What changes if Zack Polanski is an MP?

0:00Ruth Davidson: You're listening to a quick ad. You know what else is quick? Selling your car on Carvana. Just put in your vehicle information and we'll give you an offer. Done. No hassle, no negotiation, no guy from an online listing lowballing you. Which means by the time I'm done explaining this, you could have basically done it.

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0:32Harriet Harman: Sky News, the full story first.

0:42Ruth Davidson: I'm very disappointed that Claire and a number of other conservative women have had a go at me about this. I was underwhelmed. I thought it was going to be, I thought it was going to feel a lot different and be more impressive.

1:01Harriet Harman: The Tories are looking at the longer campaign. They're looking at the wars and they had a lot there to keep them happy.

1:11Hello and welcome to Electoral Dysfunction with me, Beth Rigby. Me, Ruth Davidson. And me, Harriet Harman.

1:18Harriet Harman: That's right. She's back. We've been waiting for weeks. Beth, it's a delight to have you. The girl band is reunited. We're going to start singing all of the Spice Girls' greatest hits. I have I I am actually so happy to be back and I did get FOMO because I was listening to you all podding without me from my son thinking oh this is going a bit too well they seem to be having far too much fun and good chat without me so I missed you but I was listening to all of your content I think everybody is delighted that you're back um for these Friday episodes, but also with the rest of us for the Insider episodes, those bonus episodes that we now give you on a Tuesday.

2:00Harriet Harman: And if you're not yet in the Insider Club, but you'd like to be, you'd like a second hit of pure caffeine from us on a Tuesday, we would love to have you and you can find details on how to subscribe in the show notes. But look, there is so much to catch up on because it's not just us that's back. Parliament is officially back from summer recess. Burnham is in action. He's been in the Commons making his PMQ's debut, doing a big Q &A on the first day back, answering loads of questions over three and a half hours he was at the dispatch box. So if you've missed all of that, if you've been under a stone somewhere, you just don't want to quite accept that autumn and then winter is coming.

2:46Here's a flavour of Andy Burnham back at the dispatch box with Kemi Badenock. Yesterday he faced 125 questions from MPs across the House. Of course Labour and the Lib Dems just wanted more government spending as taxpayers money but can he name a single spending request to which he answered no? Prime Minister. What I can say to the right honourable lady, is I was quite clear in my statement about the need to get the welfare bill down. Personally, I think it's delightful that he wants to make everyone happy, but a prime minister needs to be a leader, not a people pleaser. He's talking about working together on welfare.

3:37I already made that offer, but that does mean cuts. He wants to bring the welfare bill down by spending more money. Yesterday, the Prime Minister told the House that his summer of promises would be paid for by reprioritising within government. So what exactly has he cut? Well, in terms of what has he cut, tax is the simple answer to that question. They complain, Mr Speaker, But where are their ideas about growth? When they were in government, we saw 14 years of stagnant growth. We saw 14 years of debt rising as a percentage of GDP. I would say to her that the turbulence on global markets are because of that exposure that they left behind.

4:37Ruth Davidson: We are turning that corner. So there you go, a taster of what is to come. Now, this was going to be a Prime Minister that was going to be more into problem solving rather than point scoring. That's one of his favourite lines that I have heard a number of times. I mean, what did you both think of that inaugural PMQs? Did it feel different to Starmer to you? It felt absolutely, completely different. But I was just so interested in Andy Burnham's style in Prime Minister's Questions. He's quite conversational and he did do the collaboration bit. So, for example, many of the MPs, when they asked him questions, some of which were quite sharp and pointed, he'd kind of then reach out back to them.

5:21Ruth Davidson: So a Cornish MP complained about housing, which is a major problem in Cornwall. And he said, well, why don't we do this? Why don't I meet all the Cornish MPs and let's hear about how we can work together to solve this problem. So if you're a backbencher, that sends a clear signal rather than sending a spiky message that you can then tweet out as, you know, I told the prime minister where to get off. You can ask for something and you actually might get a positive and collaborative response. So I think he's changed the atmosphere.

