How the China spy scandal could bring down Keir Starmer

0:02The Telegraph

0:09The Chinese spying scandal is not going away. How much pressure is it heaping on Keir Starmer? We speak to the Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, who employed one of the alleged spies. And to smack or not to smack? That is the question. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tominey. And me, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

0:38Jacob, the spying scandal, China as we like to call it now, in the vein of Donald Trump. What do you make of all this? I'm a spy who loved me. Well, for the money, the government's bust effectively, it's run the economy into the ground. It wants to get a few shillings off the Chinese table and therefore it's sucking up to China like the bilio. The last thing it wanted was an embarrassing trial that pointed out that China was and is an enemy and say they kiboshed it. I mean, that's quite the accusation if you think that is what was behind this case against Christopher Cash, who was a parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry.

1:16They've both consistently maintained their innocence. We must stress that, Jacob. They were charged under the Official Secrets Act in April 2024. The suggestion was they were passing information to Beijing. and then, curiously, the case collapsed when the CPS says, and I don't know what you think with your knowledge of all things parliamentary and legal, what you think of this justification. The CPS are saying, under the Official Secrets Act, we need the government of the day to describe China as a threat and the enemy in order to substantiate our prosecution case. I spoke to Boris Johnson about this yesterday, who thought this was nonsense, but whatever.

1:56and things are getting very confusing because the government is saying this was down to the CPS, the Crown Prosecution Service. The Tories are saying, no, it's actually the fault of Jonathan Powell, Keir Starmer's national security advisor. He's the one that didn't give the evidence the CPS needed to proceed with the case. We then have Dan Jarvis, the minister, in the House of Commons yesterday, saying actually it's not Jonathan Powell's mistake. If any mistakes were made, it was his deputy, Matthew Collins, who should have submitted the relevant information to the CPS. The National Security Advisor made no decisions about the content of any evidence relating to the case itself.

2:37This was a matter for the Deputy National Security Advisor, a hugely experienced, highly capable senior official who provided evidence under the previous administration. Therefore, we're in a state of limbo where the trial can't go ahead. That's my understanding. Is that yours? Cash and Barry are essentially relevant, that they are innocent until proved guilty of specific charges. Yes. And that's important to bear in mind. What matters is, is China spying on us? And if China spies on us, is that a crime? And what the government is trying to pretend is that China spying on us is not a crime because China can't be classified and wasn't classified as an enemy.

3:15Right. In the terms of the 1911 Official Secrets Act, which has now been superseded. It is quite clear from statements by the then government, statements in parliament, and by a recent judgment in relation to Bulgaria, that the threat posed by China is sufficient to classify it as an enemy in 1911 terms, which is what matters. So the CPS has had to pull back on the prosecution because the government is not providing the evidence that it needs. That's what the CPS has said. Why would the CPS make that up? So what's the government doing? Well, the government's in terrible trouble. And part of Starmer's foreign policy is to have better relations with China.

3:59Now, to do that, he wants to give them an embassy. The super embassy. A vast super embassy to spy on us even more. Yes. And he's too embarrassed, too ashamed to accept that they are, in fact, an enemy, which they are. And they're an enemy as long as Jimmy Lai rots endurance vial in the new territories in Hong Kong. We better explain who Jimmy Lai is. A Hong Kong and British businessman who has been in solitary confinement now since I believe 2020 on spurious charges of nothing really. Just because he's been a very vocal critic. On free speech charges essentially. The Communist Party in China. He remains there.

4:37You make the very good point about the threat. I mean, both Kemi Badenock and Tom Tugendhat, who we're going to hear from in just a moment, have sort of said to the House, these are all the times that we have described China in the past as a threat. I mean, they spy on us. They're capable of cyber attacks. They put sort of targets on the backs of dissidents. As you say, we've got this super embassy over the Royal Mint old site in Tower Hamlets. Blueprints suggest that there are spy tunnels underneath. The intelligence services and the police don't want it. It's now again in a degree of limbo because Angela Rayner said it was OK, but we don't know what David Lammy thinks.

