Corbynism in a better suit? Comedian Geoff Norcott on Starmer's Labour chaos

0:02The Telegraph.

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0:52It's been another joke of a week for the Labour Party, so who better to talk us through the political chaos than comedian Jeff Norcott. He gives us his best impression of Andy Burnham, tells us why Kemi is always trying to outdo herself and has some advice for Keir Starmer on making his jokes from the dispatch box land 100 times better. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tominy. And me, Tim Stanley.

1:26Tim, it's Fun Friday. It's fun day. We're going to be calling this the relaxing entry into the weekend that we need after a very taxing political week. Into a long weekend, Bank Holiday Monday. Oh, thank God. I know. I forgot about that. Four-day week next week. I know. The unions will be delighted. Geoff Norcott's in the house. Hello. Yes. Looking thin and bespectacled. I mean, thin is really stretching. And you're looking buff, Geoff. Less big than once was. But, yeah, I mean, it wouldn't be good for the brand to let out why, but it's been a bit of Tai Chi. I hear this. This is amazing. The three Bs.

1:59Buff, bearded, bespectacled. Yes. This is like a midlife glow up, frankly, Jeff. Thanks for not saying. And brown, the four Bs. Yes. You are a bit tanned as well. All I do is I tend to go for my walk when the sun's up just to get a bit of colour. That's all it is. I mean, maybe I should be for blokes with dad bods. I could be like an influencer. Not that. Yeah. A Jeff bod. Or a Tim bod. We're going to have a little ferret through what's been going on for the last seven days because, frankly, it's bad for the country, but there's humour to be found in it, Geoff. Well, when we're in the game that we are, I mean, remember when Labour got in, I was sort of like, ooh, you know, even I bought into that thing of maybe, you know, politics will tread more quietly on our lives.

2:42And it didn't, thank God. And then you kind of go, right, we've got the plot lines sewn up for the next three years because you've got Burnham. Then once he gets in, there'll be the scrutiny of the new leader. Once that's over, then we'll be heading to an election. So it's good for us, bad for the nation. Yes. Michael Deacon was saying the other day that he's hoping that Labour beats Tories. Michael Deacon was saying the other day that he hopes that the Labour Party beats the Tory record on the number of prime ministers. Yeah. It's not out of the question, is it? It shouldn't be a competition.

3:11But I think it might be one of the few achievements they will have in government. Yeah. Is that they can finish saying we were more chaotic. The Tories, they never really committed. I mean, one thing I would say about the leadership crisis with the Tories, when there is a coup, they just do one between the eyes and it's done with a few days. They talk about the Tories' psychodrama. There's nothing more psycho or dramatic than a bloke who's in power and there might be a leadership challenge and he kind of can't leave and there's a bloke basically already with his wife and creosote in his fence.

3:42It's very disturbing. Yeah, the Tories stab not just in the back but in the face, Whereas the Labour Party just let them bleed out over the course of months. But also we discover Labour has rules. The Tory party has no rules. It's just they all disappear into a room and the one that leaves, one. Whereas the Labour Party, you have to have 10 % of the constituency party's support and you need to have 82 MPs. It's just bizarre. Proceduralism gone mad. But I mean, you know, Andy Burnham. I was trying to think, you know, because you need to get ahead of it comedically for who might be the Prime Minister next.

4:14And I was just sort of thinking, he's just Andy Burnham. He's Andy Burnham and that's all he is. He's Andy Burnham, just being Andy. Because really, he says he's not going to change the fiscal rules, right? Can't do anything quantitatively that different. So the main thing he's offering is that he's just Andy Burnham. Just a lad go running by an A-roll. That's all it is. It's Andy Burnham. So it's Starmer 2.0. But with a bit of personality. That's literally, it is a lick of paint on probably the same thing. And you know what? That might be enough. If you look at that more in common poll that has Labour suddenly up to 30%, which seems a bit toppy to me, but it might be enough.

4:49That's the poll that suggests that if Burnham was in charge of the party, he'd be three points ahead of reform. Yeah, reform's still holding solid on 27th. Tories just resolutely around 17 % to 20%. It's really Greens that are going to suffer the most if Andy Burnham wins. Well, if the Greens are going to suffer the most, why have we got all of these candidates leaning into Polanskiism? We've had Streeting now, the so-called righty in the race, talking about wealth taxes. We've got both of them, him and Burnham, talking about reversing the referendum. They're all doubling down on net zero because Ed Miliband has got something to do with all of these future administrations, apparently.

