LIVE: Antisemitism, Man City & abolishing the Triple Lock

0:00Tim Shipman: Hey, I'm running out to drop off a stack of letters and packages. Need anything shipped while I'm gone? Save the gas. Stamps.com lets you print postage and schedule pickups right from your desk. Sync your contacts into the address book, get detailed accounting insights, and get notified the moment your certified mail is delivered. All from my desk? All from your desk. Join the 4 million businesses using Stamps.com right now with code podcast and get your free welcome gift. Stamps.com code podcast. Taxes and fees apply.

0:36Tim Shipman: Hello and welcome to this special recording of Coffeehouse Shots, live from Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. Please put your hands together and welcome to the stage, Tally Fraser, James Heal and Tim Shipman.

0:57Tim Shipman: Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming today here at Conservative Party Conference. My name is James Heal. I'm the Spectator's Deputy Political Editor. I'm delighted to be joined today by Tim Shipman, our Political Editor, and Tali Fraser, sorry, one of our contributing writers and writers at large. So with that, Tim, you think about the journey the last 12 months. It was 12 months ago, Kemi Bainlock really started kind of improving. The Kemi comeback so-called began. We've had her now 12 months on. Her ratings have improved. What do you make from the big picture of how the Tories are doing?

1:27James Heale: Things are obviously very much healthier in terms of the vibes than they were. A year ago, Kemi was, if not on the rocks, at least heading towards them. I think the big picture is this is, you know, an opportunity has opened up here. You know, Andy Burnham has arrived. He's obviously a more formidable campaigner and political operator than Keir Starmer was. But you look at that speech and it is boilerplate 1970s socialist kind of messaging. And that puts the economy back on the agenda as the thing where an opposition party can get some traction. And that is what is now beginning to happen. The numbers have turned already.

2:07James Heale: This is a moment of opportunity for the Conservative Party. So that's the good news. The bad news is some polls still have you on 17%. You're arguably slightly lower than when Kemi Baden-Ock took over. And this change has not happened. There's huge buzz around this conference. But you go in the press room, it's half empty. You go in the commercial site, there's virtually nothing there. There's not even a bookshop. They've had to create this blue room next to it, which would normally have been exhibition space. Business is not here. There isn't that much buzz in and around the conference. At the moment, if Burnham calls an election at some point in the next six months, the chances are he will get back into government with some kind of Lib Dem and or Greens or SNP melange.

2:52James Heale: If you go longer, it's a battle on the right to see who can be the dominant force. And that is frankly an important battle to win. But when you are watching conference, try and understand this. This is the strategy. I don't know how much of this they want public, but I've been told this by numerous people. the plan is go right on the economy in order to win left-wing voters now if that doesn't make any sense basically they think there's a huge group of people who are sick to death of conservative rule after all those years at the last election and might have voted Lib Dem or Labour but they are reasonably wealthy people in the south who don't want to be taxed into oblivion don't much like a lot of what Burnham's saying they think reopening Brexit while they probably didn't want to leave and would ideally want to be back in, but they think having that argument again is completely pointless and stupid and will be counterproductive.

3:41James Heale: They're not interested in electoral reform. All they're interested in is the notion that Labour is already feeling Labour taxed, Labour's going to tax them some more. So those people are winnable back on a fairly hard Thatcherite right-wing economic prospectus. So ironically, you go right to get left-wingers back from the sort of Blairite Labour people and Lib Dem people in the South. But by getting them back, you're then more likely to get reform people back as well, because there is a chunk of reform, and no one wants to tell me exactly what they think the chunk of reform is, that is basically will support the dominant force on the right, because they want a centre-right government.

4:19James Heale: But you have the core of people in this party, you have Katie Lamb, Nick Timothy, you have Neil O 'Brien, probably a returning Rupert Harrison, and that looks to me like the core of a decent cabinet in 2034. The question is, can you make it 2029 rather than 2034?