5:16And then that other curious thing, this is the other thing to throw into the pot, that Jing Ye, after they basically put British Steel out of business, were negotiating with the government as to whether they should be given a£1 billion compensation package. Well, this is why I say follow the money. and that billion pound compensation package, if that's right, is another part of this money that the government wants Chinese money and that's what it's trying to get and it's therefore trying to make relations with China friendlier and ignoring all the threats that come from China to this country and not just this country but to the West at large.

5:58Before we go forward and discuss what could happen because I think the pressure is mounting on the Prime Minister, Let's just go back a bit. Some of this is the Tories' fault because George Osborne and David Cameron nurtured that golden era where they too were sucking up to China. I mean, it's almost like we're closing the stable door after the horse has bolted when it comes to Chinese investment. The Chinese literally own huge swathes of our critical national infrastructure. They're already here. They're here to stay. We can't get them out. Well, I think both yes and no that China under President Xi is different from how it has behaved under the previous presidencies.

6:47It really did look post-Deng Xiaoping, the move away from Maoism, as if China was wanting to become part of, for want of a better term, the global community. They were sticking to the eight-year terms for their leaders. They were having smooth transitions of power. They were becoming more capitalist. and they're becoming slightly more open. Now, Xi has changed all that. And to be fair to Cameron and Osborne, they were in charge in the very early days of Xi before it had become completely clear quite how much he was changing it and indeed before the approach in Hong Kong had changed, which obviously a crucial British national interest.

7:26Although you could say, I'm just going to counteract that with, you could say the clue is in the word communist. Well, yes, but there was an enormous development under Deng as opposed to Mao. Fundamental change. What was it he said about communism? He didn't mind whether a cat was black or a cat was white as long as it caught mice. Yes. That it was communism with Chinese characteristics, which basically meant capitalism. Right. It was a really big change and reversed when she became president and removed the term limits and so on. And so I think to say that it's always been in a static state is wrong and that Cameron Osborne were dealing with China as China then was.

8:19Now, China has got much worse since then and has become much more of a threat to the West and more hostile in its interactions with the UK. Yes. So I think it is now that it should be clear to a government, as it was becoming clear to Rishi Sunak and indeed to Boris Johnson, who also started off being very sympathetic to China, ended up being much more suspicious of China by the end of his term in office. I mean, how can a regime not be an enemy if they sanction British MPs who criticise them? Well, quite, yes. But then how big do we think this scandal is in the scheme of scandals, Jacob? Well, I think Sir Ian Duncan Smith put his finger on it yesterday with one of those parliamentary questions that leaves the minister's middle stump disappearing back towards the pavilion.

9:14What does the national security adviser do if he doesn't advise on national security? The question I really want to ask is this absurdity about the role or lack of role of the national security adviser. The government says that he wasn't involved in any matters of substance. But I simply say, isn't it the role of the national security adviser that they are involved in all matters of substance when it comes to national security? So I ask, what's the point of a national security adviser who does then not involve themselves in matters of national security, as in this case, but instead we are meant to believe that the deputy national security adviser is allowed in this case to involve themselves in substantial matters of national security but not apparently discuss these substantial matters of national security with the national security adviser?

9:58This does seem to be an absolute matter of substantial absurdity. He is referring in turn, Jacob, to Dan Jarvis, basically throwing this chap Matthew Collins under a bus. The deputy to the National Security Advisor, Jonathan Powell, who is desperately trying to distance himself from this. He in turn is, of course, linked to Tony Blair. Boris Johnson pointed out in the studio yesterday he was also linked to Peter Mandelson, who has had some links to China. His global council organisation has represented Chinese businesses and things and seem to be some kind of a conduit between Britain and Beijing.

10:37But no matter. But surely if anyone has to take vicarious responsibility for this, it is ultimately Powell. And then above Powell, it's the prime minister. Of course, that's right. Powell is the security adviser, the prime minister. Powell must take responsibility for people who work under him. It's very bad constitutional form. It's not just bad manners. It's bad constitutional form to blame underlings. We have a doctrine of ministerial responsibility, and the responsibility lies with the minister and then immediately under him, the most senior adviser. The most senior adviser takes and brings together the advice from junior advisers.

