Farage hits back at Starmer’s 'disgraceful' flag-waving diatribe

0:04Camilla: The Telegraph.

0:10Camilla: Tim, the Prime Minister, has spoken. Keir Starmer has delivered his sermon on the Mersey.

0:15Tim: On the politics of grievance about which he is most aggrieved.

0:18Camilla: And his pledge that he is going to love Britain a whole lot more than Nigel Farage. We're going to be analysing the speech in full.

0:26Tim: And we're also going to be speaking to Wes Streeting, who you all know, and Dale Vince, the eco-loon multi-millionaire investing in the Labour Party, who still has issues with the Labour Party.

0:35Camilla: Strange that. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tomini. And me, Tim Stanley.

0:50Camilla: So, Tim, 15 minutes later, at times it was difficult. I did notice one newspaper editor just nod off slightly.

0:58Tim: Difficult to do because there was someone employed to make the MPs who were sitting next to us clap and stand up.

1:05Camilla: Yes, so enthusiastic.

1:05Tim: And I was next to two older peers, one with a stick, who really didn't appreciate that. No. And on about the 15th ovation, it just seemed cruel. It had a sort of Banton death march quality to it. Indeed. Up you get and clap.

1:19Camilla: Well, there was a lot of attempts to jeer us up, even at the beginning when we were handed flags. You've got the Welsh flag here. I can't hold my union flag because I've got my phone with my notes in my hand. But it was this sort of attempt to make it quite tub-thumping and things. And the Prime Minister came on. He is surrounded. I mean, there are just union flags everywhere. This was, in summary, can I just summarise it quite simply? Yeah. Keir Starmer says he loves Britain more than Nigel Farage. That was the overview of the speech.

1:47Tim: Labour wants to own patriotism.

1:48Camilla: Quite. Whether voters will believe him, because I didn't find that line credible, when he said basically Nigel Farage hates Britain and everything Britain stands for and isn't a patriot.

1:57Tim: We can all see these snake oil merchants on the right, on the left, but be in No Doubt Conference. None of them have any interest in national renewal because decline is good for their business. I mean, think about it. When was the last time that you heard Nigel Farage say anything positive about Britain's future? He can't. He doesn't like Britain, doesn't believe in Britain, wants you to doubt it just as much as he does. So he resorts to grievance. They all do. They want to turn this country, this proud, self-reliant country, into a competition of victims, saying to you, to working people, don't trust in each other.

2:48Tim: You can't fix this. This is not a great country, but it is conference.

2:54Camilla: It is a great country. I just do not think that the good working people of the UK to whom Starmer is trying to appeal believe that at all. Now, Farage, having lived rent-free in Keir Starmer's head for the whole of the speech, Tim, decided to give a live response to what he was hearing in Liverpool from London.

3:14Tim: Frankly, in the wake of the Charlie Kirk murder, I think this is an absolute disgrace. I used to think the Prime Minister was a decent man, somebody that I could talk to and chat to. We might disagree on world view, but I thought he was a profoundly decent human being. I am completely shocked at his behaviour, but I'm sorry to say I now believe that he is unfit to be the Prime Minister of our country. His bizarre attempt this afternoon to invert patriotism and the love of flag was quite extraordinary. This is still the Labour Party of Gordon Brown. Remember that bigoted woman who talks about mass immigration?

3:57Tim: It's still the Labour Party of Emily Thornberry, who thought the Cross of St George on a van in Rochester was something truly awful. Never before have I seen one name so dominate a conference, and the remarkable thing is it's somebody that isn't even a member of the Labour Party. Yes, it's me, Nigel Farage, and I thought the Mac cartoon on the front of today's Telegraph summed the whole thing up rather beautifully. The sketch was two delegates leaving the Labour Party conference, one saying to the other, next year we're going to the Reform Conference because they don't talk about Nigel Farage all the time.

4:33Tim: The thing with Keir Starmer, he's saying that Nigel Farage might want to love his country but sees it in negative terms and wants to divide it and stir it up because that's how he wins votes, isn't it? He's saying that he doesn't see the positive things in Britain, whereas Keir Starmer reeled up a list of people sitting in the audience, people who peeled, cut oranges at half-time, painted fences. Yes, the backbone of Britain, basically. I don't know, wash their own socks.

4:59Camilla: Yes, exactly. Do the washing up, load the dishwasher correctly.

5:03Tim: Because the state can't do everything.

5:06Camilla: All while singing Land of Hope and Glory. But this is the other claim that I thought was lacking in credibility, there were two attempts to distance himself from Blairism and Blair and one of them we'll come on to the other in a moment which was about half of young people making it to university we'll get on to that in a minute but it was this claim that some of Britain's problems link back to the global financial crisis that what happened was Britain should have renewed but instead it was overly complacent that's a direct criticism not just a Blairism but Brownism I thought and then he said We need to move away from the era of globalisation.

5:42Tim: We place too much faith in globalisation. The establishment across so many institutions, in hock to its lazy assumptions, that immigration is all we need to give us the workers. Infrastructure will always be there because we built it decades ago. The world always on hand to give us the goods. It doesn't matter if our industry leaves. It doesn't matter if we don't train our young people. doesn't matter if wealth creation is hoarded by just a few communities. Well, conference, look at our world now. Because in our age of insecurity, we can see now that it does matter.