5:24We don't know why. The guy's a political failure at the end of the day. But it's because they're not interested in your vote, Camilla. No, they're not. They're interested in the vote of whoever is mad enough to be a member of the Labour Party in 2026. Yes. And that's the thing with leadership elections. You switch from caring about how the country is run to caring about what the party thinks. But then I spoke to an ardent lefty this morning who I used to play football with. She's a big fan of this podcast because she wants to know what the enemy thinks. A lady. As Roger Moore would say. A lady.

5:52She'll be listening and she knows who she is. But I won't invade her privacy. And she said, you know, I like Shabana, but none of the birds are at the races. Well, yeah, the Labour backbenchers have membership or on a collision course with reality at some point. And everything that they have to do, they don't want to do. So there is still a chance of this sovereign debt. Everyone's saying that they've got to cut welfare spending. They all kind of know that they want to cut welfare spending. It's just that they really, really don't want to. No. And their desire, it's where, you know, where the right sometimes gives itself too much congratulation for being pragmatic and responsible and doing the hard thing rather than the easy thing.

6:30There's no appetite whatsoever to do this. They've had a former defence chief do a review and say, this is exactly what you've got to do. And then they've got, well, you know. Hang on a minute. Do we have to actually spend the money we've pledged to spend? No, thank you very much. Well, if you give the guy a good job to do the review because he used to be a defence minister, what was he? Didn't he work at UN? I can't remember the name. Robertson, right? Yes. George Robertson. George Robertson. So you essentially said this guy, he's the one. He's got all the knowledge and that's why we've got him on the case and then he just gave the wrong answer.

6:57And they're like, well, you know, he wasn't that good, was he? UN, when did they last have a successful bombing campaign? So at some point, I think it will be sadly again the markets that push them into that. But, you know, you can't be in hock to them. No, you can't be in hock to them. I'm fascinated by this personality point, because Westminster tries to set the taste standard for the rest of the country, like Versailles. This is what we think you all want. And, OK, there are a lot of people who do want a boring man from Manchester. I don't. I don't know what I want instead, whether it's something between Quentin Crisp and Freddie Starr's Hitler.

7:28I don't know what it is I'm looking for. That's quite a spectrum. Yeah. I'm very broad-minded. You said you want... Hang on a minute. We know what you want as a sketch writer. You want Angela Rayner. I want Angela Rayner, of course. I want the funniest, most entertaining person. And what I find strange is all these people who work for magazines. There's always the magazine writers who try to set this taste standard for what people all want is Boring Andy because they want Boring Andy. But I don't think he's being portrayed as boring. Compared to Starmer, this guy is like, you know, an emcee at a really interesting event.

7:59I see. Because of where I come from, I thought you were going to say drum and bass there, but I think you meant something a bit different. No, I meant something like MC Hammer, which again, I would prefer. Well, I think he got into some kind of criminal behaviour. I don't think that's the right reference point at this point. Did you still like MC Hammer? What a revelation. You take my point. The Prime Minister is the most visible public role beneath King. Westminster gets to decide who that person is because it's all internal now. And Westminster is dominated by mad, boring people. They live on that strange cusp of being both insane and really dull.

8:33and they get to choose who it is we're all fascinated by. And I'm being told by the political people I'm fascinated, I'm absolutely compelled by Andy Burnham. And I look at him and think, no, I'm not. No, he's not that interesting. What he is, he's definitively northern. His name sounds, Burnham sounds like a suburb. Yeah, it sounds like a Labour borough, doesn't it? West Burnham and the name Andy Burnham, you almost become a bit more northern as you say his name. You know, Wes Streeting, that's quite a working class sound. I mean, Wes Streeting is a legitimately working class background. You know, Wes Streeting does sound like the hardest lad in year 10.

9:12I'm not sure he was, though. I'm not sure he was. So it's a... He's got like a face that resembles a giant man baby. A giant man baby. It's like, I've got to say, Streeting's skin care. How much moisturiser. It's an incredibly smooth face. Isn't it? Yes. An absolute cow in the press gallery compared to her. I don't know if I want to. I suppose what he does have, and this is why a lot of the journos like him, even you guys, because he can deal with you guys, can't he? And if you ask him a challenging question, he'll give you an answer that suggests he's listened to the question and is trying to respond to it.