11:18Yes. He's not an ineffective, pointless person just swanning around the world. He is the key adviser who the Prime Minister has put his confidence in, but ultimately the Prime Minister is responsible for decisions of the government he leads. Talking about swanning around the world, so Keir Starmer wasn't obviously in the UK yesterday, he was in Egypt. We can question what on earth he was doing there. Did you see the moment, the moment with Trump? I did, yes. United Kingdom? Where's the United Kingdom? Where's the Alfred? Well, the whole thing is extraordinary. and they said, there is Trump. He says, where's the United Kingdom?

11:54He looks around. So Keir Starmer, as if he is a schoolgirl in pigtails, puts his hands up and says, here, sir, practically. Oh, my goodness. Waddles forward and then shakes hands with Trump, who says, how are you, and things like that. And then Trump just turns his back on him as Starmer waddles back to his position. These people all came on, like, 20-minute notice, and I think it's fantastic. And we have so many others. And this point about he came at 20 minutes notice. He is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Yes. He is not Donald Trump's poodle. No, although is he increasingly looking like that?

12:31Did he want to speak? Do you think he went up to the lectern because he thought he was going to have an opportunity to say something? Why would he think that? I don't know, but he's putting his hand up. I mean, it's so undignified. He's meant to project power. He's meant to project a nation abroad. He's meant to project the authority of his Britannic Majesty's Prime Minister. Yes. And instead, he looks as if he's waiting for the prep school photograph to be taken and is obeying the instructions from the photographer. It's all ridiculous. Maybe you can't outpower the most powerful man on the world on the world stage.

13:06I mean, there was that exchange between Trump and Emmanuel Macron where they're in some kind of arm wrestling competition. Handshakes here, bro shakes. Very odd. He wouldn't let go of him. Trump does use his physicality on other leaders, doesn't he? Oh, yes, he does. And Trump is a tall man and built on a certain size. Yes. Glowing orange. Macron is a munchkin. Therefore, in comparison, Trump overwhelms him. Also, the president of France stands on his dignity. I thought you were going to say stands on Cuban heels. May well do that as well. Stands on his dignity as a head of state, which is very difficult to do when you're elected in that way.

13:54Yes. That you represent raw power as a head of government rather than the dignity that the king expresses as a head of state who is not political. Yes. It's very interesting. Trump doesn't try his tricks on the king. No. Because the king's different. Yes. And yes, he outranks the Starmer's and the Macron's of this world. But I just don't see why Starmer went. No, why was he there? Never hear Keir. I think this travel is a great mistake because prime ministers need to be attending to domestic business. Voters care about domestic business. Yes. And prime ministers need to be refreshed and well slept and able to do their job.

14:34Spending their whole time in a scar tube swanning around the world means they're too tired to be able to do the job properly. And I think it's a problem for Starmer because he's not managing to do his domestic job well. But he doesn't want to be in the UK. Well, that's because nobody likes him here. Well, the headlines are terrible for him. And he gets out and there's a nice band and a red carpet and everyone says he's marvellous and it's all jolly. But this is a mistake prime ministers normally fall into when they've been prime minister for a long time. He fell into it the day he became prime minister.

15:03He just loves these jollies. Yes. Do we think that people are exaggerating when they say that this spying scandal could, quotes, bring down the government? Well, everything could bring down the government if it's mishandled. Piece of cake. Absolutely. Yes. But this spying scandal is serious because, as always, the cover-up. Nobody in the country feels that the government's being straight about it, telling us who made the decision, why the decision was made. Therefore, we've got to piece it together. And the government keeps on putting out increasingly spurious explanations. So it's the CPS's fault.

15:38It's the Tories' fault. It's probably Nigel Farage's fault. Perhaps it's Ed Davies' fault. Nobody talks about him much. Who? Quite. Who, why, or what. And this is, I think, making people feel uneasy. It's a government you just can't trust. Well, earlier on, I spoke to Tom Tugendhat, who is the Conservative MP for Tonbridge. He is an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran and former chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. What's interesting about Tom's role in all this, of course, Jacob, is that he previously employed Christopher Cash as a researcher when he set up the Parliamentary China Research Group.