6:27Camilla: Well, again, is that credible when this is the man that once declared he was more comfortable at Davos than in Westminster? Yes. And now he's sort of trying to paint himself in a massive George's cross, when really I think the flag flying in his head has always been a European one, Tim. I'm sorry, but that's my view of his. I think he is a patriot and I think he does love Britain, and I'm not trying to take that away from him. But the claim that he loves it more than Nigel Farage, I think is going to be tested at the ballot box.

6:57Tim: The thing with Keir Starmer is that a leopard never changes its spots. And in fact, this was a speech that in parts we'd heard many times before, including when about the halfway mark he mentioned his father. There's another cause that we must also take up conference. It strikes to the heart of what we stand for and who commands our respect. People like my dad. I think by now you know what you did for a living. But then again, do you? Do you really know the skill, the craft, the precision that goes into tool-making? It's worth noting the rhetorical disconnect between Starmer and the Hall on the point about his father, when he says, you may know about this about my father, that he was a tool-maker, and there was a sly joke in there.

7:51Tim: But then Starmer says, but do you know about him?

7:54Camilla: Yes.

7:55Tim: And he meant that most sincerely. That was his cue in the speech to start talking about how his father had dignity and how he wasn't respected. But the audience started laughing.

8:03Camilla: Yes.

8:04Tim: Because they, like the rest of the country, are sick of this particular leopard talking about this particular spot, which is their father.

8:10Camilla: Yes.

8:10Tim: And likewise, with Keir Starmer, he's always working against the Keir Starmer we really know. So as you say, when it comes to things like the EU, well, he was the man who was pushing Labour to be in favour of a second referendum.

8:23Camilla: Yeah.

8:23Tim: When it comes to Corbyn, he's the man who worked with Corbyn. And as you mentioned on Davos as well. Well, so when he talks about renewal of the country, what he's really engaged in is renewal of himself and renewal of Labour.

8:35Camilla: Yes, and adapting himself to the changing face of the electorate. Yes. And the changing face of the electorate is increasingly keen on cracking down on immigration. Yes. Now, on one hand, I thought it was quite a depressing speech at times. It was droning on. We were all, you know, getting a little bit down in the dumps. It was reminding me, as we're in, you know, the city that gave birth to the Beatles, of the long and winding road. There's a long and winding road ahead. And this person navigating it is, again, sorry, I'm going to really labour this point, but the nowhere man. The man who we can't quite pin down.

9:10Camilla: What does he believe in? What is, in fact, the Beatles lyric? Let me read it now because I thought this is Starmer in a nutshell. Doesn't have a point of view, knows not where he's going. So we're being navigated down the long and winding road and preparing for things to get even worse, not better, by a man who seems himself directionless. Yes. And that's so problematic because everything he does is reactive, not proactive. Yes. So, yes, I think when he talked about immigration, let's talk about him referencing the woman he met in Oldham.

9:40Tim: That was a very interesting story, that he had met a lady who he was told had strong views on immigration. And again, he introduced this character with that kind of sly laugh as if you know the kind of nutcase I mean. Soon after I became an MP, I went to Oldham for a by-election up there. I was taken to a street to meet a woman who I was told had strong views on immigration. I knocked on the door. She invited me in. We had a cup of tea and a rich tea biscuit. And then he says he sat down with her and she insists on showing him photos of her attending her neighbour's wedding, her neighbour being Asian.

10:23Tim: And then she started complaining about the East European men who'd moved into the area who sat on her wall and spat on the floor, etc. And he says that's when the penny dropped. And Keir Sommer realised that she was seeking permission from a Labour politician to talk about immigration by emphasising that she wasn't racist, because she assumed that Labour assumed that she was racist. That's a very interesting story. But again, it just makes me think you did think that didn't you before you went into that meeting this is the trouble

10:52Camilla: no one if there's anyone to blame for making working class people feel like they were racists and bigots for expressing concerns about immigration it's the Labour Party we saw it with Gordon Brown's treatment of Gillian Duffy yeah another constituent yes who you know awoken the Prime Minister's mind to a different kind of thinking. So, again, I don't think that point necessarily landed. And, by the way, Starmer did once describe, OK, many moons ago, admittedly, immigration policy per se as inherently racist. And now he's calling for controlling the borders. Well, he's doing that again. It's reactive politics.

11:32Camilla: It's in response to reform.

11:34Tim: Yes. It's worth considering what he thinks he's trying to do. He sees the country at a turning point when it could go down the road of racism and division. He's saying to the party, we mustn't allow that to happen. So let's own patriotism, put forward a positive vision of the Britain, which is about a modern and inclusive Britain, rather than the divisive and nasty one of the right ones. And he's attaching to that the warning to conference that if you then push policies which undo the fiscal rules and lead to economic crisis, then it'll be the right that benefits. And all these people we agree we really don't like, they're going to be the winners out of that.

12:11Tim: I think one of the great contradictions, and this has been a conference of contradiction, because it's about a party that's in power trying to pretend things are going great when it's also trying to address the fact that they're really not. Part of the contradiction there is he's talking about the right playing a politics of grievance. But he kept saying things that implied he has lots of grievances against his opponents. So who were the people who he had a dig at here? Liz Truss was mentioned by name twice. Come on. She was in office for a month, but she gets mentioned twice. The Tories mentioned very briefly reform and Nigel Farage.

12:44Tim: I honestly think I heard more about reform's policies at this conference than at the reform conference, right? But there was also, as you mentioned, a dig at Tony Blair and his policy of getting 50 % of young people to university, which Keir Starmer seems to think is a dig at the working class and his father, because his father worked with his hands, he's an apprentice, etc. The thing is, he always felt disrespected, my dad. undervalued by the nation because he worked with his hands and I can see why he worked hours and hours at night school when he was an apprentice I went to Leeds University had a good time it's a good place to have a good time is Leeds and then when I came back I officially became the first in my family to go to university.