5:53Harriet Harman: I thought you'd probably say that Andy Burnham won the day. I think the Tories won't be too concerned because they're trying out lines on him in terms of what i liked i liked that the the first person that stood up was a plai kumri mp and she was quite sharp on the releases and on behalf of a constituent and stuff and and harriet's right he did do that like drawing the the heat out of it quite well i thought i thought one thing that might he might struggle with in future i'd never noticed this when listening to andy burnham before i guess because i'd always seen him like cut up on the news so he'd already been edited he is quite long-winded and he also has a speaking style wherein he speaks quite slowly and you're also slightly worried that he's going to have forgotten the last word of his sentence so there's like a big gap before the end and I've never noticed that before and I think that people like to feel secure they like to feel that the person is really on top of stuff and this idea that you're kind of hanging on for what he says, he might want to tighten that up a bit.

6:51I mean, for me, it's interesting to hear both of your reactions because I actually read it slightly differently. And maybe it's because I'm thinking of the framing that he set out, which was, it's going to be the biggest change in how we do politics in 40 years. I'm going to have a different style. I'm not going to be point scoring. I'm going to be problem solving. And actually, in the moment when Kemi Badenow was going at him about things like, why won't you commit not to raise taxes? What are you going to do about defence spending? Areas where actually Andy Burnham can't give an honest and direct answer right now, or he does need to deflect a bit.

7:33He does need to buy a bit of time. He doesn't necessarily want to be straight talking on difficult and contentious issues and issues that might not be resolved. He did deflect to point scoring. And there was a moment where he, you know, he rattled through Labour's economic achievements as he criticised, you know, the Tories 14 years in power. I was like, well, this is a bit Rachel Reeves, Keir Starmer. And then there was another moment where he rolled out the whole Liz Truss mini budget and appointing Andrew Griffiths as Shadow Chance, which I think you two have picked up. And I felt a bit like, God, this feels like the same old, same old.

8:16So I actually...

8:17Harriet Harman: The lines were the same, but it's a different actor delivering them. Yeah, I just felt all right. And the delivery was slightly different because he's a different person. But I'll be honest, I was underwhelmed. I thought it was going to be... I thought it was going to feel a lot different and be more impressive. How do we think Kemi did?

8:33Ruth Davidson: Well, I think Kemi did well. she's an accomplished performer at Prime Minister's Questions now and feels very at ease with the dispatch box. And you can see her backbenchers, don't worry that it's all going to collapse. They feel confident in her. But I think in terms of him responding and saying, but actually this is what happened in the Liz Trust budget. This is what happened with the money markets. He's trying to explain why it is that the government borrowing difficulties are as they are. It's not just about the problems created by Trump's war on Iran. It's also about where the starting point was.

9:14Ruth Davidson: And so I think that he's entitled to say, but look at the starting point that we had. And he did answer the questions. I didn't agree with the speaker picking him up and saying, you should be a bit quicker. I think an explanation of answering the question and then explaining your answer. I think it's quite a good thing, actually. He wasn't avoiding the answer. One of the things that Keir Starmer used to do is he'd be asked a question and his answer would be, but you did X, Y, and Z. Andy Burnham didn't do that. When he was asked a question, he answered it, then explained it and then said, but part of the reason we were in this situation is because you did X, Y, and Z.

9:55Ruth Davidson: And it does make it feel more ponderous, but I don't think it's a bad thing. I think we get fed up with the sort of wisecracking, you know, whip snapping across the dispatch box. It doesn't lend to accountability. I actually thought Kemi was really impressive yesterday, partly because I guess Burnham's trying to find his feet and she's arrived in the sense that a year ago she wasn't that comfy and she's found the flow. She's really growing into the jobber.

10:22Harriet Harman: So I thought there were some really interesting things there that showed a bit of confidence. She didn't go into that first PMQs thinking that she had to annihilate him. She didn't go in needing to lay him out in the canvas. She absolutely had confidence in herself. One, that she could start with a joke about his stamina and there was a little twinkle there. And sort of two years ago, Kemi would never have done that because it was light and it was also warm and we don't often see a bit of warmth. But she also understood that you can have days where the government win the day, but you're actually trying to win the narrative.

