Farage defends his anti-foreigner budget

0:28The Telegraph spill all of the tea literally on that in just a moment. Plus, I've been with the Tories where Kimmy Badenock also got very shirty. It was the Guardian that upset her and I'll fill you in on why. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tomini. And me, Tim Stanley.

0:54Before we get into my little ruckus with Nigel Farage, we just go through reforms, alternative budget. Yes, please. So what they're saying to him... Like an alternative Christmas message. It is a little bit like that. So they're saying that on November the 26th, Rachel Reads, who isn't fit for the job, she's a bad Chancellor with bad policies that are going to cost us. Weepy Rachel. Weepy Rachel, she needs to be removed. Britain is broken. The budget's going to break it even further. This is how we think she should save 25 billion quid, OK? So, I mean, whether Rachel's following this closely, following the events in Westminster that I witnessed this morning.

1:29I don't know. There are obviously two rival press conferences. You're going to talk in a minute about what you observed at the Tory Farrago. But basically, and this was all pitch rolled. Why do we keep on using this phrase, pitch rolled? Should it be the new word of the year? The pitch rolling of policy. I don't even know where it comes from or what the metaphor means. Is it something to do with cricket? I think it is, yeah, rolling the wicket, prepping the wicket for the first batsman. Anyway, we had Zia Youssef writing in The Telegraph today. You can read it online and all the rest of it. Just in a nutshell, shall we go through these policies together?

2:04The most eye-catching of all, arguably, Tim, and this will not please the lefties in the Tory party, let alone the lefties in the country, is reducing foreign aid to a hard cap of£1 billion a year. That's a 90 % reduction because it's currently£9.2 billion. There's a theme here that people will spot. Another policy is to end universal credit payments to foreign nationals. The immigration health surcharge, which is paid by migrants on short-term visas to the UK, is to be almost tripled to£2 ,718. At the moment, visa applicants to the UK currently pay only a£1 ,035 annual levy, which the government says is the average expenditure on a migrant using the NHS for a year.

2:51Reformer arguing that's far too low. In other words, they're going to try to balance the budget by saving money that they say goes to foreigners rather than British citizens. Put Britain first, basically. The consensus is there's a hole in the budget. Some people would say actually there isn't. It's been created by spending, etc. But there's a general consensus there is a hole in the budget. It's got to be filled somehow. As we'll discuss later, the Tories are going to do it through welfare savings. Reform, their plan is to do it by taking money away that they say is being spent on foreigners.

3:24I want to add here, again, that consensus point. Labour's been doing the same. You may recall that the goal was for foreign aid to be at 0.7 % of GDP. Yes. In 2013, the coalition government hit that and we maintained it for quite some time. But the Tories then cut it to 0.5%. and Labour last year, well, actually at the beginning of this year, cut it down to 0.3%. Some of it being rolled into defence, which has gone up to 5%. But the point is, yes, reform is going to drastically cut foreign aid, but it's already been going down. And in the same way that, you know, Labour has been trying to shoot reforms fox on immigration, one might argue that some of this toughening up on spending towards foreigners has already begun under Rachel Reeves.

4:17Although there were lots of quite kind of headline-friendly soundbites here. Before we come to my little contretemps with Nigel Farage, it's important that I point out that Zia Yusuf was up on stage with him front and centre. To be fair, it was impressive. Reform's head of policy was speaking with some notes, but he seemed to know the numbers off by heart. He's a smart man. So he was going through everything that they planned to cut. We've gone through them here. There's also the idea of sending foreign criminals home from prison. They reckon that's going to save half a billion quid. And he did give the sort of rhetoric behind this particular line of attack.

4:55And it was extremely patriotic, one could argue. Labour is making the conscious and deliberate decision to continue funding extortionate amounts to foreign nationals to the detriment of British citizens. And I don't know what to call that, frankly, in my view, is treachery. I think it's appalling. British people are sick and tired of it. So those are our proposals. And we're pleading with Rachel Reeves. Let's enact these. Let's raise and save£25 billion, plug the black hole that you've created and put British people first. And sorry, on the foreign aid thing, they were coming out with some quite...

5:34I mean, there have been headlines about these stories anyway, probably largely in The Telegraph. For instance, they referenced our colleague Hayley Dixon's expose of the road to nowhere in Guyana. Hundreds of millions of our hard-earned taxpayers' pounds being spent on a road that is literally going nowhere. He also cited the example of foreign aid going towards trying to break up child exploitation in Pakistan, making the point that we weren't even spending money trying to break up Pakistani child exploitation. The government didn't even want to have a national inquiry on it in this country. And you can always find examples of these when I was a boy.