13:34Tim: I was put on that pedestal. Working class families know exactly what I mean.

13:39Camilla: So he said, by the way, you know, we should get two thirds of young people into either university or...

13:45Tim: Or apprenticeships.

13:45Camilla: He said gold-plated apprenticeships.

13:47Tim: Gold-plated apprenticeships. I mean, for those of us who just want to take our parents' money and bum around Europe, we don't count, right?

13:52Camilla: Well, mind you, there's a youth mobility scheme for that. That's right. You can actually go and do that.

13:56Tim: So he has a pop of Tony Blair. Let's not forget, Blair is also in the news because he's about to go and run Trump world Gaza. Yes. Right? So here he is having a go at Tony Blair implicitly in the politics of globalisation. And actually, Tony Blair is in quite an important position right now.

14:10Camilla: Yes.

14:10Tim: So he's had a go at him. But then there was also an implicit pop at Andy Burnham. Yes. Because in his list of lies that people tell, he said, those who think there is a wealth tax that can solve every problem. That is a dig at the left and a dig at Andy Burnham.

14:25Camilla: I mean, millionaires everywhere will breathe a sigh of relief that will not be appearing in any budget any time soon.

14:31Tim: If only for the Prime Minister to keep his job, he will not introduce a wealth tax.

14:35Camilla: Yes.

14:36Tim: Right? So in short...

14:37Camilla: And protect his pension.

14:38Tim: In short, as you said, Sermon on the Mersey, a sermon against grievance. But actually, if you break it down, it was a long list of people with whom Keir Starmer has personal brief beef. And he's telling this conference, back me or you get those idiots in and they'll destroy the Labour Party and the country.

14:55Camilla: Having said that, can I just sound a rare note of approval at one part of the politics in this?

15:02Tim: Okay.

15:02Camilla: I thought it was quite clever for him to try and make it a battle between decency and division. Yeah. Because we've discussed this before, haven't we? Is there a little clear blue path for the competent conservatives to sort of steal the narrative where reform meets reality, and I've described it as Labour meets calamity? Can they rise to the top? Yeah. And I think it was quite clever to basically say, compared to Nigel Farage, we're decent and he's actually quite grubby. Now, that does appeal to both Tories that can't bring themselves to vote for reform and Labourites who are dissatisfied with the current status quo, maybe flirting with the Liberal Democrats.

15:42Camilla: You know, that was a bid, that was a kind of like quite naked appeal to moderate, I suppose, left of centre people.

15:51Tim: And that's why he barely mentioned the Lib Dems and the Tories, because he wants us to be a straight choice. No, the Lip Dems didn't get mentioned at all, didn't they? He wants us to be a straight choice between him and reform. Yeah, obviously.

15:59Camilla: So that's probably quite clever politics, but the whole question is whether any of it washes and whether he does seem authentic. I mean, he seems earnest. Yes. The whole speech is dripping in earnestness and virtue. Yes. But earnestness isn't authenticity.

16:13Tim: No, it's not. As always, I found him robotic, but we say this every time. I know.

16:18Camilla: I've described him and Reeves as coin-operated. Yeah. What's it, just put another coin in. Yes, yes. He has a stationary cupboard where a soul should be.

16:30Tim: But we're used to that right now. I just wish with all these speeches, and it's my personal gripe, given that we know what you're going to say, this could be done by email.

16:38Camilla: Yes. Did we need to be there?

16:39Tim: Speak for five minutes and then send the salient points to us in an email so that we can analyse it later in the comfort of our own homes.

16:47Camilla: Although, to be fair, he was quite popular in the hall. I mean, there were very many standing ovations. This didn't seem from the inside as it looks from the outside. So on the inside, they were warm towards him. He did G up the crowd.

17:01Tim: And a lot of this conference has been about telling members, you know, we are doing good. Yes. But those same members in a critical rebel motion about Israel voted overwhelmingly with union support to label what's going on in Gaza a genocide in rebellion against the national leadership.

17:17Camilla: So just as some of the stuff that the leader is saying we can't quite believe is true, similarly, some of the stuff that the delegates are clapping, they don't believe to be true either.

17:29Tim: And as always happens with a party in power, a lot of people you see here are business people, affiliates, they're not necessarily delegates. So when you're talking to people, the same happened with the Tories, you're never quite sure if you're hearing something from the horse's mouth or if you're actually hearing someone who's here on behalf of Bupa.

17:45Camilla: You mentioned Bupa there, Tim. There was another announcement from the Prime Minister, this idea that we should all be seeing doctors in our own homes. Yes.

17:53Tim: On an iPad.

17:55Camilla: I was like, oh, my God, we can see doctors in our own homes. This is amazing.

17:58Tim: And you can get district nurses back on bicycles. We're going back to the 1980s.

18:00Camilla: Yes, finally. It was Faragean talk. Oh, no.

18:03Tim: It's online, which you can pretty much do already. His point is that why can't you speak to a specialist in London down the phone? That's fine. But particularly when you're older, especially when you have a debilitating condition, the last thing you want to do is be fiddling around with electronics. And some conversations, as you know, are much better when they're in a private office between two people. Indeed. And I think people hear that kind of announcement and they don't feel like something's being added to the service. No. They think it's one more way around giving them the personalised service.

