Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S2 Episode 14: UK politics
5 Plays7 months ago
Today we are joined by Daniel Clatworthy for an episode on UK politics. Alongside Daniel, we navigate the Tory Leadership race, as well as the first 100 days of Starmer’s government.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to British Politics Episode
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Debatable Discussions podcast.
00:00:04
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.
00:00:14
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
Keir Starmer's Leadership: Challenges and Controversies
00:00:36
Speaker
days.
00:00:36
Speaker
Daniel, it's great to have you.
00:00:38
Speaker
Great to be on, guys.
00:00:40
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.
00:00:53
Speaker
Indeed.
00:00:53
Speaker
So it feels like it's actually gone quite quickly from the 4th of July when he got elected in.
00:00:58
Speaker
However, now he's had quite an interesting first 100 days.
00:01:02
Speaker
We've seen a donor's freebie scandal.
00:01:05
Speaker
We've had, well, quite a mess, you could put it, with Sue Gray.
00:01:09
Speaker
as well as uncertainty about many of his policies, namely the VAT on private schools.
00:01:14
Speaker
So, Dayan Paps, can you tell us what's your opinion on Keir Starmer's first 100 days in office?
00:01:21
Speaker
I think the 100 days mark is...
00:01:24
Speaker
In my opinion, fictitious, frankly.
00:01:27
Speaker
There's not a lot someone can do in 100 days.
00:01:30
Speaker
I think there's definitely been some positives, some negatives.
00:01:35
Speaker
I do think he has handled the riots decently well.
00:01:38
Speaker
Decently well.
00:01:39
Speaker
Could have been worse.
00:01:40
Speaker
A lot worse.
00:01:41
Speaker
Could have been a lot better.
00:01:42
Speaker
It was sort of a 6 out of 10.
00:01:44
Speaker
Can I jump in?
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah, of course.
00:01:47
Speaker
I think the fact that he was...
00:01:50
Speaker
the chief prosecutor certainly helped when dealing with the riots.
00:01:53
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.
00:02:01
Speaker
So I think that helped him a bit.
00:02:03
Speaker
Indeed, but there's also been many scandals, as you said, Freebie Gate, resignation of Sue Gray.
00:02:08
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?
00:02:15
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.
00:02:24
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
00:02:34
Speaker
gifts and freebies, kickbacks, that sort of thing, given to Keir Starmer by this sort of elusive figure of Lord Wahid Ali.
00:02:45
Speaker
Lord Wahid Ali, he'll cover the bill.
00:02:47
Speaker
Keir Starmer's son stayed at his luxury apartment during GCSEs.
00:02:53
Speaker
Luxury I would have liked to have had, but it is what it is.
00:02:57
Speaker
Taylor Swift tickets, Arsenal tickets, that kind of thing.
00:03:01
Speaker
Keir Starmer went in
00:03:02
Speaker
on a kind of anti-sleaze ticket, right?
00:03:05
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.
00:03:23
Speaker
And it just seems that Keir Starmer's just completely mirrored that.
00:03:26
Speaker
And I think that's...
00:03:28
Speaker
him trying to appear on the sort of moral high horse has completely backfired.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yes, I agree with you there, Daniel.
00:03:35
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.
00:03:49
Speaker
So hopefully his vision isn't too bad because Lord Ali has generously spent on it.
00:03:57
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.
00:04:05
Speaker
And it just seems rather unprofessional because we had this idea of him being almost a bit gloomy and quite professional.
00:04:13
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:04:14
Speaker
A sticker for the rules.
00:04:16
Speaker
But this shows the complete opposite.
00:04:19
Speaker
Moving back to Sue Gray, I think this is a very interesting point.
00:04:23
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.
00:04:39
Speaker
And of course, she was in charge of adjudicating on the Partygate scandal.
00:04:44
Speaker
And she was presented to Boris Johnson as this kind of pinnacle of impartiality.
00:04:49
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.
00:04:58
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.
00:05:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:11
Speaker
I mean, she definitely did.
00:05:12
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.
00:05:21
Speaker
And I think also, going back to Boris's Unleashed, what was his phrase?
