Farage’s No 10 lineup: dream team or Tories 2.0?

0:02The Telegraph

0:10He's not a one-man band. He's got the beginnings of a shadow cabinet. But with the appointments announced by Nigel Farage today, is this enough to put him in number 10? And with Tory defector Robert Jenrick given the shadow chancellor brief over Zia Youssef and Richard Tice, could internal party tensions soon follow? Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Camilla Tomini.

0:42Tim, welcome back. Did you have a nice little break? I had a lovely time in the New Forest among the ponies and I spent it listening to your podcasts with Jacob Rees-Mogg, where I already knew what BDSM was, but now I also know what BSM is. Indeed, it's very educational. It's not sexy. I have dressed as Austin Powers to welcome you back. For those simply listening and not watching, I am in a very frilly shirt. And we are sporting our fluorescent day glow pink. Yes, from a Reform UK. I'm taking my mind off. Which was decorated like a nightclub. Wasn't it? Set in church house and they filled it full of blue light.

1:14Turquoise light. With large flashing images of courts, businessmen and the House of Commons. Indeed so. It was giving me massive game show vibes. Yes. There was very much this sense to which, is he Bob Monkhouse? What is Farage? Who is Farage? Is it Bruce Forsyth, Bob Monkhouse? and the guy from 321, Ted Rogers. Yes. It's all rolled into one. He has the tan of a game show host, that's for sure. And the jazz hands. And some of the patter as well. Yes, he does. But before we discuss who was the weakest link, we have to acknowledge another Telegraph win. Yes. For those listening, I'm holding up a copy of the Telegraph and claiming a win here, not the death of Robert Duvall, that would be appalling.

1:55I know, I loved Robert Duvall. But what a wonderful, talented man. I know. But we have managed to force the government into its 15th U-turn, this one, over the cancellation or suspension of local elections. Hooray! A great day for democracy, Tim. Some 4.6 million people were going to lose the vote. The government insisted it was necessary to save money because they're moving to unitary authorities, etc. You'd have to have two lots of elections, yada, yada, yada. Blah-de-blah-de-blah. Reform threatened legal action. Two hours after Keir Starmer said, I am done with U-turns. The handbrake. He pulled up a screeching U-turn and not only has reversed the policy, but it is believed the government is also going to pay reforms threatened high court costs, which are thought to run into the six figures.

2:42Sword of Damocles now hanging over Steve Reid, who I personally hope stays in post because I have such fun with him on my GB News show. Yes, he's a sort of human punch bag for you, isn't he? I think that's a little hard. Do you know what? He came on the show last time round punching heavily, saying I would have to apologise as soon as Jimmy Lai was released because I had denigrated Keir Starmer's Beijing trip. Then I was told in no uncertain terms I'd completely misrepresented the case with local elections. It was perfectly fair that they were being postponed. Right. Does he think that Keir Starmer's going to get Lai released, Jimmy Lai released?

3:16Well, he's sort of... I was saying, what's the point of all this unless you get him released? When he's released, I'd like to come back on your show and you can apologise. And then he also said about the local election, you know, you've misrepresented. I said, well, I don't think I have because now the legal advice has come in and clearly you got this wrong. We are claiming a success and a victory for The Telegraph, our campaign for democracy, but we do need to hand this to Nigel Farage. It is a big win for him too. And doubly humiliating for the government, not just the U-turn, not just the money, our money, they'll have to fork out, but also they're now being forced to hold elections that they're going to lose.

3:48They're going to lose. Probably to reform. Yes, we've done polling to suggest that they will lose their majority on at least 10 councils. Shock horror. Could this have been the reason they postponed them in the first place? Yes, that's what some people suspect. So come on down, Tim, was the vibe of the reform presser this morning. Yes. We arrived in the turquoise bathed room to a stage with five lecterns on, Farage at the front, natch, and then they had positions on them, didn't they? They had future shadow. Well, he's calling it a shadow cabinet. The Tories might object to that. It looked like one of those sets from one of those game shows where people run around with large cotton buds.

