Has Zack Polanski’s Green bubble burst?

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1:12This was a test of how the Green Party can do against Labour under Andy Burnham. To say that there shouldn't be a state of Israel and to support Jews having their own state in Israel is intrinsically racist. And it seems to me that there's a parallel here between Farage and Polanski.

1:40Hello and welcome to Electoral Dysfunction with me, Beth Rigby. Me, Ruth Davidson. And me, Harriet Harman. And we've got a lot to get through today because it's election result Friday, ladies. What? We love that, don't we? And Harriet, you've been pounding the pavements in Holborn and St Pancras, So we're going to want to ask you about that. This is the seat that Keir Starmer vacated. And we've just seen Labour candidate Sigal Abdiwali win that seat. Well, hold that seat rather, but she won it, if you like, in the sense that it was the Green leader, Zach Polanski, who decided to take a tilt for it.

2:20But Zach Polanski fell short. So we're going to talk about that and the fallout of that controversial motion at the Green Party conference about Zionism. And of course, we're going to talk about the fallout of the Tory conference where Ruth and I were hanging out this week, which was fun. It was fun. We were. We did Birmingham Large, didn't we? We didn't see Jess, our native Brom, but we did all right. We did all right. It was really nice. Are you just rubbing it in you two now because I was left out here? But actually, Harriet, it's my turn to have FOMO today because you two are in the studio and I'm not.

2:58I'm at home. Yeah, it feels wrong, doesn't it? It feels like I should be on a TV screen. And you guys should be here. There was a part of me that went, I wish I'd just got into Sky News. We wish you were here because if you had have done, you might have crossed paths with the Green leader, Zach Polanski, and other Greens who are here. I heard about this and also I should say now, I mean, props to Ruth Davidson, who's really getting into the vibe of doing the Sunday politics show. Because Ruth is going to host our Sunday mornings show. It's 8.30 on Sky News, so you have to watch. But I found out that Ruth collared Zach Polanski in the corridor and demanded he came on on Sunday.

3:40I think he turned you down, Ruth. He not unreasonably said that he would be sleeping on Sunday because he just fought by election. Can I just say how much I love you for doing that? That's exactly what I would have done. I absolutely adore it. But in terms of live events that you and I are both going to be at, Beth, and also Harriet and Jess, we've got our live show coming up next month in the Cadogan Hall. And we've got general sale. Our tickets are open. Come along, Cadogan Hall, in November the 26th. Yeah, I have to say, Cadogan Hall is near Sloane Square. It's kind of around Chelsea. So all of the Christmas lights will be there.

4:15There's a lovely John Lewis-y type big department store. You could have a lovely, lovely day out. There'll be politics. Knowing all of you lot, it'll be a bit of polite disagreement. There might be a drink or two.

4:34OK, but look, let's talk about another big night in London, and it was in Holborn and St Pancras. It saw Labour's Sagal Abduwali win the seat or rather hold the seat for Labour. She got around 45 % of the vote. That's more than 12 ,000 of the ballot. Zak Polanski had thrown everything into this. The Green leader decided to take a swing at that seat. He came in with just around 33 % of the vote. The Tories and reform trailing in quite a distant third and fourth with 7 % and 6 % of the vote. A big win here for the Labour Party. They'll be delighted. Bad news for Zapolansky, no matter how they try to spin it, because they did have their second best ever by-election performance, I think, in terms of the vote share they put in.

5:25But still, I think when you're a leader, if you go for goal, you have to strike. But Harriet, to kick off with you, we're going to get onto the sort of analysis of it. But you have been out canvassing all week on the doorstep. So what was your dispatch from that constituency? How did you find things? I mean, you know, all the build up had been this was Zach Polanski of the Greens. You know, they'd had a good result in Camden just earlier this year in the council elections. They were building up and he was as party leader of the Greens going to join his Green MPs on the green benches in the House of Commons and that, you know, Labour was really under pressure.