18:31Camilla: No, they think something's being taken away. So it's quite extraordinary that you kind of champion that and everyone's going, oh. Now, one of the other rivals to Keir Starmer is undoubtedly Wes Streeting. We were both in his speech earlier. He performed brilliantly, I think.

18:44Tim: Yeah, much better speech.

18:45Camilla: So we've liked the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmud, and we've liked Wes Streeting's speech. We might just be saying that because they were leaning more right, and so do we.

18:53Tim: Yeah, maybe. But I genuinely think that in policy terms, they're where the party needs to be, and I think also the delivery was much better, where Streeting was shorter, sharper, punchier. And to me, he sounds like he not just wants to defeat Nigel Farage, he wants to thump him. Yes. Which is probably emotionally where the delegates are.

19:11Camilla: But who would win in a fight between Farage and Streeting?

19:14Tim: Oh, where Streeting would?

19:15Camilla: You reckon? Oh, yeah. Oh, I thought you were going to say Farage. Interesting. Maybe that's one for a telegraph charity appeal at some point in the future. Right. Right. But we did catch up with the health secretary after he delivered his oration, and this is what he told the Daily Tea. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, joins me now fresh from your speech. Very good oration. You've got a very good reception in the hall. Is Nigel Farage living rent-free in your head? You mentioned the reform leader a lot. You said he's selling snake oil and no one's buying it, except 30 % of the population are trying to buy it.

19:49Camilla: They want to vote for this man to be the next PM.

19:52Tim: Well, it's because I think reform have leapfrogged the Conservative Party in what's, I think, the biggest party realignment in this country since we leapfrogged the Liberals to replace them as the Conservatives' main opponent. We've got to take him on. And we've got to take him on in the battle of ideas. on values. I still think there are lots of reformed voters, for example, who don't know that Nigel Farage would replace the NHS with an insurance-based system.

20:18Camilla: Does he say he wants that? He wants the NHS, but he wants a degree of quasi-privatisation, which is something you've advocated, and the person in the NHS was also advocated under Blair, Alan Milburn.

20:29Tim: He said an insurance-based system. When I called him out on it, he's like, oh no, I never said that. Then we showed him the receipts and what he'd actually said, and it was like, well, I did say that, but maybe we should be. Oh, I'm up for anything.

20:38Camilla: He's a good politician. He knows that's not going to sell electorally. He's never going to scrap the NHS. You're scaremongering West Street.

20:44Tim: We will see whether or not he is a good politician in the sense of being the candidate for the highest office in the land. What I would absolutely credit for Arjan is he's a formidable campaigner. And he has made a huge impact on British politics and our country's future because of the leadership role he played in the Brexit referendum. So I don't underestimate him, but that's why I'm going after him. And the Labour Party's going, we're taking him on. I'm going to make sure he's met his match. He's not going to get away with doing to our country what he's got away with in the past.

21:16Camilla: All right, fair enough. The other thing that struck me about your speech earlier was that you had very warm words for Angela Rayner. You said, we need her back. Again, the crowd inside the conference hall loved that. She's not been here. Is that a loss to Conference, that she's had to remain fairly low profile during this last three days?

21:36Tim: I totally understand why, after what's happened, that she's not just resigned from the government, but she's taken a step back, taking a bit of time out. She made a big mistake, and she's paid a very heavy price. And I genuinely think it was an honest mistake. And, you know, I want to make sure, I mean, we need all of our best players on the pitch. and she is someone who's fought for everything she's built in her life. She is someone whose values, I think, have driven a number of big successes of this government so far and you saw the reaction from the crowd. We need her back playing a part and finding her voice again.

22:15Camilla: You've made this quite difficult for the Prime Minister because you're a warm-up man but you're a difficult act to follow. He's going to have to deliver a barnstorming speech later, isn't he?

22:25Tim: And he will. The thing about Keir Starmer, he has been consistently underestimated. They said he couldn't win the Labour leadership he did. They said he couldn't change the Labour Party he did. They said he couldn't win a general election he did. And now they're saying, oh, well, he's not going to succeed as Prime Minister, but he will.

22:42Camilla: Well, he's consistently disliked at the moment. That's the problem, isn't it?

22:46Tim: It's a difficult time to be in politics. Firstly, our profession is probably just below tax collectors, estate agents and traffic wardens. And journalists.

22:57Camilla: And lawyers.

22:59Tim: The sad thing is, even your profession is more popular than ours. But I think that the side of him that I see, the decency, the real commitment to public service, is what the country will see when he makes his speech today.

23:14Camilla: Wes Streeting, thank you so much. I know you've got a lunch to run to, so I appreciate you joining us.

23:18Tim: Nice to see you.

23:23Tim: you asked him there about Angela Rayner what he said in his speech which was so positive and got the delegates on their feet was according to number 10 an ad lib so I infer from that not something number 10 had approved of when we first arrived we were discussing on the pod whether or not Angela Rayner might show up she didn't in the end but she said she was with us in spirit so she's not in Liverpool she's probably in Hove with spirits

23:47Camilla: well possibly, who knows where she is she may be by the seaside right now and good luck to her but to be fair she tweeted that it got retweeted by half a million people and equally every time she's been mentioned in that hall she's got a standing ovation so who is Starmer now looking out for? he's looking out for Burnham who might have burned out already and some people have been negative who I've spoken to privately about Burnham

24:11Tim: Some people have said he's done this too early. It just seems arrogant. And he's actually slightly rallied people around the Prime Minister.

24:16Camilla: Fine. But he's looking out for him still. He has to. He's looking out for Starmer. And he's looking out for Rainer.