4:28Yes. What do you mean, gladiators? Yeah, like that. They had to stand on a raised dais where there was a lectern with the title of their job. And I imagined that all his defected MPs were going to have to fight each other with cotton buds to get to one of those lecterns And whoever got to it first could be the shadow secretary of state for industry. I would have loved to have seen that. And be presented with£50 ,000 cash. Or we could have had Robert Jenrick and Richard Tice on a travelator towards the future treasury. Yes. Who's going to get there first? It was an imaginative piece of setting.

5:03But for those who weren't there, one thing you have to imagine is the odd lighting arrangement. So when it began, Nigel Farage came on and spoke. Spotlight fell on him. Then he would introduce his new shadow chancellor. out would come Rob Jenrick. Light goes off on Nigel, comes on on Jenrick. But the light didn't actually go off on Nigel. So Nigel was left on a spotlight having nothing to do while a spotlight hovered over Jenrick. And then when Jenrick was done speaking and Zia Yusuf came up, spotlight goes off on Jenrick. It looked actually like 15 to 1. You remember in 15 to 1 where if you were knocked out, the light went off on you?

5:39Bang. Yes. And so the lights would go out one by one. Can I just, I'm going to say a few words of kindness towards Aaron Lobo, who constructs these events. He's the brains behind the vision. That's very imaginative. And actually, it is more interesting than your average presser. Yes. I pay tribute to Aaron. Better than Kemi and Mel in front of a bookcase. Well, indeed. Which is what we normally get. In a far too small room to accommodate the people that want to go into it. Aaron used to work for me at GB News. He helped to set up my show. He's a visionary. He's a creative. So this is all of his work.

6:11Yes. And to be fair, it does look quite glossy and glitzy. We laughed at it because we're jaded hacks, but it catches the eye and it looks great on telly. So, should we go through each candidate? Now, we did, again, it was the Telegraph what won it. We did predict all this bar one position. So, we have Richard Tice unveiled as the new potential future Secretary of State for Business, Trade and Energy, a new department. A three in one, which very much hinges on that idea of cheaper energy is essential to business growth plus deregulation plus re-industrialisation. And he wants to create a sovereign fund, but we'll let him speak for himself.

6:45OK, well, let's hear his best line. And of course, that means using the joy of our very valuable energy treasure, oil and gas offshore, onshore, and having the courage to get rid of the madness of what we've politely coined net stupid zero, which has been so damaging to our industrial competitiveness and so expensive for everybody at home. And if we achieve those things, then we can re-industrialise Britain. We can re-energise Britain. We can renew Britain. And yes, we can rebuild Britain. Then we had Robert Jenrick unveiled as shadow chancellor. Now, you'll remember that. I did try and ask whether Tice or Zia Yusuf were going to be his future chancellors.

7:35Remember, I asked him that question at that press conference and he said, don't play silly games with me, says Farage, even though we were at a press conference where reform was presenting its alternative budget. I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility for a journalist to ask who might be at the helm of a future Farage treasury. It's the big number two job after Farage, isn't it? And all three of them at some stage have wanted to have it, Tice, Yusuf and Jenrik. And we now suspect that the price of Jenrik joining reform was, you will get it, which means Zia had to lose it. And indeed, Tice.

8:06Let's listen to Jenrik claiming the position. We are going to build an economy that serves alarm clock Britain. The people who got up early this morning to go to work, to look after their family, the people who want a hand up, not a hand out. People who just want to get on in life, who want to feel better off. And there's no shame in that. People like my dad, Bill, who left school at 16, became an apprentice, set up a small business. People like those I grew up around in Wolverhampton and represent now in North Nottinghamshire. Decent, hardworking, family-oriented, community-oriented, patriotic Brits who just want to get on.

8:51We're going to ensure that you can keep more of your money, that the state stops taking your money and wasting it. And then let's listen to Richard Tice's reaction when somebody pointed out that this was the big job he wanted. And having been loyal to Nigel Farage and reformed for years, didn't he feel like he'd missed out a bit? We're all delighted. We're getting on with the job. And as shadow deputy prime minister, leading a huge department that meets my skills, doing things differently. That's who we are at reform. And this British sovereign wealth fund, that I talk about next week, come along and you'll listen to the detail.