9:44He will dance. He will dance. I just think it's just being a human in the moment. We're so used to people not being able to react to what's being said and trying to gloss over things. because in a way that's so patronising to the public, like as though you're not going to notice that a question went unanswered. So I think what Wes has with the journalistic class, why a lot of us call him Wes, is because he is sort of personable. But I just don't know if the public are aware of any of that yet. And certainly Labour membership, he represents exactly what they don't want to face. Or he did. I mean, I was at the Spectator Party not that long ago and he made a joke about being the first right-wing person to have ever presented it.

10:21And then here we are. Oh, yeah, the Parliamentary Awards. And then here we are a year and a half later. There's wealth taxes. There's the EU. But these lefties know where they stand on any of this. But again, this is a Westminster thing because that is our consensus. But the public hasn't encountered the man. The public literally probably doesn't know who he is. And they will care even less now that he's an ex-minister. But it always irritates me about Westminster, how we go around with these shorthand understandings of who people are and what they stand for. As though the rest of the country is thinking, yeah, I quite like Wes because he belongs to that blue Labour tradition.

10:51No one thinks like that. No, they don't. They just look at him and make a judgment on how he looks and sounds when they first encounter him. But also the portrayal of the politics we have today, this idea that Starmer, Soviet comrade Kier, who has this week flirted along with the Chancellor with price caps on supermarket food, who is talking about now importing Russian oil and gas and having sanctions on UK oil and gas from the North Sea, and is flirting with all the kind of tenets of socialism. I've never understood this misportrayal of him as somebody on the right. He's not on the right. He served under Corbyn.

11:27Compared to Corbyn, he is a bit on the right. But then, frankly, so is anybody. His 2020 leadership launch video was literally like something out of the 1970s. Well, it's reheated Corbynism. Of course it was. And it's like, oh, he's really right-wing? No, he isn't. It's just Corbynism without being a guy that had attended a Hamas event. You know, that was a big part of the pitch. It's Corbynism in a better suit. But then equally, once we got to know him, he seemed like a 90s Tory MP for Wes Reisland. Everything about how he looked, how he sounded. I mean, the thing is, Keir Stummer does have the backstory.

12:02By God, don't we know it? But it's a vibe. I know vibe is overused in politics. Oh, this is what Tim's been saying all week, Geoff. People don't feel that. Whereas I think with Andy Burnham, the story and the vibe match up. I think with Wes Street, his voice has become a bit more RP over the years. Andy Burnham possibly is the best, if you're looking for that man of the people thing, I think he's got the best distillation of those two things. Yes. Kirstam has always suffered, A, from being from Surrey, which has no sense of place or identity whatsoever. You're not allowed to be proud to be from Surrey.

12:33There's very little to be proud of. I mean, what are you proud of? East Grinstead? I think this is harsh. Well, it's the largest concentration of Scientologists. Epsom races? Or, that's true, that's true. I mean, I'm from West Kent next door, but I know that part of the world and it just doesn't have that sense of class identity. That's why you're a snob about it, because you're in the Garden of England. And the second problem, I'm looking over the fence into Surrey, and the second problem he has is that he, and I think this in some ways is likable about him, he looks like he's from the 1940s, like he's a Labour minister for paperclips from 1947.

13:04And not just in the look, but actually the colour of him. Because as time has gone by, he's physically become monochrome. Yes, like John Major. The hair has gone silver, the face has gone white, and even if he's standing in a very colourful place, he looks like he's personally in black and white. He's Labour's John Major in the spitting image. But they all have that a little bit. They're all a portrait in the attic just walking around in front of cameras. It happens to them. If you look at what's happened to Blair over the years, Rishi Sunak in Manchester still seemed like a small boy but a very aged small boy at the same time.

13:38He had that kind of streak. Yeah. He got a grey streak going. Liz Truss didn't really have long enough for it to have any impact at all. I mean, in a way, politics has become a bit, you know, something I talk about in my podcast, what most people think, which is less informal than you guys. But I just go for the jokes because I see politics somewhere between sport and entertainment. You know, since I realised, particularly during Covid, that no one could do anything particularly different. I've just thought, well, I might as well just enjoy this, you know, might as well have the laughs. And I think that politicians, a bit like comics, it's that thing of can they say who you are in two words?