10:56Harriet Harman: And PMQs is one of the ways in opposition you get to win the narrative. And there's not that many of them, so you can't squander them. And we've talked before in this pod about the most effective political communication is telling people things they think they already know. And that's why I never really liked Boris's characterization of Keir Starmer when he started talking about him as a North London lawyer, because for like most parts of the country, we don't know what that is. We don't know the difference between North and South London or any of that. But when Kemi started talking about and also Rishi and started talking about flip-flopping and U-turning, people can grab onto that and that stuck with them.

11:32Harriet Harman: That U-turn narrative really caught hold in the media as well as elsewhere. And what I thought she was trialling here and that we'll see if they expand upon. One, the people pleaser line, I thought that landed. You're a people pleaser, not a leader. You have to actually say to no to people. They'll definitely keep that going and see how far they can take that. And right at the end, it was a throwaway line, but it's one that will resonate with people because it's in a language that they understand. This idea that he's just a vibes prime minister, ditch the vibes so that there's not an actual plan.

12:02Harriet Harman: Like that's something I reckon that they'll develop. The one thing that we all know in politics, the electorate hate more than anything else, is a politician who's a grade A hypocrite. And she wasn't really talking about defence today, but she made the point of trying to pin them down on whether they're going to get to the three or the three and a half percent on defence spending. And I think that Andy Burnham may have had a slight misstep yesterday, and we won't see it until the fullness of time, where he went in behind him and said, I appointed him Chancellor because he's committed to this three, three and a half percent and fully funding our armed forces.

12:36Harriet Harman: And all the briefing that's coming out of Westminster right now is that we are not getting there. So at some point, the promises or the nod and a wink is going to fall down. And that's going to be a hard reckoning, Dave. I mean, on that, and this is, in our hive brain, even though we've been apart, the hive brain is alive now. Because on that, it was, the vibe thing was exactly what I was going to bring up relating to defence. I mean, can you even believe it, Ruth, that that was in my mind? because he was asked, as you said, Burnham was asked by Baden-Ock about, will you commit to the 3 % by 2030?

13:13And of course, just to remind you all, the UK has committed to spend 3.5 % of GDP on core defence spending by 2035. Healy resigned because he didn't think there was a pathway to 3 % by 2030 and Starmer wasn't willing to put that money in. But where he got interesting was when Tan Desi, who is the chair of the Defence Select Committee, who's a Labour MP, then stood up and said to Andy Burnham, Defence is one area where vibes alone just isn't going to be enough. So that attack line, if you like, of the Conservatives was picked up by one of his own, one of Burnham's own. And he said vibes isn't enough.

13:57And he said to the Prime Minister, you need to urgently commit to find the money that's imperative for the Great Britain defence plan. And do you commit to 3 % by 2030? Now, when I was listening, I heard Andy Burnham say, I can tell the right honourable gentleman I'm fully committed. So in my mind, I was like, oh, he's just committed to 3 % by 2030. And then there was a frantic rolling back of this for the rest of the afternoon. I mean, it is a pretty big headache for him, eh?

14:29Ruth Davidson: It certainly is difficult and it's all made a lot worse by the fact that government borrowing has got more expensive. So one of the things about Prime Minister's questions is that I think there needs to be, because it's about accountability, there needs to be absolute clarity so that at the end of Prime Minister's questions, nobody goes away saying, what does he mean by that. I mean, my point really is on these things, there's got to be clarity. So people feel confident that the government is all in one place and they know how they're getting there. Obviously, the details won't come until the budget.

15:05Ruth Davidson: And that is fair enough. But actually ahead of the budget, you know, Kemi Badenock will be asking lots of questions, but you can't have half answers. Yeah. I mean, that's so interesting, Ruth, though, because picking up on what Harriet just said there, I mean, what Baden-Ock's doing and the Conservatives are doing, which is pretty smart, is doing the welfare versus warfare debate. And they're saying, you know what, we're going to cut welfare, which Labour don't have the guts or the political capital to do with their backbenches.

