Jacob Rees Mogg and Maurice Glasman: Britain must lead on Ukraine & Labour's working class disaster

0:03The Telegraph.

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1:14On today's Daily Tea, I'm joined by Jacob Rees-Mogg. We're going to talk about the economy, inflation, immigration, labor's failures, and the joys of beageling. And then we're going to be joined by the Conservatives' favourite lefty, Maurice Lord Glassman. We're going to talk to him about Starmer's failures, the left's future and Ukraine. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

1:48Jacob, have you been on your holidays? Well, sort of, yes. I was in Kent last week. Very nice. We had a very jolly time where my mother-in-law lives. And my son, my eldest son, had 41 beagles with him. Really? Because he is master of the Eton College beagles. Of course he is. And the quid pro quo for this is that when the professional is on holiday, the schoolboy gets to look after them. And it's a wonderful responsibility because you have a 17-year-old who has to get out of bed in the morning in the holidays. That he can't just think, I'll do my revision later and roll over and get back to sleep.

2:22there are 41 live animals that need to be walked and fed. So where are they normally? They're normally out eaten in the kennels at Eton. So when they come to you in Kent, where do you put them? 41 of them. They're not going to go in the kitchen. Fortunately, there are some disused stables. Right, OK. That's why we were in Kent rather than in Somerset. Right. Because I don't have any space for them in Somerset. And how does he walk them, just let them run? Yes, they follow him. It's really sweet, actually, because you have all these 41 beagles right round the person who is leading them. And a couple of us went and helped him.

2:55But he didn't need much help. The beagles naturally follow their leader, their pack animals. And I suppose you are literally the top dog if you're the master. And how do you get them from Eton to Kent? Oh, they get driven there. So the man who looks after them properly drove them there and collected them at the end. Beagles are used for hunting rabbits? Rabbits and hares, except they don't hunt hares anymore. So they trail hunt. Okay, so they can't kill anymore. It's all trail hunting. They can kill rabbits. It's legal to kill rabbits, but they can't kill hare, so it's trail hunting. How do you distinguish when you're out and about with them between a rabbit and a hare?

3:30How do the dogs distinguish? Every good countryman knows the difference between a rabbit and a hare. I know they do, but does the dog... And you say to the dogs beforehand, now while we're out, do not go for hare, do you go for rabbits? I think they basically trail hunt. Right, okay. So they may occasionally be distracted by a rabbit, but they're pretty good. I could talk about that all day, but unfortunately we have a podcast to make about... About serious matters. And we need to talk about the economy and we need to talk about inflation, which is up. What's going wrong with Britain's economy?

3:57Why are prices rising? Well, I think we should be very worried about the gamut of economic data at the moment, that there are so many things that are going in the wrong direction. So inflation is up and you can explain it away by fares and small movements in bits and pieces. But a year ago, it was pretty much on target. Now it's at 3.8%, nearly double the target. The deficit was£152 billion, 24, 25. It's at this stage in the year, even with a slightly better July, ahead of the deficit for the last financial year. Sterling is all right, but the bond market is at a, what is it, 27-year low in terms of values against yields.

4:48So a lot of economic information should be making us very nervous. And the problem with the inflation is that it was designed, created, caused by Rachel Reeves. Her decisions put inflation up. Her decisions were to increase the minimum wage. Her decision was to put up national insurance on employers. All of that has fed through to prices because it hit some of the lowest margin businesses most. That's hospitality and retail. And they have to push through the increased costs. They can't swallow them up in their vast profit margins because their profit margins are very narrow. But she's still got to make the books balanced because that's Rachel Reeves' one thing is fiscal discipline.

5:31Do you think tax rises are inevitable under this, Chancellor? Well, first of all, she hasn't made the books balance. She hasn't got close to making the books balance. She has come up with a random rule of her own devising to decide whether some expenditure is allowed to be borrowed for and some isn't. This is fair old nonsense because government's infrastructure spending is sometimes dreadfully, uselessly wasteful, such as HS2. And to say that things like HS2 can reasonably be borrowed for because they're investment, no, they're not. They're the purchasing of white elephants. So it's a bogus rule of her own devising, but she's pretty stuck with it.