24:22Tim: Yeah.

24:23Camilla: They'll be plotting all of them.

24:24Tim: And Rainer has been missed. Did you see any nightlife? Because a Labour nightlife without Rainer is not what it was.

24:30Camilla: Yeah, what happened to you after we parted company at the GB News party? We went to the GB News party.

24:34Tim: Yeah, which was fun. I had a cheeseburger. and then I went back to my room and watched a double bill of episodes of the 1970s drama Secret Army. What is wrong with you? Had some Valerian tea and went to bed. What did you do?

24:47Camilla: Okay, so I left the GB News party and then had a brief segue where I hooked up with Tony Adams. Not literally. Well, not literally, no. No. But we're both happily married, Tim, thank you. But I hooked up with the former Arsenal and England defender, Tony Adams, who has done more, you could argue, for addicts recovering from their addiction than anyone else in the country. Done it very quietly. That was at an event for the Forward Trust. He and I are both patrons of the National Association for the Children of Alcoholics. So he's my little buddy. So I took time out of conference, then realised I'd lost my conference pass, then had to go back to the DB News Party and find it, then went to some drinks at the Revolution Bar, and then ended up at a karaoke night briefly with the producers.

25:30Camilla: they wanted to see your bestie your labour wife Emily Thornbury and she did take to the decks she did even pose up for a little photograph with them but I did one circuit of the room realised I was 20 years too old to be there Tim promptly left and do you know who I walked past as I left? Who? Sadiq Khan

25:50Tim: Oh really?

25:50Camilla: Who is the smallest man I've ever seen in the flesh

25:54Tim: He's a tiny, he's dressed by Mother Kerr He is tiny

25:56Camilla: So I went to bed early, you went to bed with the 1970s I went to bed with a detective novel. That's how cool we are. That's how we rock at this conference. But you had a lovely conversation with Dale Vince.

26:07Tim: I did, who turns out to be a very nice and interesting man.

26:10Camilla: Let's listen to what he had to say next.

26:23Tim: Dale Vince, thank you very much for joining us. How's your conference going so far? Yeah, I'd say it's been fun. Got here yesterday afternoon, you know, met a lot of people, done a few interviews, drank some beer, had some chips. You know, everything's good. And have you been impressed with what you've seen, what you've heard? I'm going to say no. Right. I'm still waiting, you know, for some bigger moment, some actual announcement, you know. I didn't think it was going to come from Rachel, but the budget, you know, just like, I don't know, two months away. like on child poverty, for example, on wealth tax.

27:00Tim: You know, they're the kind of big things I was hoping to hear. She said ahead of her speech that she didn't think we needed a standalone wealth tax. And I was a bit disappointed, but then I realized standalone is wiggle room. What does that mean? Right, right. So on tax, she's not ruling anything out. No. But at the same time, she's not making commitments. What would you ideally like to hear from her? Well, there's a couple of things. One small thing. There's been talk recently, like in the last week, about taking VAT off of energy bills to get energy bills down. Obviously, they're a real problem for a lot of people.

27:32Tim: VAT on those bills is 5%. It would cost the Treasury 1.75 billion pounds a year. We calculated what it would look like if you took that 5 % and stuck it on flying instead, and it would raise just over 2 billion pounds a year. So we could lower energy bills where people in poverty, energy poverty, food poverty, that's where they live. Energy bills are a struggle to pay. we could lower those and actually we could flip that VAT onto flying, which is a luxury, right? It's nice to have. It's not something you have to have. But it surely adds to the growth figures. And part of the thing is that the Treasury wants...

28:06Tim: Right. But it adds to economic activity. It means people are coming into the country as well as going out. And this is a government which is very nervous about doing anything that's going to affect the growth figures. I think there's a lot of myth around the aviation industry and its impact on the economy. A 5 % VAT rate on flying is nothing. The industry pays no fuel duty and no VAT, and that's worth£20 billion a year. That's a lot of money. Meanwhile, the two-child benefits cap would cost about£3 billion to lift. It would be progressive to take VAT off an essential that's energy and stick it on a nice tab that's flying.

28:46Tim: Half of Britons never fly. And two out of three tourists using airports are leaving the country, not coming in. So the idea that it's important for growth and important for our economy, I say that's a myth. OK, so here's the mystery for me. You have a government with a historic majority. It's a Labour government. Why isn't doing things like that that you want? What's holding it back? I don't know. It could be fear of the right-wing media, like you guys. We're not that powerful. And they got elected in spite of us. No one listened to us. We told people not to do it. Genuinely, I think they're afraid of the kind of torrent of right-wing headlines and commentary, the narrative from the right-wing.

29:30Tim: Oh, Labour have done that. Oh, Labour are going to do this, coming after your pension. I think genuinely they're afraid of that. I think this idea of wealth tax, I think there's a narrative that says rich people will leave the country. The facts say different. Something like 75 % of people that would be affected by a proper wealth tax say they want it. I'm one of them. So I don't know really. We published a poll today called the GigaPoll, the biggest poll ever undertaken in Britain. 50 ,000 people wide and 80 questions deep. And it gives some real insights into what people think on wealth taxes, on the environment, on immigration and stuff like that.

30:06Tim: And I think there's a disconnect. There's a narrative being portrayed by people like Faraj. Some right-wing paper's not yours, obviously. It paints a picture of our country that's not true, and a picture of our people that's not true. And that's why we commissioned and published this poll. I would say the right-wing media can't be that powerful if when you poll people, they actually take left-wing positions on economics. But here's the thing. I'll give you an example of how the right-wing have had an impact. On net zero, 51 % of the country think that we have to do it. We have to get to net zero.

