Isabel Oakeshott: I got so sick of the UK I had to leave

0:28The Telegraph that I had to leave. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And making my debut appearance on this, Isabella Oakeshop.

0:47Camilla Tominey is still away, and gosh, how I miss her, we all do. To quote the band Chicago, The Daily Tea needs you, Camilla Tominey. Camilla, won't you please come home? Until then, I am joined today by the wonderful Isabel Oakeshott. I'm feeling bad now that I'm not Camilla. Oh, no, no, no, don't worry. Look, we needed the best to replace her while she was away. I like it, I like it. And so we got you. So we got you. Isabel, how are you? I'm very well, thank you. But I'm just endlessly dismayed by the tragedy that is our country. You know, Daily Tea, I'm beginning to think Daily Tragedy is more of an apt name for this once proud country.

1:25What is going on? Well, let's start with the weekly panto that is Prime Minister's Questions, which we both just watched. What was your takeaway? What did you think of it? I mean, it wasn't a blockbuster session of PMQs, was it? And I suppose I'm endlessly disappointed that Keir Starmer isn't better. And we should know by now that he's not going to get any better. But it's just he's got a few pre-prepared lines and he just trots them out, doesn't he? And, you know, it's all a bit pedestrian. And I thought, you know, every week, I suppose the tension is, what is the leader of the opposition going to go on?

2:02And she chose to go on the economy. And I understand why she did that, because evidently, you know, there is now a real mood of fear, I think, sweeping the city and actually households up and down the country, particularly those who fear they might be affected by this so-called that sort of mentioned tax, but everybody really, that sense of what is going to come and hit us in a few weeks' time. So it made sense, I suppose, for Kemi to go with that. But on the other hand, what else is everybody really talking about? It's immigration. Immigration. I know, I know. I agree with you. So I sit in the gallery for PMQs, and I've now almost stopped watching the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition.

2:53I'm more interested in what's going on around them. Right. And there were two couples that we all had our eyes on. One was Angela Rayner, who chose to sit next to Lucy Powell. So that's the disgraced, retired, former deputy sitting next to the newly elected left wing deputy. They were both sitting there watching. They didn't flinch. They didn't move. They didn't show approval or disapproval. They have what I would call ex-wife face on. Keir, you've brought this on yourself. So that was interesting. We watched that and thinking, is there a plot bubbling here? On the other side of the chamber, your partner, Richard Tice, was sat next to Nigel Farage.

3:33And it was very interesting to watch them because Nigel Farage has complained that he hardly ever gets called. So what's almost the point of him being there? Last week he was sitting up in the balcony instead. And this time he was doing his usual thing of just sitting there and just taking it all in. But Richard was jumping up and down, desperately trying to get called. And he couldn't. and I understand reform only has a handful of MPs. The Speaker is required to give precedence to people with experience and the largest number of MPs. But so many times in this PMQs, other MPs referenced reform, including the Prime Minister.

4:08The Prime Minister opened with an attack on reform. He talked about the toxic policies of reform. He claimed that they are aligned with Vladimir Putin in some way and yet reform is not being called to speak, if only to defend itself. Yeah, I mean, there's no sort of automatic right to reply there. And it is really frustrating. What we have is something that I've never seen before in British politics in my time as a political journalist, which is that you've got these four MPs that are effectively, four or five MPs, that are effectively the unofficial opposition. You know, that is how reform is being now treated, you know, widely by all sorts of cohorts, whether it's voters, whether it's, you know, the media, whether it's in the city.

4:57You know, people think that reform is effectively the opposition because in a sense, people have written off the Tories, I'm sorry to say. The Tories can do what they like. They can thrash around and, you know, they're a little bit like landed fish on a fishing boat trying desperately to get back into the water. But it's not going anywhere. Not very big fish either when you look at that front bend. Little sprats. So you've got this handful of MPs that are being treated as if they're the opposition and yet they don't have any of that status. You know, the formalities for something like PMQs. And so the insults are hurled, you know, the baseless allegations are made and there's no way of coming back on that.

5:42You know, speaking for Richard, my partner, Richard Tice, deputy leader, he loves being in Parliament. He loves the Commons and he quite often patiently will sit in the Commons for several hours. I'm not going to say he doesn't find it frustrating, but he will bob up and down and, you know, hour after hour waiting for that chance to speak. because for him, he feels that's an important thing that at least someone in their team has to do. But because there are only a few of them, they're thinly stretched and they can't all be in the chamber all the time, bobbing up and down and getting nowhere. Yes.

