Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome back to the Debatable Discussions podcast.
Speaker: Today we have another exciting episode as we're travelling across the pond for an episode on British politics and we are also joined by a very special guest as well.
Speaker: Today we're here joined by our very good friend, Daniel Clatworthy, who is a very keen politics student, very keen, with a very keen interest in this, with a lot of stats, a lot of knowledge, who will help us sort of decipher the mystery of the Tory leadership contest, as well as provide us with a quick analysis on KS Tama's first 100 days.
Speaker: Daniel, it's great to have you.
Speaker: Great to be on, guys.
Speaker: So getting straight into the questions, Daniel and Diane, as you would have both seen in the news, we've just come about a week ago to Keir Starmer's first 100 days in office.
Speaker: Indeed.
Speaker: So it feels like it's actually gone quite quickly from the 4th of July when he got elected in.
Speaker: However, now he's had quite an interesting first 100 days.
Speaker: We've seen a donor's freebie scandal.
Speaker: We've had, well, quite a mess, you could put it, with Sue Gray.
Speaker: as well as uncertainty about many of his policies, namely the VAT on private schools.
Speaker: So, Dayan Paps, can you tell us what's your opinion on Keir Starmer's first 100 days in office?
Speaker: I think the 100 days mark is...
Speaker: In my opinion, fictitious, frankly.
Speaker: There's not a lot someone can do in 100 days.
Speaker: I think there's definitely been some positives, some negatives.
Speaker: I do think he has handled the riots decently well.
Speaker: Decently well.
Speaker: Could have been worse.
Speaker: A lot worse.
Speaker: Could have been a lot better.
Speaker: It was sort of a 6 out of 10.
Speaker: Can I jump in?
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: I think the fact that he was...
Speaker: the chief prosecutor certainly helped when dealing with the riots.
Speaker: He could come across as a strong leader who was cracking down on law and order issues, which are often seen as a conservative trait.
Speaker: So I think that helped him a bit.
Speaker: Indeed, but there's also been many scandals, as you said, Freebie Gate, resignation of Sue Gray.
Speaker: So now I want to ask, what do you think is the biggest problem that Keir Stamm's government has faced in these past three months?
Speaker: Yeah, so I would say it is, I would describe it as a kind of credibility crisis because it basically got this, you know, Sue Gray's resignation.
Speaker: I think that's the one that that's the one that jumps to mind for me because it kind of sums up the whole, what they call the donor gate, where you've had these thousands of pounds of
Speaker: gifts and freebies, kickbacks, that sort of thing, given to Keir Starmer by this sort of elusive figure of Lord Wahid Ali.
Speaker: Lord Wahid Ali, he'll cover the bill.
Speaker: Keir Starmer's son stayed at his luxury apartment during GCSEs.
Speaker: Luxury I would have liked to have had, but it is what it is.
Speaker: Taylor Swift tickets, Arsenal tickets, that kind of thing.
Speaker: Keir Starmer went in
Speaker: on a kind of anti-sleaze ticket, right?
Speaker: You know, because the Conservatives, after 14 years of government, appeared to be sleazy, they appeared to be corrupt in a certain lot of things, like the gambling during the election, like the Tory MPs gambling on when the election date would be, that kind of thing.
Speaker: And it just seems that Keir Starmer's just completely mirrored that.
Speaker: And I think that's...
Speaker: him trying to appear on the sort of moral high horse has completely backfired.
Speaker: Yes, I agree with you there, Daniel.
Speaker: And for our listeners who don't know, Keir Starmer accepted quite a large, an extremely large amount of donations, namely £32,000 of workwear and pairs of glasses worth £2,400.
Speaker: So hopefully his vision isn't too bad because Lord Ali has generously spent on it.
Speaker: However, as you said there, this whole idea about him being sort of on a higher moral high ground than the Tories has totally been diminished by this scandal.
Speaker: And it just seems rather unprofessional because we had this idea of him being almost a bit gloomy and quite professional.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: A sticker for the rules.