6:13It was the Ethiopian Spice Girls. Yes, I remember that. Yes, I remember that. And that sort of thing is encouraged by cultures as saying 0.7 % fixed amount that you've got to spend. Because if you do that, then you have a budget, you've got to spend it and it gets wasted. That's true. But not only, of course, has the Labour government reduced foreign aid, I should add that European governments have done so too. and the United States is decimating it. We'll see what the impact of that's going to be. I know Charity Begins at Home is an interesting and appealing theme, but globally we are going to hit something of a crisis when it comes to aid because so much of it is being clawed back.

6:49Also, you can make an argument that if you don't give foreign countries aid, then they're less likely to improve the standing of their own citizens and then you'll get more immigration to countries like ours. Also, I think just as we walked up to the studio, there were just a few responses from, OK, organisations that represent NGOs and others warning about how our defence and security was going to be compromised by this move. And that's the way they play it, which is clever, because they know that probably the heartstrings can no longer be tugged when it comes to what about the children. So they now have to sell it as it's actually patriotic to spend money overseas.

7:24I'm not again, I just want to make it clear to people watching this or listening to this, I'm not necessarily against trimming the foreign aid budget. I think my criticism would be, I'm still not sure that all of these things put together fills the hole. Well, it fills, they're adding it up to 25 billion. And Rachel Reeves has been banging on about a 22 billion black hole in her own finances. Right. Plus reforms tagging on this reform of PIPs. Saying that PIPs should be reserved for the most severely mentally unwell or physically disabled people and that it shouldn't go, for instance, to people with mild anxiety.

8:03Right. And they're going to have some pushback from people on that. But I find it interesting philosophically that we're always debating is reform really a small c conservative party or not? Well, it is trying to save money, but it's trying to save money in a nationalist way, in a patriotic way. It's not saving money for its own sake as such. It's not like the Tories saying we just believe philosophically the government should be small and off your backs. Their point is we want to keep welfare goodies going to native-born British people. Yes. And we're going to finance that by taking it away from foreigners.

8:37I mean, they'll counter-argue... It's not quite conservatism, is it? It's more a sort of nationalism. Well, you were citing there this idea that Nigel Farage came up with to scrap the two-child benefit cap, and he was then specific about it being for British citizens. Yes, which really narrows the scope, by the way. Well, this was all meant to be about increasing the birth rate, because at the moment we haven't got enough youngsters to pay for the oldies, for the boomers as they go into retirement. Shall we get on to the little sort of strange response, really, from the reform leader to what I thought was a perfectly codient question?

9:11You know what these things are like, Tim. You go in, you get a question. My theory was this. We're the Telegraph. This was pitched to us. It was our exclusive. We got the plans last night. They're in the paper today. We've got an op-ed with Zia Yusuf. Everyone before me had all asked questions about the policy detail. The detail had been covered. We'd already got the detail. What I was noticing was the promotion of Yusuf as the person owning all this, doing the sums, adding them up. I then wondered whether Richard Tice would be there after his press conference yesterday. He is angling to be Chancellor, we know, because he delivered a speech to Bloomberg last week, which is the kind of thing that wannabe chancellors do.

9:51He was sitting on the front row. I've heard behind the scenes there may be some tensions between the old guard, Richard Tice, who, let's be honest, kept the party going when Nigel Farage was not leader, then stepped aside very magnanimously to allow Farage to come back in, run for Clacton and all the rest of it. There has been this elevation of the new generation, OK, in Zia Yusuf. There's a quite kind of, I think, patriarchal relationship between Farage and his sort of prodigy. Oh, it's fascinating. It's interesting. There's some psychological stuff going on there. It's Greek. And also, I thought, well, I can ask a question about personnel here.

10:27And this is the question I asked. Morning. Mila Tomini for the Daily Tea. Just a personnel question, mindful of the fact that you think there's going to be a general election in 2027, and you've been very critical of the current Chancellor. You've scrapped the tax cuts that Richard Tice wrote into the contract with the people at the last general election. if Zia Youssef is now crunching the numbers for the announcements you're making today should we presume that he's your preferred choice for Chancellor over Richard Tice now? Lovely try but you should... No, it's very good, I mean no wonder you're so well paid.