6:10So are tax rises inevitable? Well, they won't cut expenditure. Every effort to cut expenditure, and to be fair to Rachel Reeves, she's tried a couple of things, has been rejected by her own side. And therefore, what else is there to do? But this risks the doom loop. What is the doom loop? The doom loop is that you weaken the economy by further tax rises. A smaller economy provides less taxation. Less taxation means a bigger deficit. Bigger deficit means further tax rises. Further tax rises mean a weaker economy. and on round you go, spiralling ever downwards. And I'm worried that we're getting very close to that.

6:48And then you have emergency expenditure cuts, which is what Labour had to do in 1931 and it had to do in 1976. This is absolutely classic Labour government experience. So if you were Chancellor, where would you cut? Bearing in mind you've also got to grow. Where would I cut? I would straight away cut the£20 billion that is allocated for carbon capture and storage. I would tell the Bank of England to stop selling bonds because that is a loss into the tens of billions of pounds cumulatively and other central banks aren't doing that. It would be better if the bank wants slightly tighter monetary policy to delay cutting interest rates than to keep on selling bonds.

7:31Those are a couple of things. I would look at UKRI, which spends 20 billion pounds a year, in my view, pretty wastefully. and I would look at freezing benefits next year. You might save a bit of money by reducing asylum hotels, I suppose, as well. And one thing we have to discuss is immigration because new figures show that there were 32 ,059 asylum seekers in UK hotels at the end of June, which is up 8 % on the same point 12 months ago. Now, Labour said we've got a£22 billion black hole we're going to get rid of. They haven't. They said they were going to smash the gangs. They haven't. Do you think it's just that immigration is continuing on a particular trend, or has the problem actually got worse under Labour?

8:13Oh, it's got worse. The 20 billion black hole was a lie anyway. It was complete dishonesty. It was decisions of the Labour Party to pay lots of money to train drivers and things like that created the black hole. And it had no credibility. Nobody believed it after a pretty short while. In terms of migration, smash the gangs was a good election slogan, but they had no idea what to do. and they abandoned the Rwanda plan. The only way we can deal with mass migration is by repealing the Human Rights Act and pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights. This is not enough of itself, but it then makes it possible for the government to do things.

8:53And whisper it very quietly, but I'm beginning to feel a little sorry for this government. Really? Why? Well... You've been there yourself. You know how hard it is. It's not that. It's that they can't govern because of governmental systems that they believe in. So it's these lefties who love law ruled by judges. They're all in favor of it. And then, lo and behold, the judges say, well, planning law doesn't let you do this. And unfortunately, government is becoming completely impossible because with the Human Rights Act, the Climate Change Act, the Equality Act, planning laws, every decision a minister makes gets overturned in the courts.

9:31And so who's deciding? Well, the judges. But the judges don't decide how the whole of policy should be run. They don't make the tradeoff between the human rights of an asylum seeker to be housed and the decision on planning to allow the housing to be used. They say the law says this on housing and it says this on human rights. And they may be completely incompatible. But as a judge, that's not my problem. Yes. It's a minister's problem. But a minister now doesn't have the power to do either of these things. and it's why I think we need a fundamental constitutional restoration so that we actually have ministers who can do things and move away from the left-wing creation of Tony Blair's constitution.

10:13The problem is, I mean, a lot of people might agree with that analysis, Jacob, but they're going to be asking for the next four years, why didn't you do it? And I still don't feel like the Tories have given us a clear answer as to why they didn't do it in a way that doesn't make me think because they didn't do it because they didn't want to do it. Well, they didn't want to do it because half the Tory party was anti-Brexit and didn't want to do anything that smacked of being conservative. There were a lot of pinkos in the Tory party. That was the problem. Boris Johnson... There were pinkos in the Tory party.

10:40Of course there are. Boris Johnson could not have pulled out of the European Convention of Human Rights because he wouldn't have had a majority in the House of Commons. He would have been defeated with probably as many as half of Conservative MPs at the time voting to remain in the convention. That was our problem. And a lot of those people got re-elected. Some of them did, yes. There were still a few pinkos in the Tory party. Yeah, yeah. And so the problem stands that however far Kemi tries to change things, she's always going to come up against the resistance of the parliamentary conservative party, which is reform's argument, isn't it?