Speaker: But this shows the complete opposite.
Speaker: Moving back to Sue Gray, I think this is a very interesting point.
Speaker: So obviously many will know the name of Sue Gray as she left the civil service to work for Keir Starmer in the first place, which was something that was quite controversial and something that's not right, obviously, because civil servants are supposed to be impartial.
Speaker: And of course, she was in charge of adjudicating on the Partygate scandal.
Speaker: And she was presented to Boris Johnson as this kind of pinnacle of impartiality.
Speaker: And of course, immediately going and working for the new Labour prime minister, it certainly doesn't come across as being kind of non-aligned and impartial.
Speaker: It comes across as perhaps even, I mean, this is what Boris claims in Unleashed, his new book, where he says, he basically claims that that Sue Gray stitched him up, essentially.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, she definitely did.
Speaker: And as you said there, you can see it does cast some quite large questions over impartiality in the civil service if she jumps ship over to Keir Starmer.
Speaker: And I think also, going back to Boris's Unleashed, what was his phrase?
Speaker: Et tu Brute?
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: The Caesar references.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So, yeah, I think that is a very, very interesting point that we've made there, which is the impartiality in the civil service.
Speaker: Because I too would like to say that I, frankly, I don't believe for a second that the impartiality exists.
Speaker: And that is because of the human factor.
Speaker: Even, you know, if I don't have a, you know, sort of,
Speaker: linked to a party, I might be a bit more lenient towards the left or the right, depending on my own political allegiances.
Speaker: So I think this is a very good example of sort of a case where a civil servant has showed that impartiality doesn't actually exist.
Speaker: And it's just more of a not acting on it.
Speaker: I mean, I think objectively impartiality is something that's basically impossible.
Speaker: However, I do think that the civil service does do quite a good job.
Speaker: I don't think civil servants are obviously allowed to be a member of a party or to vote, I think, because they do recognise this impartiality and that they need to be more objective.
Speaker: But then actually saying that, there's been many instances where civil servants have not been impartial.
Speaker: So they've said, so they perhaps their political views have slightly gotten in the way and the government hasn't listened.
Speaker: A good example is Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng.
Speaker: I mean, perhaps that was also objective of the civil servants saying, no, this won't work.
Speaker: But Liz Truss still decided to go ahead with it.
Speaker: Yeah, I see what you mean.
Speaker: I mean, the civil service naturally were opposed to trust and quasi-quieting because they perceived that the civil service had been ignored.
Speaker: You guys have heard of the OBR, the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Speaker: They're meant to be consulted on things like budgets.
Speaker: And for the mini-budget in 2022, they were not consulted.
Speaker: Daniel, could you please explain to our viewers and listeners who have not heard of OBR,
Speaker: Could you say what their job is, what they usually do?
Speaker: Yeah, well, they're sort of like...
Speaker: I'm not exactly an expert on the OBR, but I'd say it's kind of like a kind of economic modelling sort of programme where civil servants look at physical policy, specifically a budget or a mini budget, and they say, you know, before it's entered Parliament, and they say, will this work in the long term, short term and medium term, et cetera?
Speaker: And usually that means that there's going to have to be some kind of compromise.
Speaker: Politicians might have to water down some of their promises, etc.
Speaker: Which might explain why Truss went over them, because she knew that Trussonomics wouldn't exactly get through the kind of more, well, more kind of arguably sensible OPR civil servants.
Speaker: Everything very detailed, you know, any slight mishaps in the bin.
Speaker: And it is a key thing to say as well that the OBR is non-departmental in the government.
Speaker: So it's funded by the Treasury but it is quite an independent body and for its economic analysis and sort of foresight and forecast that it provides.
Speaker: But yes, impartiality may not exist in the civil service but the OBR is almost slightly more to the side just because it is this sort of non-departmental body in the government.
Speaker: Going back to Starmer, Daniel and Ayan, what do you think about his policies?
Speaker: So we've seen quite a large bit of confusion about his policies towards private schools.