11:02But I'm just not playing your silly little game, sorry. My overall impression of all that was I've touched a nerve here. I've hit upon something that is going on behind the scenes of reform. I mean, I have a funny relationship with reform anyway, because I'm on the Telegraph. Reform want everybody in this newsroom to be fully signed up to the Reform Project. Our readers aren't all universally fully signed up to the Reform Project. No, not at all. A lot of them are Tories. Some of them support other parties. We're there to try and tell it as it is on any given day, at any given press conference.

11:40I've then got my GB News hat on. It's been a bit of frostiness towards whether or not Nigel Farage should come on my show. Oh, interesting. Well, I think he should because he's a leader of a party that a lot of the audience are planning on supporting. I think his media advisors are like, well, you don't need to do it. You don't need to be roughed up by Camilla Tomini. You're too good. Because I'm too well. I don't know. Look, none of them have an easy ride on my show. It doesn't matter what party they're from, right? That's the whole point. I'm there to represent the public going, often WTF. I'm just trying to articulate, well, hang on, what about this?

12:19Does this add up? What about this? They're not going to come on and get a sponge bath just because it's GB News. I think they resent that. It would help the viewing figures. Well, what me, sponge bath. It would triple overnight. Imagine that on YouTube. Wow, what a thought. There's some antagonism there. As a woman, do you detect an element of misogyny in all of this? Well, I will say this, that if Tony Diver, our esteemed colleague who was sitting next to me, had asked the question, I'm not sure there would have been an aside about how much he was paid or what the wording was. Nice try. Nice try.

12:57Nice try, love. Why don't you sit down and let the lads ask the questions? It was a bit like that, wasn't it? Maybe there is an element of that. I mean, I do sometimes feel when I go to those reform events and a female journalist stands up, I'm surprised there aren't wolf whistles. It does have a saloon bar quality to it, doesn't it? It's all a bit blokey. But I wonder, do you give off an anti-reform vibe? I don't know. I think you do. Do I? Yeah. I think I give off an anti-reform vibe. It's hard to be aware of it or control it, but some people just give off a vibe. Do I? Don't I give off an anti-reform vibe?

13:28Everyone knows I like them. You do like them. I like their policies, but I think the jury's still out because they can't answer questions like I asked without getting all bristling. We are in the position, which our millions of viewers are in as well, of being torn between who do I vote for at the next election, want rid of this awful government. But I don't really mind which of the other two parties replaces them. My question is who can win and who will form the most efficient and effective government. Yes. So it's perfectly reasonable to ask when I'm comparing them, who's your chancellor going to be?

14:02And I don't understand the sensitivity that Nigel has over personnel issues, unless he has a problem with personnel issues. The other thing that is running through the minds of most righties, okay, is this. There was this bloke called Boris Johnson, who was very good at public speaking and press conferences and to-ing and fro-ing with journalists and entertaining crowds and being high-fived by cabbies and all of the stuff that Nigel Farage does. And the right put a huge amount of trust in him in 2019 to deliver something different from the uni party that was Blair into Cameron and May. Deep down, righties had some reservations.

14:51They said to themselves, he's on stage, but can he run this thing? Can he run this production or is it just the front man? Yes. And we had reservations and they were unfortunately confirmed. So forgive me when I look at somebody very similar and I'm asking myself questions about whether he has it. I'm asking myself the same questions about Badenock. Yeah. I'm asking myself less questions about Ed Davey because I don't take him as seriously as the other two because of my own ideology and political opinions. and obviously were constantly asking questions, literally in print, about the competence of the Prime Minister and the rest of his cabinet.

15:30The gamble on Boris was different because it was about making Brexit happen and that was a case of voting for the man who would pick up the ancient vase and smash it on the floor. Well, it was also about preventing Jeremy Corbyn from getting anywhere near Downing Street, let's be honest. But we were voting for someone to smash the vase. This time around, it's about voting for the person who can piece the vase back together most efficiently And I just don't understand why a question about so who will be the chancellor and will be doing that. I don't understand why that's a strange question. Just on another note entirely, it was quite interesting for Zia Yusuf as another Muslim in politics in a prominent position calling for immigration crackdowns to be asked about the treatment of Shabana Mahmud after she used the F word in the House of Commons last night in order to argue the benefits of her own asylum crackdown.