6:07and that's why I think it's really quite a big moment that Labour has held the seat. I mean, one way of looking at it is, oh, it's always been a Labour seat. It's a Labour seat forever and therefore you'd expect it. But actually in these volatile times and with a new leader, each by-election is testing something and we saw what the Makerfield by-election did. It gave people a sense that actually Andy Burnham could beat reform and now we've got a situation, a very, very different constituency in London very Romani, educated kind of constituency. What was interesting on the doorstep is even those people who were going to vote Green had no animosity towards the party.

6:50They were feeling very warm towards Labour and particularly towards Andy Burnham. It's just, we're going to vote Green in order to ensure that the support for Andy to be as radical as possible. So it wasn't a hostile anti-Labour vote. And there was also, not surprisingly, people who said, well, I've been a strong Green supporter, I've been a Green member, but I'm absolutely going to vote Labour and I'm never going to vote Green again after they've said that Israel shouldn't exist. So that was there on the doorstep. I mean, they are trying to spin it this morning as we did very well. We've really tested Labour.

7:29We've had a very good by-election result, even though we didn't quite win. We've eaten into Labour's vote share. But this is first past the post. A win is a winner, loss is a loss. The Green leader came swinging for Labour. He wanted to get a seat in Parliament. He fell short. This is terrible for a leader, isn't it? I think what was interesting, when this was announced and when Zach Polanski said he was going to run, I said that I thought it was quite a smart move because there had been this independent that had run in 2024 that got quite a high percentage share of the vote, who was a close friend, close colleague of Jeremy Corbyn and was that kind of very hard left, ran on a pro-Gaza kind of ticket.

8:08And he didn't run in this by-election and he put his weight behind the Greens. So the kind of the combined total of the Green vote, which was around 10%, and this guy who'd got quite a bit more, he'd come second, would mean that they would start from a much higher baseline than it looked like. So whatever happened on the day, they'd be able to say they'd put the vote up by a gazillion even if they didn't win. And that's kind of what happened. Actually, the Labour vote was broadly where it was at 2024. The combined Green and the Independent who didn't run, their vote was broadly where it was. And so it shows that actually for all Zach Polanski's putting a brave face on it, saying that he trebled the Green vote, it still is a case that if you come for the King, you've got to kill the King.

8:51This was a test of how the Green Party can do against Labour under Andy Burnham. And they could win Gorton and Denton under Keir Starmer. They couldn't win this seat, Hobart and St Pancras, underneath Andy Burnham. I also think there's further problems down the line for Zach Polanski. I was talking to a senior Green person this morning who was reminding me that you only get to be Green leader for two years at a time and he's done one year. And this person was basically saying he'll be gone after this next year. There's a big fracture in the party now. So, you know, that's a bit weird to me because the Tory party, we've got a mechanism where we can get rid of a leader, but we don't have one where like under our statutes and under our rules, we have to physically re-endorse them every couple of years.

9:39It usually is not an issue and it's never been an issue with the Greens before. But what I'm saying is it is an issue now for Zach Polanski. The cliff edge is appearing before him in a year's time and a lot of Greens will think that that's just what they're waiting for to get rid of him. Yeah, and he is on a bit of a sugarly peg. And it all relates back to his own party conference and this motion about Zionism is racism. So if I can just explain it a little bit for you. So at the Green Party conference, one of the things that they vote on is what the party position on certain issues should be.

10:09And there was a motion that was put in that said Zionism is racism. And it was broadly kind of evenly contested. There was about 1 ,000 people voted for it and 800 against. And just to give you a bit of kind of context, the Green Party say their membership is 220 ,000 members. So only 1 ,800 members voted in it. But it defines Zionism as the ideology of establishing and maintaining a Jewish state in what they say is historic Palestine and arguing that this has involved the displacement and unequal treatment of Palestinians. And it commits the party to a single state solution encompassing all of historic Palestine, which essentially means getting rid of the state of Israel.

10:53And what was interesting is that the Greens have five MPs. Four of them opposed the motion, arguing, among many other things, that actually Zionism is a contested term. It can mean lots of different things to different people. And defining it as racism risked alienating a huge amount of Jewish people, including Jewish members of the Green Party. Zach Polanski didn't vote. He skipped that vote. He skipped that day at his own party conference. He said he was out campaigning in the by-election, but also hedged his bets until after the polls closed, whether he supported the motion or not. And even after that, you know, he was physically asked, like, which way would you go?