11:12It's that it's all well and good, Kemi, making noises about making the conservatives conservative again, but she's dealing with a parliamentary party that doesn't want to be. Well, the thing is, a parliamentary party after the next election will be very different because you'll be going from 121 to 325 if you'll have a majority, broadly speaking. And you've got all those new people coming in. It is fundamentally important that people who stand for the Conservative Party are, in fact, Conservative. OK, well, let's come on to that because that leads us nicely to that. A poll out today suggests that reform would get about 33%.

11:48Labour would get, I think, 18%, and the Tories would get 17%. Not only would reform win a very comfortable majority, but the Tories would be reduced to 24 seats. How do you account for how bad things are? I think there are a number of things that one ought to look at. First of all, I think it's very important that reform the Conservatives do a deal because Labour is discovering that a large majority on a low share of the vote means you have a majority but not a mandate. What's the difference? A majority means that technically you can get things through the House of Commons. A mandate means your MPs don't vote for you because they're sitting on such slim margins.

12:32They look at every decision and think, how will that help me in the next election? It won't. I'm not backing you. If we are to have a fundamentally conservative government with whatever type of C you choose after the next election, it needs to have had a significant share of the vote. 33 % of the vote is not enough to restore the Constitution. 33 plus 17 is? Right. Okay, is 50. Well, these math GCSEs are still... I did. I didn't get a very good grade, but I did pass. ...is 50. That's really important and exciting. Yes. How did the Tories get here? But hang on one second. Let's step back from that.

13:09The implication of that is you're accepting a junior role for the Conservatives. It sounds as though you accept the Tories are going to do that badly. Well, I think Nigel needs the conservatives as well as the conservatives needing Nigel. I think Nigel needs that extra share of the vote to have that mandate as well as a majority. He may also want some of the people, not possibly all of them. But my worry is that Nigel could win an election, go through that door at Downing Street, and be absorbed by the blob because nobody with him has been in government before, knows the tricks that will be played to try and stop him doing things.

13:46The committees that will come out of the woodwork to say you can't appoint peers, which actually are advisory, not compulsory, but nonetheless, people will be throwing their weight around. Like Trump's first term. Like Trump's first term. And Nigel needs to be Trump 2, not Trump 1, if he gets that. So I think he needs the conservative. But he would say we're already hiring people. We've hired people like Jake Berry. We've hired people like Andrea Jenkin. Why should we do a deal? We're the ones who are going to win. If you, Jacob Rees-Mogg, want to help him to make government work, join the Reform Party.

14:18I see that some people have gone to him. I'm not sure that they have necessarily the experience that is most useful. And I think it would be better to do it with a structure that gives him more of what he needs rather than just one or two people. And also what he doesn't want to do is to leave a rump of the Tory party that gets 10 % of the vote led by some lefty that is bitterly opposed to everything he's trying to do. Because that makes it even harder for him to get the mandate. The second part of the question is how the Tories got here. And it was because we failed in government, because we weren't in fact conservative.

14:57We didn't stop the votes. We didn't follow the logic of our policy commitments. So we willed the ends, but not the means. And a new conservative government has to will the means as well. And that, to my mind, is fundamental constitutional change. But what's your thought on this? I mean, you know. What do I think? Yeah, absolutely. My gut tells me that the country wants to give reform a go. And I think reform wants to take the opportunity. I think Nigel Farage thinks I have one shot at getting a majority and doing it by myself. and therefore I don't think he's in the mood for deals. I would like to see a deal because I think the basic dynamic in British politics right now is that the centre-right family is split.

15:40And that's tragic because it can mean that the left can govern for an entire generation. What form that left takes, I'm not sure. It could be something that involves Jeremy Corbyn. It could be something that involves the Greens. We mustn't assume it means Keir Starmer and the centrists slip through the middle. So therefore I would like to see the centre-right reunited. The problem is, I think, for the next four years, the dynamic is set in stone. Nigel wants to have a go, and I don't think he's going to brook any kind of compromise or deal with the Tories. I just wonder, as it gets closer, whether it becomes obvious that there are parts of the country where reform will have a much better chance of winning, parts of the country where the Tories will have a better chance of winning.