16:22Faraj and Youssef were both asked, you know, will you support this policy? Faraj made quite a cogent argument for why they wouldn't back it in the House. Let's just listen to that. Well, in terms of the rhetoric, we support it. But in terms of the reality, why would we vote for something if we're convinced that it can't actually work? I also wonder, when will this actually come before Parliament in the form of primary legislation? Or is this just another, as we saw with Rishi's Stop the Boats, is it just another of one of these big performative exercises to say to the Red Wall audience, look, we're really with you, you don't need to go away and flirt with those ghastly reform types.

17:06When is this actually going to come before Parliament? because there are many other things this government have promised that haven't yet made their way through primary legislation. And then Youssef spoke personally about identifying with some of the abuse that the Home Secretary has received. I deeply sympathise with her for being in receipt of such appalling racism. That must be deeply unpleasant. But, and look, obviously different politicians have different reasons and motivations for saying and believing different things. I do somewhat take exception to this conflation with or this association with concern about immigration, legal and illegal, and racism.

17:45I do take exception to that because for I think decades now, and I've just been campaigning on this issue for decades, people in this country have voted time and time and time and time again for less immigration. Not because they're racist, not because they're running around shouting the F word or using the P word at people, but because they believe Britain should have borders, they believe in sovereignty, they believe in the rule of law, and they believe that if you pay taxes in this country, you should assume to actually get public services that make sense for you. So I would, it's a subtle thing.

18:16And again, I have deep sympathy, of course, for anyone who receives that kind of racist abuse. Lord knows I've received abuse too, just like every frontline politician. But this notion that one should conflate concern about immigration, as she did in the chamber yesterday, with such appalling racism, I do have something of an issue with that. And he did say something quite amusing about the most controversial part of Labour's policy, which we discussed yesterday, about the right for the British to seize the jewellery and possessions of people arriving here illegally by boat. One of the points about that particular policy is my view is clearly entirely performative.

18:54I don't know who they think is coming across by small boat. It's not 50 Cent and Lil Wayne. and so therefore taking their gold chains away is not going to raise anything like enough money to make any dent on the asylum budget. See, those are very contemporary references. Had he said Mr T, I would have known what he was talking about. Indeed. But you then raised this with Richard Tice to see what he made of it, and it's very funny. Richard Tice, Deputy Leader of Reform, thank you very much again for joining us on The Daily T. You're a regular now and we enjoy our bandstick. Have I got a debenture slot?

19:25You have got a debenture. got front row seat on our podcast now i've just been rebuked by your leader nigel farage for apparently playing silly little games and being overpaid which is a new one for me from from my co-host at gb news where they have it because i've asked a salient question i think about who would be his pick to be next chancellor and i merely made the point that yusuf's been up there today crunching the numbers not you and i usually associate you with that role in the party that's all I was asking. Well, isn't it great that we've got lots of people who are good at lots of things, good at numbers, and I think that gives people reassurance that we know what we're talking about.

20:02There's so many numbers all over the place, whether it's on immigration, whether it's on net zero, whether it's on the Bank of England, whether it's on the cost of send that I was talking about yesterday. Actually, having that breadth of experience, that depth of experience, that business-like approach, I think that's what the country wants to be reassured about. There's lots of great people who could do lots of great jobs. Those are decisions for way down the track. What we've got to focus on at the moment is... You say way down the track. He thinks there might be an election in 2027. That's two years away.

20:29Really critical of Rachel Reeves. Therefore, reform supporters, surely, they know who's going to be prime minister under reform. They deserve to know quite clearly who key personnel will be, including chancellor. What people want to know is that there is lots of good people who've got lots of understanding how we're going to save money across the piece, whether it's on the council spending, whether it's on the welfare spending, whether it's on the immigration costs, whether it's on cutting daft unnecessary regulations that I've been talking about in my speech at Bloomberg the other day, that's what people really want.

21:03And the reality is, ultimately, you look at when one gets elected, that's when the boss, the prime minister, Nigel Farage, will make decisions. Until then, we just push on. But in preparation for that, he may be thinking about personal amount. You're getting overexcited, Camilla. You're getting ahead of yourself. Do you know what? Whenever I see you, Richard, and indeed Nigel, and all of the crew here, I do get overexcited. I get overexcited on behalf of our readers who are increasingly flirting with your party. I must have just touched a nerve there. There's a bit of tension, isn't there? There's a bit of tension at all.