Speaker: He obviously slashed the winter fuel allowance, much to the annoyance of many pensioners who enjoyed receiving a few hundred pounds a year.
Speaker: But what do you think about these rather sort of confusing and he hasn't really put many sort of definite and very clear policies ahead?
Speaker: Well, to me, it sort of appears that they've got, Starmer's got this incredibly powerful Chancellor, Rachel Rees, who is kind of like, she's much more, I'd say, physically right-wing than the rest of the Labour Party.
Speaker: So you've kind of got a situation where Rachel Reaves is kind of the equivalent of, you know, you're going to Reading Festival and you bring along your parents.
Speaker: Is that kind of shit?
Speaker: I think that's how lots of Labour MPs will perceive it.
Speaker: They're just shocked because she's essentially bringing back aspects of austerity by making spending cuts.
Speaker: it seems that she will bring him some kind of national insurance rise for employers in the budget because apparently that doesn't count as taxing on working people so it's somehow not a manifesto violation because of course in their manifesto they promised no tax rises on working people for national insurance, VAT, income tax, the big three so yeah.
Speaker: So yes and it is a big
Speaker: It is a big issue as well, because the latest figure I read was that I think it was 9,500 millionaires are set to leave the UK already this year.
Speaker: And obviously you've had an even large exodus of billionaires who are really sort of, well, I guess you could say they're quite nervous.
Speaker: I mean, even though billionaires have a lot of money, they're not really willing to give much of it away, even though they can.
Speaker: So you have this large exodus of wealth out of the UK to these places like C,
Speaker: Singapore, Dubai, Monaco, which really will, I think, in the long term harm this Labour government.
Speaker: Also, Daniel and Diane, if you've heard of it as well recently, there's been the sort of set up, I think it may have happened, I'm not entirely sure, of the Labour Investment Conference in the UK.
Speaker: And this was a conference which Starmer organised and sort of modelled on one that Macron did in Paris and Versailles.
Speaker: And it was effectively just sort of like a failure, this conference in many ways.
Speaker: So he's tried to bring a bit more investment to the UK, seeming that a lot is leaving it.
Speaker: And, well, it hasn't been the most successful.
Speaker: Yeah, so I'm actually reading about this now.
Speaker: Allegedly, and this is the Guardian, so I will say a caveat, although they're usually quite good with stats.
Speaker: Government says that 63 billion of private sector money have been made at the summit, so 63 billion committed.
Speaker: That's quite a good number.
Speaker: Elton John's performed Michelin-style meals.
Speaker: So we can definitely see a left-wing agenda there of...
Speaker: you know, equality and trying to reduce the social capital and social wealth inequality at the moment by bringing billionaires and serving the Michelin style food as well as having a live performance where I'm still standing.
Speaker: Now, from this, there's 28 billion in public investment, more than three billion on infrastructure, transport infrastructure to be precise, 22 billion on carbon capture,
Speaker: 24 billion on clean energy and 6 billion on data centers.
Speaker: Now, these numbers do look quite spectacular, I will be honest, but we just do not really know how they're actually going to get implemented because again, as Daniel said, you've got this really powerful figure in Rachel Reeves.
Speaker: You've got Keir Starmer, who frankly, I don't think he really knows what he's doing yet.
Speaker: which perhaps it is only been three months.
Speaker: He hasn't been in office for that long, but he frankly doesn't really know what he's doing.
Speaker: He doesn't really understand the game.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a very good point, because I think, I don't know if you guys have been watching PMQs recently, where the Prime Minister gets grilled in the House of Commons every week on Wednesday lunchtime, but
Speaker: Almost every PMQ's recently, Keir Starmer has at least once referred to Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister.
Speaker: In a kind of, what I think is must be some kind of Freudian slip, where Keir Starmer thinks perhaps deep down in his subconscious buried somewhere is the fact that he thinks he's not quite ready to be Prime Minister, he's not quite fit because he doesn't seem to have quite a, he doesn't seem to have a vision.