16:22Yes. And your point, we could end up with Corbyn. There is a national interest in the right coming together, but it needs to be of the right. It needs to be conservative. The deal with the Lib Dems made the Tory party a bit pink. Right. Both in terms of some of the people and in terms of the policies that it adopted and whipped through in the coalition. And the effects of that are still there. Did that culture last after the coalition ended? Yes, definitely, because some of the people involved were very sympathetic to the coalition. I mean, there was lots of stories about whether or not the promise of a referendum was real or whether it was hoped that the continuation of the coalition would in fact mean that that promise could be given up.

17:08That there was a comfortableness about the coalition with some of the people involved in it because they thought broadly in the same way. They were very comfortable with the blob. Yes. And then the people rejected the blob. 2016 was the overwhelming rejection of the blob. And the blob, nine years later, is still in control. Is there a distinct conservative Big C philosophy that is distinct from reform, that is salvageable during this period? I mean, for me, the interesting thing is it's going to force the Tories into a period of introspection to ask themselves, well, why don't we just go Lib Dem?

17:44Or why don't we just go reform? Why must we survive? What is it that the Big C Conservative Party brings to Britain that no one else does that means it's worth standing for it as an MP? Well, first of all, we are the Conservative Party. And why does this matter? We have an enormously long history. And people on the right are broadly in favour of the history of the nation. They like history, yes. The party can trace its roots back to the Civil War easily. You can trace it back to Queen Anne really, really easily. And that longevity is important if you're a Conservative because you believe in maintaining institutions, But also in that period, the Tory party, the Conservative party has been able to evolve that I'm not standing on the platform of opposing Catholic emancipation and things like that.

18:33So the party has had ability to reinvent itself but also to maintain its link with history. When you say, what do we disagree with reform over? In truth, remarkably little for people who are in my position within the party. Reform is saying many of the things that people like me believe in. And this isn't just on the constitution, but it's also on economic policy, particularly energy policy, and on looking at the failures of an overmighty state. So I think there's a lot of overlap between the Tories and reform. There is also some overlap between the Tories and the Social Democrats, Social Democrats who are in what was the Liberal Party.

19:18And there is a discomfort in those two sides of the Tory party. Right. It has been suggested that the Tories will require anyone who was an MP and wishes to run again to reapply as if they had never served in Parliament, which I think is extraordinary. It could mean that someone who'd been in Parliament for 15 years is forced to go on the course, that a complete newbie seeking to be in Parliament has to go on. What do you think about that? Well, I think that the party's entitled to make the rules that it wishes to make and that one shouldn't be overground about these things. So you're happy to attend one of those away days where you have to explain what an MP does.

19:56Saying happy is not the right way of phrasing it. But, you know, I lost my seat. I'm no longer a Member of Parliament. I can see why they've come to the conclusion that people don't deserve special treatment. I certainly think it's right that when you get to the individual selection stage, associations should be free to select MPs or non-MPs alike. I don't think MPs should be grandfathered. I don't think they should be automatically reselected for their seats. Though I think associations should be free to say, we want our former MP, which some would and some wouldn't. But as I said, I don't think one should get too grand about these things.

20:35OK, OK. How is Kemi doing? And do you think she will stay on as leader? I think Kemi is doing as well as can be expected under very difficult circumstances. And I don't think people want a new leadership election. She's also making a big impression during the summer holidays. She is getting into the papers every day. I noticed the Telegraph has a picture of her doing something most days. This is great. This is what leaders of the opposition have to do. But we've got videos of Rob doing something every day. I mean, that's the thing. There is someone out there who's also doing things. And Robert is not the only one who is.

21:10True. Chris Philp as well, yes. Chris is doing things. James Cleverley is around. You know, there are always people who think that they might like pop at the job if a vacancy arises. But there is no vacancy. And I think, to be fair to Kemi, she's doing things with energy and a degree of panache. She's a charismatic figure. That's her strength. And I think we're seeing more of the real chemi, which is a very good thing. Not everybody will warm to it, but people will feel it's genuine. And authenticity is a very valuable commodity in politics. So no, I think she's doing, as I said, as well as can be expected in incredibly difficult times for the Tories.

21:48She said that she was proud to have spotted someone cheating in a test and to have reported them, and they subsequently got expelled. Would you report someone who you saw cheating in a test? Telltale tit, your tongue will split and all the doggies in the road will have a little bit. I'm afraid I tell my children that the greatest crime is to tell tales on your fellows at school. I'm not sympathetic to being a telltale tit. I think I agree. That's enough of dissecting the Tories. Let's talk about labour with Morris Glassman.