16:13I find it completely baffling. I mean, the government have effectively set up three possibilities. Either the director of public prosecutions, the head of MI5 and the head of the counter-terrorist police exceeded their powers in arresting two people. or the director of public prosecutions has completely failed to bring a prosecution or all of those people are telling the truth. And as the director of public prosecutions has said in letters to me and to other MPs, he asked and waited for a long time for evidence that he requested. It wasn't forthcoming. And therefore, as he put it, the evidential threshold is, and I quote, no longer met.

16:53So something changed. Now, what we don't know is what changed. The government won't tell us. You know, it hasn't been made clear to us. But I'm afraid you could either believe that the head of MI5, the counter-terror police, the director of public prosecutions and the Treasury solicitor, the head government lawyer, went rogue when they arrested these two individuals. Or you can believe that something has gone wrong in the case and that the government is in some way involved. But I'm afraid you can't believe both of them. What do we make of Dan Jarvis saying yesterday in the House that actually Jonathan Powell, He's been blamed for not giving this crucial evidence over to the CBS, suggesting that China is both a threat and the enemy.

17:30But now Jarvis is saying, oh, actually, if anyone's to blame, it's this guy, Matthew Collins, who is Jonathan Powell's deputy. Look, Dan and I served together in Afghanistan. He's unbelievably courageous in battle and a chap of the highest integrity. I have nothing but respect for him. But I'm afraid the line he's been given to repeat in the House just doesn't hold water. I mean, I know Matthew Collins. I worked with Matt Collins. He is somebody who has served our country with integrity and courage over 20 years as a very senior official, including some of the most sensitive briefs. So the idea that in some way this is his responsibility, when, as you correctly point out, he's the deputy national security advisor.

18:15you know this is a decision either by act or by not acting it could be a decision of omission as well as commission to in some way change the way in which this prosecution is going and that would not could not have been taken by an official like Matthew Collins both because his integrity wouldn't allow him to do it and secondly he's not senior enough this is a very serious political decision about a strategic trial. Also the conundrum is as follows surely If Jonathan Powell was acting alone, then why was he acting alone? And if the prime minister didn't have oversight of that, that's a problem.

18:50But if he wasn't acting alone, then ministers must have known. So they can't have it both ways, can they? I mean, Camilla, look, you know, when the national security advisor was appointed, the prime minister took an unusual decision to make him a special advisor, not to appoint an official. Now, actually, I think that's not an unreasonable thing to do. there is a strong argument you want your national security advisor to be somebody who's very closely connected to your political leadership. I can completely respect that position. But once you've done it, then the special advisor is a special advisor.

19:23They don't have an independent mandate. They only act off the basis of the ministerial permission they've got. And in this case, that's the prime minister. Now, when my special advisor did things, he was obviously brilliant and would never do anything, anything rogue at all. But if he were to have done anything, I would have been personally responsible because he would be acting in my name with my responsibility with my actions. Well, I'm afraid the same applies here. The prime minister is personally responsible for any actions by any of his special advisers. And in this case, frankly, his most senior special adviser.

19:54Now we know what we know. And I liked the video you put online sort of saying that this was these were the many times that I described China as a threat during the course of my time in the last government, etc, etc. Now we know what we know. And I had Bridget Phillips and the Education Secretary on my GB News show on Sunday, and she basically did admit that, yes, China was a threat. So if we know all this now, and it's increasingly putting the pressure on the Prime Minister, questions are being asked, why not now give the evidence the CPS needs and proceed with this trial? That's the part of this I can't understand.

20:29It's not as if we're in a case of, oh, double jeopardy. We've already tried them. They haven't even been taken to trial. why wouldn't the government just give the information now to the prosecutors and get on with this thing? So forgive me Camilla I can't answer that question I just don't know I'm not legally qualified to answer it all I'd say is that I thought your interview with Bridget showed something that I'm afraid we've seen far too much of in recent days we've seen the government throwing out lines and you know testing different arguments to see which ones stick basically like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing if it's ready and the reality is that the sorry that's my cooking style, maybe not yours.

21:06But the reality is, what they're doing is that they're effectively running a disinformation campaign. This is what the Russians do. This is what, you know, this is, this isn't how you inform people. Now, you know, I'm perfectly prepared to believe that something went wrong, right? Maybe something did go wrong. But if something did go wrong on a trial of this importance, come clean, tell us what it was. And if your, if what went wrong is your decision to prioritise the economic over the security interests of the United Kingdom. Well, I'm going to disagree with you, but at least I'll recognise that you have an argument.