6:17We need to talk about immigration. Hattosh Kabatu, this is the Ethiopian who was found guilty of sexual assault and was accidentally released from prison and wandered around London for two days, has now been deported. It emerged that he was paid£500 to leave after threatening to disrupt his deportation, which is extraordinary. The Home Office said it decided to give him the discretionary payment rather than face a, quote, slower and more expensive process, which would have included detaining him, a new flight and potentially fighting subsequent legal claims. The source told The Telegraph that the costs of cancelling the pre-booked flight on Tuesday evening would have run into several thousands of pounds.

6:58They said ministers were not involved in the decision made by the Home Office removals team. Kabartu has become the face of state failure and our inability to control illegal immigration, hasn't he? The face of the farce. But the thing is, there's a new face every week, isn't there, of the farce? I mean, last week we had the absolute nonsense of one in, one out, one in again. You know, if I were Kemi Badenoch this week, I would have gone on David Lammy's comment that one in, one out and one back in again demonstrated that that ludicrous, preposterous scheme is, and I quote, working a treat. I think those were the words he used.

7:40Working a treat for the illegal immigrants. Yeah. I think she should have gone on. Can the Prime Minister explain whether he agrees with his deputy, David Lammy, that this one in, one out, one in again thing shows it's working a treat? And if so, why? And she didn't do that. Everyone would have had a good laugh at that. Another week, another immigration farce. Just to say, isn't the basic problem that because there is nothing putting people off coming in the first place, they will just keep coming and keep testing that kind of scheme. So on Tuesday, Julian Lewis, the Tory MP asked an interesting question.

8:23If we deport one of these people to France, and then they come back across the channel, are we not obliged to process them all over again? In other words, unless you actually stop the boats and turn them around or do something that just means the market dries up and people won't try it, they could theoretically just keep on going through our system. Oh, 100 percent. And they probably will. I've been doing a lot of work on the boats crisis in the last few weeks, and I'm hoping to bring more out on that in due course. And what is very clear to me is that demand for boat crossings actually massively outstrips supply.

9:13Right. So the idea that what Keir Starmer likes to call the vile people smugglers, the vile people traffickers, are in any way deterred or that their business is in any way being knocked by anything our own government is doing is completely for the birds. There are so many people trying to get over to the UK by this means, but also, by the way, we've really taken our eyes off the number of people that are coming in now in the back of lorries. I say now, I don't think that's ever really dried up much, but we've been so preoccupied as the media, quite rightly, on the small boats, because that is such a visible and unbelievably dangerous way of coming here, that we've sort of forgotten that people are every single day sneaking in in the back of lorries.

10:09Yes. Well, a man who the Home Office has confirmed entered the UK in a lorry in November 2020, an Afghan national, was arrested on suspicion of murder after a dog walker was attacked in a triple stabbing in West London. A 49-year-old man was fatally stabbed in Uxbridge. A second man who is 45 was taken to hospital with life-changing injuries and a 14-year-old boy was also injured. The Home Office confirmed that the 22-year-old suspect was granted asylum and leave to remain in 2022 and does not live in Home Office accommodation. You know, I endlessly wonder what will it take for governments, and I say governments because this isn't just a Labour Party thing, what will it take for them to understand that importing a lot of people from the world's worst places is not kind, it is reckless.

11:11And it's a global phenomenon. The man who was named the devil of Tehran, a serial rapist in Iran, was an Afghan who was deported back to his own country. There's a lot of anger in Iran about that because many women felt he should have got what he would have got as an Iranian citizen, which is the death penalty. You can get the death penalty for rape in Iran. Instead, he was deported back to his own country. He was given 100 lashes first. Now, I bet we wouldn't do that in the UK. Even I'm not suggesting that. I don't know. I'd be tempted. I'm not in favour of the lashing. I'd be sorely tempted.

11:43I want to say in the government's defence, deportations are up. Arrests of illegal workers are up. OK, come on. I'm going to have to come in here because someone has helpfully put some figures in front of me on this. So, yeah, I can just see this in a little Home Office press release boasting about how it's up. Home Office data shows there were 8 ,232 arrests of illegal workers in, I thought they were going to say like in the last month or something, But no, folks, that's 8 ,232 in the year to September. Now, let me continue. More than 1 ,050 foreign nationals caught in the raids have been removed from the country.