9:30Next up was Shadow Home Secretary. That prize went to Zia Yusuf, who gave unsurprisingly a very strong speech about immigration and told any illegals watching that they wouldn't be hanging around for much longer. We will not just leave the ECHR, we will derogate from every international treaty that would otherwise then be used to frustrate and upend deportations. We will take on the serious and real threat that has been neglected of radical Islam in this country and ensure that if you come to this country with the goal of upending and usurping our laws, you will be deported forcibly. If you are in this country illegally right now and you are watching this, I want to be crystal clear.

10:14As Reform's Home Secretary, I will ensure that you are deported from these lands. Funny moment again, and it is nice to see the kind of internal dynamics of reform with Tories involved played out on a massive stage. Because as Yusuf started talking about how badly the Conservatives had let the country down on immigration and started talking about the Boris wave, The former immigration minister, funnily enough, Robert Jenrick, didn't look particularly comfortable, did he? No. What has become known as the Boris wave is only about to hit the books in terms of the Treasury. So that's north of three million people that arrived in about three years against the wishes of the British people.

10:58In fact, the mandate was get Brexit done, secure our borders, reduce immigration. Instead, Boris, quote, took back control, threw open our borders. And as a result of that, those 3 million people, of those half of whom have never worked, will never work, almost 80 % of them came in on non-work visas. Imagine that. This is a deliberate act. And as a result of all of that, the most conservative estimates assume that as they are granted indefinite leave to remain in the coming months and years, that's going to cost the British taxpayer hundreds of billions of pounds. We were sitting there, weren't we, thinking this all looks a little bit blokey.

11:40Well, you thought that. I thought that. Well, I would say that as a bird. I was like, is this all just going to be an all-male affair? I thought it was reassuringly male. Did you? Yes. The alpha in you rose. The adults are back in the room. Rose to the surface. And then suddenly, last but not least, he unveiled Suella Braverman in, by the way, a Tory blue suit. Like Richard Tice, it's a big new department she'll be running, which is education, skills and equalities. Although it's going to get smaller almost as soon as she enters office. So do you know what a reformed government will do? Well, on day one, we will get rid of the equalities department.

12:30We will scrap the Equalities Minister. Yeah, I'm doing myself out of the job. And we will repeal the Equality Act, because we are going to work to build a country defined by meritocracy, not tokenism. Personal responsibility, not victimhood. Excellence, not mediocrity. And unity, not division. Tim, you caught up with Suella afterwards to probe this idea of abandoning equalities altogether in the UK, and we'll listen to that in just a moment. The other underlying theme of the Q &A session afterwards was Rupert Lowe, formerly of Reform, once one of Farage's besties, now castigated to the sidelines.

13:13Former head of Southampton Football Club. Indeed. Having set up his own rival party to Reform, and I suppose by implication the Conservatives, called Restore Britain. To contextualise why I asked this question, Tim, and before we go to the answer, I had asked Zia Youssef about all this on my GB News show on Sunday. Are you worried about Rupert Lowe setting up this rival group, Restore UK? It's just happened. Quite a lot of the audience may be following what Mr Lowe is doing now. He's out of reform. Well, look, it's a democracy. People are entitled to start parties, and we'll see what level of support will be achieved.

13:48I mean, look, the first part of the post system, you know, someone who was chairman of this party for a considerable period of time, you know, it is really, really difficult and I think people underestimate how hard it is. I mean, Nigel himself, if you remember, tried a number of times to just become an MP, let us know and get us into this position. Quite a few questions about this, including from yours truly, and as ever, Nigel Farage wasn't pulling any punches when it came to talking about his former colleague. Camilla. Camilla from Medeity. Hi, everyone. Rupert Lowe, according to Find Out Now, is polling at 10%.

14:21is Restore Britain. I will ask you whether you think that's a credible figure. As far as Rupert Lowe is concerned, there will be some polling published later today that shows his recognition factor amongst members of the British public. It is not very high at all. And so a push poll that says 10 % is utter rot. The party isn't even registered. He won't be on 1 % anywhere. Not even, probably in Great Yarmouth. Thank you. Lots of speculation about the effects of restore upon the reform vote. Some people worried it might split the vote, as you suggested in your question. Others think maybe the contrast with Rupert Lowe will actually help reform, because Nigel will be able to say, you might think we're many things, but we're not that.