30:36Tim: it's important for them and for their children and so on. 49 % are worried that we can't afford it. Now, that's a Nigel Farage narrative right there. I would say it's a reasonable concern. I mean, doesn't it make some sense that if it's about transition, that's going to cost money. If it's about getting you away from fuels which might be polluting but are cheap into something which at the moment costs a fair bit just to set up, then isn't it just perfectly reasonable that people think it could affect them financially? My point is not that it's not reasonable. The arguments being put to people, they are reasonable.

31:11Tim: That's why people are grabbing and going, oh, yeah, that green stuff, it costs more money. So you're right about that. I think it's wrong. I think it's a false narrative. Green energy is not more expensive than fossil fuels. The reason our bills are still high is because we haven't broken the link between the price of fossil gas and the price of the wind and the sun. So it's a false narrative, but it's a compelling one. In her speech, Rachel Reeves said that being fiscally prudent wasn't something she was doing in spite of being Labour's because she's Labour. It's in Labour's DNA, right? So does that suggest to anyone left-wing?

31:43Tim: I was thinking while watching her speech, if I were left-wing, I'm not sure why I'd bother with this party, but if it's telling me that it's in its DNA to do quote-unquote right-wing things? I don't think fiscally responsible is a right-wing thing. I think the Conservatives managed to own it for some decades and I think Labour still bear the scars of that by the sounds of it and I think that's probably right. Being associated with profligate spending and that kind of stuff. Ironic since we all lived recently through the days of Liz Truss and her mini-budget you'd think actually the Tories blew any chance of bearing that mantle again.

32:22Tim: But I guess Labour are concerned to make sure that the public understands they will be responsible with money. Yeah, but when it comes to the limit, the two-child limit on benefits, for instance, this is a policy which they just seem to refuse to budge on. That must be very frustrating for a left-wing voter. I think it's very frustrating for anybody that cares about children in our country, that cares about poverty, that cares about social justice and can see that£3 billion is on the one hand a lot of money, and on the other It's not a lot of money. We've given more than that already to Ukraine by way of weapons.

32:52Tim: Why can't we give that to our children? Rachel, she had an anecdote for us in her speech from a visit to a breakfast club, a young boy that spoke to her. The teacher said afterwards when he first began breakfast club, he never spoke. He struggled a little bit at school and it was a lovely story. And she shared that this is what Labour have done to help children that otherwise wouldn't have breakfast and wouldn't engage in school and that kind of stuff. I say that's great. But what about the third child, all of the children, actually, in a three-child family on benefits? Where's the help for them?

33:25Tim: I'm going to share with you an anecdote now because it's my own experience of funding breakfast clubs where I live in Stroud. And after we'd done it for a few weeks, the head teacher talked to me about the impact of that. And as a school, they're aware of the children that come to school struggling. They haven't had breakfast. They can't concentrate. They don't engage. And he talked to me about the profound impact of having a breakfast club on a small group of children. If you don't have breakfast, you get to school a little bit later than you would for a breakfast club. You don't engage with the kids around you.

33:54Tim: It's isolating to go to school hungry. You're being very diplomatic. Am I? About the prime minister's performance. But there are other people at this conference who are not so much. We're talking about the chancellor, but about the government's performance. For instance, I attended a stand-up to racism rally where the speakers argued that the government, by failing to just straightforwardly condemn reform and its policies and people who support it, that it is legitimizing racism and that some of its policies might even look like they're echoing reforms policies. Do you share any of that criticism, any of that worry?

34:32Tim: I might have done until recently. I think just in the last few days, Giyas Dahmer has positioned himself very much against that. I think he's called Nigel Farage's recent immigration policy racist one. So I think that's changed the narrative on that, actually. He's imitating so much of it when it comes to your ability to apply for indefinite leave to remain. Yeah, I understand. I think there is a degree of that. I think that's because Labour are aware of the issue of immigration and how people feel about it. It's being inflamed by reform, for sure. It's the same as the net zero argument. People have been told that they can't afford net zero.

35:08Tim: it's expensive is putting bills up and so they hold on to that and say well that might make sense because we've never had more green energy in our country than we've had before and yet my bills aren't going down they are actually but not by enough and i think with immigration you know we're told that immigration is the cause of all of these problems that we can see in our country and and that's um that's that's a compelling reason for a lot of people in our country and i think labor are aware of that and what you see is kia starmer trying to address that by talking up policies that try to deal with those things, and it has to be in a similar kind of way, doesn't it?

35:39Tim: It just has to be. Do you think reform is racist? No doubt. Nigel Farage is racist. We see that in his history. His party members are racist. I mean, that's what the R is for in reform, isn't it? Do you not? No, I wouldn't agree with that. I think you can be in favour of controlled borders and even less immigration without being racist. You asked me if Nigel Farage was racist. OK. The left has controversy as well when it comes to race. Of course. But I think his policies are racist, absolutely. And, you know, it's a kind of like a divide and conquer, stoke division kind of play on people's fears kind of pitch.

36:12Tim: You know, you see the rally that Tommy Robinson and the right wing had in London a couple of weeks ago. Which is not affiliated to Nigel Farage. It's not. No, I'm sure that it's not. I don't mean that. But what I'm going to say is this. The message is standing up for our women and children, right? Protecting women and children. Three out of five of the people arrested at that rally had a history of domestic abuse, by the way. So it's hypocritical in many ways, but it's a distraction. It's pointing at the wrong thing. Immigrants aren't responsible for violence against women and children. That's not a thing.