12:26So let me just put that in perspective. 1 ,050 foreign nationals post these dramatic raids over the whole year have been removed. That is basically one day's worth of crossings on a particularly busy day on the channel. Right. If everything is failing, if Rwanda, I mean, it wasn't fully tried, but they only ended up sending four volunteers. If France is not working, and I just can't believe it will work, and I don't think it addresses the real issue of numbers. I mean, one in, one out still means that one person is coming. What is the solution to illegal boats? Well, how many times do we have to say this?

13:04I mean, you have got to do one of two things. You have got to either push back. So you can't. The problem comes when the boats come across the median line into British waters. And at that point, you've got the whole human rights legislation thing, which we don't seem to be able to get rid of. So, I mean, of course, it goes without saying we've got to leave the ECHR. That's hardly an original argument. But you either turn back the boat, push back the boats using the Navy, as I argued in a column for The Telegraph last week. You use the Navy to push back the boats into French waters, whereupon any rescue has to go back to France under SOLAS.

13:49You know, you take when you rescue people under the laws of the laws of the sea, you take them to the nearest place of safety. So if they've not crossed the median line, the nearest place of safety is France. Alternative to that, you rescue them at the median line and you then put them in some kind of, let's say, an old liner in international waters. That liner is not a flagged British ship. And you then use that as a processing centre. Basically, you have got to detain and deport. Now, if we can't do all of this in the sea, fine. I mean, I'm not thinking it's fine. But anyway, as a very much plan B, allow a processing to take place on our shores once we've left the ECHR.

14:33But people have to be detained. You know, I'm I'm I'm really underwhelmed by the plan to use barracks. I don't know how you feel about it. Great. Of course, they should be in, you know, rudimentary accommodation like military barracks. No use to man nor beast if they're allowed to roam around, as they wouldn't be in many other countries. You know, when you go into a country illegally, you're not usually put up somewhere where you can just abscond, as they absolutely merrily do. So we have to have detention centres. That has to be the default. And then if you've come across illegally, to be fair to the Tories, they did bring in this law, you have no chance whatsoever to remain.

15:11Yeah. Individual MPs whose constituencies contain these barracks tend to oppose them. They do, yeah. Similar reasons, I guess, to the people opposing the hotels, but also because they feel it's a misuse of military property. And I guess the use of barracks does speak to a narrative of national decline, that we no longer have soldiers in barracks. We have illegal migrants in barracks. Well, look, I'd rather that than having them in hotels rather than tourists in hotels. You know, get to a point where we're going to have less tourists. You know, I travel a lot in my various roles. And honestly, we're getting a really bad reputation.

15:49Now, I don't want to be unduly negative because equally, you know, last week I was struck by this family unidentified that are willing to pay, what was it, 180 grand for a tutor to, I'm not sure you might have even written about it. but for somebody, a tutor, to bring up their son as a young British gentleman. Oh, good. You know, there are still people. I would do it for much less money than that. Would you? You know, I thought about it too, but I definitely didn't tick enough of the boxes to apply. But that's interesting, isn't it? There's still Britishness as a global brand, even if in this country it doesn't feel like it's very popular.

16:24So we're still, you know, look, it is rescuable, but how many times do you meet people, whatever their political beliefs used to be, who just say, look, we're in last chance saloon here. But Britain is absolutely on the edge of a decline which is not going to be easy to reverse. I hear this all the time. Of course, I'm identified with reform, so people, I suppose, it's a bit of an echo chamber and they would say that to me, wouldn't they? But I'm struck by how many people say that who were not previously reform supporters, but now they've just reached that point and they see so many things and they just think, you know, this is it, folks.

17:04This is it. Our country is disintegrating. Is immigration one of the reasons why you moved to Dubai? Actually, I wouldn't say that. You know, I've been very public about this, wrote about it for the Telegraph. I moved because of money. I moved because the government imposed VAT on private schools. I've got three children in the independent sector. I couldn't afford that anymore. And I know that in the Middle East they can have a great British education for significantly less money. But also where I am now in the UAE, and I'm obviously not there right now, I'm in the telegraph offices in London, it's very safe.

17:42It's very safe. And, you know, for me there, it's such a model of multiculturalism in Dubai. You know, that is 80 % expat, if you like, 80 % people from all over the world. And it shows that multiculturalism can work if everybody signs up to certain rules and if those rules are just imposed. And people have such a poor understanding of how it is there. It doesn't feel like a police state in the slightest. I literally never see policemen in Dubai. There's just an understanding that you behave in a certain way. And if you don't, then it's bye-bye. And crucially, visas, your right to be there is linked to your ability to support yourself.

