bit more serious than mine. William Haig wrote a piece for the Times, I think, on Monday, about reforms donations, which I find fascinating because he talked about how donations came into the Conservative Party when he was leader of the opposition. And how no one really asked for anything, which was interesting. and he was also making the case for if you really want to get rid of this type of donations, you need to allow taxpayers to fund political parties, and how that's probably unrealistic. And I find it just a really interesting piece given the reaction Patrick: Okay. Gavin Megaw: to the donations, because they're huge, they're worrying for the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, Lib Dems, and others, but they are what they are, and parties can do that under the setup. And probably need to be respected. So I'll put a link to that and Peter's pieces in the show notes for you all to enjoy. Patrick: And love to shine a light as a video. Gavin Megaw: Yes, quite. Well we will do then, Patrick. We will. You can send the link to me. thank you all for joining us. I hope you enjoyed David. it was very good of him to be our first guest. There will be more guests coming down the line. We've got multiple people who have already agreed to come on, which will be exciting. We'll do one every few weeks. and we look forward to Being back next week. Thank you very much.