21:36You have a position that you've taken. Currently, I have no idea what the government's view is, because they've thrown up four, five, six stories, all of which are contradictory, none of which are true. And, you know, the latest one, they're claiming that there's some sort of definition or, you know, you've got to define a country as an enemy or a threat or whatever. It's complete rubbish. You don't. Tom Tugendhat, thank you very much indeed for joining me on the Daily Tea once again. Thank you. The plot thickens. Should Kemi use every question on this at PMQs tomorrow? I'm just thinking she had great success, didn't she, when she just stuck with the Peter Mandelson line that week.

22:12What do you think? Well, I think she should follow up on Ian Duncan Smith's question. Yes. And try and find out what this national security advisor does. it's too early to advise what should be Prime Minister questions tomorrow because something dramatic may happen between now and then but in the absence of anything else this is the government's weak spot and it is the cover up and anything that's said to Parliament has to be strictly accurate misleading the House of Commons is the great sin of ministers So she could perhaps box him into some kind of corner where he's forced to say something very publicly about this whole thing.

22:55Talking about forcing people into corners, we had Boris in the podcast studio yesterday. Did you catch up with any of it? I did, yes. Yes. I saw full reports of it. Well, he's quite animated at the moment. Where do we think he is in his life, Jacob? You know him very well. Well, I'm not liking to make windows into men's souls. Well, we do. Just open that up. Just draw back the curtain a little bit. All right? I mean, he doesn't want to return to politics, But I got this sense from him that he is so frustrated that he isn't prime minister. He's very angry with Rishi Sunak still. Well, look, Rishi Sunak came in and bungled it.

23:34Yes. Rishi Sunak did not deliver the Rwanda plan. He took us to a catastrophic defeat. He called the election early. Rishi Sunak has to take responsibility for what he did. I don't think Sunak is a bad man. I think he's a highly intelligent man. But as a prime minister, it didn't work. So out of the three last prime ministers, Johnson, Sunak and Truss, you think Sunak deserves most of the blame for the electoral calamity that was last year? Of course I do, because it's Sunak who was behind the efforts to get rid of Boris. Yes. And that that was the fundamental error. The fundamental error was about democracy, that people had voted for Boris Johnson.

24:16Yes. They hadn't voted for individual MPs. Some had voted for the Conservative Party. Most had voted for Boris. And therefore Boris had a mandate which was taken away from him by people who weren't able to win elections themselves, but had this huge vanity and thought that they could. And Sunak was heavily involved in that. We know he set up his website long before the leadership vacancy arose to be ready to campaign. Ready for Russia. And it was quite improper of a chance of the exchequer to be involved in a leadership campaign whilst remaining a member of the cabinet. He should have resigned if he wanted to pay his Boris long before he did.

24:58And therefore he takes responsibility because he was actually the one who was instrumental in the efforts to get rid of Boris. Although our audience had no truck at all with Boris Johnson suggesting that there was nothing really wrong with the Boris wave of immigration and those however many million that came in between him pledging to take back control of the borders and then leaving office is one of the reasons why reform are riding high in the polls. I mean, he's making the point, he keeps on coming back to the thing, well, there was nobody in the year of COVID, nobody came in. And then we didn't keep track on the numbers because the Home Office wouldn't give us the figures.

25:34He said we were flying blind. We didn't know how many EU students would come back. We didn't know how many Hong Kongers and Ukrainians would take up the scheme. But he seems to be missing the central premise of the Telegraph reader listeners analysis of Johnson, which is that he was a breaker of promises on immigration. I think a mistake was made. I think unquestionably the points based system did not achieve what it was intended to achieve. I think the Ukrainians and the British nationals overseas, the Hong Kong people were exceptional. I think that's that is different. But too many people came in.