18:29So if you lose your job, that's quite harsh. You lose your job, you're out. Unless you find another job, there's a little bit of a leeway. So I don't want to bang on about that, but you did ask me, did I move because of immigration? I'm interested because is it successful in part because it attracts rich people? Is it a multicultural experiment that works because it's wealthy people? It attracts plenty of people who have very little. I'm thinking of the huge cohort of Filipinos there who earn very modest amounts, but nonetheless, it's still worth it for them because it's still enough for them to send money home.

19:02Huge numbers of Pakistanis. They do a lot of driving jobs, for example. And again, huge culture of gig economy, you know, the Uber Eats equivalent. I must say that I... Can you have all of that and still grow up feeling British? By the way, I just want to say that I have never, ever in my whole life in the UK used Uber Eats or Delivery. I've got a point of principle, just hate it. And I know that it's full of illegal working. Right. However, in Dubai, it's all the time. Right. And they can't be illegal workers. It's not really a thing. But can you as a family grow up there and feel British in that very multicultural space in the middle of the desert?

19:45Because my daughters are about to set off on the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme. They're about to do expeditions in the desert. It's a different way of doing it. They're not trudging through the Yorkshire Dales in the rain. They're dealing with quite high temperatures still and the possibility of being nipped by a scorpion. But it's the Duke of Edinburgh's award. It just does not feel as if you're that in the Middle East. I actually love hearing the call to prayer because it reminds me I am somewhere really different. Yes. But it's so full of people from all over the world who are working hard and cracking on that you could sort of think you're somewhere else.

20:25You know, I don't I don't feel as if I'm that far away. And I'm so immersed in British politics, you know, all day, every day that, again, I just don't actually I feel like I could sort of semi be in Britain. It's just that the weather's a bit nicer and I don't have to worry about so much. I guess I've often thought about should I leave? The answer to that is absolutely, although I'm sure you would be missed here. But one reason why I wouldn't is because I would miss Britain, including the things that perhaps some people think make it bad. I would miss the wet weather. I would miss the depressed people.

21:02I'd miss the bad telly. Do you know what? I just don't miss the depressed people. I become a nicer person when I'm over there because I'm not angry. I had this, I don't know about you, during the pandemic. Actually, when I first went out to the UAE, it was during the pandemic. I was so angry. I was so angry because I just thought, this is so wrong. We're messing everything up here with these lockdowns and I know this is going to be a catastrophe and of course it was. I thought, I was just listening to the, at that time I used to listen to the Today programme, a habit that I've very definitely grown out of.

21:39And just listening to Radio 4 in the morning and the ministers coming on and banging the drum for the lockdown, it would make me so angry. And I thought, I've got to get out of this. I'm just becoming grumpy. I'm actually a super happy person. I generally can't believe my luck in life. But when you look around, you don't want to get into that frame of mind. And part of our job is to be angry, isn't it, you and I, where you're looking for things to be bad. I don't want to be that person. And sometimes when I'm here in London, I'm sort of on high alert for bad things. Equally, being back here this week, autumnal trees.

22:20I'm never sort of underwhelmed by how brilliant so much of Britain is. It's a beautiful country. Yeah, I mean, bits of London are incredible. You know, when it's clean and tidy and you find a little patch which doesn't have people loitering with bad intent on the streets and so on. My God, our country's beautiful, isn't it? It is. Home is home. But I find beauty in the ugliness. I visited a friend in hospital and I stepped out of the entrance where there was a gigantic no smoking sign and there was a long line of patients, one of them actually with a saline drip having a fag. And I thought, this is England.

22:54That's the journalist in you though. You're dispassionate in that way. You stand back from it and you're not angry about the ridiculousness of that. You're just thinking, yeah, that's my country, a few badass smokers outside the hospital. And it would make great copy. Yeah. Isabel Oakeshott, thank you very much. Thank you. Coming up next, Nadine Dorries talks to me about her career, reform, and what is her advice to Reform MP Sarah Pochin?

23:31Nadine Darys, welcome to The Daily Tea. Thank you for joining us. You're very welcome. I'm going to start by offering you a cup of tea. And while I'm pouring it, I'll ask you the question we ask everyone, which is, if you could have a cup of tea with anyone in history, who would it be? So, I love Tudors. You know, I loved the Tudors. So, maybe not Henry VIII, although that would be intriguing. Thomas Cromwell. Anne Boleyn. Yeah. You know, any one of the characters from Wolf Hall. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's probably him. I'd pick one of those, guys. OK. If you'd give me more than, like, 20 seconds notice.