15:08And indeed, that was reflected in his response to a question about Tommy Robinson. Mr Farage, your candidate, Matt Goodwin, has declined to condemn the endorsement of Tommy Robinson and claim some people born in Britain aren't British. Do you oppose Robinson's support, and do you agree with Mr Goodwin about Britishness? I just don't have anything to do with him. And we know where Tommy Robinson's loyalties lie. He's with Ben Habib, or is he with Rupert Lowe? Are they getting together, or do they hate each other? I don't know, I'm very confused. Tommy Robinson can do what he wants to do, away from us, as long as he stays with the Malaw, which doesn't always do.

15:47And it's just none of our business, nothing to do with us, nothing to do with the campaign in Denton and Gorton, which is next Thursday and which is going to be incredibly close. And I have to say the response in the room to him slapping down Rupert Lowe was pretty positive. It's not as if people were sitting on their hands or going, hmm, I'm not comfortable about this. Because there are some reform supporters who buy Lowe's criticism that reform has become a dumping ground for failed Tories. if you just let people like Jenrick and Sweller Braveman in, you're just another establishment party. And who also feel Nigel is not strong enough on the race issue.

16:19Yes. So there are some people who do feel that way and may well join this new party. But I didn't see any of them in the room. No. The room was cheering when Nigel said what he said about Lowe. As soon as I asked my question, somebody in the press team for reform got straight in touch to reference the Find Out Now poll that I had mentioned, which had put Restore Britain, Lowe's party, on 10%. And reformed just 5 % ahead of the Greens in second place. It was a pretty apocalyptic poll. And that, by the way, that's why I ask these questions, or we ask these questions, because it isn't a given at this stage on current polling that reformers storming ahead with this majority that Nigel Farage claims he's going to get.

16:59No, they're hovering around 25 % to 32%. There's a very real prospect that a decimated Labour party has to do a deal with Ed Davey at the Lib Dems, who in turn are flirting quite heavily with the idea of doing a deal with the Greens. So that whole progressive alliance threat. It's a real prospect. It's a real prospect, hence why there's a bit of a debate about it. That Find Out Now poll, which Farage went on to describe as a push poll, actually polled 1 ,000 GB adults for Restore Britain. Ah. OK, so it has got like a caveat on it that it was like an immediate reflection of their views, hence why they've been put up there, hence why Farage was able to justify his it's not 10%, it's 1 % claim, just to clarify that.

17:42That was sent to me immediately by the press team, which does suggest agility on comms, very reactive. Hang on a minute, you need to know that this is the case, which I thought was interesting. It also shows that they're sensitive about it. Yes, true. Because some of Restore has come out of their own ranks. Yes. But as you say, we're pushing him hard on this what happens if question, because voters have every right to know, if I vote for reform, are you going to hold out and not form a government with anyone else? In which case we're in minority government or we're into progressive coalition world.

18:14Or if I vote for you, can I vote for you in the comfort of knowing that you'll do the sensible thing at the last minute and form a coalition with Kemi? People wish to know this. But whereas Zia Yusuf had indicated to you that he would do the latter, Nigel Farage said something very different at this press conference. Exactly. With the right divided three ways, 11 ways, according to you, I did ask Zia Youssef on my GB News show on Sunday, if faced with the prospect of a so-called progressive alliance of Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens, would reform do its patriotic duty to unite the right? And he seemed to indicate yes, which seems at odds with your position.

18:54So are you united in reform on uniting the right? Do you know, there is disagreement in political parties. It happens. and between human beings. Look, I've no intention of doing a deal and shaking hands with people that I believe to be utterly dishonourable. And that is how I view the Conservative Party. And particularly after 2019, you know, we got rid of Theresa May. It was the Brexit Party that did it. Albeit the Spartans helped get us to that line. And, you know, we sort of opened the door up for Boris Johnson, helped him get a bigger majority. and I feel absolutely betrayed by Johnson and what that Conservative government did.

19:32I've been in business a long time. I do lots of deals. Some are successful, some are failures. But you know what? I do deals, I look people in the eye, I shake their hands because I trust them. I do not trust this Conservative Party and the best evidence of that is Kemi Badenock's performance over the cancelled elections, facing both ways at the same time. That's no use to me at all. Also, the other good question of the morning, I thought, were those who asked, hang on a minute, you've campaigned for better local democracy. You've said that 4.6 million people have been denied their democratic right and you've rightly fought on their behalf and succeeded.