11:31And he's like, well, if it hadn't been amended, I would have voted this way, but then it wasn't amended, so I voted this way. And he really hasn't played it very well. And he's the party leader. What sort of leadership is it? You don't show up. You don't say what you think. You don't lead. I mean, that is an absolute abdication of responsibility. And I know the Greens don't go into the big I am leadership, but you've got to have some sort of leadership at the front. And previously, that's what Zach Palanski had been doing. So I think this is a major problem. But the Greens have one leader but two deputies.

12:04The two deputies voted completely different ways on this. So Motin Ali, who's quite high profile, he voted for the motion, saying that Zionism is racism. And the other deputy, Rachel Milward, voted against it. So it looks like the party's completely split on this and no guidance from the leader, just absolute vacuum where leadership should be. But I don't think it's just alienating Jewish Green Party members. I think it's alienating a lot of people. Because to say that there shouldn't be a state of Israel and to support Jews having their own state in Israel is intrinsically racist. I think there's loads of people who don't agree with it.

12:42Most people wouldn't agree with it. The couple of things I'd say about it is on the politics of it, the Greens have been running on this sort of populist wave with a very popular leader. And now there's this underbelly of that, which I think is potentially alienating voters. because although the Greens took votes and support off Labour because Labour voters were unhappy about how robust or not the Labour government were being on Israel, Ed Miliband tried to counter some of that by the sanctions on illegal settlements in the West Bank. But when you get to this motion, the point of rejecting a two-state solution, which is why Zach Polanski said he abstained.

13:34It does basically put the Greens in a place, I think, where there will be a ceiling on support. I think a lot of people will be uncomfortable with that. It makes the party hostile to the vast majority of British Jews. And when you actually look at the motion, fewer than 1 % of Greens voted for it. It's the tail wagging the dog that actually this might not be what the vast majority of party members want, but there is a very, very mobilised and organised group within the party that is putting forward this agenda. So, you know, you've got Zach Polanski now, he's fighting an internal battle over leadership where he's probably worried that there could be a challenge.

14:18So is that why he's behaving as he is equivocating on this. You've then got Caroline Lucas and other Greens openly saying that this could, depending on how he handles it in the coming few weeks, hemorrhage more support for him and prompt very senior Green leaders to maybe call for him to stand down. And then with the wider electorate, it's like, is this a step in which just a lot of voters are turned off by Zak Polanski's Green Party. And is he being a passenger in this or is he being a leader? And that's my thing about it, which is this is a huge deal, this motion. You're missing in action. I think that equivocation will disappoint those in the Greens that aren't sure about it.

15:07And I think it will alarm people looking at this about what his position actually is, because on the one hand that you've got a statement saying Zionism is racism. And on the other hand, he's suggesting that there could be a two-state solution. It's like, what do you want, Zach? And look, I mean, journalists have been trying to track down Zach Polanski all week to talk about this motion. And he just has avoided all interviews and so on and so forth, which again is unusual for a candidate when they're seeking election. But he did speak today. He did a pull clip for all the broadcasters. Let's have a listen to what he said.

15:48Your party voted that Zionism is racism. Do you agree with that? So I grew up in a Zionist household and I grew up with the idea that that region was a land without a people and a people without a land. And as I've educated myself, I've learned, discovered. I don't believe that's true. And what we're seeing is an ongoing genocide and the displacement of the Palestinian people. I believe that's clearly racist. So you agree that Zionism is racism? That seems to be what you're saying? As I say, the displacement of the Palestinian people, the genocide, is clearly racist. But don't you feel that the Jews deserve a state?

16:28Do you believe in the two-state solution? I believe that it's not our role to decide. But what I do believe is that any state should have equal rights, and that shouldn't be based on faith or religion. That should be based on international human law and upholding equal rights for everyone. Caroline Lucas said that she thinks you need to show the leadership that has been, frankly, missing. Have you lost control of your own party? I don't think that's true at all. I've got a party that was 55 ,000, 60 ,000 members when I was running for leader is now 220 ,000. Any member is entitled to their opinion.