24:06No, I'm sorry about that. I'd have thought about this and I'd have had a better answer. But you are a writer and you've written historical fiction. You've written about the past, you've written about the history. So is history something important to you? Yeah, no, I love history, yeah. Yeah, I'm a secret history buff. Yeah. What's your favourite sort of period? Well, that period, actually. So interestingly, two periods, probably. One sort of like post-war to when I was in my early teens, because everything changed so rapidly. Yes. About 1975, 76 onwards. I started nursing in 1975. And then it just seemed to kind of accelerate at an incredible pace from the late 70s onwards.

24:47But I was born in 57, and I remember a lot of the 60s and the early 70s. And it was a very different world and a very different time to what it is today. I was actually born almost in an immediate post-war era where people were very patriotic. There was pride in the flag. It was a very different country to what it is today. Rachel Reeves and Lucy Powell and Bridget Philipson always talk about how they are Labour because they grew up working class. And in the case of Powell and Philipson, because they're from the North. Well, you grew up in Liverpool. You're from a working class family. You didn't grow up left wing no in your experience does coming from that area actually make is that one of the reasons why you're conservative yeah i mean i know the reason why i'm a conservative so it's very much to do with the right to buy policy that margaret thatcher introduced i saw how that transformed people's lives and i've spoken about this before or written about it certainly you know we lived on a council estate where every front door was the same color and in fact some council estates in Liverpool still have those front doors and those letterbox and those same numbers and there were front patches of grass which were divided by packing cases which actually were just tea chests that had come off boats at the docks and every front door was the same and it was monotonous and then Margaret Thatcher brought in right to buy and people started to buy their council houses and there was actually no money changed hands if you'd been renting for a long time anything you'd paid in rent was taken as almost down payment on the ownership of your house now I know you know for anybody piles in on me that that policy was seriously flawed because it should have been money that went straight into building new social housing but I watched you know as a child those packing cases get ripped up I watched people paint their front doors in the colors they wanted to I saw flowers being planted and plants being planted and people scrubbing their front steps and being really proud of their homes and i saw what had been was on the verge of being quite a neglected area kind of blossom into an area that people became proud of i feel that the left often romanticizes the people but the right actually helps them is that fair yeah that's very true i think it's worse than that i think the left they lie.

27:17They create a narrative around how they're helping people, but that's all it is, a narrative which can never translate into reality. I mean, for example, where was I thinking about exactly that point recently? I know it was Keir Starmer and he was talking about ID cards and how that would help smash the gangs because it would prevent people from employing illegal immigrants illegally. But of course, it won't at all because the people who are employing illegal immigrants, they're not going to ask them for an ID card. They already need a national insurance number. They're not asking for that. So there's this whole narrative about how ID cards will smash the gangs when it won't do that at all.

28:02In no way will it stop people who are black market employers taking illegal immigrants as cheap£1.50 an hour workers for them. They're not going to say, I need to see your ID card before I employ you. And I think that's an example of the narrative that the left will promulgate and they talk about and they'll put forward as a policy. And, you know, people who support the left will cheer them for that. It means nothing. It's just empty words. I want to pick up on that point about narratives because a few days ago you were on Question Time and you were talking about immigration and you were up against Mariela Frostrop.

28:39And you made some remarks which I thought were quite reasonable, their boilerplate political analysis that illegal immigration is out of control. We have to leave the ECHR. Vote for my party if you want to fix things. Mariella really tore into you and accused you of using dehumanising language. And I thought what was really interesting was she began by saying that she almost admired someone who had tried twice to get into the country. She said she admired Hutzpah. The guy who came in was sent back and then came back again. She admired him for doing that. Right. But if you look at the audience reaction, if you're an alien, you might think that what you had said was deeply unpopular and what she had said was wildly popular.

29:19Yeah. Total juxtaposition to the reality of life and what people feel in the real world. Yes. It's quite bizarre, isn't it? I think BBC Question Time is an important programme and I think it needs to survive. And the viewing figures have halved in recent years. And the BBC are selecting their audience based basically on trust. How did you vote at the last election? How did you vote in the EU referendum? How are you going to vote at the next election? And all these people do to game it is say, I voted Conservative, I'm going to vote Conservative, I voted Reform, I'm going to vote Reform. That's how they get into the audience.