26:14And that should have been rectified faster. It should have been rectified before the penultimate year of Sunak when he put in some restrictions. So he put some restrictions in late 2023, which then began to come in. That should have happened at least a year earlier. One of the problems was that the changes in leader meant changes in secretaries of state. and therefore you did not have any continuity of seeing what the real problems were and you had a Treasury which is utterly useless organization get off the fence on the Treasury I will yes arguing for more and more migration is the only way to grow the economy and the ABR scoring it as a way of boosting government revenue so you had Treasury orthodoxy pushing government in the wrong direction you did it's true have a slow collection of figures so people didn't know you had a post-covid panic that nobody wanted to work anymore that people had stopped working working at home and never wanted to go back so there was a feeling that there was a need to get people in partly because inflation was taking off yes which is actually the fault of bank of england for it's ridiculous an excessive covid quantitative easing so there are all sorts of things that go with it.

27:33Yes. But it was a mistake. The points based system was too generous, and it didn't achieve what was intended. I think to be fair to Boris, the slowness in rectifying it is not his fault. It's after he's left. And you have a hypothetical question of would he have rectified it earlier had he still been prime minister? Would it have been changed in 2022, if you had had continuity of Priti Patel at the home, Office and Boris in number 10. And I don't know the answer to that. It's hard to know the answer. Funny enough, sorry to name drop, but I was at a Thatcher centenary dinner last night and Liz Truss was just sitting opposite me.

28:10And I reflected on her and thought to myself, Sunak's got a lot to thank her for because she has been the sort of resident criticism sponge when it comes to any economic calamity that the Tories might have wrought. and it's absolutely covered up Rishi's, frankly, out of control COVID spending, which has also created this black hole that we now find ourselves in. I know Rachel Reeves has made her own black hole, but let's be honest, it's very convenient that Trost takes all of the criticism and it's almost absolved Rishi Sunak. I mean, he's walked away from all of this scot-free in a way. Well, he's not Prime Minister and he took the Tories to an historic loss.

28:52But reputationally, he seems preserved. She isn't. That is fair. He isn't. Boris Johnson isn't reputationally preserved. I mean, I think Rishi Sunak is perhaps not particularly concentrated upon. No. Worse thing than being talked about is not being talked about. Coming up next, we talk about spanking. That's made it sound very silly and very odd and slightly masochistic. Not that kind of spanking. We're going to talk about whether we should be smacking our children.

29:30Welcome back. And Camilla, what about you? How do you treat your children? I was thinking about this this morning when I was looking it up. So first of all, I hadn't quite realised where smacking had been banned. Smacking was initially banned in Scotland about four years ago. Two years ago, it was banned in Wales. There's now a call for it to be banned in England as well. You can use reasonable chastisement under the Children's Act, but a number of key figures, the NSPCC and then people like Michael Caine, for instance, and Alan Shearer. It's quite a mixed bag of people. I love the fact that Michael Caine is against caning.

30:02I know the irony of it. Well, apparently he once was locked in a cupboard for two days when he was an evacuee and treated very badly during the Second World War and therefore he is against any kind of punishment that might be deemed to be cruel towards children, which I think we can have some sympathy with. Then I was racking my brain. Was I smacked as a child? I think very occasionally. Did I ever smack the kids? I would be counting it on the fingers of one hand and probably only half of the hand. You? Never, no. I'm very against smacking children. I disapprove it thoroughly. I've always said to my children that if anyone hits them, they're allowed to hit them back, including any member of the family.

30:47Smacking children is, to my mind, quite wrong in a failure of parental control. It's usually a failure of the temper of the parent. Yes. Not a failure of the child. The child may have done something stupid, but the parent has then lost self-control and adults ought not to lose self-control. so I'm very against smacking however I wouldn't ban it because I don't think the state should interfere into the minutiae of family life and some parents have more difficult children than I've got I'm lucky I have six perfect angelic children I find that very hard to believe still laugh at their father's jokes there must be a little there's always a little rascal in any family I'm not going to for one moment suggest who it was in my family or indeed yours Jacob but come on, out of those six children, you must have a little cheeky one, a little cheeky chappie.

31:38I'll say chappie because you've got five boys and only one girl, Mary. There must be a little cheeky chappie in there. They are all great individual characters, of course, as children are. But I think adults have to exercise self-control. I mean, I think exercising self-control is what civilisation is about and it is uncivilised to smack children. It's a failure of self-control. This is a brutish instinct. People would think that you might have been smacked or caned as a schoolboy. I don't know why they would think that, but they might. OK. I'm very lucky, actually, because I'm just of the generation where it stopped.