4:36Tim Shipman: And talking of vibes, I mean, last night, Tally, we were both at the Conservative Home drinks, the 1922 drinks, with la creme de la creme of the Parliamentary Party. And Kevin Badenock, I mean, talking about the change from a year ago, was practically purring. She was so confident in her speech. Tell us about that and the mood in the room. Yeah, I mean, she was buzzing. You could sense it from her, and this is part of the change that we've seen basically over the past year and she admits this herself she was slightly overthinking when she first took on the Tory leadership in almost everything that she did and she was taking too long to make decisions and she was getting nervous about which path to take or which approach to use now that she's sort of settled in she's effectively allowed her own personality to come out and actually I think that's what a lot of the members seem to really like and a lot of people as well outside of politics, not necessarily beginning to take notice in the Tory party proper, but beginning to take notice of Kemi Badenock and the clips of her from the Commons where people say, oh, she's owning Keir Star, she's owning Andy Burnham.

5:38Schooled. Destroyed. Destroyed. Kemi Badenock. Destroyed. But you're sort of seeing it in the way that she's communicating. And last night at the con home 1922 drinks, she was just very confident. and it translates to her MPs as well, who were sort of going around extolling the change and near the past year and what they've experienced. But even then, there were some people that I was speaking to who thought there's still a little bit of the party being on the back foot and still responding to the government, where actually there are opportunities as the opposition to still try and set an agenda.

6:18and one suggestion to me by a few people was you know if Andy Burnham is thinking about a snap election you know if we're saying we're ready for a snap election why don't why don't we come out and say it why don't why doesn't Kemi say bring it on you're you're ruining the country we know that tax rises are coming if you want an election put it to us and we're ready to fight this and And then if Andy doesn't do it, you can make him look weak. And if he does do it, you can say you've pressured him into it. But it's whether the party is actually ready and you've got the finances and all the things around it to go into a snap election and whether the public is ready to accept a Tory party under Kemi.

7:04Tim Shipman: I mean, that's the question, isn't it, Tim? Particularly, we talk about Kemi's ratings and the party's been Keminised in some way and you look at how much of the branding is around a strong leader, but the party brand is still pretty tainted isn't it?

7:14James Heale: Yeah it is. I mean the interesting thing from what Tally was saying is we had Jonathan Ashworth, former Shadow Cabinet Labor Minister on the YouTube show last week and he was saying he thought Tories have missed an opportunity by not arguing for an election. Now clearly the Conservative Party is not quite ready for an election you haven't got all your candidates in place yet but there's not a lot to be lost by doing it because if he's going to do it you might as well get some credit and if he's not going to do it as you say you can say he's running scared. The debate or not popularity thing is interesting.

7:42James Heale: I sat in a focus group with a bunch of voters in Lincolnshire who are former Conservative voters who did not vote Conservative at the last election, are open to voting Conservative but not yet ready to vote Conservative. And the vast bulk of them were quite impressed by her. They quite like Burnham but they think he won't deliver. They quite like her and they quite like the sort of punchy, aggressive stuff. The interesting thing from a conversation I had yesterday with one of the leading pollsters was that he said, look, the problem she's got is that a lot of the people who like her but not the Conservative Party are not yet willing to vote Conservative.

8:17James Heale: They are those Lib Dem and ex-Labor, you know, sort of Blairite-type Southern voters who might look at her and think, great, but the tarnish to the brand is still a problem, which is why in the medium term it's probably better for this party to have a longer lead time until the election. I do think there is still an element of her personality which is, you know, I sat down last night with a former senior person from Number 10 who said to me, you know, the Conservative Party is only ever in panic or complacency mode. This time last year, it was 100 % full panic. And this year it is 100 % full complacency.

8:54James Heale: There's sort of this belief that the corner's already been turned, the opportunity's been grasped. The opportunity has finally presented itself and she deserves credit for helping to create that situation. But if she thinks she's sold it, if she thinks she's God's gift, you know, I mean, her, you know, her words to me were, you know, I get better every day. And it's like, well, I mean, you know,

9:14Tim Shipman: great. Before I go to talent, I should ask, we always like a vote here on Coffeehouse Shots when we do these live events. So I just wanted to ask the question of an early election. Who thinks the Tories should be harder in pushing for that? Can I have a show of hands? OK, so probably just, and who thinks they shouldn't? They should just keep on. Right. So I probably put that sort of what? 60-40 against. 60-40 against. Probably against, yeah. Tell us about what she's trying to do with the party, because she just had this reshuffle, which initially was briefed as not a big reshuffle, but now it turned out to be quite a sizable one.