14:09You know, it's the working class Tory guy. You know, it's the kind of Canadian comic that roasts celebrities. You know, everyone needs that. And I was interested this week that Kemi Badenock, I felt she had a challenge in PMQs because she's sort of following herself now. She's had a run of great clips. And it was almost like she was getting up going, how can I get another? How can I out Kemi Kemi? Quite. And when you've had Nicki Minaj giving you props and Azalea Banks, it's almost sometimes a comedian. Any comedian once you've been going for a while, They might find themselves thinking, what would Jeff Norcott think, which is a horrifically narcissistic third-person thing.

14:43But the moment you do that, you're away from what made it good. She did find her stride in PMQs this week, but just at the beginning, she seems to be trying to work out what does Kemi Bader-Kok do this week because she's on a hot streak. But I don't think you can force a rant. A rant should be an organic thing. She did have something to get her teeth into and she got there. But I think Kemi's problem is that she is the engineer. She wasn't anyone who was ever in the drama club at school. and I think actually she performs better when she does improvise, when she has the asides, like for instance the classic line to Wes Streeting, just do your job.

15:17I don't think she had that written down. I think obviously there are Tories in the background prepping her for PMQs on a Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, preparing lines for her. When she's a bit more fast and loose with her rhetoric, that's when she lands the blows because she is making, I mean Tim and I had a funny conversation about the invention of the word processology to describe Starmer's administration, and it was a good one. And he then embraced it, not understanding that she was making a joke. Yeah, that was funny. I think that, in a way, she is bringing out the worst in him, him mansplaining, him being patronising, him refusing to answer the question, which has been increasingly infuriating the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle.

15:58But I agree, where does she take it from here? Are you a fan of hers, Geoff? I like everybody else. There's a lot of people who are angry with the government, So what she gets to be while the Tories are the official opposition is the spokesperson for the anger. That's a strong card to play. But again, like a comedy analogy, you get some comics that have great clips game, as they call it. You know, they can do clips that almost go viral guaranteed. Some comics that translates to really big tour sales. Some comics, weirdly, not at all. And you can't really explain why that is. And for the Tories and for the Tories, there isn't yet a complete index between her success in the Commons and her success in clips and polling.

16:34Napoleon has nudged up, but you don't see a serious renaissance on the horizon. That is so true. And watching her in Parliament, she's not nearly as good as she seems on telly. She clips up really well. She clips really well. But the actual speeches are often too long and not terribly funny. And one thing that saddens me is Parliament as an arena is dying. People don't really talk to Parliament anymore. They have pre-scripted speeches and pre-scripted gags, and they're really performing for how something will clip up.

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18:02Sometimes on my days off, I like to listen to old parliamentary speeches. And I was listening to Michael Foote in 1982 when the Falklands War started. And I realized listening to this, he's extemporizing. This is a moment in history and he's probably got a few bullet points and he's just speaking. And crucially, he was speaking to the house, reading the house, whipping up the house, making the house laugh. No one does that anymore. Well, they're speaking to social media. And Kemi doesn't do that. which is why she watches bad in the house, because her jokes are not funny to MPs. And that line, like, do your job, actually, it doesn't get a laugh or even particularly notice.

18:40It's successful for a different reason. It's because it's a vibe. She's owned that person. It allows people to do the fire emojis. And I think she's uninhibited against her opponents in a way that a lot of people would like to be in real life. So she represents something that people like the idea of. You know, her performance in the Commons has started to figure among discussions with less politically engaged friends than mine. You know, it's getting noticed. But what you see if you go in, and I know social media is only one part of how politicians' success is calibrated, but you go into comics, you see a lot of, well, I still never vote Tory, but I like Kimmy.

19:15And what it is, is like, I hate Labour, I hate Starmer. She's saying what I would like to say to them. But that, you know, they did the alternative King's Speech, which I think was a good thing, but that, no one's clipping up that. And why would they? You know, like, the public, I'm going to sit there and go, whoa, fire emoji because of a creative new policy on freeing up innovation. They need to find a way of translating that into broader success, but also telling us who the rest of her team are because beyond a couple of old faces, no one knows who they are. Mel Stride, I like. I think he's a clever bloke, but he is, you know, like you talk about different eras.