Speaker: They got this kind of idea of change Labour, but no one really knows what that means, because so far it seems to be, you know, a contradiction because of how left wing certain parts of the Labour Party are contradicted with, yeah, Rachel Reeves, as we talked about.
Speaker: Yes, and to add to that point as well, it's become very apparent recently of how much easier it is to be a leader of the opposition compared to Prime Minister.
Speaker: We saw Starmer perform very well as leader of the opposition, because I think it's a lot easier to be attacking the Prime Minister than to be on the defensive where Starmer finds himself now.
Speaker: However, Daniel, you mentioned Rishi Sunak there as Prime Minister, an office which he lost on the 4th of July.
Speaker: And he's also going to resign from his leadership of the Conservative Party.
Speaker: So I'll move on to the next segment of the podcast today.
Speaker: And this is who do you guys think will win the Tory leadership race?
Speaker: What are your opinions on the race so far?
Speaker: Now, I'm going to start here and I really wanted James Cleverley to win.
Speaker: I listened to his speech and I thought this is someone who knows what they're doing.
Speaker: Someone with a vision, I think someone who's sort of a centrist.
Speaker: So yeah, that's where I reside in the political spectrum.
Speaker: I'm more in the center, slightly more right wing when it comes to economic policies, a bit more left wing when it comes to social policies, because I hate tax.
Speaker: But at the same time, George Cleverley, very eloquent speaker, I thought,
Speaker: I just thought, surely he's going to win.
Speaker: But, as we now know, he has been somehow expelled from the... Yeah, voted out, not expelled from the party.
Speaker: Of course, no, no.
Speaker: Expelled from the contest by the voters.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: I wonder what your thoughts are Daniel on this?
Speaker: What would you think happened?
Speaker: Let's just like run down how this contest has been structured because to the layman it might be quite confusing because it's been an extraordinarily long contest, right?
Speaker: It started in July and it's ending next month.
Speaker: It's ending on the 2nd of November.
Speaker: So it's almost a self-indulgently long period for an elite contest, but you essentially have
Speaker: Conservative MPs needed a certain number of nominations backing from other Conservative MPs to enter a series of ballots where they would be narrowed down by other remaining Conservative MPs until a final two was left and then those final two are going to the membership.
Speaker: So what happened was last week on Tuesday we had James Cleverley following his Hundinger
Speaker: of a conference speech that Diane referred to.
Speaker: He surged to the front.
Speaker: Originally, he was kind of further back at the pack, but he came to the front.
Speaker: He got 39 votes on Tuesday, way ahead of the two main rivals on the right side of the party, Kevin Vavnok and Robert Jenrick, low down sort of around 30 both.
Speaker: Tom Tugendhat had a low 20 and he was eliminated.
Speaker: Here's the interesting thing.
Speaker: So Tom Tugendhat was the sort of most centrist candidate, but because he got 20, he was eliminated.
Speaker: So it was natural to assume that Cleverley was guaranteed to go through to the final two, but surely all of Tugendhat's votes would go to the next most centrist candidate, which was James Cleverley, the following day in the ballot.
Speaker: But then surprise,
Speaker: Huge shock to everyone, all the political commentators.
Speaker: On Wednesday, James Cleverley was eliminated.
Speaker: Not only was he eliminated, his vote count actually went down from 39 to 37, meaning that all of Tom Tugendhat's votes needed to have gone to Kemi Badenow and Robert Jenner, right?
Speaker: So there's been a number of conspiracy theories as to what went on there, kind of cock up or conspiracy, right?
Speaker: And the general conclusion seems to be that there was some kind of vote lending where the generic team basically went to cleverly supporters and said, you know, cleverly is a guaranteed, he's guaranteed to be in the final two, but is that you don't want Kenny bad not to be in the final two because she's too dangerous.
Speaker: So you need to vote for generic because, you know, it doesn't matter because cleverly is a guarantee to go through.
Speaker: And so.