00:05:27
Speaker
Et tu Brute?
00:05:28
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:05:31
Speaker
The Caesar references.
00:05:31
Speaker
Yes.
00:05:33
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.
00:05:40
Speaker
Because I too would like to say that I, frankly, I don't believe for a second that the impartiality exists.
00:05:47
Speaker
And that is because of the human factor.
00:05:50
Speaker
Even, you know, if I don't have a, you know, sort of,
00:05:54
Speaker
linked to a party, I might be a bit more lenient towards the left or the right, depending on my own political allegiances.
00:06:02
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.
00:06:12
Speaker
And it's just
Economic Policies and Challenges Facing Labour
00:06:13
Speaker
more of a not acting on it.
00:06:15
Speaker
I mean, I think objectively impartiality is something that's basically impossible.
00:06:19
Speaker
However, I do think that the civil service does do quite a good job.
00:06:23
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.
00:06:36
Speaker
But then actually saying that, there's been many instances where civil servants have not been impartial.
00:06:44
Speaker
So they've said, so they perhaps their political views have slightly gotten in the way and the government hasn't listened.
00:06:49
Speaker
A good example is Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng.
00:06:52
Speaker
I mean, perhaps that was also objective of the civil servants saying, no, this won't work.
00:06:56
Speaker
But Liz Truss still decided to go ahead with it.
00:07:00
Speaker
Yeah, I see what you mean.
00:07:01
Speaker
I mean, the civil service naturally were opposed to trust and quasi-quieting because they perceived that the civil service had been ignored.
00:07:09
Speaker
You guys have heard of the OBR, the Office for Budget Responsibility.
00:07:15
Speaker
They're meant to be consulted on things like budgets.
00:07:18
Speaker
And for the mini-budget in 2022, they were not consulted.
00:07:21
Speaker
Daniel, could you please explain to our viewers and listeners who have not heard of OBR,
00:07:28
Speaker
Could you say what their job is, what they usually do?
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah, well, they're sort of like...
00:07:33
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?
00:07:53
Speaker
And usually that means that there's going to have to be some kind of compromise.
00:07:56
Speaker
Politicians might have to water down some of their promises, etc.
00:08:00
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.
00:08:16
Speaker
Everything very detailed, you know, any slight mishaps in the bin.
00:08:22
Speaker
And it is a key thing to say as well that the OBR is non-departmental in the government.
00:08:28
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.
00:08:40
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.
00:08:53
Speaker
Going back to Starmer, Daniel and Ayan, what do you think about his policies?
00:08:59
Speaker
So we've seen quite a large bit of confusion about his policies towards private schools.
00:09:04
Speaker
He obviously slashed the winter fuel allowance, much to the annoyance of many pensioners who enjoyed receiving a few hundred pounds a year.
00:09:13
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?
00:09:21
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.
00:09:34
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.
00:09:43
Speaker
Is that kind of shit?
00:09:45
Speaker
I think that's how lots of Labour MPs will perceive it.
00:09:48
Speaker
They're just shocked because she's essentially bringing back aspects of austerity by making spending cuts.
00:09:54
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.
00:10:20
Speaker
So yes and it is a big
00:10:23
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.
00:10:33
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.
00:10:39
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.
00:10:46
Speaker
So you have this large exodus of wealth out of the UK to these places like C,
00:10:51
Speaker
Singapore, Dubai, Monaco, which really will, I think, in the long term harm this Labour government.
00:11:00
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.
00:11:12
Speaker
And this was a conference which Starmer organised and sort of modelled on one that Macron did in Paris and Versailles.
00:11:21
Speaker
And it was effectively just sort of like a failure, this conference in many ways.
00:11:25
Speaker
So he's tried to bring a bit more investment to the UK, seeming that a lot is leaving it.
00:11:29
Speaker
And, well, it hasn't been the most successful.
00:11:33
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm actually reading about this now.
00:11:36
Speaker
Allegedly, and this is the Guardian, so I will say a caveat, although they're usually quite good with stats.