9:45Tim Shipman: And we've had a whole bunch of new people coming through. It seems to be a bit of a tack to the right of centre, if that's a fair way of characterising the likes of Nick Timothy and Katie Lamb. Yeah, I think so. And also bringing in new faces. I mean, Nick Timothy is quite associated with the Conservative Party.

10:02James Heale: He's trimmed his beard, so it looks a bit better. Yeah, he's changing his look. But with Katie Lamb and Rebecca Poole and Harriet Cross, it's bringing in some young, enthusiastic blood who really want to go out there. You know, they've only just become MPs at the 2024 election. They don't want to lose again. And they need a bit of a driving force. And I think beforehand they were lacking some energy, really, and some real get up and go to secure headlines, be sort of pumping policy out. And I know there's still a little bit of frustration with the party processes in terms of how they get their policy out.

10:39But these new faces, they are impressive. Katie Lam makes a lot of news. She made some news in a panel yesterday over renters' rights. And look, I think it's a good thing for the party to be almost showing a new face. This is part of the problem is the brand and previous associations with government. and that was why a reshuffle was kind of needed as well. You had Mel Stride as shadow chancellor, you had Priti Patel as shadow foreign secretary and there are just a lot of historic associations of things that they did in government that people weren't necessarily best pleased with. So to give a bit of a new look and a bit of freshness I think is needed but again, she's still not brought the party back with her and I think she said in your interview, Tim, the party is not yet associated enough with me.

11:32James Heale: Not associated with me, over here. And I said, what do you mean by that? You mean more aggressive? And she said, I don't know why everyone thinks I'm aggressive. I've never been aggressive to you. I was like, well... What is it? Recollections may vary, is what the Queen says.

11:47Tim Shipman: Yeah, I mean... And the other thing, of course, which has happened overnight, and I feel a bit sorry for the Tories in one sense, was the big news about the Zionism is racism motion passed at the Green Party conference, which is going to hugely dominate, particularly with the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. I mean, Tali, you wrote for the website on this. I just wanted to get your thoughts because I was there on Friday and you could tell there was a bit of a frostiness at that stage about the atmosphere. But tell us why this is so important, this motion. Yes, well, with the name Tali, I am Jewish myself.

12:18And we are at quite an astonishing moment where a now mainstream political party is saying that Zionists are racist and effectively... I mean, there was an amendment, I don't know if you know, but they passed the Zionism as racism motion, and there were lots of amendments also available for Green Party members to vote on. And one of them included a measure that would protect Jewish, anti-Zionist Jewish members from going to a synagogue that was a Zionist synagogue, because if they were classed as, if that was happening, they might be classed as racist. And of course, most synagogues are Zionists.

13:00Anyway, they had the chance to protect their synagogue-going Jewish members and they chose to vote against that amendment. And it is, I cannot say how shocking I find it and how disgusting I find it. But I mean, thankfully, the Conservative Party seems to have maintained a good, core, sensible base of members who I think would never go anywhere near something like that. And Kemi has been pretty strong in her support and what she said publicly. But I just would warn, it's worth sticking up and being vocal about this shift in movement that we're seeing of targeting Jews. And it does come from both the far left and the far right too.

13:43There is a worrying creep in parts of Restore as well that you see say similar things. and both need to be called out. So it's worth on the right making sure you don't ever slip into something like that.

13:56James Heale: I agree. I think this is actually a great opportunity for the sort of sensible right. Actually, you know, I describe myself as a Church of England atheist, but I'm also a Zionist and I think it's absolutely repellent what's going on, but it is a political opportunity for two reasons. The first is that all those people I was just talking about, the sort of moderate, wealthy Southerners who you're now trying to get back, they might look at their TVs and have, broadly speaking, a support for the Palestinian people and think that Israel has behaved terribly. But they also don't want to talk about it.