32:13So if I'd been at Eton a few years earlier, beating still went on. By the time I was there, the Lermaster still occasionally beat boys. Beat how? I don't know. I mean, I wasn't there. but one or two were beaten in my time and then he retired and Eric Anderson, the headmaster, had stopped beating. So I was just at that point at which it was finally dying out of Eden. It seems extraordinary, doesn't it, in a way now when we look back on the fact that children were beaten by their teachers in school. I mean, these days teachers can't even touch children without there being some kind of massive safeguarding problem.

32:54It's weird, isn't it? It's weird that we did that. It's fascinating how quickly things change. I think it's in the 1980s that beating becomes illegal in state schools. And there's quite a backlash against it amongst Conservative MPs who say this is all ridiculous. But it's either relatively recent or I'm very old or a mixture of the two. But in your family with six children, it's quite hard to keep control of three, actually, and often it all kicks off in the car. I mean, I have vivid memories of my mother turning to the back seat and saying, pack it in through gritted teeth, which is something I now obviously do because we inherit our parents' best and worst traits.

33:33With six then, so who's the good cop and who's the bad cop in the Rees-Mogg marriage? Well, there's very little discipline for me. I give in to my children the whole time. In the car, fortunately, you can't beat them because you'd have to stop. So that's a good protection for the children. I wouldn't say I've never shouted. Right. But what would really get your goat if they swore, if they attacked each other? My children are very good. They know not to swear when their father's around. I wouldn't say they don't swear when I'm not around. No. They don't swear when I'm around. No blasphemy in the re-smog household.

34:08Word beginning with D. I don't want to shock your listeners. and ending with N. A word beginning with D and ending... I thought you were going to say a word beginning with D and ending in K. What word beginning with D and ending in N? It was a thing that keeps water back without the end N on it.

34:28Is this meant to be a swear word? Yes. It's a blasphemy. Am I... I'm... Begins with D, ends in N, and without the N it's a thing that holds water back. Without the N it's a thing that holds water back. Oh, goodness me, this is the most... I was literally searching through my Roger's Profanosaurus of my mind thinking, what word are you talking about? Oh, that word. Yes, that word, yes. There's nothing wrong with that word, is there? You don't like it. It used to be deemed so shocking that Victorian ladies would faint if it was said in their presence. Can I say it? Well, I don't want your listeners to be upset.

35:13I'm sure the listeners are quicker on the update. Simon Heffer, we need to consult him whether we can say the word D-A-M-N. Hellfire and damnation. Interesting. OK, but why are you so easygoing on them? Because you're just a soft touch. No, because I think that children develop their own self-control and manners and they learn by example and that they're not stupid. So actually today is my eldest son's 18th birthday. Oh, happy birthday. Peter. Peter. And I got a message from Google saying that the parental controls on his device is now ceased. You weren't screen timing him at 17. I looked at my telephone to see what controls I had.

36:03I'd actually never set any parent controls up on Peter because he never needed them. He was never that sort of fussed about it all. He was never one of those people who was on his telephone for hours on end. Others of my children got in touch with me and said, can I have stricter controls? Because they've got an exam coming up. Yes. And they want less time on TikTok. So I think if you trust children, they are actually very sensible. and they don't need to be beaten and they don't need to be shouted at and they don't need to be harried. They'll just get on with it. But OK, but some children, even from the same family, everything's going well with the eldest two and then the youngest completely goes off the rails.

36:44It's an absolute nightmare for their parents. You're getting phone calls from the teachers. There's talk of expulsion. What do you then do? I mean, you've been lucky. You must have been lucky with your children, although you make your own luck and you and Helen must be really good parents. I don't know. I wouldn't say that. I think children are individuals and you have to deal with what you get. I mean, your parent too, what do you find? I agree with regard to self-reliance and self-regulation, particularly on social media. My eldest started to implement her own screen time because she wanted to revise her GCSEs and did very well in them.