00:11:44
Speaker
Government says that 63 billion of private sector money have been made at the summit, so 63 billion committed.
00:11:52
Speaker
That's quite a good number.
00:11:54
Speaker
Elton John's performed Michelin-style meals.
00:11:57
Speaker
So we can definitely see a left-wing agenda there of...
00:12:02
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.
00:12:18
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,
00:12:31
Speaker
24 billion on clean energy and 6 billion on data centers.
00:12:37
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.
00:12:50
Speaker
You've got Keir Starmer, who frankly, I don't think he really knows what he's doing yet.
00:12:55
Speaker
which perhaps it is only been three months.
00:12:59
Speaker
He hasn't been in office for that long, but he frankly doesn't really know what he's doing.
00:13:06
Speaker
He doesn't really understand the game.
00:13:07
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
00:13:19
Speaker
Almost every PMQ's recently, Keir Starmer has at least once referred to Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister.
00:13:27
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.
00:13:47
Speaker
They got this kind
Tory Leadership Contest: Dynamics and Predictions
00:13:48
Speaker
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.
00:14:05
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.
00:14:16
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.
00:14:28
Speaker
However, Daniel, you mentioned Rishi Sunak there as Prime Minister, an office which he lost on the 4th of July.
00:14:35
Speaker
And he's also going to resign from his leadership of the Conservative Party.
00:14:40
Speaker
So I'll move on to the next segment of the podcast today.
00:14:44
Speaker
And this is who do you guys think will win the Tory leadership race?
00:14:49
Speaker
What are your opinions on the race so far?
00:14:51
Speaker
Now, I'm going to start here and I really wanted James Cleverley to win.
00:14:57
Speaker
I listened to his speech and I thought this is someone who knows what they're doing.
00:15:02
Speaker
Someone with a vision, I think someone who's sort of a centrist.
00:15:05
Speaker
So yeah, that's where I reside in the political spectrum.
00:15:08
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.
00:15:15
Speaker
But at the same time, George Cleverley, very eloquent speaker, I thought,
00:15:22
Speaker
I just thought, surely he's going to win.
00:15:25
Speaker
But, as we now know, he has been somehow expelled from the... Yeah, voted out, not expelled from the party.
00:15:34
Speaker
Of course, no, no.
00:15:35
Speaker
Expelled from the contest by the voters.
00:15:38
Speaker
And...
00:15:40
Speaker
I wonder what your thoughts are Daniel on this?
00:15:42
Speaker
What would you think happened?
00:15:43
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?
00:15:53
Speaker
It started in July and it's ending next month.
00:15:56
Speaker
It's ending on the 2nd of November.
00:15:58
Speaker
So it's almost a self-indulgently long period for an elite contest, but you essentially have
00:16:05
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.
00:16:26
Speaker
So what happened was last week on Tuesday we had James Cleverley following his Hundinger
00:16:35
Speaker
of a conference speech that Diane referred to.
00:16:39
Speaker
He surged to the front.
00:16:41
Speaker
Originally, he was kind of further back at the pack, but he came to the front.
00:16:44
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.
00:16:59
Speaker
Tom Tugendhat had a low 20 and he was eliminated.
00:17:01
Speaker
Here's the interesting thing.
00:17:03
Speaker
So Tom Tugendhat was the sort of most centrist candidate, but because he got 20, he was eliminated.
00:17:09
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.
00:17:21
Speaker
But then surprise,
00:17:23
Speaker
Huge shock to everyone, all the political commentators.
00:17:26
Speaker
On Wednesday, James Cleverley was eliminated.
00:17:28
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?
00:17:39
Speaker
So there's been a number of conspiracy theories as to what went on there, kind of cock up or conspiracy, right?
00:17:47
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.
00:18:06
Speaker
So you need to vote for generic because, you know, it doesn't matter because cleverly is a guarantee to go through.
00:18:13
Speaker
And so.
00:18:14
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.
00:18:27
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.
00:18:42
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.
00:18:51
Speaker
So he's been obviously Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, and at the moment is Shadow Home Secretary.
00:18:58
Speaker
However, there's been...
00:19:00
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.