14:31James Heale: They're not interested in it. They think that it's just a bit... Just get this off my screens. In the same way that people got sick to death of Brexit and just didn't... I don't want to hear anything more about this nonsense. So that's kind of helpful if you can then portray the combination of Burnham's policies and Burnham's push for electoral reform. There was a very interesting chart, which is all over X, if you want to go and find it, of all the different sorts of proportional representation. Only one of them would have even delivered on the last general election a Labour-Libden coalition.

15:08James Heale: All the others would have required the Greens or the SNP as well. And unless you're prepared to put the union up for grabs in another referendum, they needed the Green Party. So you can make this point quite easily. That means these people, who are by any measure extremists, are a problem. It also means that if you get to that position that I talked about, where you are then trying to peel off people from reform and say, we are the opposition here, we are the ones more likely to make it into government, again, people who don't like the tone of Zia Yusuf and think that getting too closely into bed with even more extreme people who are sort of foaming anti-Semites, that then also becomes, you know, being the sort of respectable face of closing the border and being rigorous on tax, then becomes a decent electoral proposition again.

16:06James Heale: So while this is repellent and sort of just depressing a lot of the time, I think, you know, played right, it's actually an opportunity for the Conservative Party.

16:16Tim Shipman: And potentially opens up Polanski and the Greens to an EHRC investigation, just like Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party.

16:22James Heale: Exactly. And that was extraordinarily damaging for Corbyn's Labour Party. And, you know, Starmer effectively got himself in on the back of it. So politics is a cynical old game and I'm a cynical old bastard. Go and fill your boots.

16:36Tim Shipman: As we know at The Spectator, all too well is his colleagues. Right, we're going to have some questions now. Is there a microphone? My glamorous assistant, Charlie, is going to take some. Is there any hands up? Hi. It's often the consensus that leaders resign if they lose a general election. But what are your thoughts on the possibility of Kemi not resigning if the Tories lose the next general election? And do you think there's a difference between that event if an election was in 2027 or if it was in 2029? Should we start with you, Tony? Yeah, I think that there's a sort of slight difference when you're in opposition and it doesn't quite pan out.

17:14Obviously, last year, there was a lot of talk of we've just got her in, but oh, my God, did we make the right choice? I think that the longer she sort of settles into this and if there's a sort of later election or a snap election, I think that the Tory party, a lot of people feel like that is a bit of a need for some stability and not to keep rotating through leaders, both in government and then in opposition. I think it probably isn't the solution to keep trying again and again until you find a supposed benefit.

17:47Tim Shipman: Yeah, we had prime ministers who lost office and came back multiple times between the late 19th and mid 20th century, the last one being Harold Wilson. And obviously he's had three forward election defeats, but didn't stop the Tories keeping him until 75. I suppose it depends on the context, doesn't it? You think Kinnock fought 87 and lost, but kept on until 92. There could be some circumstances. I think it all depends on the context.

18:09James Heale: Yeah, I mean, if it's soon, I think a decent improvement in seats would probably be enough for her to stay. Now, my understanding of Tory internal polling is that because of all the things I talked about, quite how febrile it is and the small margins, the seat spread is somewhere between 65 and 160 at the moment. Now, 160 seats is still less than William Hague got, still less than John Major got when he went down to defeat in 97. The next metric up is Michael Howard, which is about 230 seats. So if we go long, I think if she only gets you back to 160, I would be surprised if the younger members of the party were prepared to let her stay on in those circumstances.