15:40Harriet Harman: And have already flunked it once. Yes, in order to fund defence and actually the hardworking people of Britain that go out every day to work and want to see the welfare bill cut. we're on their side and Andy Burnham is not. And that is politically quite pressurising for him, I think. It is. And also the way in which, because welfare is quite a difficult problem and doesn't really play to the base in the Labour Party because of its history of solidarity and helping those who can't help themselves and all the rest of it, the very narrow path that the front bench seems comfortable with talking about is particularly about young people not in education, employment or training.

16:20Harriet Harman: And we saw that again from Andy Burnham at PMQs. that that was what he talks about welfare being. And of course, welfare is not that. It's also people with housing benefit and disability benefits and it's to do with pensions and all of this sort of stuff. That all comes under DWP funding. So that's a very narrow one. But I think the difficulty there is that particular strain has gone up under this Labour government in the last two years and it's gone up, we would argue, on our side of the house, in principle because of decisions that were made by Rachel Reeves in terms of increasing national insurance on employers, in terms of making hiring and firing the Angela Rayner reforms, in terms of making hiring and firing people harder and temporary working harder.

16:59Harriet Harman: So there's a real ideological battleground there. But also, every time he whangs on about the North, about Manchester, about Manchesterism, it helps what we've seen from James Cleverley and whoever else chooses to stand as the Tory candidate for London. The SNP have made hay for years in Scotland on saying that whoever's in government is doing down Scotland. This idea that London is being done down by the government because they're talking about other areas of the country and they're not appreciative that Labour is one of the truly global cities, that it's an economic powerhouse for the whole of the UK.

17:33You know, there is a narrative that can be built here

17:37Harriet Harman: and the mayorship election comes before the next general election. There's a narrative that can be built that is very helpful to whoever the Tory candidate is, whether it's James or Festus or whoever else stands, about this idea that Andy Burnham doesn't really care about London. He does it down. And every time he reinforces this idea of sending more power elsewhere, it helps that narrative. So it's those breadcrumbs that get laid for later wars, if you know what I mean. But the Tories are looking at the longer campaign. They're looking at the wars. And they had a lot there to keep them happy.

18:08OK, well, look, Andy Burnham facing Kemi Badenoch in the Commons. Nigel Farage, of course, is back having a beaten Count Bin face. And now there could be another party leader entering the Commons. Because what's happened just before we started recording this pod on Thursday morning is that Zak Polanski, the leader of the Green Party, would like to stand in Holborn and St Pancras after Keir Starmer announced on day one of the new term that he was standing down as an MP. So that by-election is now shaping up to be a real doozy with Zach Polanski. I mean, he's got to get the nomination from the local Green Party, but he is making a tilt for Parliament.

18:56So look, big, big, big developments, a big by-election coming up, a big departure in Starmer, Zach Polanski trying to get onto that, into the Commons. What do you think of that, Ruth?

19:07Harriet Harman: Firstly, I mean, given the way that Keir Starmer was defenestrated, And I kind of understand why he did it first day back over getting into the news grid for the new prime minister and not caring about that. Because as screw yous go, he doesn't owe these guys anything because they absolutely defenestrated him. And he's been quite polite on the run up to this. But there is a little bit of me that, you know, the little tribal Tory inside of me, and I'm not usually that tribal, but there's a little bit of me. There's like, wait a minute, hold on. This is the guy that repeatedly sort of ragged Rishi Sunak about how he'd be off sunning himself in California when he lost the election and all this sort of stuff.

19:41Harriet Harman: He couldn't wait to pack the kids up and leave. And Rishi Sunak dutifully is going back into Parliament, making sure and has done for the last two and a bit years, making sure that he's asking questions at death request in time on behalf of his farming constituents in Yorkshire and all the rest of it and is doing his duty. And Keir Starmer lasted precisely six weeks, most of which was a recess on the back benches before he sods off.