20:08Why then aren't the Tories who have now moved into your ranks putting themselves forward for by-elections? Oh, please, no more by-elections. I know. To be fair, his response was, we haven't got time for that, we're just going to plough on. And it's actually not convention. It's not convention that everyone has always held a by-election when they've changed parties. It's a strange idea. You don't have to do that. You're elected as an individual to represent the constituency. If you wish to change your party label, that's up to you and people can kick you out at the next election. The other big motivation behind this press conference, Tim, was for him to reassert that he is in no way a one-man band.

20:43If I was hit by a bus tomorrow, reform has its own brand. Reform has its own identity. And now reform has its own senior characters with their own departments to lead. So I'm enormously proud of that. So not a one-man band, but right now it is only five pieces. And there are more positions he could hand out. And it was noticed by journalists that two very critical ones have not yet been named. They are Shadow Defence and Shadow Foreign Secretary. Some people are joking that he's keeping Foreign Secretary for himself because... He likes to globe-trop and make many trips to Mar-a-Lago. But in a right-wing party, those are two of the most important jobs, especially defence, because the next election is going to partly be about defence spending, independence from America, the future of European defence, etc.

21:33So he's holding those two back. And we're all thinking, is he holding them back, not for someone who's in his ranks already, but for someone who might be tempted to join? And he did make reference to Labour figures who they are in talks with, he still failed to attract a single major Labour figure into his ranks. Yeah, where's the Labour defector gone? And where are the people who we might expect would do this? Like Kate Hoey. Yes. Still hasn't made this trip across the Tiber, but we all assume he's holding those two things back. So that in negotiations with really big names in the future, he's able to say, well, I could give you foreign or defence.

22:15And on defence, he has to see off this criticism about being soft on Russia. Yes. And he is very much leaning into this idea of having people with real world experience. So is he actually holding out for a former military chief to take on the defence brief, for instance? Now, the Telegraph had predicted three out of four of these posts correctly. We had called out that Jenrick would get Chancellor, Tice would get business and that Yusuf would get home. We then suggested that Nadim Zahawi was being lined up for foreign. Now, at the time we published that story, nobody disabused us of the notion.

22:54So what's happened between us publishing that, I think it was Tony Diver, to give our colleague credit, and now... I think it's the negative reaction to Nadim Zahawi joining the party. Now, Nadim Zahawi has proved to be the most controversial defector in my mind. Even though he's probably the least well-known. And even while we were on X, I had people contacting me as I was doing a kind of live blog of what was going on in the room. I'm not going to support reform if Zahawi gets anything. We don't want Zahawi. He's proved extremely controversial. And yet, as I've observed at close quarters in recent times, he's got very close to Nigel Farage.

23:30That's what he does. That's why he is where he is. He's very clever. He's a very good operator. I mean, we're all in Dubai together, and who pops up by his side? Nadeem Zahawi. Right. That's interesting. So he's well connected. Look, somebody made the point to us in the room in our ears that he does have global connections. Yeah, I think it's a perception that Nadeem Zahawi is basically a liberal Tory. Yes. Who has joined this party because he can see it's going to win the next election. Or as Badeknot claims, because he was turned down for a period. Right. Right, well, there you go. And the problem Farage has always had is this balancing act between I want people to defect because it gives me talent and it gives me headlines and it looks good.

24:09But if I just take anyone, then it starts to look like I am just a dumping ground for retired Tories or I have no philosophical core to my party because anyone's welcome into this thing. And I fear Nadim Zahawi was the one defection that really crossed over into that. Not Suella, not Rob. We always knew they were on the right of the Tory party. But Nadim Zahawi, it's interesting how badly that seems to have gone down among the rank and file. Also, Zahawi doesn't have a seat. Neither does Yusuf. But one imagines he's going to be lined up for what reform will claim is a safe seat, right? That's not such a problem because in Parliament, reform doesn't get an opportunity to respond to things by job.