21:34We're in great shape. I just found that Farage response rather surprising anyway. I mean, who knows? We're in great shape. Do you know what? The thing is, success breeds success. I mean, you won't come on my TV news show. You will, though, which is why I've always invited. Well, I haven't had an invite for a while. Would you like to come on on Sunday? I'd love to have you. Well, unfortunately, I'm not available this Sunday. But maybe the following Sunday. Any Sunday. You would like to come on, Richard Tyson. I was a bit worried I'd been cancelled. How many times have I asked you on the show, what are you talking about?

21:57Onto the actual policy nuts and bolts. He's saying now, because Express and the Mail both asked a question about council tax, and I do appreciate and I do remember very vividly us discussing what you would do with councils, and you did not say that council tax would go down. I agree with that. But Mr Farage there was talking about he made, he hasn't broken any promises on tax. Well, hang on a minute. it. Your contract with the people was full of pledges to cut tax, which he's now abandoned. So there has been a little bit of a change in tone over tax generally in reform, hasn't there? Well, firstly, as I said before, the very first page of our contract was talked about savings.

22:34We've actually been proven right on some of the big numbers we put there. We talked about cutting regulations. But as was said today at the press conference, ultimately the finances of the country are in a much, much worse state. We're the guys who've been worrying about and talking about and warning about the impact on the bond markets. We're the people with business-like experience who've got the greatest track record of making money for shareholders and lenders, understanding how business works. So we're the people who are now most trusted on the economy to turn things around. As we're all saying, difficult decisions will have to be made at every single level.

23:09I was talking at length yesterday about the overspending, chaotic spending in councils. We're starting to make great savings, well over 300 million identified so far. And we're literally, we're 12 minutes into a 90 minute match of the four-year council term. There's a lot more to do. And yeah, we're well underway. I mean, a summary of yesterday's press conference may be along the lines of, if more and more kids are diagnosed with ADHD, we won't be able to get the bins out. Correct. That's exactly what I said. I said, if we carry on like this, and we don't reform send and focus the money where it needs to be focused on the children most deserving most in need we allow all the money to leach out the side door then you won't have any uh you won't have any bins collected and you won't have any potholes filled it is as serious as that and i've offered to work with the government to make some trial changes from next year and i've had a whole load of abuse overnight emails pouring in oh yeah because because of stuff that i said about send Oh, that you're being horrible to you.

24:11That I'm being horrible. Let me repeat. Children with special needs. Let me repeat. And I have deep personal experience of this. We want to look after those most deserving. But there is a serious crisis of overdiagnosis. I can't find a little funny one. 50 Cent and Lil Wayne. Do you know any of their songs? They were referred to in this press conference about the stealing of jewellery. I know many things, but not everything. Rappers aren't your thing. Rappers are not my thing. Thank you very much, as ever, for your time on The Daily Tea. Thank you. Well, I've been to Reform. You were at the Tories.

24:42You're going to tell us all about it next.

24:55Tim, you came back to the newsroom today. And as we were at our editorial meeting, you produced with a flourish one solitary shortbread biscuit from your tweed pocket. I forgot it was in there. I got it that morning. This is the first thing I want to say. We drew lots. You went to the reform event. I went to the Tory one. I won't say which lot was shorter, but I went to the Tory one. And something we've both noticed is the disappearance from these many press conferences of pastries. Yes. We're there. It says arrive at nine for a prompt 10am start. For a journalist, that is like crack of dawn, half past nine.

25:33and you expect some form of breakfast. And up until now, Reform in particular had been laying on the most beautiful pastries, danishes, little mini doughnuts, things like that. Things with almonds on. So I've been skipping breakfast and going to these things, imagining that I could just, you know, sometimes I will actually fill my bag with a plate full of pastries and live on that for the rest of the day. Rest of the week. But I went to a Reform one on Monday, no pastries, biscuits. I went to the Tories today, no pastries, biscuits. And you went to reform. I know. So what does this tell us? What can people glean from this?

26:09There are too many press conferences. There are. And they're running out of money for pastries. That's right. Just have one press conference. Guys, just have one press conference. With a full all-you-can-eat buffet. And you could afford to put on a full English buffet and journalists would only have nice things to say rather than the nasty stuff we're coming up with right now. And of course we are there to cover the serious nature of these policy announcements. In the spirit of which, the Tory one was held at the British Academy. They chose a tiny room, I think, to make it look like there were more people in it than there really were.