18:57James Heale: is the other factor of course is has she hold her seat because because bluntly if it's 120 again that could have gone either way um if she gets to 160 there may be people who would argue that she should stay it would depend a bit my understanding and i certainly have not got this from her um but i have got it from former cabinet ministers who've spoken to her they say if she only got to 160 she would resign um i can see a world in which if she got over 200 then you would start to think that that was sufficient progress that one more heave would do it

19:31Tim Shipman: can you get some more questions uh how about that lady there charlie at the back back so there have been a number of egotistical aggressive political leaders who happen to be male and i'm not anti-men in the slightest love that thank god a son who's 19 okay 100 but do you think in terms of public opinion that chem is being judged more harshly for being a woman well why don't i start with the woman on the panel i am anti-mint no um i think that actually i think she had a bit of that within the party and and within her fellow mps to to begin with but i actually think that when it comes to the public and the more of her sort of you know quite striking quite quite harsh uh at times uh in the commons personality showing that people kind of like that um i was chatting to a friend about a theory that you need to have a leader that is at least in some way relatable and that's kind of why Rishi didn't work even though everything that he was saying he was almost right on on so many things but just no one could really relate to him in any way shape or form whereas people quite like the sort of chemi girl boss vibe the cheminization of the Tory party and I and I actually don't think that that harms her at all when it comes to the public.

20:53James Heale: I think there were always people who were going to take a view on that and particularly within the party I think actually arguably it protected her I think a man performing as badly hurts her after six months might as well have been taken out and shot but that didn't happen and probably for the best I think everyone can look at her and say she's either like my wife or like my wife's best friend and she's a bit scary and a bit in your face but it helps as well that you've had other female leaders. People can look at her and go, do you know what, Margaret Thatcher wasn't terribly nice either, and she had a very firm view of the world and of herself, and she was pretty confident in what she wanted to do.

21:35James Heale: So kind of having that sort of vibes model in people's heads, I don't think that hurts her either. You know, the great unspoken thing is, is there a racial issue? I don't know. Some people do think that was an issue for Sunak, actually, in the end, and there are people who would sort of cavil at that and you see reform absolutely hammering this at the minute, you know, calling her olochemy and all this kind of thing, and, you know, leaning into this estimated nationalist stuff and basically saying she's Nigerian, she's not one of us. But, you know, I don't see that having a huge effect. It may have an effect at the margin.

22:10James Heale: But again, you ask her about that, I didn't even include this in the interview at the end, but she's sort of like, because it didn't really go anywhere, But, you know, she sort of just like, you know, if people don't like me for that reason, then, you know, they're never going to vote for me anyway. And I sort of facetiously said to her, well, you prefer them to hate you for, you know, all the reasons to do with your personality rather than your race. And she sort of enjoyed that, you know. OK, I have some more questions, please. How about that gentleman there? Speaking as a pensioner, I think the triple lock has to go.

22:41James Heale: and I'm somewhat disappointed that the Conservative Party seems to be saying it needs to be kept. What does the panel think? I think they're totally mad and they should have kept their mouths shut and hoped that the Labour Party achieved this one success. Yeah, I think Tim's completely right. There are so many Tory politicians, including within the Shadow Cabinet, who we speak to privately and they all say it has to end.

23:06Tim Shipman: I mean, like 95 % of the Shadow Cabinet will tell you this is nuts. It's just astonishing. Can we get a vote from the room? Who thinks the Conservatives should ditch the triple lock? Hands up. My God. Oh, look at that. And anyone against? A couple of loyal... Charlie.

23:23James Heale: Charlie's against. He's some way from his pensioner years as well, young Charlie.

23:28Tim Shipman: Put him in a Tory safe seat, yeah.

23:29James Heale: But look, pensioners vote. There's an obvious advantage to trying to drum up pensioner opposition to the Labour Party. But I think, as you yourself said, you are a pensioner. The pensioners understand that there's a generational unfairness going on here. And, you know, what Burnham has proposed is actually not that radical. He's still pegged, you know, it's still a triple lock. It's still pegged to earnings as a ratio rather than let's have a ratchet every blooming year. So it's a policy, you know, Burnham, you know, on the one hand is getting kicked for this, but it only raises about four billion a year by the end of the next parliament.

24:05James Heale: By 2040, yes, it's raising 40 billion. but this isn't going to be anything close to paying for his social care plans. It's something that will get sort of gently worked through but pensioners have got a heck of a lot of clout and my favourite comment on the day when this was announced by Burnham was that the waspy women are going to be furious when they find out in 20 years' time.