20:06Ruth Davidson: Harriot, what did you think? Well, after you've been Prime Minister, you know, there's a choice. You can either stay, I mean, you mentioned Rishi Sunak, but also Theresa May was the outstanding example of that. And having been Prime Minister, she brought to the Commons that experience, but from the back benches. And I think that that was really exemplary. or you can decide that you might be a destabilising presence if you stay on. So you don't want to be a lightning rod for dissent. And it might well be that some international job came up that he feels that Keir Starmer feels that he can make a contribution on the world stage to, and therefore it was decision time for him.

20:47Ruth Davidson: But at the end of the day, I think everybody's thinking now about what happens next. And that's the issue, not so much of whether Keir Starmer's gone, but what's going to happen in the by-election. This is going to be a critical by-election. Yeah. And isn't it, Justin, look, he's standing down and now you've got Zach Polanski having a tilt at it. He's been looking for a London seat. But what does it mean? What are his chances? We fortunately had our Sky election analyst, Rob Ford. He has very kindly given us a quick call into the bat phone. So look, have a listen to what Rob has to say about Polanski's chances in this by-election.

21:30That really throws the cat amongst the pigeons in what's now looking like it's going to be a humdinger of a by-election. This is a seat where we would expect the Greens to potentially do very well. Huge numbers of non-white voters, 66 % in the census, graduates 51%, and nearly half of the seat is aged under 40. These are all groups that have swung Labour to green in recent years, and you can see that in the Camden Borough elections just in May as well. But the other thing to bear in mind on this is you've got a party leader standing in the contest. It changes the stakes of that contest. The question on the ballot paper for voters here is now, would you like the national leader of the Green Party or would you like a generic Labour backventure as your local representatives?

22:18I think that potentially hands an advantage to the Greens. But this is huge for both parties because if Burnham can hold this seat, he potentially deals a major, possibly knockout blow to the Greens' nascent insurgency on his left flank and really burnishes his credentials as someone who can consolidate the progressive vote. So there's an awful lot going on here. It's going to be a great contest to watch. And it's going to be a really interesting result to see when we see the ballot boxes open sometime later in the autumn. Bye.

22:48Ruth Davidson: I think the stakes are really high for the Greens here because they had a big surge across London in the council elections earlier this year. And indeed, they won seven council seats from Labour in Keir Starmer's constituency. And all around London, they've won mayors and the leadership of councils. So they will feel that they're in a strong place on that. But since then, their standing in the polls generally has really fallen back since Andy Burnham became prime minister. So the question is, what is the new reality? Is the new reality that Andy can actually lead a broad alliance of the centre and centre-left parties?

23:30Ruth Davidson: Or is it the case that they are still going to be going to a green insurgency? So I think that the stakes are very high. but the question is not just whether or not the people of Candom want a Green MP, but also whether they want Zach Polanski. And I just think the closer people look at Zach Polanski, the more unedifying I think they'll find him. So if this is more opportunity for the spotlight to be on him as an individual, I don't think that'll work so well for them. But obviously the stakes for Labour are very high too. This Hoban and St Pancras constituency in Camden has been Labour forever.

24:11Ruth Davidson: It's the seat of the former prime minister and it would be a truly dreadful blow if it was lost with Keir Starmer standing down. So Labour will be choosing their very best possible candidate and throwing everything at it. Yeah, I mean, it is high risks, Ruth, isn't it? It's really high States. And I wonder why that's why it took a bit of time for him to decide whether he was going to go for it. But Polanski, that is, he didn't immediately come out of the traps, did he?

24:39Harriet Harman: So I think it's quite brave of Polanski, actually, because, you know, he's not a Farage figure in that Farage had, I don't know, fought like 20 elections and never won any of them. But Farage was always the head of his own party, the head of his own vehicle. And it was generally vehicles that he'd set up. So his apex point was never threatened by anybody particularly. So it didn't matter. And he was, you know, snubbing his nose at the establishment anyway. And it was always an establishment stitch up that he didn't win. Polanski is kind of not in that position. He's done incredibly well as leader.