17:01We're a democratic grassroots party. So, but is it anti-Semitic? Zionism is racism. Is that not anti-Semitic? I think we always need to make sure that we don't conflate anti-Semitism with criticism of the Israeli state. And as a Jewish man, I know that conflation, that blurring of the lines, actually makes us less safe. We shouldn't pit the safety of Jewish communities in this country against Palestinian rights. We can have both.

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19:07Well, that was Zach Polanski there, but we've got somebody else who can give us a bit of intel on whether this vote, whether that's a sign of the times and that there's a kind of decline going on in the Greens or whether, you know, it's got a kind of local flavour to it. Here's Luke Trill from More In Common, who does a lot of polling and research. Luke, firstly, I am astonished, frankly, that you're able to join us today because you've done how many party conferences? You must be exhausted. How have you not got strep throat? I have got a little bit of a cough. So this is I've done I've done five now.

19:40One more to go. But in terms of what we saw at this election, can you take us through the numbers, Luke? Labour got 45 % of the vote. That is down four points on what they got at the general election. So pretty good for a governing party to only lose four points in a by-election. The Greens got 33%. That's up 22 points from their general election results. So a big increase in the Green share of the vote. But that comes with a caveat in that in 2024, Keir Starmer faced a challenge from a left-wing independent candidate, Andrew Feinstein. He endorsed Zach Polanski in this race, and he actually got 19 % in the general election.

20:31So if you add that to the score that the Greens got, actually their increase is much more modest. And then just to round out, this might sound an unusual thing to say, but I think the Conservatives might be quite pleased with their 7 % because that meant that they came ahead of Reform UK on 6%. And I think this is the first English by-election, this Parliament, where they have beaten Reform. It's so fascinating because this is a sort of microcosm of what I think is a national story emerging, which is if you look at how Burnham framed the entire conference, his entire agenda, it was all about uniting the left and progressives, wasn't it?

21:15be it Europe, voting electoral reform, taking some money off pensioners, actually. So, you know, that deal for first-time buyers playing a lower deposit in new builds. So you can see how he's picking that together. We're going to get on to what the Conservatives are doing, equally fascinating in a moment. But before we do, do you think that that green motion about Zionism is racism? I know you won't have the data yet, but anecdotally, how do you think that the storm around that Zionism is racism, motion and how that played out? Do you think that's putting people off the greens? Well, what's interesting is if you look at Zach Polanski's personal approval rating, it was, you know, it wasn't bad in the spring.

22:06It was doing OK and we were still underwater, but, you know, lots of politicians were underwater. And then that moment when he retweets the criticism of the police for how they arrest the Golders Green attack suspect and the criticism subsequently of that from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, that really cuts through. And you see Zach Polanski's approval ratings basically going to freefall. He's now below Nigel Farage in terms of his net approval rating. And what I think it did was, and I think the Zionism is racist emotion plays into this as well, is it just gave a group of people who basically thought, well, you know, the Greens are about, well, A, the environment, but also cost of living, economic justice, horse for thought.

22:55They said, this ain't what I'm signing up for. I don't like this. I think it plays into that sense of, I want to roll the dice on our new party, but I'm not sure this is it. I actually met on the doorstep a woman who was a very strong hitherto Green supporter, but saying that she was so shocked when they said Zionism is racism, that she was absolutely not going to ever vote for them again. And you could see that she was really quite shocked. It's quite interesting as well that we detected some frustration from Labour Green waverers that Polanski seemed not to be focusing on what they called the sort of bread and butter issues.

23:35So the environment, climate change, the cost of living. People say he seemed to focus on other issues which, whilst important, weren't top of their list. And one thing worth remembering is that whilst Green Party voters have particular views on Gaza and are much more likely than average to say they sympathise with Palestine rather than Israel or both or neither. It's not top of their salience list. Cost of living is still top of the salience list for Green voters. And again, I think he's lost some of that messaging, that rip-off Britain stuff, which he seemed to be trying to get back to last night, which powered him ahead.