00:19:12
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.
00:19:22
Speaker
He was right at the centre of this huge fiasco that was with immigration, increased numbers coming in.
00:19:27
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.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:39
Speaker
And of course, Robert Jenrick resigned.
00:19:42
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.
00:19:56
Speaker
And that is quite interesting as well because Jenrick was seen as far more sort of centrist Tory before that.
00:20:03
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.
00:20:15
Speaker
From that moment, he's really now being presented as, well, quite a far right candidate.
00:20:21
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.
00:20:33
Speaker
I think her campaign describes her best.
00:20:35
Speaker
Her campaign's called Renewal 2030.
00:20:39
Speaker
And the idea of the renewal is also returning the Conservative Party back to its sort of original principles.
00:20:46
Speaker
So in many ways, she is this sort of quite traditional Tory MP.
00:20:51
Speaker
And then you have Jenrick as well.
00:20:54
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
00:21:16
Speaker
I'd also like to pose another question to Daniel as well.
00:21:19
Speaker
Could Daniel, could you give us sort of an outline of these two people and what they're actually planning to do?
00:21:27
Speaker
I know it's been a really busy time for a lot of people.
00:21:30
Speaker
So, and maybe some are simply not very familiar with the Tory contest.
00:21:36
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?
00:21:45
Speaker
Yeah, right.
00:21:46
Speaker
So obviously this contest now is just about the members.
00:21:50
Speaker
We don't know how many there are, perhaps around 160,000 is probably decreased.
00:21:55
Speaker
But basically you have Badenov and Jenrik, as John said, both on the right of the party.
00:22:01
Speaker
They've had ministerial roles, but not major ministerial roles.
00:22:05
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.
00:22:17
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.
00:22:25
Speaker
So he's got lots of detailed policies, I think stuff like...
00:22:30
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
00:22:53
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.
00:23:05
Speaker
I feel it is slightly ambiguous.
00:23:09
Speaker
But I also think, as John said, she's quite abrasive.
00:23:15
Speaker
People have described her as being someone who could start a fight in an empty room.
00:23:19
Speaker
Right.
00:23:20
Speaker
So it's almost like that could potentially be good at the dispatch box in Parliament.
00:23:28
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.
00:23:45
Speaker
I think that would be the wrong move.
00:23:46
Speaker
I think really the Conservative Party almost needs to be silent.
00:23:49
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.
00:24:09
Speaker
And also I have another question to both of you.
00:24:12
Speaker
Do we think that any of these two candidates, if they are,
00:24:17
Speaker
elected by the Conservative membership.
00:24:19
Speaker
Do we think that there could be a coalition with Reform UK?
00:24:23
Speaker
Or do we think that is out of the picture?
00:24:26
Speaker
In my opinion...
00:24:28
Speaker
So in my opinion, I think it's out of the picture.
00:24:30
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.
00:24:42
Speaker
And at the time of the election, I would have said a Reform UK coalition with the Conservatives is more likely.
00:24:49
Speaker
However, now I just can't see it happening.
00:24:51
Speaker
And that's because...
00:24:53
Speaker
Well, primarily because Reform UK only have five seats, so a coalition isn't hugely helpful.
00:25:00
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.
00:25:09
Speaker
And much of Reform UK's arsenal in the past election were the Tories are awful.
00:25:14
Speaker
You guys need a new right wing choice.
00:25:17
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.
00:25:27
Speaker
So I don't think a Reform UK coalition is...
00:25:33
Speaker
I don't think the Tories definitely need to make a Reform UK coalition to do too well at the next election.
00:25:39
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.
00:25:52
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
00:26:03
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
00:26:33
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.
00:26:45
Speaker
And that massively helped Boris Johnson get his landslide because all of those reform voters voted for the Tory party.
00:26:51
Speaker
But of course, in this election, there was no agreement whatsoever.
00:26:56
Speaker
So I think...
00:26:58
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.
00:27:09
Speaker
But it will really depend how much of a grudge Conservative MPs have about what reform has done to their colleagues in 2024.
00:27:16
Speaker
But yeah, basically.