29:54And some of them will say they voted left. But there are ordinary people in there, but you can tell there are some who are really left-wing activists. Right, right. And in order for the BBC to survive, it's got to get with the times and it's got to get with the technology. And I think Question Time needs to do the same thing. I think it needs to rapidly change. its selection model because i cannot tell you the number of people who have messaged me both at the daily mail and since telling me i've stopped watching i won't ever watch it again which is a shame because i think they should watch it and i think it's a very valuable kind of like format in our political debate and and it's one of the few opportunities you can get politicians to sit in front of a camera and ask them questions but they've got to change the way they do it they've got to change the way they operate because people switched off after watching Mariella this week and because they have nothing in common with somebody who thinks that we should be opening our borders to all the sexually abused women in the Congo and every other country and providing a legal route in for them to come into this country particularly when it's the men who are sexually abusing them who are getting on the boats and coming here illegally in the first place and I actually said to Mariella joking when we had a glass of wine afterwards I really like Mariela, by the way.

31:09She's a really fun, lovely person to sit down and break bread with and have a glass of wine with, as long as you don't talk about politics. But I actually said to her, if you're ever thinking of standing as an MP, good luck with that manifesto, by the way. Because, you know, you'd never get near Westminster. And Harriet Baldwin, who was a Conservative MP, who was on the panel, said the same thing. You wouldn't get anywhere near Westminster. Mariela has the luxury of being a sanctimonious, bleeding heart, a champagne socialists do you know married to a human rights lawyer who lives in notting hill and or wherever she's in london leafy somerset and as you know she's insulated yes from the impact that other people experience yeah she needs the nhs and couldn't get it she'd pay for it whereas a lot of people can't afford to do that and of course we have a huge and we don't know the figure yet but a huge amount of financial resources are being channeled into the NHS and housing, huge pressure on housing because of the number of people that we have just pouring into the country on a weekly basis.

32:13Yeah. I always want to defend question time because I think it does an important thing. Me too. Me too. I love question time. The problem they have, you're trying to get a balance in your opinion, is if you think about it right now, reform's on 33%. The Tories on sort of 16, Labour on 17 or whatever, but both those parties are imitating reforms immigration stance. So let's guesstimate that about two thirds of the political space is pro-immigration control. Only a tiny percentage is in favour of, quote unquote, more safe routes and opening up the borders, etc, etc. So the balance on that programme, where it feels as if two thirds of the audience believe in completely open borders, is totally out of whack, if nothing else, with the political conversation in Westminster.

32:57Totally. As you say, you couldn't get elected on that. You couldn't. I want to ask, you've been, potted biography, you have been a nurse, you've been a Tory MP. I was a businesswoman as well. You're a businesswoman as well. So I started my own business and sold my own business before I became an MP. TV star. You were in the jungle. So far. Some wild exaggeration. Not like you, Tim. Tory MP, Culture Secretary. Minister for Health for two years as well. Minister for Health for two years as well. During COVID. Did you find Westminster as, I don't want to say an ordinary person, because you're defined by name.

33:34Oh, author as well. Three and a half million books sold. Okay, okay, okay. Did you find as, and I hate the word ordinary, but as a relatively ordinary person, did you find Westminster mad? Oh, my God. It was like, you know that scene, Alice in the Wonderland, where she drops into the Matata's Tea Party? Yes. Do you remember that? Yes. I remember being sat at a table in the members tea room one afternoon. I just I couldn't understand the way in which people were talking. Yeah. I'd never quite met poshness like it. It was snobbishness, entitlement, but also intelligence, wit. I think I met the funniest people in Westminster, wit and also kindness.

34:21There's a lot of kind people there. But it was all on extremes. Yes. You know, people were one or the other. There were no normal people. No one was normal. Yes. That was the thing I realised, no God, that absolutely no one, most of the people, if they'd been in Liverpool, people would have said, you need to be in Raynell, which was a psychiatric hospital. That was kind of. Right. Would they have wanted to lock up Boris? He was. Because he's a lot of what you've just described. Not all of it, but some of the words. Boris is, you know, he's one of the kindest people I've ever met. one the most eccentric one the most eccentric one the kindest and one the most intelligent so I'm one of the funniest and I think one of the most misunderstood people I've ever met in my life and still incredibly misunderstood the plot against him which you've detailed in two books was that just against him individually or did it represent a particular philosophy in the Conservative Party It was punishment for delivering Brexit.

35:26Right. It's such a tricky one to talk about. You know, you've got Dominic Cummings, who said in an interview with Laura Kinsberg in 2020, we wanted him out. And Laura Kinsberg said to Dominic Cummings, you wanted him out, didn't you, within months of him becoming prime minister? And Dominic Cummings said, not months, weeks, as soon as he got over the door in number 10, we just knew we had to get him out. and then two weeks ago in an interview in the times dominic cummings admitted how he did it he basically said that everything i'd written the plot was true he said we did it via what coordinated whatsapp leakings and a lot of people tim who aren't journalists don't understand how that worked but when i was writing the plot i spoke to the journalist and i spoke to the people who were used to do the leaking and the people who were there at the time.