19:48Yes. He feels like a slightly more charismatic version of Phil Hammond. Yes. So how do they suggest that they've got a team as such? because, you know, reform for all the criticism they got for the free transfers or the Bosmans, there's some recognisable faces there now, people that know what they're getting from people. The Tories just aren't close to having that. Melo's an example of someone who does play better in the House, partly because he has that old-fashioned Oxford Union-style roll-up, roll-up style. Mr Speaker, I cannot believe I've come here today to hear this. Yes, that's right. Whereas I say, Kimmy doesn't bother with that.

20:19But just on parliamentary performance, there is a bit of a contradiction at play with Nigel Farage, isn't there? Isn't it extraordinary that on one hand he's described as the best political operator stroke orator in the country, and yet his comments performances when he can do them, which are very few and far between because, frankly, he's never there, have historically been quite poor. He doesn't get called, but even when he does get called, I mean, obviously he is the key candidate, the key victim of a lot of heckling from all sides. But it's interesting, maybe this speaks to the fact that nobody's really watching Parliament as closely anymore because politicians are providing the entertainment elsewhere.

20:58They're providing it in weird videos filmed on Clacton Pier or in Robert Jenrick's case. Welcoming Gemma Collins to the hat. Welcoming Gemma Collins, well, that's another example. Or in Jenrick's case, you know, jumping over tube barriers and all the rest of it. And so you get Farage doing all of the communicating really outside of Westminster. But his good comms are when he's surrounded by friends. You know, he's much more relaxed in that situation. He's got a rhythm, I think, that people like, when he sort of goes up in the third world and he sometimes bounces around like he's heading into imaginary form.

21:31People kind of like that because it gets you on the treadmill of a conversation with him. But I do agree with you in the Commons that he does, because he can't hold court, can he? No. In the Commons. And again, I think reform, they're very clip-based. So, you know, as Robert Jenrick found out to his disadvantage, he tried to commit too hard to his speech about where were we and he got a drive-by for Lib Dem. I mean, getting owned by Lib Dem is one of the worst things that could happen to any politician. But yeah, basically, I think reform MPs, they don't get called that often. So when they stand up, they're like, right, what's my clip?

22:06Often it's just 20 seconds of me getting shouted down, job done, which weirdly the Labour politicians fall for every single time. That's all they need to do is to seem beyond the pale and anti-establishment. So, yeah, I mean, I don't want to be like that person, you know, growing up that used to talk about the old days of football. We're all the good names, you know, we're all the charismatic people. But I think in the same way that tennis sometimes has eras of great players, four or five world class players. And then sometimes it has like Goran Ivanovic. I think we're in an Ivanovic slash Stefan Edberg period.

22:42Wild card Wimbledon winner. Yeah. No, I agree with you on that. Maybe the quality of candidate has definitely lowered since the glory days. And you can pick out people on the left and right. I mean, you're talking about looking back at historic speeches because you're nostalgic about when oratory in Parliament used to be great. Because it matters to me. And by the way, since the quality of oratory declined, it's not that I've tuned out, but I'm like you, Geoff. I regard politics now as light entertainment. It just amuses me. And that's partly because there's no one in it who I look at and think, I would follow that man to the sound of the guns or that woman to the sound of the guns.

23:17But historically, have you followed a man and woman? And I would have done. Who would you have followed to the sound of the guns? Well, back in your lefty days. I'd embarrass myself if I say. No, no, no. Well, in your lefty days and then in your righty days. Well, Michael Foot or Tony Benn. Yes. And in your righty days? In right-wing days. Who would I? I don't know. I'm not that right-wing. Do you know what I love being on a telegraph podcast is hearing the phrase, follow to the sound of the gun. I know. Geoff, who would you follow to the sound of the gun? Well, first of all, I don't exactly know what it means, but I've got a sense it's got to be to do with hunting.

23:49No, ride to the sound of the guns, right. Which just means you just ride towards the enemy fire. You're so committed to your officer that you just ride straight towards the guns. Obviously, this will sound a bit odd now, but originally the first time I voted Conservative was because of David Cameron. I remember it was odd. I was on the South Bank and I saw him kind of like breezing past because he had a very breezy style, not tall. Call me Dave. At ease with stuff. And I thought, I just thought, I like to cut that guy's jib. And then he started saying things about fixing the roof while the sun was shining.