37:18The little one who's 12, she needs more guidance because she gets sucked into the void that is constant doom scrolling. We got all of ours into a lot of sport. we got them into sport because we thought it was important to get them off screens but also we liked the self-discipline required having to get up for a football match in the morning on a Saturday the camaraderie involved having to work with others having to understand that some people aren't as good as you and some people are better and how to regulate your emotions the sports field is also very good for anger management you know you can't lose it even if you're at the end of your tether because you're very competitive as all my kids are and you start shouting at referees, you get red carded and you're off.

37:56I mean, these are all life lessons. My son, as a young player, got red carded, funny enough, by another boy in the village who was helping out, an older boy, red carded my son and my son walked straight off the football pitch and he just carried on walking all the way home in tears. Oh, no, oh, poor boy. But it's a useful lesson for the lad. He's never been sent off since. Off again, yes. No, indeed. And I don't think, A, there's any perfect answer. B, children are all individuals. But C, you certainly don't need to brutalise them. We asked our readers whether they thought that smacking should be banned.

38:33What percentage do you think it was a majority in favour of no, don't ban it? So they side with you. What percentage of Telegraph readers do you think said no, don't ban it? Three quarters. Yes. 74%. How do you know that? Because I'd looked at your website and said to me the answer. Thank you for your honesty. This is another parental lesson. Never tell fibs. And I thought if I'd said 74%, which I had in fact remembered, you'd have busted me without asking the follow-up question. Yeah, if you'd actually said before, that would have been good. Well, I appreciate your honesty. Let's just do a little bit of Boris' feedback before we go.

39:07So, John Howard writes, he just blustered on... Is this something familiar to you, Jacob, the idea of Boris blustering? He just blustered on talking over you both, endlessly justifying himself instead of admitting to his great strengths and great flaws. What a waste of someone who could have been a great statesman had he had someone to guide him through the fog of government like Maggie had Willie Whitelaw. This could have been... You could have guided him through the fog of government, Jacob. It could have been his Willie. I don't know about that, but did Willie Whitelaw guide Maggie through the fog of Whitehall or did he just smooth ruffled feathers of people who were disgruntled later?

39:46I think it was a different role that Willie Whitelaw had. Also, didn't she just guide herself through the fog at the end? It glided. She glided through the fog. She knew very clearly what she wanted to do, yes. Richard Wills says, Glad to see him given a proper grilling, obviously. His various recollection confirm why he should stay in the past. Right. Well, you always give her thorough grilling, actually. It's why I prefer coming on as a co-presenter with you rather than just being grilled. I lightly flambé you on occasion. You're a tough cookie, which makes political interviewing fun. Boris has huge abilities.

40:20He is still the most charismatic figure in British politics. Hang on, what about Farrah? He's more charismatic than Nigel. I told Nigel in high regard. But Boris is, in spite of not having a pint in his hand the whole time, is more fun in that way than Nigel. and he's got an amazing connection with voters and both of them have. So it's by degrees rather than one has and the other doesn't. But Boris has an instinctive view of what voters are thinking and is very good at reacting to that. He's very, very good in a crowd. He's got an extraordinary charisma and Nigel has almost equally but not quite as good charisma.

41:03Kemi's charisma is coming through, which is very good. Did you like the speech? I thought the last speech was excellent. And what I was really pleased about is you're beginning to see the real chemi. And I think the more people see of that, the more they will like who she is. And I hear that the speech was very much her speech rather than advisor's speeches. That's what I was told as well. That's really good because people want to know the real deal. Poor old Keir Starmer is not the most charismatic figure in British political history. No. Hard to think of anyone less so. Well, if they're less so, they aren't remembered.

41:36Tim keeps on referring to him in sketches as saying, let me be clear. You know Tony Blair had look? Look, yes. He's got, let me be clear. It's like, well, you are being clear. You're just being boring. Yes. So Boris is a remarkable figure. I think if he wanted to come back, there is a job for him to do. But it's up to him as to whether he really wants to come back. Watch this space. A job for him to do in the Conservatives, not in any other party. I think the idea of joining reform appeared to be anathema to him yesterday. so it will be the Tories or nothing. No, no, no, Boris wouldn't join us more.

42:09Big dog back in the kennel. Jacob, very lovely to see you. We'll be covering PMQs, I'm sure, tomorrow with Tim back at 5pm.

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