24:32Tim Shipman: Presumably not many waspy women here today. Maybe they're outside protesting. Can I get some more questions, please? How about from this gentleman at the front? What do you think the Conservative Party needs to do in order to, I apologise to the audience, attract more young people into the party? I mean, you do see quite a lot of young, impressive people, and I've been sitting on some selection panels for council candidates, and there's a lot of very good young people. But in terms of that broader attraction of the young to vote Conservative, I think back to when I was young, many moons ago, and Margaret Thatcher was, to me, the way that she positioned the party.

25:14Tim Shipman: It was a party that attracted people who believed in all of the core conservative values. What should we be doing more of if we're going to attract, we don't need to attract all of them, but we can't go on attracting 5 % of people under the age of 25. Tali, you're our resident young person. How do the Tories win people like you? Well, I think the average age of a Tory voter at the last election was what, like 60? I think 65, was it? 65, around that. So you're right, that can't go on. I think the gentleman earlier mentioned the triple lock. That might go some way to just suggesting that at least the party recognises that it can't continue only having older voters and that it does need to attract a new generation.

26:00I think when people have a stake in the economy and are working and are thinking about building businesses and doing things like that, that often then does lead to Conservative voters because once they have a stake in the economy, if you're talking very sensibly about the economy and looking out for people that way, then that really helps. But as James mentioned, we have a massive NEATS crisis. So you have to basically make sure that there are opportunities for young people. be talking about needs, not just in a, oh, you know, we're going to force you into work, but the value that work and employment brings you, the community that you get from it, the opportunity to develop your life and improve yourself, actually setting a positive agenda for those sorts of things, rather than like, oh, stop being a bum and a scrounger, let's get you back in.

26:49Talking about what that can give you in life, I think might start making a bit of a difference.

26:54James Heale: Totally agree. I think, you know, again, opportunity knocks here. Don't be so down on the young. Yes, they're woke as you like on a load of stuff that is not relevant. The left can make it relevant by banging on about it. They're far more pro-trans and far more pro-Palestine than I would be. But fundamentally, they care about aspiration, they care about getting on. These are people who are drinking, smoking and having sex less than we all were at that age. They are focused on their lives and their careers. They are interested in owning property. And if you believe, as I suspect most of you do, that the basic facts of life are conservative, as soon as anyone is teaming up, getting married, having children, all the stuff they care about is the same stuff we all cared about.

27:44James Heale: 20, 30, 40, 50, looking around 60, 70 years. And what Burnham has done by going back to the 70s and making a fairly boilerplate socialist argument on things, he's opened up an opportunity for the Conservative Party and other people on the right to revisit those basic arguments about why capitalism works, why aspiration requires an investment of your own, it requires you being in charge of your own money and making the best choices for yourself. And funnily enough, there are a whole load of young people who believe all that. And they're not terribly impressed by the political class and by government as a whole.

28:25James Heale: And while since COVID there's been a lot of state intervention here, there and everywhere, there's a lot of people who will start to think, why are we being interfered with so much? I've only just got out to work. I've finally got a good job. And now they're trying to take more of my money away from me. There are still people like that. You need to go and win those arguments with them again. And Kemi Badenow basically needs to give a sort of, and Andrew Griffith and Katie Lab, all the people with those economic portfolios, they need to go out and explain why this stuff works and why the other stuff doesn't work.

28:57James Heale: We know it doesn't work. It's not worked repeatedly everywhere in the world forever. Go and make that argument and convince these people. But they're not just sort of woke aliens. They are more woke than most people in this room would find comfortable. But that is not ultimately going to determine their vote. You know, passe the gentleman over here. You can go and make a principled, reasoned argument to them on the basis of, you know, sound money and all the rest of it. But you are going to have to go back to basics and basically explain why this stuff works, in the same way that sort of Thatcherism, when it worked, was a kind of, you know, it was a bully pulpit explaining to the nation how this stuff actually functions and how we ought to do it differently.