36:45Tim: But it got a lot of people on the streets, inflamed, angry, injuring policemen and stuff like that. It's a totally dangerous approach that the right wing has in just inflaming people's feelings about something with something else. I'm not saying it's the same and this is not water battery, but some would reply the left has an issue with this association with violent groups too and the perception that it is soft or tolerant towards Hamas. Okay. And to Islamic extremism. I mean, come on, there is something of an adjacency there. I think the right thinks that. That's really interesting you say that.

37:22Tim: I think the right thinks that the left is soft on Islamic extremism. I don't think that's the case myself. and it gets conflated over Palestine, doesn't it? If you stand up for Palestine, then you are associated with having sympathy for mass and stuff like that, which is just, you know, it's a bad conflation. But for instance, the motion which was discussed about condemning what's going on in Gaza wanted to call it a genocide, and lots of other people in the world do, but its motion didn't refer to October 7th. OK, but the UN refers to it as a genocide. They did about two weeks ago. they published a finding that genocide is happening in Palestine.

37:58Tim: That was unequivocal. But it's a failure to recognise the moral importance of October 7th. That's why the motion is particularly controversial, I think. I don't really understand that. You've got 1 ,000 deaths in an atrocity, a terrorist atrocity. We can all see it. Governments around the world have condemned it, and that was two years ago. Then you've got an ongoing, live genocide with ethnic cleansing, the mass starvation of millions of people, What's happening there is an ongoing live, right now, atrocity on a vastly bigger scale than what Hamas did on October 7th. So why do we have to keep referring to October 7th?

38:34Tim: Because we need to understand the moral context of what's going on. If you don't refer to it, then we forget. The difference is that I disagree with what Israel has done. I have argued many times in columns that it should cease. But one must recognize why it is doing what it's doing that is an act of war. What Israel is doing is not just a terrorist attack. It is a response to something, and it has a legitimate right to self-defense, which is why one has to contextualize its action by acknowledging October 7th. There's no context for genocide and ethnic cleansing. There isn't, and you can't call this self-defense.

39:08Tim: We're way past self-defense. 90 % of all homes in Gaza are destroyed. It's a place that looks like the face of the moon. I mean, there is no context. There's no justification. What's happening is not self-defense. it's gone beyond even simple revenge. We're talking 160 ,000 deaths and injuries versus the 1 ,000, so it's 160 times bigger just on the count, but not the destruction count and not on the starvation and all the other bad things that are happening. You can't, actually you shouldn't, conflate the two. Are you going to continue to support Labour or are you at all tempted by Green or your party, which have got a sort of momentum, there's something exciting about them, Greens in particular, Polanski, he's a very charismatic figure.

39:49Tim: I like the Green Party and Zach is a green populist in the mould that I am. This is something that I set out to do a few years ago, to talk about green stuff in a more engaging populist way. And I think we need to do that on the left and the green side of life. Zach is like a breath of fresh air in that case, and the Green Party have become exciting. But can they win a general election? I don't think so. And therefore, it's a very simple calculus. It used to be actually more simple. It used to be Tories or Labour, which one of them will form a government. And for me, every day, it's a Labour government, warts and all, right?

40:22Tim: Because I won't agree with everything that they say and don't say and so on. But always a Labour government. And right now, Tories, will they come back from the dead? Who knows? Your party, will they become something? Honestly, I don't think so. They've had something of a false start over the name, over the membership list. I know, it's been entertaining. But that leaves you with reform. So will it be reform that get big enough to threaten Labour? I mean, I don't know how it's going to go. But, yeah, your party blessed them. I think the name's wrong. But it ain't my party, that's for sure. That's right.

40:56Tim: Would you be tempted to leave the country if reform won? No. No, you'd stay and fight. You'd form a green resistance. Yeah, I suppose so. I'd carry on doing what I'm doing, which is to show that the green economy works. I've been running green businesses for, like, three decades. You know, I formed the world's first green energy company. I've been leading on energy transport and food and how we get to a green economy, who created jobs and all that, all the great benefits that are there for us to be had in this new industrial revolution. I'll stay here and do that. Dale, Vince, thank you very much.

41:24Tim: Pleasure.

41:29Camilla: Just before we go, as we've done before on the Daily Tea, we had some fun with Jacob Rees-Mogg. Oh, good. What's not to love about parachuting Jacob Rees-Mogg into a gang of protesters thrifting at the mouth outside this Labour Party conference in Liverpool, get a top former Tory in, in his double-breasted suit, and have him debate those he disagrees with. So he did that on a lawn outside, and I caught up with him afterwards.

41:57Tim: I don't think there are more than two genders. How responsible do you feel? I don't think we really need to take any lessons from Tories. I think that's nonsense. People can think they're Napoleon if they wish, but it doesn't make them Napoleon. Jacob, you're a parody of yourself. Come and have a chat. That recognising Palestinian statehood is a reward for terror. I'm Jacob Rees-Mogg and I've come to the Labour Party conference expecting the cannons to volley from left of me and I hope to engage in debate with people here, avoid the echo chamber, talk about the issues, offer people an envelope with a big T for telegraph on it of views I've given out before and see if people agree with me, disagree with me or can convert me to leftism.

42:40Tim: and if they do, I'll get a sticker to say I changed Mogg's mind. I think we're rather optimistic in the number we printed, but we'll see how it goes.