Speaker: the kind of conspiracy there is that some vote lending went on and cleverly supporters inadvertently removed cleverly by voting for generic in order to get rid of bad luck.
Speaker: So yes, and also for the listeners who don't know, Robert Jenrick narrowly beat Cleverley only by four votes and one vote above him was Kemi Badenoch, who had fought the support of 42 MPs.
Speaker: I think Cleverley, though, is an interesting character to look at because of all the candidates running, he's definitely held the highest ministerial positions.
Speaker: So he's been obviously Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, and at the moment is Shadow Home Secretary.
Speaker: However, there's been...
Speaker: A lot of his criticisms effectively of him not being prime ministerial enough, that's the sort of vague term they use to describe if someone seems like they'd be a good PM.
Speaker: And I think that's because, at least in my opinion, he hasn't been that successful in these ministerial positions he's held, for example, in the Home Office.
Speaker: He was right at the centre of this huge fiasco that was with immigration, increased numbers coming in.
Speaker: And also most of the plans that were implemented were actually Jenrick's plans whilst Jenrick was immigration minister before he quit in theory.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And of course, Robert Jenrick resigned.
Speaker: in November 2023 because he thought the Rwanda plan wasn't going far enough to stop illegal migration, which I think we can really point to as the point where he sort of began his leadership campaign basically a year before the election was even called.
Speaker: And that is quite interesting as well because Jenrick was seen as far more sort of centrist Tory before that.
Speaker: And ever since he said, well, the Rwanda scheme isn't seen as being far right enough, which I think would have surprised many people as it was seen as being quite far right.
Speaker: From that moment, he's really now being presented as, well, quite a far right candidate.
Speaker: And that is what makes this race rather interesting because you have Kemi Badenoch, a very straight-talking, not far right, but right wing, definitely Conservative MP.
Speaker: I think her campaign describes her best.
Speaker: Her campaign's called Renewal 2030.
Speaker: And the idea of the renewal is also returning the Conservative Party back to its sort of original principles.
Speaker: So in many ways, she is this sort of quite traditional Tory MP.
Speaker: And then you have Jenrick as well.
Speaker: called by many as being Robert's generic which I'm not going to lie I can sort of see slightly why he does come across as well slightly generic however he does seem in my opinion at least to be a far less abrasive choice than Kemi so Daniel and Diane out of these two who do you see perhaps succeeding
Speaker: I'd also like to pose another question to Daniel as well.
Speaker: Could Daniel, could you give us sort of an outline of these two people and what they're actually planning to do?
Speaker: I know it's been a really busy time for a lot of people.
Speaker: So, and maybe some are simply not very familiar with the Tory contest.
Speaker: Could we have a quick outline of who the two big candidates are, what are their plans and who they're trying to appeal to in the next round of votes?
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: So obviously this contest now is just about the members.
Speaker: We don't know how many there are, perhaps around 160,000 is probably decreased.
Speaker: But basically you have Badenov and Jenrik, as John said, both on the right of the party.
Speaker: They've had ministerial roles, but not major ministerial roles.
Speaker: So they're not totally associated with the previous Conservative government, which was perhaps the reason why Claire Belief was actually eliminated, because the previous Conservative government seems too toxic, that sort of thing.
Speaker: But, yeah, so Jenrick's approach seems to have been much more based on sort of policies, which is quite strange when you're going into opposition.
Speaker: So he's got lots of detailed policies, I think stuff like...
Speaker: number of new nuclear power plants by 2032 something like that clean energy basically uh not clean energy at all oil and gas because he wants cheap energy uh and and and but his main his main thing is stopping migration and he wants to pull out of the european court of human rights
Speaker: whilst Kemi Badenock, as John said, has got these platitudes of trying to return the Conservative Party back to its basics, whatever that really means.
Speaker: I feel it is slightly ambiguous.
Speaker: But I also think, as John said, she's quite abrasive.
Speaker: People have described her as being someone who could start a fight in an empty room.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it's almost like that could potentially be good at the dispatch box in Parliament.