24:52Yes. So normally the opposition and the Lib Dems, you'll get to say shadow defence spokesman or Lib Dems spokesman on. Reform isn't granted that opportunity. So it doesn't really matter that the specific spokesman isn't in Parliament. Plus, they're pretty well covered because, well, they've got Rob and Tice are in there on economics, but also the party knows all about immigration, which are its main talking points in Parliament. The one person I felt a bit sorry for who wasn't there, Sarah Poachin was there, one of their other MPs. No sign of Lee Anderson. If you're Lee Anderson and you've gone on this journey from being a Labour MP, then defecting to the Tories, then defecting to reform and being a very key, you know, upfront, front and centre politician arguing the case for Farage and reform.

25:36And so far you've been given nothing. Well, and there is a by-election coming where there is a candidate who may well win and he's going to enter Parliament with a couple of the best jobs already gone. Yes. Watch this space. Right, coming up next, you spoke to Suela Braverman about her suggestion that actually if Reform UK do take power, they will tear up equality law.

26:10So two things have changed in the last few weeks for reform. One, as Nigel kept insisting, no longer a one-man band. I think he's proved that. The second is they're starting to come up with concrete policy. Not just vibes, but actually this is what we will specifically do. And that makes them look stronger because it makes them look like they've got a program for government that's distinct from everyone else. but it's also a potential weakness because it means we can start to scrutinise that. Tomorrow, Rob Jenrick, new shadow chancellor, or whatever he's calling himself. Is he just the shadow chancellor?

26:39He's not really the shadow chancellor. He's a shadow shadow chancellor. The shadow shadow, yes. Well, he's a shadow of his former self after the OSEMPIC. Although, did you notice he had a bit of a five o 'clock shadow? Yes, that's very true. Has he slept since he's defected? Yeah, I know, I know. What has he seen? What has happened to him in these weeks? We look forward to talking to him tomorrow, by the way. But he is talking tomorrow about economics. So we will have a chance to pick him up on the policies there. But for instance, just on this, I noticed, I mean, Zia Yusuf was asked about ICE, which is interesting.

27:10The American deportation outfit. Is Britain going to do the same sort of thing? It's been very controversial over there. In the case of economics, is there going to be a tension between Tice's business department and Zia Yusuf as chancellor? Most probably, yes. Well, not just because of the personalities, but because we've often seen with governments, when you have big beasts in departments that compete over policy or money, there's obviously tension. So if you've got Rob Jenrick as chancellor, is he completely aligned with Richard Tice as business secretary? Are you going to be a party that listens to the treasury?

27:45Are you going to be, as Alan Milburn would say, dictated to by the bond markets? They were asked a question about, are you flirting with socialism because you want to buy stocks in key industries, such as steel production. They said, absolutely, we're not. But you can see immediately where there might be tensions over money. And Richard Ties has this really interesting policy of creating a sovereign wealth fund, which Norway famously did with its energy supplies, and now has this huge pot of money. And that raises questions about what you invest that money in. And where's that money going to come from?

28:16What are you skimming off from the treasury to put into your sovereign wealth fund? But as always, the most headline mind-grabbing person there was Suella Braverman, who announced, as we said, she's going to actually scrap her department, but also tear up the Equalities Act 2010, which I interrogated her over because what reform is proposing is like you've got an ugly patchwork in front of you, right? And all this sort of law, which Tony Blair and others wrote, is woven into that patchwork. And reform wants to tear out that stitching. Okay, fine. But when you do that, of course, you destroy the integrity of the patchwork.

28:52There are holes left. You've got no security blanket, literally. You have to replace that law with something else. And in the case of the Equalities Act 2010, that act is a giant bucket that includes all discrimination legislation. And if you just come out on a stage and say, I'm going to get rid of it, you've got a lot of questions to answer about what you're going to replace it with. Does this leave people vulnerable to workplace discrimination? So, Edna, thank you for joining us. Last time you met, you were still a Conservative. How do you feel now you're in the Reform Party? It's great to be part of the party of the right, the party of the future, and the party that's going to fix Britain.

29:32OK, well, Nigel Farage has given you a new job. You're Shadow Secretary for Education, Skills and Equalities. So let's go through some of those things. First of all, on education, what's your party's position going to be on grammar schools? Listen, I mean, we will flesh out some of the particular policies in due course. I can't give you a clear answer on all of them right now. What I do know, however, is that from my experience in education, having set up one of the first free schools before I was a member of Parliament, Michaela Community School in Wembley, my hometown, we really support free schools.