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24:22We are now delighted to introduce Maurice Glassman, Lord Glassman, the Labour peer. Maurice is an academic. He is one of the founders of... Is that a wrong way to describe you? You're happy with that? Carry on, yeah. OK, scholarly. A scholar. Maurice is a scholar. He's one of the founders of Blue Labour. He's played a very significant role in Labour politics behind the scenes. He was also invited to the second inauguration of Donald Trump, which is very highly unusual for a British person to do. And we're going to get into his unusual philosophy, which may well end up, or he would say very popular philosophy, which may well end up remaking politics in his own image.

24:59Morris is a fantastic character. He is a practicing Jew. He plays the trumpet. And you smoke 40 cigarettes a day. Is that correct? At least. At least. And they're roll-ups. Yeah. I think that's the bit I can't get around. I've just been to Ukraine and I picked up for duty-free. So at the moment, I'm off message. Perhaps the best way into you and what you think is to begin by asking how you rate Labour's first year in power. What has it got right and what has it got wrong? And what is your analysis, your philosophical analysis? I see Labour's first year in office very much like I view Margaret Thatcher's first year in office, confused, ill-defined, searching for direction.

25:43You're too young, Tim, to remember, and probably you are too, Jacob, but the first year that Margaret Thatcher was in, the wets, and it was confused and hugely unpopular. Now all anybody remembers is Big Bang, Falklands, and the 81. There is no alternative. Tina, there is no alternative. So I'm viewing this first year as very ill-defined and tentative. But everything will be decided in the next six months, I think. Right. What has gone wrong? What has not landed well with the public and why? Well, what we're living through is a very dramatic change of era. I mean, a very significant break with what I call progressive globalization.

26:29I mean, I'm at odds with you, Jacob, about free markets. I think it's the end. I think it's an era of protectionism, of state involvement in the economy, of sovereignty, of the return of the nation state. And also, for Labour purposes, the return of the working class as a very significant agent in domestic politics. So the left behind are now centre stage. So what you've got with Labour is an entire class of people educated within our educational system. in the last 40 years, which had been entirely progressive. It's not the first time I've made this joke, but really it's the last thing you want to hear when you go to the doctor.

27:07It's progressive. It's not a very good recipe for understanding reality. So human rights law are up is down, men are women. All of this was completely accepted as orthodoxy. And have some mercy and compassion. this government has walked in with a whole series of ideological commitments to this and reality is utterly at odds you've got the election of donald trump you've got war in ukraine you've got huge anger about immigration that has been building for many years and none of this progressive ideology is going to be of the slightest use to them so what i see is a crash course you know as my dad used to say go to university and get stupid the really important thing is whether you can repent of that and actually get some sense back into your head.

27:58Reform has stolen Labour's clothes in this area, and Boris stole them in 2019. I was very struck, in 2019... Well, Jacob, we let them have them. There's not so much stealing as we handed Labour in a beautiful parcel to Boris and the reform. But the patriotic, Attlee, Healy... Bevin, really. ...type of Labour leader has gone. And Keir Starmer seems to believe in internationalism, globalism, human rightsism, rule by foreign courts. He doesn't seem to be pushing a particularly British agenda. His treatment of Rosie Duffield in relation to the trans issue seemed to show that he had no idea whether a man or it was a man or a woman or any of it.

28:45And that has alienated so many voters. It's not dissimilar to the problem the Tories face, that people say, well, how come you suddenly come to that view? Labour's spent 20 or 30 years moving in this highly progressive, unpatriotic, unclear way, and suddenly to do another U-turn. I think it's way beyond a U-turn. So the tradition I come from, the Labour tradition, is patriotic. So the question is, the present circumstance, working class disaffection, the restoration of state sovereignty, the control of borders, these are all really historic labor issues. Industrialization, this is my huge thing, is that one of the greatest problems of the last 40 years, beginning with Margaret Thatcher, was contempt for industry, you know, and the death of industry.