24:11Can I just ask you, Luke, about Polanski and how you start off with quite a populist message, looking out to the country, focusing it on the cost of living. And then internal politics and particular issues that really, really motivate your base sort of take over and become kind of seen through a national lens in which can damage you. Hence the Zionism is racism motion. And if you actually look towards reform, you always talked about reform having this sort of 30 plus strategy, you have to move beyond the base. And it seems to me that there is a parallel here between Farage and Polanski, because Farage is also being pulled back internally by those in his party, maybe looking at a leadership race, that are bringing up elements that might appeal to the base of the party or some party members, but are a massive turnoff to the public.

25:14And I'm referring in here to the Suella Bravaman question about Englishness when she said, I don't consider myself English. She was born here because she said, because of my Asian heritage. Is there a parallel here for both of these leaders? I think there's very definitely a parallel there that when they focus on issues which affect the whole country, they build support, whether it's cost of living environment, largely in the Greens. For reform, focusing both on the economy, but also a controlled immigration policy is where they build support. But I think what you've seen for reform is not only internal pressure, but the external pressure, which looks like it had an impact on them falling behind the Conservatives in this by-election, of Restore Britain as well.

26:06Restore Britain to Reform's Right. A lot of Restore supporters reject Farage's traditional boundaries on things like ethno-nationalism, Tommy Robinson. And so you see, it looks like some Reform UK figures trying to appeal to them. And I thought the interesting theme of the conference, if you look at the Conservatives, was Kemi Beidnok making that very soul-throated attack on this idea of Englishness, you know, being defined by the colour of your skin and, you know, the English football team not being English, rejecting that. And then actually lots of Labour politicians coming in and saying, we agree, so I think Wes Streeting retweeted her comments and said he disagreed with lots of the speech but agreed with that.

26:58And I wonder if it's both parties, A, from a moral perspective, I'm sure internally that's what will be guiding them partly, but also thinking we need to establish these boundaries and the Conservatives thinking we can win back some of that second 15 % we've spoken about before, Beth, in reform who don't like flirting with this stuff and actually want a sort of more traditional right-wing mainstream party. I thought that anti-racism section of Kemi Badenoch's speech where she talks about her children being mixed race, talks about them being told they had to feel as if they weren't English or having to justify it was the strongest section.

27:31And actually, probably the strongest anti-racism speech I've heard from any major politician from any party in quite a long time. But away from that, there was an articulation from almost all of the shadow cabinet to journalists. And they'd obviously been told to go off and say this, that there is now a strategy shift that's happening with the Tories. So there is a recognition now that they're not just winning back people from reform by trying to ape reform. What they're going to try and do is put forward a number of economic policies that will win back people that have gone to Labour and to the Lib Dems in the past while.

28:07and by winning that back, they want to get ahead of reform in the polls. They want to stay ahead of reform in the polls and the way that they're going to try and, quote, unite the right is not to do any deals with reform but they think if they can consistently show they're ahead of reform that soft reform waverers that left them because reform was the bandwagon that was rolling faster, it was going up, it seemed to be in the ascendancy, will come back because it will look like reform's in the decline. So without, you know, selling the jersey on this, Is that something that has reflected in polling more widely that it's a sensible policy shift from them?

28:41What we have found is that basically the idea of uniting the right through some type of merger or pact just doesn't work in the numbers. There are too many Conservative voters who, in fact, actually would rather have Andy Burnham as Prime Minister than have Nigel Farage. There's also a group of reform voters who say they don't want to go to the Conservatives. I actually think it would damage both parties to do that. But there is a big group, particularly on the reform side, of what you might call transactional voters. They are voters who care first and foremost about beating the Labour Party. And they will back whichever party out of the Conservatives and Reform looks like it can beat Labour.

29:29And so the Conservatives' challenge then is to win those voters over, they have to prove they're the main vehicle on the right. I found the Conservative Party conference so completely fascinating. The policies that they announced were so targeted. You had free childcare for those earning over£100 ,000 affluent people. You then had Andrew Griffiths saying that he would like to end the unfairness of the marginal tax rate between£100 ,000 and£120 ,000 of earnings. And this is when, if you don't know this out there, you get your personal allowance taken away from you when you hit over£100 ,000. And it gives you an effective tax rate as it tapers out of 60%, which is pretty unfair.