36:21So what they would do is, so let me take an example. And, you know, this is something Nigel, you'll have to watch Nigel's back for this as well, because he is going to be our next prime minister. Wallpaper gate. There was no gold wallpaper. It did not exist. It wasn't quoted for. It was never mentioned. It was never discussed. The only wall that was decorated was a wall that was painted red to represent the Red Wall wins in the 2019 election. Right. So one person in number 10 leaks to a journalist. They're putting up gold wallpaper. And the journalist says, well, I can't take that from you. I need another quote.

36:58How do I know that's true? So another person from number 10 says to that journalist, there's gold wallpaper going up. And the journalist comes back and says, look, my editor's getting a bit uncomfortable. He says, I've got to get more than two quotes for this. So the third person on this coordinated leaking attack then provides the third quote and the journalist says, OK, I can go with this now. I've got three quotes from inside number 10. And that's kind of how it started. And they were determined to get him out. There's a whole group of disruptors in number 10 at the time. And is this group still influential in the Tory party today?

37:33You know, have you not seen the interviews over the past week how Dominic Cummings is parading Katie Lamb? Yeah. Who's Katie Lamb? Yeah. This new young MP from Kent. Well, remember, she was brought into number 10 by Dominic Cummings when he was working for Boris Johnson. Right. She was brought in by Cleo Watson. And Dominic Cummings and Cleo Watson were obviously very close. And she became part of that grouping. Right. But they've always got – somebody said to me, a journalist said to me, they've always got one reserve. What is a future leader? Yeah. Right. So they were working on Rishi Sunak before he became an MP.

38:12Yeah. So the idea was always to get Rishi Sunak in. And Kemi Badernok was working. Michael Gove held a drinks party in his grace and favor apartment in Carlton Place, also not long after Boris became prime minister, and toasted Kemi Badernok as the next leader of the Conservative Party. Right. So they always have their people lined up. So they had Rishi Sunak. They knew they were going to get Kemi in when he fell. They got Kemi in. Now it's Katie Lam. You watch this. I don't know what the odds are on Katie Lam becoming leader. But you might want to put a bet on. She's a very nice person, but someone said she looks like AI has designed a Tory MP.

38:54She's got the hair. She's got the look. There's something. Possibly. Very true. I ask about this not because of just the tittle-tattle, the gospel, whatever, but because we're all trying to figure out where the right is going to go in this country. And the question lots of people are asking themselves is, do I stick with the Tories or do I join reform? You join reform, no doubt. So are the Tories, you have said the Conservative Party is dead. Dead. Over. Gone. Toast. Why is the Conservative, because before we join reform, we have to ask, should we therefore, should we write off the Tory party?

39:26And you're saying yes. Yes, absolutely. There's so many reasons, Tim. We don't have enough time. I'll miss my train. There's so many reasons. The same people who were the disruptors during the Johnson government through COVID, who created so many problems for the government, who destabilized the country, who gave us Liz Truss, who just created so many problems, are still there. They're still there running the show. There is nobody in the Conservative Party who is capable of it. You know, I'd make an exception and say Robert Jenrick is, but Conservative MPs will not elect Robert Jenrick as leader.

40:03And that is because two thirds of the Conservative MPs are on the left of the party. They are closer to the Liberal Democrats, more ideologically aligned to the Liberal Democrats than they are to Conservative principles. Whatever they may be these days. I know what they are to me and what they were to me, but who knows what they are now because we haven't seen them for a very long time in action. Yes, yes. When one talks about the reform Tory split, one's also talking about a divide between friends. It's not all enemies on one side and friends on the other. And when you decided to join reform, we know Boris spoke to you.

40:36What did he say to you and why did it not convince you? Boris, bless him, he still has faith in conservatism. Yeah. I don't think he believes that the party he's given his entire life to can be in the state it's in at the moment. Yeah. Because he's given his entire life to conservatism. He loves the Conservative Party. He loves it. And he's wedded to it. It's his family. And, you know, people say to me, are you going to persuade Boris to join reform? That would never happen because that would be like saying to him, are you going to divorce your family? Yeah. So, you know, he definitely did not want me to go to reform and he did try very hard.