30:06We know that more autonomy and more freedom to head teachers can lead to really good results. And that is one of the reasons why Michaela Community School has become one of the best schools in the country. We also know that in terms of our further education and our higher education sectors, something's not working. We've got now 700 ,000 graduates who are unemployed. I think 400 ,000 of those are claiming universal credit. Three years of their life spent at an institution. They've incurred tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt. And they're on the dole. That cannot be right for the economy, it cannot be right for them, and it cannot be right for our future.

30:45So we need a wholesale rebalancing of our further and higher education sectors. And fair enough, you just got the job, but do you have sympathy for grammar schools and the idea of selective education? Absolutely, I support grammar schools. Because the last Tory government only opened one and it was an annex. Grammar schools are some of the best schools in this country. There's no doubt about it. And selection can be a very good factor in schools and their operations. But do I want every school to be a grammar school? No, of course not. I think there needs to be a mixture of schools. But as a starting point, I support grammar schools.

31:16Free school funding. What do you think about that? The government's record on that? Well, it's withered in recent years. I have to say it withered under the last years of the Conservative government, which was a great shame. Early years of the Conservative administration, the free school policy was very, very energetic. Lots of free schools were being opened, a real priority under the Cameron years with Michael Gove. After that, I'm afraid, the policy was abandoned. We saw a decline in the number of new free schools opening. And, you know, as a result, we're seeing a decline in standards, I think.

31:49It's a great catalyst for competition, healthy competition in schools. And that will raise the tide for all young people wherever they are. OK, you've said also in your speech that you would put further education places on notice if they were delivering poor quality, too much money, etc. etc. How do you define, how are you going to figure out what is a bad deal for a student? And when you say put on notice, does that mean you're going to withdraw funding, actually shut them down, investigate them? What does it look like? Everything's on the table right now because, and I'd say it's more to do with higher education rather than further education.

32:22Sorry, forgive me. We've got too many universities selling a lie. We've got too many universities offering Mickey Mouse degrees, you know, the gender studies, the media studies. There's lots of examples golf course study i think the telegraph has been very uh very energetic in in tracking some of these woeful and substandard degrees and courses which are being offered often funded by the taxpayer and they're not good value for money so we will need to have a more rigorous way of assessing the value for money of some of these courses and the contribution they're making to our economy because yes a university education is great for enhancing your mind and intellectual curiosity and studying and exploring and debating and grappling with ideas.

33:05And it needs to be there to equip people with skills for the workplace. We can't have a society of perpetual students. We also need to be building the workforce of our future. And we need a rebalancing. We need more people going into our trades. That was another theme of today, the importance of industrialization. That's one of the most important aspects of my brief. How do we rejuvenate the trades and raise their esteem. I don't believe builders, electricians, carpenters, welders are some kind of second-class jobs. These are noble professions which we are crying out for. We have chronic shortages of people going into these lines of work and they don't have the skills.

33:49That's why we're importing so many those kind of workers from other countries. We mustn't do that and we We need to start creating our own fit-for-purpose labour force that will be part of the renaissance of Great Britain. OK, OK. So we've covered education and skills. Equalities is where I felt your most radical proposition was found. You said you want to scrap the Equalities Act 2010. Now, as you know, the Equalities Act 2010 is not standalone legislation. It encompasses a lot of legislation that existed before. So we're talking racial discrimination, sex discrimination, age discrimination. Are you just going to get rid of the Equalities Act and have none of that sort of legislation on the books?

34:28Or are you going to revive those old laws or replace the Equalities Act with something else to protect people against things like racist abuse in the workplace? Well, I hope it goes without saying, but obviously racism and sexism in the workplace is unacceptable and is against the law. That doesn't change under a reformed government. But it's against the law because of the Equalities Act 2010. Well, actually, because of the race. 1975 but that was then rolled into the Equalities Act which is why I'm asking if you get rid of it is there a risk that you're just getting rid of all racial discrimination legislation these protections existed before the Equalities Act they were in legislation from the 1960s and 1970s and I agree with those pieces of legislation what's happened is they've been rolled into the Equalities Act under Gordon Brown one of the last things that you know we live with from the part of the long tail of Blairism, that's what I call it, the Equalities Act, Human Rights Act, all of this stuff that the Conservative government never really tackled.