24:23And I don't know if just because where I was economically at that time, I was coming out of a period of debt. There were certain things that aligned to me. And I just thought, and maybe it's my own kind of self-hating, working class thing. I've always sort of thought maybe a tall posh bloke should be in charge, you know. And so I went quite a long way with the Cameron thing. I didn't stay with it. But, I mean, if that for me was a big kind of Rubicon to cross, you know, given my upbringing was to go, I think I am conservative, you know, certainly in the small state, lean benefits, low taxation sort of sense of the word, and just realising that about myself.

24:55And it was old DC that took me there. Ron Paul. How extraordinary. I know, I know. I sort of slightly regret saying it. Ron Paul. Ron Paul. There you go. Not to be confused with RuPaul. Or Rand, I'd take a bullet for Ron Paul. Mine's obviously Pitt the Younger. We'll do that for another episode. Do you know, like, with comedy, the thing that makes comedy work is if you speak to the people in front of you and you say what you're saying for them, and comedy can sometimes be bad when people are speaking to people outside of the room. The fact that they're doing it for clips means that they're not speaking to the audience.

25:24That's why it doesn't feel good, right? So when you guys are there writing your sketches and observing, because you think it's just odd. This is odd. They're not in the room as such. They've already got their minds on a two-minute clip. And I think that before the sort of clip era of politics, maybe even before there was TV cameras, it was a case of addressing roughly 600 people and trying to win an argument. That's why I think it was quantifiably better because that's a much better way to approach public speaking. I know it sounds really obvious, but to try and address those that are directly in front of you.

25:55But on the sort of right-wing farrow and ball chart from turquoise azure. Farrow and Ball. I mean, I do know what it is. Just remind me. You do know, Geoff. You're much more gentrified than you're making out. I've heard of it, but what is it? It's a paint colour chart. Okay, I thought it was like Oliver Bonas. With names like, you know, elephant's arse and, you know, fairy dust. That's a good reference for gags. I'll keep that. Thank you, Matt. So on that colour chart, on that paint chart of right-wingism, from your sort of teal stroke turquoise all your way through to your royal stroke navy blue, where are you then, Geoff Norcott?

26:30Boringly socially liberal in the old way and economically right-wing. And now at the beginning of the 20s... What colour is that these days, Tim? I'm Cameroonian. Is it purple? What are we doing? We're mixing a bit of red with a bit of blue. No, that's Cameron. Yeah, that's really Cameroonian. So that allowed me, you know, being a sort of South East Tory. That offer... So you're not going Farage? That's not my thing. No. I'm sort of patiently waiting for the Conservative Party to realise that, you know, it's about cutting. Well, I think they are realising this. It's about cutting spending. I think the public would eventually want to hear that argument again.

27:06But, you know, I didn't vote Conservative in the last election. So it's not like a... Do you mind telling us who you did vote for? I voted for an independent locally. Okay. So was that a tactical thing or you just thought... It wasn't a Gaza independent, was it? No, it was more based on local issues. I didn't like... I'd sport my ballot paper at a previous local election. I want to actually make a choice here. Okay. The local Lib Dem didn't really float my boat. Doesn't usually float many people. Although they have got over 70 seats. I should stop denigrating Ed Davis. Oh, denigrate away. There's one thing we can do here.

27:41One thing we can all agree on. One thing I've learned from comedy is they just like being talked about, even if you're criticising them. Yeah, that's true. Just being in the conversation. That's true. But sorry, Geoff, just to go back to that. So was that in protest at the Conservatives having broken all their promises? I just didn't feel that you could reward the previous five years. No. Yeah, I thought with everything that had happened, a lot of it was to do with COVID for me, you know, like I wasn't like full on, we shouldn't have done anything, but I felt like a lot of it went too far. I felt a lot of decisions that Boris made were because he bowed to political pressure rather than doing what he felt and knew to be right.

28:16You know, Partygate obviously wasn't fantastic, but that wasn't the biggest issue with me. And then, you know, by the end of that, the state had increased taxation was going up. But all of the things that originally drew me to this party don't feel true anymore. So, yeah, it wasn't for me. By the way, Rishi Sunak, you know, a lot of time for him. I'm part of the Rishi revisionism. If you look at the immigration figures today, that's a lot of changes that he made. Fair play to Shabana Mahmood, but also it was set in motion by him. But, yeah, there's not many takers for the Rishi revisionism. Shall we get on to Polanski?