41:13But, you know, for me, I will always be loyal to Boris Johnson. He put me in government. He gave me responsibility. I think I managed that responsibility well and he gave me the opportunity to bring my experience and to do that but you know I also I'm incredibly loyal to Nigel Farage and he is the future and Nigel Farage has from me the same loyalty I gave to Boris and whereas Boris vehemently tried to stop me joining reform that doesn't mean that we've fallen out or we can put the politics aside from the personal because I know that Nigel and reform are the future and I know the Conservative Party is lost and I think it's going to be a mash of time before Boris one day realises that's the case too.

42:02I'm curious that one of the people who's joined you is Danny Kruger. Danny has spoken about cuts to the civil service. Is that the way forward? Is that how reform is going to save money? So it could be four years to the election. We need to see how much I think I don't have an official position. I didn't want an official position at the time I came over. We'll have to see, I think, what we inherit at the time that Nigel wins the election. Because it may be that the Silver Service will already be down to the bones of its backside. Because we've got four years and there is no way we're going to escape austerity moving forward.

42:40and there's already deep cuts happening in the civil service. There's a huge redundancy programme happening right now. There's a huge number of civil servants who will be exiting this month, this month right through till February next year. But there are better ways and more efficient ways of running Whitehall and it's not happening now. I just want to say as well, Tim, I hugely respect the civil service. Having been a minister for three and a half years, a secretary of state, I think I was secretary of state in the best, most efficient department, which was DCMS. It's not the best paid. Silver servants aren't very well paid in there, but they work in there because they love the job.

43:26And they were the best people I've ever worked with in my life. They were the most professional, apolitical, completely. They just did their best. And when I went in with policies which were completely right wing and not policies you think left wing civil servants were described to, they knocked it out the park for me because we had that kind of working level of trust. That was probably because you were a very effective minister and you were spoken of highly by your civil servants, I can tell you. Well, that's very nice to hear. But I just thought they were the best people I've ever worked with.

44:01So when I hear people talking about the civil servants as though they're some kind of grifters and spongers and shirkers, I find it hard because that's never been my experience. But the state is very big. It is very expensive. Money is running out. Yeah. No, I get it. I get it. Where should reform make the cuts? I think health. The relationship between health, the NHS and DHSC needs to dramatically change. There's a huge wastage. That's the area where most of the wastage in the country takes place. That's where I would start. I guess the obvious question is, are you personally going to be in a position to help with all this?

44:39Are you thinking of running? Running for what? Running for Parliament, running for reform, serving in a reformed government, which you say is inevitable. Tim, I'm 68. By the time there's no election, I could be 72. Right. Okay. Okay. Danny Kruger was quoted as subscribing the foreign party as led by a buccaneering, charismatic captain with an ill-disciplined crew. Is that a fair representation of the party? I think it might have been. I don't think it is now. And you know, it's the one thing I think you will see. There's no messing about with Nigel. Someone slips up, like the full weight of the guillotine falls down their neck yes you know but sarah pochin kind of messed up and she kept her job look channel four did a study in which they discovered that black people are four percent of the population are black people 50 of the people in our tv adverts are black people and i think what sarah did was she used the wrong words yeah i think what she was trying to explain was that there is a misrepresentation, that we've over-embraced DEI policies and ideologies, that it is an issue as identified by Channel 4.

45:54It's an issue identified by almost everybody watching TV adverts in their homes. And I think what Sarah did was used in her inexperience as a new MP, used the wrong words. You know, Tim, I have made so many gaffes, I've even lost count. I have been in the public eye. Do you remember when I made the posh boy comments? Yeah, I do. I had to be smuggled out the back of Westminster and go and hide in a house in Surrey for a week. I have made such gaffes in my political career because I came late. I wasn't a career politician. So Sarah used poor words, but the substance of what she was saying was correct.

46:37She wasn't being racist. She is not a racist. and you know was it Ellie who said yesterday in the press conference you know the media are tearing into her and calling her racist they never tore into the grooming gangs did they who were raping those white girls they never outed them they haven't highlighted what's happening in London they keep that very suppressed don't they and I think on that what I'd also say is that I do have some advice for Sarah and it would be really resist doing media we just don't do it. Don't do it because it is a minefield. And when any journalist wants to interview Sarah Pochum for the next two years, till a general election moving forward, they're going to be doing so because they want to trap her.

47:24And so my advice to Sarah Pochum was do not do any more interviews. Sarah, if you are listening, that does not include the Daily Tea. Nadine Darys, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

47:41Thank you.