35:25But it's been aggravated and exacerbated. Now we have the public sector equality duty, which is in the Equalities Act, very divisive, very damaging, and onerous and unnecessary legal duty placed on all public authorities, which is one of the reasons why this DEI industry has actually ballooned in the last decade, something we don't need and which is actually dividing our country rather than uniting it. And would there be legal protections for people who've changed their gender? Listen, I mean, for people, well, when it comes, there's lots of different angles to this issue of transgender, transgenderism.

36:01In schools, children cannot change their gender. I mean, that is what is set out in law. And yet we have many schools propagating gender ideology under government guidance now as young as primary school. That will be outlawed by a reformed government. Absolutely. In all schools, no ifs, no buts. Should have been done by the Conservatives. They missed that chance. When it comes to adults, adults are ultimately free to do whatever they want to their body within the law. And if a man wants to change his sex or gender through surgery, then, you know, who am I to... But I guess the question is related to the Equalities Act, is should people now have the right to sack someone if they've changed their gender?

36:48Well, what I would say is whilst adults can do whatever they want, they cannot impose their views on other people. And so a man is a man and a woman is a woman. And no legal change will ever be able to erase that biological fact. And that's what we need to start getting back to in the United Kingdom. At the moment, we have a lot of mess and chaos and confusion when it comes to gender and sex. And what we need to make clear is men cannot go into women's toilets, even if they think that they are a woman. Men cannot take part in women's sports, even if they look like a woman. Men cannot be in women's domestic abuse refuges, even if they've had surgery and changed their name.

37:37We must respect biological sex. that must be the paramount and the overriding factor in how we manage our public services. But forgive me, I do want to finish by nailing this point, because if you get rid of the Equalities Act, you open up the potential for someone could be sacked or discriminated against because they have changed their gender, because this is one of those protected characteristics which you cannot do those things to. And when you come to rewrite the law, you as reform will then have to decide, do we want to write back into law protections for people who've changed their gender?

38:06We'll have to decide on that because it's not clear cut and you can't have a blanket rule. So if I have a female nurse and that female nurse suddenly becomes male, do I still want that female nurse treating me? No. And I should have the right to demand that. And so I think there are lots of but if I'm in another role, which is not having doesn't have any effects on gender or the people that they're working with, then if there's no harm to other people, then we have to look at that. So I can't give you a precise and detailed answer on it right now. But what I do know is the current situation is untenable.

38:44This government has woefully failed people. And we are getting the situation where we're getting men who are rapists, but changing their gender to get into a female prison or changing their gender to be recorded as a woman who committed rape, which is an impossibility, according to the law. We're getting these perverse situations because the law is not clear and governments have failed to rise to the challenge of clarifying what the situation is, and reform will deal with that. Svella Breveman, thank you very much. Thank you. This is the trouble, actually, Tim, with suggesting some kind of bonfire of legislation.

39:28Will reform actually end up getting burned? Is Breveman going to lose her eyebrows? as this all goes up in smoke. I'm less concerned about her getting burned than I am about what they dislike calling protected characteristics but are vulnerable people. So I think most voters would say, I don't like trans rights extremism when it applies to saying that a man who says he's a woman can go into a prison. Fine. But there is a bigger issue about within society, within private and public sector employment, can you discriminate against someone who is trans? Because this is a new concept that our law has sort of struggled to keep pace with.

40:06That's why there's so much controversy over it. And so if you're, I go back to the patchwork analogy, if you're tearing everything up, you've now got to think of what replaces it. You've got to think about all these little bits of the picture. Okay, I want to end stupid rules that say that boys can go into a girl's changing room. Of course I want to end that. But I'm sure reform doesn't want to be in a situation in which someone changes their gender while they're employed in an office and their employer, who's just a bit of a bigot, says, I don't like that, I feel you lie to me and I don't like the way you behave, so I'm getting rid of you.

40:39And you're no longer a protected characteristic because that law is gone, so I can reasonably just sag you. Yes. I'm sure they don't want that. No. Quite right. So a bit more reform tomorrow, Tim. We're going to be in the City of London for Bobby Jay to unleash himself on the markets. and we'll be following it every step of the way, back at 5pm.