26:40Wow. They were standing in front of a couple of shelves of books and we were all sitting in a semicircle. And it had the feeling... What do you mean on the floor? No, on shelves. I'm sorry. But it had the vibe of a coffee morning in a primary school library. Right. You could have started reading out the Gruffalo. They walked in. But Kemi and Mel walked in as they were being announced. So it was a question of an introducing and they're already there. Right. Embarrassing. Which was sort of awkward. Why were they doing it? Darn good question. They're doing it because reform was doing it. Yes. And they feel they need to be out there saying things too, which are reportable, right?

27:21So they feel they have to say something about the budget. So they really just repeated their point about the child benefit. Oh, they keep on doing this. They do. They keep on saying nothing new. So we all suspect that Rachel Reeves is going to scrap the benefit cap, which would add about£3 billion to spending. I mean, it's a relatively small, it's an accounting error when it comes to the overall spend. But the Tories are very exercised about it. Next week, Rachel Reeves is going to tell you a story. In this story, she will be painted as the heroic victim, A chancellor battling forces outside of her control.

28:03The wicked Tories and the black hole they're somehow creating in the public finances long after they left office. Donald Trump and his tariffs. Brexit, an event which conveniently she has only become aware of. And of course inflation, which despite her best efforts keeps rising because of things other people are doing. This story is nonsense. The truth is that next week, Rachel Rees is going to put up people's taxes to spend more money on benefits. Everything else she says is a smokescreen for this simple fact, a fact she cannot deny. So as we were saying earlier, the Reform Party is all about balancing things on the back of foreigners and is a little bit pro-NATAL.

28:53They want to sort of get rid of the cap in order to encourage people to have babies. British people to have babies. The Tories, on the other hand, are betting everything on wide-scale welfare reform and therefore, obviously, they're ruling this one out. I think it's worth noting there's some misunderstanding around the cap. It's not child benefit that is capped. It's your access to other kinds of benefits which you would normally be entitled to when you have an additional child. Yes. It amounts to up to£3 ,500 a year, so it's quite a significant amount of money. Yes. And also, 59 % of people who would be entitled to it are in a family that's in work.

29:35Yes. My point is these are not deadbeats. No. The Tories, I feel, are leaning into the idea that this is a group of people who are utter deadbeats. Yeah, totally feckless. Are feckless dregs who are just skimming money off the state, right? And I don't think that's actually a fair representation. No, they're families where mum and dad are doing shift work. Yeah, which is why it's not just Labour MPs and reform who want to change it, but also most children's charities. I think pretty much all the children's charities want to change it too, but also the churches. And this is something I decided to ask a question about because the previous evening, Kemi Beynok had given a talk to a group of Christian conservatives in which she had argued that it would be unchristian actually to leave people wallowing on welfare and that instead people should be encouraged to go and get a job.

30:24And while she was speaking, I thought, I bet if I go on my phone, I can find a quote from the soon-to-be Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, saying that the cap should be rethought. Yes. And lo and behold, in 2018, I found that she had signed a letter to that effect. And here's my question and Kemi's response. As you're in a religious mood and you say it would be un-Christian, Sorry, Tim Stanley Daily Tea. And you say it would be unchristian to just increase the welfare bill and leave people on benefits. In 2018, a group of bishops wrote to the government of the day to say it is a grave concern that there are likely to be mothers who, because of the child benefit cap, will face an invidious choice between poverty and terminating an unplanned pregnancy.

31:07One of those bishops is now the Archbishop of Canterbury. So is the Archbishop of Canterbury wrong about God and your right? Well, the comment was not about God that I made on leaving liabilities for the next generation. But it has been very interesting to see the Church of England stray into politics very frequently. They used to say that the church was the Tory party at prayer. Certainly in 2018, I often felt that it was the Labour party at prayer. But let's be honest. The spending which is going on right now is off the scale. £100 billion in health and sickness benefits. I'm very happy to send the Archbishop of Canterbury a briefing with the facts.

31:51But also, I think it's worth reminding people what it is we're talking about here with the child benefit cap. We're not talking about child benefit. You can have child benefit for as many children as you have. We are talking about the additional child benefit that you get on universal credit, which is limited to two people. That's all we're talking about. But if we keep this spending going, I'm afraid we are going to go bankrupt. We're not following principles. We will be living well beyond our means. And there isn't going to be any money for those people who are in need if we go bankrupt. We need to get a grip now.

32:25That is the Christian thing to do. It is the right thing to do. It is not about religion. It is about following the right principles, doing the right thing. It is only the Conservative Party, only the Conservative Party, who is still acting in a way that is going to make sure there's going to be something left for our children. Her response has echoes of that famous conflict between Margaret Thatcher and the Church of England in the 1980s. Remember when the C of E produced a report called Faith in the City about poverty under Margaret Thatcher? And Thatcher responded with a fantastic speech in which she made the Christian case for enterprise and people living independently, etc, etc.