42:49Camilla: Jacob Rees-Mogg, my fellow Daily Teer, you've taken on the challenge here. You're sort of invoking Charlie Kirk in making the arguments on behalf of conservatism against quite a lot of opposition here. Was that the intention? Why are you here?

43:05Tim: No, I'm here because the Daily Telegraph invited me. It's as simple as that and I thought it would be fun. No, of course I don't mind making the argument. I enjoy good debate. As do most people, and it's been really nice, lots of people come up who disagree with me strongly, and we've had very civilised conversations. People put their point, I've given time to put their point. Sometimes I've thought they had a good argument, so it's been fascinating to do and very friendly.

43:29Camilla: Tell me some good arguments that were made that may have swayed you in your opponent's direction.

43:35Tim: Well, I chatted to somebody about Keir Starmer's leadership and he pointed out that he'd done very well with Donald Trump, which is a fair point in an otherwise pretty hopeless leadership. But that seems a fair point. And a lady I spoke to called Gabrielle was saying that, I was talking about abolishing the Equality Act, that perhaps you do need special protection for people who suffer from anti-Semitic abuse and things like that, and I thought that was a good point as well.

44:02Camilla: Just for the background noise explanation, Steve Bray's here. Your bestie, the Stop Brexit Man, and he's playing very loud music, which you'll be familiar with because I know you love popular music.

44:12Tim: Well, earlier he was playing something from the Wurzels. I've got a brand-new combine harvester, I'll give you the key. I've got 20 acres and she's got 40. Anyway, enough of that. I had a friendly chat with Steve. I've had lots of friendly chats with Steve over the years.

44:26Camilla: What did Steve say to you?

44:28Tim: Oh, I can't remember. It's always the same.

44:30Camilla: Basically that you are always to be blamed for Brexit.

44:34Tim: Oh, probably something like that.

44:35Camilla: He said he's 10 years in the past, Steve. He needs to get a new campaign, doesn't he?

44:38Tim: I did say to him that he should be very pleased with Brexit because he gave him something to do.

44:42Camilla: That's true. He gave him a job. And finally, Jacob, let me just get your reaction to one little story that's heating up a little bit. Paul Bristow, who is the Tory mayor for Cambridgeshire, was going to come to this conference because sometimes mayors come, don't they? They come to the opponent's conference because it's about representing your local community. But he tweeted something which was a little bit disparaging about the leadership and how it was all going, and he had his conference pass rejected.

45:08Tim: I think that's not unreasonable, actually. I think that if you're going as a mayor in the few days before the conference, you have to recognise that you're going in an apolitical way and you've got to be a bit careful.

45:19Camilla: This is an infringement of his freedom of speech, is it not?

45:22Tim: No, it's a private conference. You don't want a comedian turning up, do you, and handing a P-45 to Sir Keir Starmer, as I seem to remember once happened to Lady May.

45:32Camilla: Ah, good point. And speaking of the Tories, are you going to conference? I know you're no longer an MP. You're still a member.

45:37Tim: I'm still a member, but no, I'm not going next week. Why? The Telegraph hasn't asked me.

45:43Camilla: Hasn't anyone asked you?

45:44Tim: I've had a couple of fringe events, but nothing of great substance, nothing of great pith and moment.

45:50Camilla: You see, because every year that you're an MP, you have that lovely dinner. I came to many of them.

45:54Tim: I know, I know. It's a pity.

45:55Camilla: You'll be twiddling your thumbs while everyone's in Manchester.

45:59Tim: No, I'll be doing my GP News programme as usual.

46:01Camilla: Very good point. But I just thought you might want to stage a Jonathan Ashworth-like assault on conference. He's very much setting out his stall that he wants to be re-elected, and I assume you do too. So I assumed you might want to press some constituency flesh.

46:16Tim: Do you know, not many people go from the local associations in recent years. It's a great shame, but it's been more of a corporate fest than association members.

46:26Camilla: Let's round this up now, because somebody's taken to the microphone and is singing badly in the background. Do you recognise this song?

46:33Tim: I do, yes. Who's it by? ABBA.

46:35Camilla: It's ABBA. Am I right? You say you're not one for popular culture and you're all over ABBA.

46:41Tim: I know about the Wurzels more.

46:43Camilla: All right. Jacob Rees-Mogg, thank you very much for joining me on The Daily Tea and just to say that we can watch this whole festival of debating on The Telegraph's YouTube channel.

46:51Tim: Thank you very much.

46:57Camilla: Could I just share something with you that I did find funny after doing that interview? So he needs to run for a train, as we are about to do now. And there was a bag full of sandwiches and crisps. And then we offered him a choice. We said, would you like a meal deal?

47:10Tim: Yeah.

47:11Camilla: What sandwich do you think he chose?

47:15Tim: I presume he didn't have caviar.

47:17Camilla: No, no, no. He could have picked through them and went, oh, no, I won't have anything with mayonnaise. No, no, no, I don't want anything with salad. He was so picky. Admittedly, he said, I'm such a picky eater. He went for a smoked ham and cheddar sandwich. No sauce What crisps do you think he went for? He was offered Watson's and Quavers and some Walkers

47:35Tim: Right I'm guessing the plainest possible The Stafford Cripps diet

47:39Camilla: He is a Walkers ready salted type Of course he is Should we go and get a meal deal And get on the train at Liverpool Lime Street?

47:47Tim: What sandwich do you think Keir Starmer would eat?

47:49Camilla: Probably just no filling

47:51Tim: I think cheese and pickle

47:54Camilla: On that bombshell We'll be back tomorrow 5pm Thank you.