Speaker: But then again, I'm not quite sure the British public will like the idea of a highly aggressive Conservative leader when the Conservative Party has been so publicly loathed in recent years, massively kicked out.
Speaker: I think that would be the wrong move.
Speaker: I think really the Conservative Party almost needs to be silent.
Speaker: for a period of time so they can, after Labour has inevitably made more mistakes and they're certainly on that trajectory, the Conservative Party can come back with a broader appeal to get back some of those Lib Dem and reform voters, which will be the aim of Jenrick or Badnock, whoever wins.
Speaker: And also I have another question to both of you.
Speaker: Do we think that any of these two candidates, if they are,
Speaker: elected by the Conservative membership.
Speaker: Do we think that there could be a coalition with Reform UK?
Speaker: Or do we think that is out of the picture?
Speaker: In my opinion...
Speaker: So in my opinion, I think it's out of the picture.
Speaker: And the reason for that is, so Reform UK, well, basically are the reason for why the Tories had the worst Conservative defeat seat-wise in their history.
Speaker: And at the time of the election, I would have said a Reform UK coalition with the Conservatives is more likely.
Speaker: However, now I just can't see it happening.
Speaker: And that's because...
Speaker: Well, primarily because Reform UK only have five seats, so a coalition isn't hugely helpful.
Speaker: And also by the time the next election comes, people won't have totally forgotten about the last Tory government, but it will be a distant memory.
Speaker: And much of Reform UK's arsenal in the past election were the Tories are awful.
Speaker: You guys need a new right wing choice.
Speaker: However, the Tories will be that new right wing choice almost at the time of the next election because they'd have spent five years in opposition.
Speaker: So I don't think a Reform UK coalition is...
Speaker: I don't think the Tories definitely need to make a Reform UK coalition to do too well at the next election.
Speaker: However, one thing to note is that as so many Conservative MPs have lost seats and so many Conservative Party members have moved to Reform UK, there will be support for a coalition.
Speaker: I know that Jacob Rees-Mogg, for example, he pushed very hard at the time of the election for there to be a Conservative Reform UK coalition because
Speaker: if there was he wouldn't have basically lost his seat so i think there's going to be lots of interests within the party for that to be a coalition however in my opinion i just can't really see there being one because i don't think it's that essential for the tories in five years daniel what do you think yeah well i think um i think lots of conservative mps will see nigel farage of having the blood of their former colleagues all over his hands right because
Speaker: In 2019, Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson had this kind of informal non-aggression pact of sorts where Nigel said, I'm not going to field any MPs, right, at the 2019 election.
Speaker: And that massively helped Boris Johnson get his landslide because all of those reform voters voted for the Tory party.
Speaker: But of course, in this election, there was no agreement whatsoever.
Speaker: So I think...
Speaker: By the time of the next election, perhaps Conservative MPs will be willing to have to come to some kind of agreement with reform so that they can get back those voters.
Speaker: But it will really depend how much of a grudge Conservative MPs have about what reform has done to their colleagues in 2024.
Speaker: But yeah, basically.
Speaker: I mean, it's sort of hard to talk about as well because it is so far away five years.
Speaker: And I mean, you can see with Labour already Tory favourability is on the rise a bit.
Speaker: So I think, you know, in five years, the Conservative Party can be very different to what it is at the moment.
Speaker: It's got a very small number of MPs right now and it will in five years as well.
Speaker: But popularity wise, I do think the Conservatives will definitely challenge Labour far more at the next election.
Speaker: I don't necessarily think they're going to win at all.
Speaker: However, I think they're definitely going to win back a lot of these seats, which they lost to Reform and also perhaps to the Lib Dems as well.
Speaker: I also want, before we end this episode,
Speaker: And before we have a summary of the episode, actually, could we have a final prediction from everyone?
Speaker: So John, who do you think is going to win the Tory leadership contest?