29:42And so there's got to be, they really believe in transferable skills, you know, going to university. We should all be white collar professionals. I would close half the universities and turn them into vocational colleges, you know, as a matter of urgency. Sovereignty, they don't like sovereignty. They really, they prefer multilateral legal treaties. So compliance is their mantra. I'm for rebellion. I want to see clean water. I'm very much in favour, not a straightforward nationalisation of state control, but the restoration of the water boards, local participation in cleaning the rivers, clean air, those things, but absolutely not this mantra of compliance to net zero directives.

30:25I want to see a mix of nuclear fossil fuels and renewables. It's absolutely vital that we generate heat if we're going to have an industrial future. And that's where our attention should be. crime you have said i believe that shoplifters should be put in the stocks and pelted well i think the old ways are the good ways i mean so so for example what is it when you i mean i i had this experience on baker street i was pretending i was sherlock holmes and trying to find out where i was going and um someone just came and tried to take my phone out of my head it's a really distressing humiliation. Mugging, having a phone nicked, shoplifting, these are acts of violent coercion and intimidation.

31:07And the prisons are false. So I think it's a very good idea for the people who do that to know what it means to be humiliated. And I think rotten fruit from Asda, St. Frizzan, Tesco has put up the stocks in the middle of the park. And people who've had their phone nicked can throw rotten tomatoes at the people who humiliated them. I can't see a problem with that. I think that's a good deterrent, but it's above all to acknowledge the humiliation of having stuff nicked out of your hands. It's really shocking. I don't know if you'd agree with this analysis, but I'm also from the left originally. I was raised in a Labour household.

31:41I sensed it. Ran for Parliament for the Labour Party. And what people might not appreciate is that the left has always been a broad coalition. And there are within it, always have been ideological socialists. But there is also a tradition which is almost small c conservative, largely working class, in the past very often religious. And Labour had space for both, but it tended to be dominated by the very practically minded, patriotic, culturally conservative, working class trade union tradition. Personified by Bevin. Bevin is the absolute apotheosis of that person. One of the founders of NATO in the 1940s.

32:16And the biggest trade union. A Somerset man. A Somerset man. There you go. But since the 80s, slowly the progressives, the more ideological type people, have tended to take over the party. The Fabians, we can call them in generic tradition. And in a way, Keir Starmer embodies that because he was a human rights lawyer. He was pro-Remain, etc. So he represents the triumph of a more... I know he is the son of a factory worker, but he represents the triumph... Toolmaker, sorry. He represents the triumph of a more middle-class tradition. To sum it up, when I was a boy during the war, if you were asked to imagine what a Labour person looked like, what a Labour voter looked like, you'd imagine typically a man, middle-aged, in a flat cap who worked with his hands.

32:59If you were asked today, you would typically imagine a woman with pink hair who teaches at a university. I think in HR department. I think it's a more authoritarian disposition than simply being a teacher. You know, the lanyard class. The lanyard class. is the way that I've tried to express that. But come back to Tim's point, it's just slightly more complicated, if I may. When I look at the prime minister, I see someone very divided of soul, very divided of mind. I don't see a straightforward progressive. I see someone whose mother had great difficulties, whose brother was disabled, and who knows what it means to suffer on this earth in a precarious and difficult situation.

33:43That's his childhood up to 18. His dad was very task turn. I mean, Keir had to be a very responsible young man and care for his family. This is all extremely honourable. Then, like many of us, you go to university and you get stupid. You know, you learn that he studied law and what's wrong with human rights? Human rights are very good. You know, after the war, this was accepted. We've only just discovered how idiotic they are, how they turn everything upside down and how much greater our common law tradition is in relation to that. Why, some people might ask, why not just in reform? And I say that, okay, putting aside culture, history, biography, which is very difficult to put aside, especially if you are a conservative person, because those things matter a lot to you.

34:30Like we were saying earlier about the Conservative Party institutionally, one doesn't walk away from it because it is old. But my thing with reform is I keep thinking they're just a bunch of Thatcherites. And then they say something and I can't disagree with it. Like, for instance, nationalising steel. I feel like they are goading me into voting for them. There's not much more they could say or do that make me think, fine, I'll go for it. I go on regularly, Jacob being my witness, I go on GB News regularly with Nigel Forge. I would say this, we both supported Brexit. We both want very resolute and decisive actions in relation to the boats, in relation to severing the ties with the EU and sovereignty.