30:16I think we can all agree with that. So he said he wanted to tackle that. And of course, the inheritance tax announcement, which is predominantly benefiting people in the southeast and London. It's a massive tax bank for wealthy people. And just for those of you, I got lots of messages about this where people thought that I was being really unfair saying it was for wealthier people. But it really, really is. I mean, it affects a very, very low percentage of households. And just to put it into context for you, let me just find it. I wrote this down last night. The richest 1 % get 8 % of the tax cut and the top 5 % get 32.8 % of the tax cut.

31:04And it's London and the South East, 68 % of all beneficiaries live in that part of the country. So it really is targeted at the home counties and wealthy Tories. Did you find this as fascinating as I did, Luke? Yeah, I mean, a lot of the pitch was towards, I think they've become known as Henry's, which is high earners, not rich yet. So particularly that childcare policy seemed aimed at that group, and perhaps some of the inheritance tax measures as well. it doesn't surprise me because again if you look at the local elections and the areas where the conservatives started to show some you know signs of life and let's not over exaggerate this you know there were not a good set of election results it was in some of those more affluent sort of traditional conservative areas in the southeast of England when you try and find a USP for the Conservative Party currently.

32:07It seems to be on the economy. So again, that doesn't surprise me that that is a focus. But I think there's also a realisation that if the Conservatives have a path back to power, it looks a lot more like the David Cameron 2010-2015 coalition than the Boris Johnson 2019. But Ruth, do you not think that a catalyst for this was a sense that Andy Burnham, as the new Labour leader, was moving more to the left in the sense that he started talking much more about an interventionist state? And now the Tories think that where they can win, right, is through the economy and through sound finances. Although, I mean, I'm not sure how financially sound or savvy people think the inheritance tax policy is.

32:58But that's what's going on, isn't it, Ruth? I mean, on the inheritance tax, I think it's a double bite at the cherry. I think they'll come back next year or a future party conference and say they're going to, their policy is to abolish it entirely and then make the philosophical argument rather than just have it based around the home. In terms of Andy Burnham going left in his speech, absolutely. And the framing of it that, I mean, he literally said Britain was brilliant right up until the 1980s and then it went to shit. And you're just like, were the 70s really that good? Quite a lot of people that vote Conservative or previously voted Conservative were around in the 70s and don't think that.

33:31So there's a group particularly of older voters that you can kind of directly appeal to. Well, I think it's just not going to stand the light of day and any sort of scrutiny, this policy. I mean, what it is, inheritance tax is about£8 billion a year that goes into the Treasury that is part of helping to pay for public services. But only one in 20 estates actually end up paying inheritance tax. But what the Tories have done in this is they've linked it to the issue of the house. They've made the family home the kind of tax shelter. But actually, most people nowadays are or should be downsizing.

34:09We don't want, you know, the widow living in a, you know, a house with all the bedrooms that the children were being brought up in. You know, for older people, it's better and safer for them to be and cheaper for them to be living in smaller places. And the housing stock, which has got a number of bedrooms in it, like the family home, should have families in it. So it's a bad housing policy. And what might happen is that it will deter older people from moving. Or it might be that they take their savings out of their investments and put it into a home in order to shelter it from inheritance tax.

34:44So I think if they do what Ruth says and make the whole of everything free from inheritance tax, that's got some sort of logic that obviously undermines the ability of inheritance to be paying in to help with public services. But this whole thing about the house is just going to fall apart. But we're bitten by that, Harriet. We've been bitten quite hard because that entire argument you just made about the idea of people have maybe had their kids grow up and leave and they're now rattling around in a four bedroom house and they don't need it and they should downsize. That was the exact argument we made about the bedroom tax, that nudge to get people to be in more appropriate accommodation for their own personal circumstances.

35:22And what we found was that it makes entire logic on paper, but there is something about the family home that is primal and it's different. I'm going to jump in here because I actually want to know what you think about this policy, because actually loads of economists have come out and said this creates perverse incentives in the housing market. and it's very logical that it would. If your house is worth over a million quid, you have no incentive to downsize because it's tax-free. And then you get another a million quid, be that your pensions, your savings, your ISAs, if you have managed to save up money, that you as a couple can pass back down.