28:50See, that proves a point. Roman or Zach? Well, Roman probably is a discussion for another day. And Zach has got his own controversies to deal with. The Prime Minister made a very good joke this week when he said the Green Party thinks he walks on water. He doesn't. He lives on water and avoids council tax. Personally, I've written that a lot of clauses in. The principle of the joke was solid. How could it have been funnier, Geoff? Just take out some words, really. They think he walks on water. Well, he lives on it, but he doesn't pay any tax. You've just got to get to it a bit quicker. You see, that's the difference between parliamentary speaking, which is necessarily florid.

29:26Yeah. I think it's the difference between somebody who's naturally funny and then somebody like Starmer who obviously tells tragic dad jokes. Starmer's the kind of guy who opens a cracker and thinks that the joke inside is hilarious. Although I thought his reaction to North Korea thing, where he said, that would have been breaking news. And then he almost got out a really good joke about the Privileges Committee. I could see his comedic brain just turning just ever so slowly, and he almost got to that. But it was one of the first times with Stom, you thought, well, he was reacting to something he was past, so no one could have written that joke for him.

29:58And there is that version of Stom where, you know, I saw her once on Sunday brunch. You know, they all say, oh, he's a really good bloke. I've just never seen it. I saw her once on Sunday brunch, and I saw her for about 20 seconds this week. Regarding Zach Polanski, you may recall in the Cameron era, there was a moment in 2015 where Russell Brand was big. Where is he now? And it turned out in an interview with Jeremy Paxman that he doesn't vote. Now, I feel there's been a moment like that with Zach Polanski, of here is a man who wishes to be prime minister and to build literal eco-communism in Britain.

30:28And it turns out he doesn't pay council tax, lives on the water. Or if he's not on the water, he's living with a group of 40-somethings in a£2 million mansion. Right. He's actually curiously disengaged from his own society. Yes. I mean, can you be a party leader and not vote? Yeah, I mean... It's a bit like being a comedian and not telling any gags, isn't it? I've been there. Yeah, Zavolanski, it's weird because he is quite good, you know, on the stump sort of thing. Is he, Jeff? He's not bad. I mean, we're talking about a very poor vintage, right? So what I mean is I think if he went up in a one-to-one debate against Keir Starmer, he'd probably wipe the floor with him.

31:09But just because he's reflexive and he's in the room, I do think that there's an element of sort of snake all about. If you look at his political history, you know, you look at how far he's dragging the Green Party away from what it's supposed to be. It's an odd proposition, really, isn't it? Yes. It's almost like a Trojan horse for a bunch of other stuff, which underlines the leftist satisfaction with Labour. But that burden polling suggests that people don't need much of a push to go back the other way, maybe. But do we think that the loss of the so-called Red Wall, particularly in a local sense at the elections on May the 7th, to reform, makes it make sense for those vying to become the next Labour prime minister to be calling for the referendum to be reversed and to be calling for more Polanskiism.

31:54Probably yes. Because that poll that Jeff just mentioned, which has Burnham three points ahead of reform, the advantage that he suddenly gains does not really come from reform voters. It comes from a collapse in Green and Lib Dem support. This is John Curtis's argument that what's actually going on is Labour has been losing not because reform's been beating it, but because the centre-left coalition's divided, and Burnham knits it back together. And I also think with the rejoiners, I think it's interesting, the debate. It's been the first Brexit chat we've had for a while politically. I do think that in the same way that some Brexiteers thought that it was an absolute silver bullet for all of our problems.

32:35The moment we go, we hold all the cars and the German car industry will ride to our benefit. There's a bit of delusion there. I think the rejoin movement is beset by a bit of delusion now, where they seem to think that it will solve problems that pre-existed the referendum even being called. So somehow being back in the EU, we'll suddenly get these left behind towns and pull them up. That started during the period that we were in the EU. It doesn't make any sense. So I do think there, I don't think it is the silver bullet that some rejoiners think it is. I think it's a good hook, you know, if you're in a leadership base, well, finally someone's saying it.

33:12But the timing of it as well. I mean, at the moment, the EU is fracturing. We've got the prospect of the rise again of Le Pen and the AFD. We've got Germany now saying, I'm not quite sure about Schengen, with Hungary and Norway having said, no, we don't want to be involved in this anymore. It's like the timing to rejoin. What could that look like? It's crowd pleasing, isn't it? In a way, it's just saying something that people like to hear, but maybe deep down they know it's not feasible to have another referendum soon. And I don't think rejoin would win personally because one of the big arguments, and probably one of the most persuasive arguments of Remain was we'll never get a deal this good again, right?