33:04So there is a debate to be had there. But I just find it very interesting that the archbishop hasn't yet taken over the job and already they are teed up for a fight. over policy. It's also interesting because I was listening to Kemi Badenock speaking to Giles Brandreth for his Rosebud podcast where she denounces religion in a way. She was religious, she's brought up in a religious household, but now she no longer does God, which is an interesting place to position yourself as the leader of the Conservatives. I'm very reluctant to comment on other people's faith because you don't know what's going on inside their mind or inside their heart, but I can't quite pin Kemi down on religion.

33:42Yes. She has lots of good things to say about it. She's married to a Catholic. Her children are being raised in the Christian tradition. She clearly values it. And I feel like she tiptoes towards saying she believes it, but then she says things like that. Yes. But she said she lost her faith after witnessing what Joseph Fritzl had done to his daughter and tortured her and kept her down in the basement for all those years. Yeah. And maybe that's a cogent argument. It's a personal one. It's a personal one. It's a personal which I respect. But as I say, why then does she keep talking about the benefits of a faith that she doesn't share?

34:16I tell you what she doesn't have faith in, and that is the left-wing Bible that is The Guardian. What happened? She attacked a journalist from The Guardian when she was asked this question by The Times journalist Daisy Eastlake. Shabana Mahmood said yesterday when she was accused of being divisive by a white Lib Dem MP that she's the one regularly being called racist slurs and told to go back home. Is this an experience that you can sympathise with? What's your thoughts on that? I think that when you have ethnic minorities, especially ethnic minority women, doing things that are not part of the playbook, that there are a lot of attacks.

34:56I mean, just this morning, I read this astonishing piece in The Guardian, written by someone in this room. It was absolutely disgusting. And it was basically telling Shabana Mahmood to stay in her lane and not even think about talking about migration. I think that's the sort of thing that she will face. I know this because when we were in government, we were called fascists, we were called racist, all sorts of nasty things for doing what the public wants us to do. This is not a race issue. This is about making sure that we control our borders and ensure that our country is one that the people who came here many years ago to live in continues to be safe and socially cohesive.

35:35And anyone, especially you would have heard it, some Labour backbenchers, but the Greens, Plaid Cymru, anyone who tries to attack the people trying to solve this problem on the basis of their race or saying someone like you should not be controlling migration is an idiot and they need to shut up.

35:55That's a very interesting reflection. Yes. And of course, it's in the light of Shabana Mahmood's argument with a prissy Lib Dem in the chamber about whether or not the language she was using on immigration was actually stoking up ill feeling. And her point was, hello, I'm the person who actually has to deal with the consequences of immigration being out of control, people becoming angry and unreasonable, and attacking ethnic minorities. And I think this is where Kemi always becomes so interesting. I know she doesn't, I suspect she doesn't feel comfortable leaning into identity. Nonetheless, it is interesting to have a person of colour as leader of the Conservatives representing positions which the left always tells us people of colour feel completely differently on.

36:37but we're all discussing who was she talking about in the audience who is this guardian journalist who is present today and we think it was John Crace the sketch writer um whose whose sketches because their sketches are ironic yes they're not really supposed to be taken too seriously he has a very punchy and visceral way of writing that's John's style nonetheless it's a bit like getting upset by a cartoon. And the other thing is, is that John sometimes struggles to get into Tory events. Sometimes he doesn't show up, but on this occasion, when I saw him when we were looking for the pastries, I said, you got in then?

37:17And he said, oh yeah, for some reason today they let me in. Yes. And now I think we know why. All right, that's interesting. I mean, she's funny, isn't she, Kemi, because she advocates this policy of everybody being colourblind and she wishes that could be applied to herself and she never wants to, quotes, play the race card because she has criticised people doing that in other parties. However, just as you asked me earlier, did I think that the reform response had anything to do with me being a woman? I also think it's a perfectly reasonable line of questioning, particularly when we're dealing with immigration and racism as a response to politicians and what they say in the House, to then ask the black leader of the opposition whether she's encountered it.