36:00I mean, Ruth, do you support the policy? Do you think there's a different way they could have done it, such as actually reduce the rate, for example? pool. So as we've talked about in the pod before, I disagree with inheritance tax on philosophical grounds. I think if you pay tax on everything that you earn, everything that you save, everything that you buy, you know, you pay your council tax, your income tax, all the rest of it. The point of paying tax is to pay into a pot so that the state can provide for you things that you can't provide for yourself, like a fire brigade or schools or hospitals, things like that, that individuals can't pay for themselves.

36:33When you die, the state does nothing for you. You didn't make extra money in your house, you just happened to be there as an accrued value. The state didn't invest in your house for you either. Why do you owe them loads of money instead of being able to pass that to your kids? Just on terms of the appreciation, the point is, is that you're not working hard for your asset to appreciate, you just have an asset. And actually, government policy can determine how much your asset appreciates by how much housing supply there is. So actually, you know, So the fact that there hasn't been enough housing built, you could argue, and there is a housing shortage has also helped inflate house prices.

37:13And that's been successive governments, not just Labour or the Conservatives. But Luke, what's the public mood on this policy? Because people used to, it used to be called the most hated tax because of everything Ruth just said. People are like, why the hell should I be taxed when I've already been taxed? It is a really unpopular tax with people. So when we ask about which taxes should be cut or which should be raised, you get 48 % say inheritance tax should be cut, 17 % say that it should be raised, and people split between sort of abolish it entirely, or raising the tax three threshold. We tried an experiment, though, where we told half the sample how many people pay inheritance tax, so that only 4 % of estates, or just over, as Harriet was saying, pay it.

38:11Here it was quite interesting. So when we said, you know, should the same more or fewer people pay inheritance tax, just ask straight, 41 % say fewer, 11 % more, 28 % the same, and a big chunk say don't know. when you tell people that only 4 % of estates pay, the number saying fewer people should pay drops to 31%. 27 % say the same, 19 % say more. So there's still a big chunk, and particularly voters on the right, Conservative and reform voters, still think that fewer people should pay. And when we've dug into this, what is, you know, what drives this? Despite the fact it's a tax that affects relatively few people, when you talk to people in focus groups, It's the idea of double taxation that people don't seem to like.

38:57And the fact that there is something about, I think it's just something instinctively human, about wanting to help the next generation. And interestingly, not us, unfortunately, but YouGov polled on this and found similar. When they asked people who disapproved of it, why do you disapprove of it? It's that moral argument which resonates. Absolutely fascinating. Luke, thank you for joining us. I feel like I've seen a lot of you lately. Yeah, I just feel like you're part of my family now. Just see you all the time. See you more. I see my kids. Love it. Anyway, look, that is all from us today. We're back to normal service next week.

39:37No travelling around. Thank the Lord. So members, you will get our usual extra episode on Tuesday. We're back as normal on Friday. And also Ruth is very busy this weekend. And on Sunday morning, what's the line up, please? Take it away. Yeah, I'm doing like a double header for Sky. So we've got a bit of a discussion about defence. We're obviously going to be looking at the politics of the day. Might be casting her eye ahead a little bit because we've got those midterms coming up in America in just a few weeks. So yeah, packed show on Sunday. Looking forward to it. Yeah, Ruth is doing the Sky News Sunday morning political show.

40:17We have a rotating set of guest presenters and they've like hit the bullseye here because we've got our own Ruth Davidson doing it on Sunday. So do do tune in. In the meantime, don't forget, you can now get tickets for our London live show. All the details are as ever in the show notes and we'd love to see you there. For now, goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

40:46I'm Martin Brunt, Sky News crime commentator. I'm Katie Spencer. I cover entertainment for Sky News. We have more than 60 years of experience between us covering the biggest crime cases. Russell Brand faces seven charges, rape, sexual assault and indecent assault against six women. He denies all the allegations. Now a jury of 12 people will decide. Russell Brand on trial. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.