25:10Harriet Harman: He's got them, you know, winning by-elections. He's got their percentage in the national polls up. He is, by any measure of previous leaders, successful. But he's a new experiment for the Greens because they've always had co-leaders in the past and he's the first one that's doing it sort of by himself. He is clearly a figurehead for the rest of the country. But, you know, if he went, somebody else would come and replace him. It's kind of not like Farage leading, so it's a different situation. But I guess the electoral maths for the seat give him some comfort because by-elections are always about expectation management.

25:43Harriet Harman: And at the last election in 2024, the Greens came third with just over 10 % of the vote. So he's going to put that vote up. What's interesting is the person that came second, Obviously, Keir Starmer won it. He was the PM. He got nearly half of the votes. But the independent that ran that came second was a big Corbynista. Ex-Labor had come from the Corbyn wing of the party. He got 19%, 18.9 % of the vote. So the Greens look like they're starting on 10%. So even if he comes close but doesn't win it, it's a big jump for them. But actually, they're starting on about 30 % of the vote, really, in those combined totals, or at least that's what they'll be thinking.

26:18Harriet Harman: So it's a really good platform for them to build off. And, you know, they will give it their best shot. I think it's going to be fascinating. This is going to be one of these proper doozies. What was it that Rob called? A humdinger. He's absolutely right. This is going to be a humdinger of a by-election.

26:34Ruth Davidson: I think it's going to prefigure some of the debate that's going to happen in the London mayoral election, because this is a London constituency. and what's happened is that the Conservatives are trying to conflate what Andy Burnham is saying about the centre and that there's too much centralisation in this country with saying that actually he's anti-London. I mean, what he's not is anti-London. Andy Burnham is anti-centralisation. He wants devolution, including devolution to London. So they've got to get that message across that actually Andy Burnham is pro-devolution, including greater powers for Londoners to make the decisions which affect themselves.

27:18I mean, it's so interesting, isn't it? Because in the Makerfield by-election, Andy Burnham pitched himself as I'm the guy that can take on reform. And on the other side, the Labour vote being eaten into by a Green Party that said that it was going to push Labour further to the left, if you like. It was going to get them to do more for young people on housing, on the cost of living. And now you've got this challenge for Burnham as to whether or not having proven that he can take on Farage, can he take on Zapolansky to the left? And what's very interesting about it is I've got some campaign specific background that his team have sent me while we're talking.

28:03I've said, what's his pitch? And they've said he's expected to focus on listening to constituents' concerns and showing how a Green MP will keep up the pressure on Labour to deliver on key issues. From everyone he's spoken to, he knows already that means bills, rents and fight in the corner of people are proud to live in such an amazing place, but want more from their Labour government. So it's interesting, isn't it? They're kind of taking that, we're going to keep Labour's feet to the fire by really pressing them on progressive issues, if you like. and he's sort of saying squirrely, that's how he's going to fight the fight in Camden.

28:42So it really is going to be a humdinger, a doozy. We'll have to come up with some more adjectives.

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30:27look before we go harriet i just wanted to pick up something that happened earlier in the week in our tuesday members episode because you and ruth were talking about the tory reshuffle and and in particular claire cortino's promotion to shadow business secretary and here's a bit of that in case you guys listening today missed it.

30:48Ruth Davidson: Kemi likes to say she isn't woke, but you know, woke is as woke does. You've done it, Kemi. Claire Cotino took Andrew Griffith's job as shadow business secretary. And actually she was one of a number of women who was promoted by Kemi Badenock and also is on maternity leave. So I'm giving Kemi Badenock a woke badge for that. That is a very progressive thing to do to give her a promotion. Honestly, I never thought I'd either day, especially in the Conservative Party. Now, if you want to hear the whole of that episode, the link to the Members Club is in the show notes. And like all of these things, I think it is better to listen to the whole episode just rather than just a clip because you get the entire conversation.