00:27:21
Speaker
I mean, it's sort of hard to talk about as well because it is so far away five years.
00:27:26
Speaker
And I mean, you can see with Labour already Tory favourability is on the rise a bit.
00:27:32
Speaker
So I think, you know, in five years, the Conservative Party can be very different to what it is at the moment.
00:27:38
Speaker
It's got a very small number of MPs right now and it will in five years as well.
00:27:41
Speaker
But popularity wise, I do think the Conservatives will definitely challenge Labour far more at the next election.
00:27:48
Speaker
I don't necessarily think they're going to win at all.
00:27:51
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.
00:27:59
Speaker
I also want, before we end this episode,
00:28:02
Speaker
And before we have a summary of the episode, actually, could we have a final prediction from everyone?
00:28:07
Speaker
So John, who do you think is going to win the Tory leadership contest?
00:28:11
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%.
00:28:20
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.
00:28:32
Speaker
I'm going to go Kemi Badenock.
00:28:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:36
Speaker
I mean, that is the popular choice.
00:28:39
Speaker
John Curtis, the polling guru.
00:28:40
Speaker
He's predicted Kemi Badenock, though he's not too trustworthy because he thought Boris would lose the 2019 election in a landslide.
00:28:49
Speaker
And he does look like a homeless man.
00:28:51
Speaker
So I'm not sure whether we trust him too much.
00:28:54
Speaker
But I'd say...
00:28:57
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.
00:29:18
Speaker
quickly before,
Episode Conclusion and Future Topics
00:29:19
Speaker
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.
00:29:28
Speaker
He is seen as the guy for UK polling.
00:29:31
Speaker
And I think he also has a podcast as well.
00:29:34
Speaker
Yeah, so maybe a possible collaboration.
00:29:36
Speaker
He's been wrong before and I think he might be wrong again, but we'll have to see.
00:29:40
Speaker
Because of course, you can't really poll the Conservative Party membership because we don't know how many they are.
00:29:45
Speaker
I don't know who they're polling.
00:29:46
Speaker
Who's receiving these polls?
00:29:51
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.
00:30:01
Speaker
We don't really know anything.
00:30:03
Speaker
I am more inclined to go for Robert Jenrick because I do think that 2% difference is going to change the...
00:30:12
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.
00:30:19
Speaker
But we all know that as soon as you get to a...
00:30:22
Speaker
a member leadership contest, basically anything goes.
00:30:25
Speaker
We have trust for VS Sunak and we know how that ended.
00:30:29
Speaker
So everything's on the table.
00:30:32
Speaker
And now, Jon, for a quick summary.
00:30:35
Speaker
Yes, so, well, it's been a very, very good episode with Daniel.
00:30:40
Speaker
We started obviously talking about Starmer's first, well, rather turbulent 100 days in office.
00:30:46
Speaker
The best description I've heard for this was in The Spectator, and that was, Starmer has hit the ground stumbling.
00:30:52
Speaker
And I think that's quite a good summary of our comments as well.
00:30:55
Speaker
Oh yes, you got it right there.
00:30:58
Speaker
And he had the Donogate scandal, as we said, a large issue of Sue Gray.
00:31:03
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.
00:31:10
Speaker
And it's not what people would have expected for a Labour government coming off a huge landslide election victory.
00:31:21
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.
00:31:39
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.
00:31:49
Speaker
They are sort of on the right side of it.
00:31:53
Speaker
And we hope you enjoy this episode.
00:31:54
Speaker
Many thanks to Daniel for coming and being a guest.
00:31:58
Speaker
And as well as this, I'd like to...
00:32:02
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.
00:32:08
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.
00:32:24
Speaker
Yes, so thank you, everyone.
00:32:25
Speaker
Thank you to Daniel again.
00:32:26
Speaker
And please do give us a five-star rating.
00:32:29
Speaker
Leave us a comment if you've got any suggestions for a future episode or on the podcast itself.
00:32:34
Speaker
And thank you, everyone, for listening.
00:32:37
Speaker
And I'll see you soon.
00:32:38
Speaker
See you soon.