Speaker: It's hard to say for me because I looked at the latest poll and I think it was Kemi Baden off with 52% chance and Robert Jenner off with 48%.
Speaker: If you made me guess, and it is really hard to say because just myself, I wouldn't know out of which two to vote for.
Speaker: I'm going to go Kemi Badenock.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, that is the popular choice.
Speaker: John Curtis, the polling guru.
Speaker: He's predicted Kemi Badenock, though he's not too trustworthy because he thought Boris would lose the 2019 election in a landslide.
Speaker: And he does look like a homeless man.
Speaker: So I'm not sure whether we trust him too much.
Speaker: But I'd say...
Speaker: I'd actually be more inclined to say Jenrick on this one, because that is who I would be inclined to vote for, because I think there does need to be a less aggressive voice for the Conservative Party to recover and to regain some trust from the electorate, because that trust is currently almost non-existent, I would say.
Speaker: quickly before, Diane, I've got to say that for any listeners out there, Sir John Curtis is seen as the sort of messiah of UK polling, you could say.
Speaker: He is seen as the guy for UK polling.
Speaker: And I think he also has a podcast as well.
Speaker: Yeah, so maybe a possible collaboration.
Speaker: He's been wrong before and I think he might be wrong again, but we'll have to see.
Speaker: Because of course, you can't really poll the Conservative Party membership because we don't know how many they are.
Speaker: I don't know who they're polling.
Speaker: Who's receiving these polls?
Speaker: And before we do the summary, I'm also going to make my impression and I'm going to... Although this is very, very difficult, as you both said, because number one, we don't know who the electric actually is.
Speaker: We don't really know anything.
Speaker: I am more inclined to go for Robert Jenrick because I do think that 2% difference is going to change the...
Speaker: By the time of the polls right now, I think Kami Baden-Ock is coming off strong from a very good sort of campaign with the MPs.
Speaker: But we all know that as soon as you get to a...
Speaker: a member leadership contest, basically anything goes.
Speaker: We have trust for VS Sunak and we know how that ended.
Speaker: So everything's on the table.
Speaker: And now, Jon, for a quick summary.
Speaker: Yes, so, well, it's been a very, very good episode with Daniel.
Speaker: We started obviously talking about Starmer's first, well, rather turbulent 100 days in office.
Speaker: The best description I've heard for this was in The Spectator, and that was, Starmer has hit the ground stumbling.
Speaker: And I think that's quite a good summary of our comments as well.
Speaker: Oh yes, you got it right there.
Speaker: And he had the Donogate scandal, as we said, a large issue of Sue Gray.
Speaker: There's been confusion over his policies, in particular tax, and he's now facing perhaps an exodus of wealth out of the UK.
Speaker: And it's not what people would have expected for a Labour government coming off a huge landslide election victory.
Speaker: Yes, and also we then discussed the Tory leadership contest with a great analysis provided by both Daniel and John there on the candidates, a bit of an interesting decision from the MPs in voting out James Cleverley, as well as who is going to win the actual Tory leadership contest.
Speaker: We've also talked about a possible collaboration reform, which, yes, does seem very unlikely at the moment, although both candidates are very right wing as it comes to the Tory party.
Speaker: They are sort of on the right side of it.
Speaker: And we hope you enjoy this episode.
Speaker: Many thanks to Daniel for coming and being a guest.
Speaker: And as well as this, I'd like to...
Speaker: Tell all our listeners, do listen back to the episode with Ryan Wayne, where we discuss what the Labour government is going to do.
Speaker: As well as this, if you're interested in the Donogate scandal, we did discuss this with our guest Ioannis on another episode, as well as the role of the House for Lords and the origins of conservatism.
Speaker: Yes, so thank you, everyone.
Speaker: Thank you to Daniel again.
Speaker: And please do give us a five-star rating.
Speaker: Leave us a comment if you've got any suggestions for a future episode or on the podcast itself.
Speaker: And thank you, everyone, for listening.
Speaker: And I'll see you soon.
Speaker: See you soon.