31:32But following that, Claire Coutinho tweeted this in response. She said, how revealing. The left don't think a pregnant woman can be promoted on merit only as a symbol of progressiveness. I may be growing some feet and eyeballs, but my brain is just fine. And then Kemi Badenok herself has waded in. She said, Claire's been promoted because she's excellent and conservatives believe in meritocracy. If Harriet's worried about discrimination, there's plenty in her own party to keep her busy. Boris Johnson promoted me to Treasury while I was on maternity leave in 2020. Nobody did a podcast episode on it because we didn't think it was remarkable.

32:13He just knew I could do the job. Women do not need patronising theories to explain their success. That is the point. Now, Harriet, you've made those remarks about Claire and about her promotion, and then it's kind of taken on a life of its own. What do you want to say in reply?

32:30Ruth Davidson: Well, pregnancy and maternity discrimination is still a major problem. So many women go back to work before they really feel their baby's ready because they just can't afford to stay off long enough because maternity pay is not high enough. So many women get sort of pushed out of their job when they're actually on maternity leave and get effectively demoted. You know, it's called the motherhood penalty. There's a very good organisation called Pregnant Then Screwed, who if people want to look at all the facts and figures, maternity discrimination, pregnancy discrimination is still very much a thing.

33:09Ruth Davidson: And therefore, I think it is notable that we can see a situation where somebody is promoted not because they're pregnant, but despite being pregnant, because that is a step forward. And so I was just contrasting Kemi Baden-Ox and the Conservatives' anti-woke stance, because I believe woke is about stripping away discrimination and giving people opportunities on merit rather than discriminating against them because they're a woman or because they're pregnant. I'm very disappointed that Claire and a number of other conservative women have had a go at me about this because I like for women to work together because actually we've made progress against maternity discrimination by working together as women.

33:58Ruth Davidson: And that's how we've actually push things forward. So I always want to work together with other women and not have us falling out among ourselves on it. You know, I'm congratulating Claire for her promotion. And you know, when Suella Braverman was Attorney General, it's not possible for there to be a replacement, a temporary replacement for the Attorney General. And she needed to go on maternity leave. And she contacted me and said, would I help her get an actual law change, a bill through Parliament, which would say that there could be maternity leave for the Attorney General. And I did help her do that.

34:37Ruth Davidson: And we did that together. So I think everybody who wants there to be a meritocracy and wants there to be no discrimination against pregnant women, we should recognise that it's still a real problem, celebrate when individual women overcome that, but recognise that for many women the battle is still on.

34:56Harriet Harman: Can I just say, I was getting it in the neck too, Harriet. It wasn't just you on the internet because apparently I didn't push back. There was a pushback that came after what you said but it just wasn't in that clip that we played. So listen to the whole episode. But I apparently didn't push back hard enough. And there is a prickliness on our side, absolutely, because we've had decades where we've heard people tell us as women in the Conservative Party that the Conservative Party is anti-women and the women in the Conservative Party aren't feminists. we're not feminist enough, we're not women enough, that because our view or some of our solutions are different from the left, we really bridle at the sanctimony.

35:32Harriet Harman: We really bridle and we've had it for years. I've had it as a party leader within Scotland. I think I've seen it for all of the female leaders that we've had at a UK level. Do you know, we are spiky about it. And I think it's because we've had so much shit thrown at us down the years from Labour about being the wrong types of women. So I completely accept that in what you were saying, you were trying to be funny and you weren't doing that. You were saying like, God, I didn't expect that from Kemi. But I guess the kind of questions we all would have had was, well, why didn't you expect that from Kemi to promote somebody that's good just because she's on maternity leave?

36:07Ruth Davidson: Well, I think women have made a huge amount of progress because of the women's movement. And the fact of the matter is that the political wing of the women's movement was the Labour Party. And it was Labour that was putting forward progressive measures for women. and for the most part, the Conservatives, including Conservative women, opposing them. Now, more recently, there has been a massive change in the Conservative Party, where there are women who would call themselves feminists, who are daughters of the women's movement themselves, who've joined that force of being part of Progressive on Women.