38:04But for some reason, she just, she doesn't really want to go there. She wants to do it on her terms. Which is... And I respect that. I understand that. I admire that. She doesn't want to be pigeonholed. I know, but she's not really being pigeonholed. She can just give a unique perspective because she's the only female leader. Yes. I mean, unless you count Zahra Sultana, but I don't know if she's the leader or not. we just don't know who's in charge is in the party i don't know what her status is right now so basically keby badenock has got this unique position as being the only female leader of a major political party yeah and a woman of color i mean i do think that's an interesting element it's just an element to how she approaches things how she thinks about things and how she speaks about things.

38:51And talking of perspective, I want to give a shout out to Felix, a 22-year-old Green Party supporter who said hello to me this morning on my way into work and who said he listens to the podcast. Does he? Isn't that interesting? That's so, hello Felix. I raise that because everything we've discussed, Tory, reform, Labour, they all are basically going now in the same direction. I know some telegraph people won't hear that because we are probably going to get horrible wealth taxes next week. And that is crossing the Rubicon. I quite agree. Labour will, of course, go further to the left than the other two parties will ever do on tax and spend.

39:29But if you think about what it is we're discussing, yesterday we were discussing Labour cracking down on illegal immigration. Everyone agrees with that now. And they're all using language that 10 years ago, if you used it, a policeman would show up on your door. And everyone agrees that spending is too high, out of control. And that's why everyone is competing now to come up with different ways of plugging the budget hole. And this opens a space for people like maybe not your party, but I suspect for the Greens, who will say we are the only people who like immigrants and think we should spend more money.

40:07Yes. And even if those two positions are unpopular with the majority, there are enough people in this country who feel unrepresented by this discourse that they will begin to support them. Yes. Although, I mean, Felix is a young chap, 22, you say. Yeah. I'm not sure whether suburban housewives and retirees in home counties who are voting for the Greens in protest at the Tories that can't bring themselves to go for reform, Labour or your party, are anti-asylum and immigration crackdowns, as we said. I said to that polling. So the weird thing about the Greens is they are a huge mash-up of very many different disgruntled voters.

40:47They are a complicated coalition that does include some middle-class suburban and rural voters who are motivated by quality of life issues, but I'm sure don't especially want their massive barn being taxed. Or just motivated by the fact that their rivers and seas have been turned into open sewers. It's reminiscent of the old Lib Dem vote. But there is a lot of people out there who will feel alienated from this conversation. And I want to hear from them in the next couple of weeks, because I don't think they're getting much of a shout at the moment. You get any more of those biscuits in your pockets?

41:20No, I'm afraid I not only finished it, but I also had to tip the pocket out, because of course it was full of crumbs. And that's the other thing. It's not just the pastries. It's the kind of biscuits. There's always those airline biscuits in packets of two. Yes. For heaven's sake, this is Britain. Just tip some hobnobs onto a plate. Just chocolate, a tray of chocolate hobnobs. Yes. And also, can we have some tea that isn't grey when you add the milk? Yes. Tea should be brown. Yes. This is a daily tea. We will not be served tea that goes grey and translucent upon drinking. Oh, and by the way, it's been in one of those jugs for hours.

41:56Oh, I know, yeah. You pour it in and it's freezing cold. Well, the coffee has the consistency of something you put on fish and chips. I mean, it's not pleasant at all. And I would also like to see the return, more generally, of those pink wafers that we used to get a few years ago but seem to have disappeared. I liked those. Yes. When will a party run on reintroducing the pink wafer? Or party rings. Oh, yes. They're parties. Yes. These are all political parties. Bring the rings. Don't tell me, Nigel Farage, doesn't like a party ring. Alas, due to cholesterol, they no longer fit on my fingers. I feel like we should now launch into, if party leaders were biscuits, if party leaders were biscuits, would Nigel Farage be a wagon wheel?

42:41It's getting silly. Well, we all know what Keir Starmer would be. What would he be? Rich tea. Yes. That's fantastic. That's my favourite biscuit, rich tea biscuit. That's great. Actually, my father was a biscuit. Yes. What would Zach Polanski be? He'd be one of those. He'd be like, you know, like an oat biscuit. You know that you get served. Something that crumbles and collapses in the mug. Yes, precisely. No one died in the making of this biscuit, so we're all supposed to feel very pleased with ourselves about it. Can we babe look if she was a biscuit? She'd be, I think she'd be a tunnex caramel.

43:12Right. She'd eat the kind of biscuit that you could kill a man with. Do you know what I mean? Oh, yes. Scottish biscuits will do that to you. And Ed Davey, jammy dodger. Brilliant. We'll be back with more of this political insight tomorrow at 5pm.