29:40James Heale: and the Conservative Party, like a lot of other people on the right, has been colossally complacent about this for two decades has got so used to I mean frankly everyone was living off the teat of cheap immigration to keep growth going and not worrying about productivity and about all the other stuff that makes economies work and we, you know again, it's an opportunity, it's not a done deal, are they going to do it? I don't know, but a third of youth is there for the taking if you can go and make those arguments it seems to me. One more question from that lady. I just wondered whether or not the panel thinks that what's happening in the investigation of UAE's investments in Manchester could unstick Andy Burnham.

30:21Well, I'm a Manchester United fan and season ticket holder. So guilty, guilty, guilty. So yeah, yeah, yeah. It's horrible.

30:32James Heale: I'm tempted to say nobody's perfect. I know, it's a grim time to be a United fan as well, other than the city stuff. But yes, Manchester and Manchesterism. Manchester is built on so much money from City's owners. And Andy Burnham's idea of Manchesterism is a complete farce. It doesn't exist. So much of it is foreign investment. And he is linked to City so, so, so much. It's so integral to the development that Manchester saw and that he says is going to be spread across the country, which, A, can't happen. that, yeah, I think this is going to be a really interesting thing to see play out. He's already had to row back on some of the comments that he said in Number 10 are having to make clarifications, which always means, oh, I've royally messed up.

31:24So I think it's, I can't wait to see what more comes out of this. I think it's going to be great.

31:28Tim Shipman: Manchesterism was built on three things. It was built on foreign investment, strong policing, and a one-party state. This is Singapore on Salford. This is the real Manchesterism running up against the progressive vision ideal. And it's not pretty. It's not nice. And ultimately, it's much more capitalistic than Andy Burnham would have you or I believe.

31:49James Heale: The fascinating thing about Burnham is he doesn't really understand what worked in Manchester. The other thing that is really fascinating about this, do I think Andy Burnham is corrupt? No, I do not. Do I think we're going to find bungs to Andy Burnham? No, I do not. Do I think that the Labour Party in Manchester was umbilically tied to this money and there could be all sorts of low-level, slightly whiffy things? I suspect many journalists will be looking at that now. I'd keep an eye on Mr Pogrund at the Sunday Times. If he's not looking at it, I'm a Dutchman. The most interesting thing about this, though, was the degree to which this was a colossal cock-up by Burnham.

32:28James Heale: He just went straight back into Manchester mayor mode. he didn't under you know this is a genuine football fan you know 99 of english football fans despise what has happened this is one of the biggest frauds in the history of sport our national sport has been completely distorted and i'm not remotely biased because i'm a liverpool fan and we'd have had two more titles but for him to be there and be this you know amazing in tune person with the nation and to immediately come out and just screw that up on a on a topic where he ought to be the apt, you know, when Boris Johnson backed the Super League, it was because Boris Johnson doesn't know anything about football.

33:06James Heale: And he went, well, I've... It sounds super. Well, I'll have some of that. Until it was pointed out to him that it was a total disaster as far as football fans were concerned. But to get this wrong, that is a fascinating moment. And I did sort of a little snarky tweak about how, you know, national leadership's different from cheerleading in the city. I thought I'd get a bit of grief from Labour people and it'd be largely ignored. And then about 3 ,000 likes later, It turns out that that's actually what most people think. And this was, you know, it's really interesting when people cock up not by saying the wrong thing, but by showing you who they really are and what they really think.

33:41James Heale: And we know that.

33:42Tim Shipman: As one Labour person said to me, so for context, Man City have been found guilty on 114 of 115 charges. Even Al Capone, I think, only got found guilty on five of 13. Anyway, that's a wonderful note to end on. Thank you very much for that excellent last question. And thank you all for coming to Coffee Hour Shots today. Thank you.

34:29Tim Shipman: Madness. Embrace intelligent order fulfillment with ShipStation, the only platform combining order management, warehouse workflows, inventory, returns, and analytics in one place. What used to take five separate tools, ShipStation does in one. Automate fulfillment and rate shopping to ship up to 15 times more with up to 90 % savings. Go to ShipStation.com and use code AUDIO to try ShipStation free for 60 days.