36:40Ruth Davidson: But it's not unfair to say, Kemi Badenok, who is criticising diversity and inclusion policies, that actually, I would much rather Kemi Bade not be in favour of a meritocracy and for her to stop being anti-woke. But she always has been anti-woke, so I don't expect to see any change there. There's still a problem and we need to work together to solve it. Actually, I don't want to sound too much like Andy Burnham here, but sisterhood has always been part of the women's movement motif. If we all want to see women not discriminated against and we want to see the end of the motherhood penalty for women at work.

37:19Ruth Davidson: You know, let's work together on the problems that there still are for women in work.

37:24Harriet Harman: The last word that I'll say is we're still sort of, what was it, 4-0 now in terms of female leaders Tory to Labour. But that's just the final point that I'll leave it on.

37:34Ruth Davidson: But you see, but the irony is that when Margaret Thatcher left government, she left an all-male cabinet. Margaret Thatcher was the first woman prime minister and massively broke the glass ceiling. But how much did that change for other women? When she left, she left an all-male cabinet.

37:50Harriet Harman: We could do this for hours, Harriet. We could absolutely trade this for hours. And you are my sister and I love working with you. But we have different views about what's a legitimate route for achievement. Yeah, but I think the point is, Harriet, what you're trying to say is that your intention was to celebrate Claire Coutinho becoming Shadow Business Secretary whilst on maternity leave. I mean, fundamentally... I should have just said,

38:14Ruth Davidson: I should have just said, congratulations, Claire, and well done, Kemi, and not done all the stuff that winds Ruth up and everybody else. Well, and I have to say, as someone that went on maternity leave twice in quite a cutthroat business, which I am in, on a personal level, when I see women being promoted whilst pregnant or on maternity leave, there's a little bit of me that cheers because I think it helps the path for other women coming through. And it's quite possible to have a career and be a mum. Exactly.

38:49Harriet Harman: And as the first political leader anywhere in the UK to have gone on their own maternity leave, plenty have gone on paternity leave, but none have gone on maternity leave. Like it absolutely matters that people can see that you can do both. Now, don't get me wrong, I still have the parental guilt that I'm either not doing enough at my work or I'm not doing enough with my child. That whole feeling that I'm never enough for any of the bits of my life, like never goes away. Like, Harriet, tell me, will I ever feel enough anywhere? Tell me that I will, please.

39:18Ruth Davidson: Well, I hope one day the maternal guilt does go. But as far as I'm concerned, my maternal guilt has not dissipated, but has just been joined by grandparental guilt as well. Well, look, that is all we've got time for today. I have to say it has been so nice to be back with you. I have missed you. Don't go away again. You can never have any more holidays. Honestly, I was off for a long time. I had to go back on telly yesterday and I was like, oh, I don't know how to do this, it was fine. But yeah, so look, we will be back on Tuesday for our insider episode and I'm going to be updating you on how I got off, how I got off.

39:57Harriet Harman: Who are you getting off with the Reform Party conference? Is there something we need to know at your best? Look, but look, we're going to be back on Tuesday for our insider episode when I'll be updating you all on how I got on at the Reform Party conference. And it's going to be fascinating because, of course, the momentum that reform had last year to this year is changing. And I'm going to be really interested to see how that conference goes and how Nigel Farage performs. You know, I love watching the journalists at the start of conference season versus the end of conference season. And it was bad enough when they all just had to go to three conferences.

40:35Harriet Harman: But now, because of the fragmentation of British politics, there's also the reform in the Green conferences. so there's like five to go to like you're all going to be ruined you know the secret of surviving conference not drinking is to not drink any alcohol and go to bed before midnight that's the secret anyway we do have to go and as usual we love to hear your thoughts so do keep please sending them our way on the brand new members forum if you are an insider or if you're not or not yet because you're going to join up because you're going to want that second episode do please speak to us on the burner phone that's still in action Burner phone number is 07934 2444.

41:13Ruth Davidson: Or email us at electoral dysfunction at sky.uk. But goodbye for now. Goodbye. Goodbye.