33:49We did have certain exceptions and things. It might not have been enough, but we did have certain things that other countries didn't have. But then you almost turn around and go, yeah, I agree, we won't. So the argument for going back, the humiliation of going back under palpably worse terms, I think would turn the British public off. I think the margin might be even more decisive because you could say, well, maybe there has been an economic hit. It's not the disaster you predicted. And having done that, there are certain other freedoms economically that we should actually put our effort into exploiting those rather than just going back in time under a worse deal.

34:23Facts of the matter are exports are up and indeed our growth, as low as it is, is among the best in the Eurozone. I think much of the country has moved on. I think so. Pre-Brexit, there was always a small group of people who were fanatical about leaving the EU and they got what they wanted. And now it feels as though it's switched to there's a small group of people who are fanatical about rejoining the EU. And in the same way that some people always used to turn up and drag the conversation back to metrics and imperial measurements and all things like that. I think there will always be, from now on, a group of people who will show up to every recording of every political programme and say, shut the river back in the early...

34:57It's safely hypothetical, isn't it? Yes. But I don't think that, you know, some of the derelict retail units, the moment we join the EU, they're not going to reopen as patisseries and laundry. No, of course not. You know, I don't know what it is that they think, particularly if you're talking about left behind towns, I don't think rejoining the EU is capable of solving the problem that they're identifying. Yeah. Also, can I just express my frustration as a lever that we have this situation going on with the lids on bottles. What? We can't unscrew them properly. What? Tethered lids. Tethered lids.

35:28What's that got to do with the EU? It's got everything to do with it because it's an EU regulation that you can't fully unscrew. You know this because I've seen you drinking a yoghurt drink. But you know like with people, I get it all over me, but I didn't realise that came from the EU. It's a hangover. Cookies are a hangover from the EU. I do like the new colour of the passport. As in computer cookies. Oh, the new colour of the passport is great. And it's a British grail blue. Because this is what they'll say that we're all like all of the time. Passport colours. By the way, I agree with everything you're saying.

35:54But it matters to me. By the way, Farage's passport, when he took it to the polling booth, was red. I thought he would be the first to go out and get, like my dad, being a Brexiteer and a very proud Englishman, said, I'm getting that passport. I'm getting a new blue passport as soon as I can. I thought that would be a Faragean approach to it, but obviously not. Yes. He obviously didn't want to pay the extra 100 quid. Zach Polanski isn't voting green. Nigel Farage hasn't got a blue passport. Are we going to find out Keir Starmer's dad wasn't even a toolmaker? Good Lord. You never know. Geoff, you're going to be appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe Underbelly in August.

36:26I am, yeah. One week at Last Chance to See Basic Bloke 2. It'll obviously be updated for our new northern saviour, Andy Burnham. So that's the week of it. It's the 24th. And for Telegraph listeners, it's at 10 past three. I've got a hunch that you're going to like that time slot. I think Telegraph listeners also like a so-called right-wing comic, if you're still describing yourself as that. I mean, they're going to be subjected to a lot of wokery. I'm not going to right of disown me now because I'm too centre. You know, I'm a right-wing centre's dad by their estimation. Yeah, but listen, you're not compared to a lot of the Edinburgh snow flakery.

36:55The Tai Chi is going to lose you millions of viewers. At that festival, I'm quantifiably right-wing. If you like these, you know, making jokes about politics, the podcast, I do twice a week most weeks now. And I also just finished a show on Radio 4 called Geoff Norcott's Working Men's Club, which is sort of standing up for the average British bloke, four episodes. It's just sort of stand up with some social issues thrown in there. Filmed it in Leeds and Newcastle as well. I got out of that there, London. Oh, it's not London-centric. No, no, the audience is dead there. We happily keep these plugs in if you plug our podcast on your podcast.

37:25You first. You plug, then I'll plug. The Mexican standoff and plugging. You plug my back, we'll plug it. Now, we're going to be back on Sunday with a very special podcast. Tim, I went head-to-head with former union boss Mick Lynch. Wow. It's really worth a listen because it gets pretty heated.

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