35:09But there's two huge areas. The first is you've mentioned. Deep in his soul, he's a saloon bath. That's right. That's just the reality of the matter. That's why I like him so much. Yes, that's why Jacob has a much greater affinity. I really oppose that. Yes. And this stuff with nationalisation is really just smelling the wind and going that way. There's no plan for the nationalisation of water that they've put forward. There's no real plan for the nationalisation of steel. they're just courting working class voters whereas in labor believe me it's in our it's in our genes that one nationalization and we've got very developed plans for nationalization of water nationalization of rail nationalization of steel the second is there is a putin a pisa i mean i really support britain taking a very strong lead in supporting ukraine and building up our armed horses putting troops on the ground so why am i not in reform setting aside all the historical reasons the same reasons as you would never leave the conservatives i would never i'm faithful i'm spurs i'm jewish i'm labor these are just take it as it goes i'm not going to start supporting another football club just because daniel levy is one of the most stupid people that's ever run a institution.

36:31And that's how it is. But it's also because of Farage's attitude to the Ukraine more and his attitude to the economy. You're just back from Ukraine. Yeah. What is your experience there? What lessons should we be learning from how people are feeling in Ukraine? What is the resilience in Ukraine? Well, the resilience is extremely high. I mean, my parents used to tell me about the Blitz. They lived in London in the Blitz. They weren't evacuated. And, you know, the sirens would start, and the response of the family was to sit exactly where they were and have another cup of tea. They didn't go to the bomb shelter.

37:12What's astonishing, I mean, I'm just thinking about that in Ukraine. The sirens come. I went to Genipho, which is right on the front line in the Far East. Sirens start blaring, and everybody orders another coffee. I mean, they're very resilient. They're very good. So it's like carrying on up the Khyber. The second thing, Jacob, is that there is a real love of our country. We are considered to be, and this I give Boris Johnson great credit, he was immediate, intuitive, instinctive in his response, and it really meant something to them. So they are looking to us as their primary partner. They know they are very sensible people, They know that there's a gangster summit, that it's out of their hands, you know, that deals will be done.

38:01But they're absolutely resolute to defend their sovereignty. Now, this is where I think the UK government, our government, must take a lead. Ukraine is outside the EU, has tremendous natural resources and agricultural. It still has industry. Last time, I mean, a week ago, I went to the space agency, the old Soviet space agency, which is in Dnipro. called Yuzmash, where they're designing completely state-of-the-art satellites. You know, I want to see us, our country, our government, our industry, aligning with Ukraine, joint ventures so that we can get production going here. I met the guy who produced and designed the drones that took out the Russian army.

38:46Do you remember that attack about six weeks ago? It's called First Contact. It's amazing, and it's completely beyond what we're producing. I mean, it's really, this is the thing with post-Soviet industry. It's extremely excellent and very high end. And you can't take it out with one bullet. It's industrial in that sense. The helicopters are the same. So what I see in Ukraine is a realization that the West wasn't quite what they thought it was. They thought they'd go for the Soviet Union to the Europe. They don't trust Germany. They don't trust France. and now they certainly don't trust the United States, but they do trust us.

39:26This is our moment to lead the balance of interests in Europe. I think that within five to 10 years, Ukraine will be the biggest agricultural, industrial, military power in Eastern Europe. I think that London, Kiev can hold the balance against Paris, Berlin. I do think that the European Union is on a death spiral. I think that Germany and France are deeply confused and unable to change direction. They're locked in. Thank God we left the European Union. We have the freedom. So this is the issue. Can Keir Starmer lead a sovereign nation to hold the balance of power in Europe against Paris Berlin?

40:08We can't possibly because he can't even lead his own party to make it appeal to the core voters. If he can't do the basic job of a leader, how can he possibly bestride the world stage? He's not Churchill. He's not Margaret Thatcher. Does he have this sort of vision? You've got a vision. But Kirstenheimer projects no vision. At the meeting with Trump, he was there as a sort of also-ran. Yeah, we were certainly on the wrong side of that particular... We should have been with Trump, not with the European leader. Yeah. But what I would say about him, Jacob, which you're not acknowledging, is that when he became leader, he took a very resolute stand against Corbyn in the left.

40:49I mean, he really did lead that. Okay, but that's been a great success because now he's got a rival party that's pushed his share of the vote down to 18%. But that's exactly what you would want, what people like I would want. But do you? Well, you don't want Labour to be a sort of public sector union Islamist. But to go back to our earlier discussion, the Labour Party, and Tim said this, has always been quite a broad church. It's had people within it who have been on the far left. And actually the job of a leader is to, I mean, Tony Blair did this remarkably well, to be fair to him, to keep all the wings of the party together, to make a majority of 180 legislate in the way that he wanted.

41:31And Starmer can't make a similar majority legislate in the way he wants. And he's lost part of his party. Well, you know, I understand all that, but I don't see it quite in that way. There are different factions within Labour that need balancing, but there is no way that you can restore the relationship with working class on the basis of a progressive pro-Palestine agenda. So I'm very in favour of this. It clarifies matters. But it's very important, I just say, to Muslim working class voters. Very. Right. So part of the problem is by making that choice to say goodbye to Corbyn, Labour, it seems, has also alienated a very important urban voting bloc that could cost it the next election.

42:21Well, this is a huge aspect of the later ahead. We have to absolutely talk, engage and organize Muslim working class people within the trade union movement, within the Labour Party around the common good. Now, I don't. I have my own heresies in relation to Israel. We don't need to go into that. But let's just say that I'm a British patriot, absolutely. And the concern is not the loss of those people, but the loss of working class support for labor is the fundamental problem. And that has to be the highest priority in terms of restoring trust with them. Jacob, I wonder how you'd respond to the charge that Morris and others would make that part of what makes life difficult nowadays is free market capitalism.

43:06Well, I think free market capitalism is what has made people as prosperous as they are. That's why we have the standard of living that we have. Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't inevitably problems. And the greatest problem you always have is with change. and we are facing a period of change with AI, which I think is similar to the process of change we had with the agrarian revolution, and that if you try and fight it, you will actually make everything worse, and that people at the end of the agricultural revolution were much, much better off, that you had excess food, people were less likely to suffer from famine, you had much more free time in the end and ability to use consumer goods, the standard of living improved.

43:50So I think capitalism has worked very well. I'm just utilitarian of you, Jacob. I mean, what you had was the dispossession of our entire peasantry. They were forced off the land for pleasures. But there's this ridiculous... And then there was the industrial and there was the degradation of the human... But there's the ridiculous romantic idea of how comfortable it was living in the countryside in the 18th century. Living on foraging. Hobbes was right. Hobbes, obviously, 17th century, but life was not... We had the common lands. You could have access to a cow every year and the fruit. Life was nasty, brutish and short.

44:21that the poor in 17th, 18th century society had a much, much worse time than they were having by the 20th century. But the thing that capitalism finds hardest is inflection points. And that if we're having one now, that is what has the greatest disruption on communities. But capitalism works with the nation state. And I think what we've lost is the nation state and mass migration. And the worst thing for the people who you're talking about has been mass migration because that has absolutely undercut their ability to earn their living and to improve the living standards. A whole cluster of things, Jacob.

45:01I think that the state was something of a Leviathan in imposing. This is the point about capitalism. It didn't emerge spontaneously. But through state power. But on this AI point, I'm completely with you. So I'm very much in favor of a political approach to AI. I think AI is key to state reform. I think it can lead to a transformation. I want to restore the integrity and functioning of the state. What people see is the bigger it gets, the worse it gets. I think that staffing could be cut by 50 % through the use of AI. In terms of just so much of the work is inquiries from people about what to do.

45:44It could give diagnosis. Bad news for doctors, bad news for lawyers. That's good news for me. I think the restoration of what is human can flow from this. but it can't be something that's just owned by big corporations. I think there's a real political function for AI. I'm very pleased that we've got to this point in the discussion and this is where we'll have to end it unfortunately that the conservative is the one who's in favour of economic change or at least managed economic change. The Labour peer is the one who's most critical of it and I think that tells us something about, that's my surprise, the audience.

46:20Actually I think we've ended with an extraordinary degree of agreement because what Maurice said on AI I'm completely with. And I had a fascinating visit to a company just outside Oxford that's doing AI for medicine because they said to me, the good doctors love it and the bad doctors hate it because the good doctors find it's a tool to make them more productive and better diagnoses, the bad doctors see their livelihood as a threat. Lord Glassman, thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me.

46:54Thank you.

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