‘Less authentic than AI’: Starmer's ‘reset’ speech rejected as rivals close in

0:02The Telegraph.

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0:54Shabbily dressed, outdated ideas. The speech was supposed to save Keir Starmer, but he only dug himself a deeper grave.

1:02Camilla: The Labour MP trying to unseat him won't back down and now Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham are circling. And Zach Polanski caught out on another lie. Why do people trust him? Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tomini. And me, Tim Stanley.

1:30Camilla: Tim, it's a shame we're not recording this at 2.30 because I've just had to put a torch inside your gob and have a look at what's going on back there. What's going on? Oh, you'd have seen a little party of dwarves hammering my tooth with chisels. I've just got a wisdom tooth coming through. There's nothing you can do about it. It's a bit late in the day, isn't it, for this? I know. I'm still growing. I'm still growing as a man. I mean, it's bad enough to have to watch Keir Starmer do his 30th reset speech. Which is not unlike dentistry. Yes, indeed. But it's quite another to have to watch it while you've got toothache.

2:05Camilla: Poor thing. And you've got to sketch it after this. Are you all right? What did we... Sorry, can I just start with... You're trying to save your premiership. You have just suffered Labour's worst local election defeat in history. You turn up to try and win over the nation. Yes. And you don't wear a tie. I know I've gone on about this before. Yeah. But I find this so objectionable. Wrong clothes, wrong location. Partly it is the uniform of authenticity. And Keir's attempts at authenticity always sound fake. Have you noticed I get a lot of AI videos? They're never very good. I got one the other day that it was actually a female actor with a man's voice.

2:47It could be a green counsellor. What are your algorithms doing to you? I don't know. They're always chair tai chi. It's always exercise from your chair. Anyway, my point is the men, the AI men that you see on there, he sounds like that.

3:04Camilla: Yeah, he sounds less authentic than the AI men. I am resetting my government today and I can show you how to lose£20 by June. I know, it's like, Keir, have you tried turning it off and on again? Right, but the thing with him is wrong dress, wrong location. If you're going to go shirt sleeves, authentic, and you're going to nationalise steel, why not go to Scunthorpe for the day? Parade around a room, a warehouse. Have a beer, have a bacon sandwich, shake hands with a few local manual workers. Put on a hard hat and a high vis. Instead, he dresses for the steelworks in a room, a windowless room in London, in front of a Union Jack.

3:43Camilla: You can't do Tielus and Lectern. But I think this is interesting because who is he speaking to? The Union Jack, but also the shirt sleeves. Is he talking to the nation as prime minister or is he talking to the party as the embodiment of Labour values? Well, he must be talking to the party because they cheered him in and I don't think the country would do that. But you and I have been at this rodeo many, many times. And you know that the moment at which a PM is losing it is when he switches from being prime minister speaking for the country to leader of party begging for its support. That's right.

4:20Camilla: And that's what he was doing. And that's what he's become. It's from statesman to party manager. And that's why we had this direct appeal about being stronger through fairness. We must make this country stronger. Take control of our economic security, our energy security, our defence security. And we must make this country fairer.

4:52Strength through fairness. That is my compass in this world. It is a core Labour argument. And in the coming days, you will see those values writ large in the King's speech. And you will see hope, urgency, and exactly whose side we're on, reflected in everything we say and everything we do.

5:12Camilla: And you get him directly addressing Labour rights, but trying to dress it up as if he's addressing the Labour heartlands that he just lost. On that slogan, our brilliant editor noticed that stronger, fairer Britain is an anagram of Britain's frontier rage, which conjures such a wonderful picture, doesn't it? My goodness, can I recommend everyone checks out the puzzles page after they listen to this podcast? If you are appealing to the Labour heartlands that you've just lost to reform, literally Nigel Farage has bulldozed through that red wall. Is realigning with the EU really the best you can come out with?

5:57Camilla: I get the whole let's re-nationalise steel because that's a reform policy that he's just cravenly tried to steal in order to appeal to the North. And also to appeal to the unions that seem to be abandoning him in their droves. But what, you know, what are you going to say next? I'm going to bring in legislation to make it a national custom to wear a flat cap. This is so cravenly basic, like, oh, I'm going to pull up the renationalised steel lever because I've run out of other levers. So try and follow through this logic. The public have rejected Labour to a historic degree. He believes the reason is that Labour is not Labour enough.

6:38So lean more into Labour. His analysis is that Labour is falling down on two points. One, it's comms strategy. I hate the word comms, just say communications, which implies that the public doesn't realise how lucky it is to have a Labour government. So they're going to have to tell them. he said quote analysis matters but arguments matter more so we're actually going to see more of him in his shirt sleeves talking more about being working class on this occasion it was about his siblings being working class there was a point where even he raised his parents and laughed and said don't worry i'm not going to go there the tool maker didn't put an appearance but we're going to hear the words working class a lot the second thing is he said we have emphasized incremental change, but what's actually needed is structural change and quickly because people are not seeing the change in their lives.

7:29So that's where we get these three new, in inverted commas, big policies that are meant to be systemic, big structural change. And they are one, nationalised steel, two, put Britain back in the heart of Europe, and three, least controversially of all, less university arts degrees, more trainee positions. Let's put to one side because that's kind of a no-brainer. We all like that. But let's take the top two. One, nationalization of steel. Already planning to do it, in effect, but it comes with the rider of it will happen if it is judged to be in the public interest. It has to pass a certain test.

8:05So in other words, it might not even happen.

8:08Camilla: Yes. Right. But even if it did happen, it's not something which fixes the rest of the country. We've had focus group people in here who have told us what people are most worried about is the cost of living, their budget. So steel nationalisation, very popular in Scunthorpe and bits of Wales, doesn't affect the rest of the country, also might not even happen. And then putting us back into Europe, heart of. Okay, but as people, as journalists ask, so does that mean single market or customs union membership? And he wouldn't say. Because like with the steel nationalisation public interest, this might not actually happen.

8:49And by the way, I suspect there's a tension between nationalising steel and getting back in with the EU, because the EU doesn't like things like that. So those two are in tension as well. But as someone else, one of the journalists pointed out, your whole thing is you became leader and you became electable again, saying we have to reconcile ourselves to Brexit.

9:11Camilla: Yes, and you said you had two red lines that you wouldn't cross, which is re-entering the customs union and the single market. But he can't be trusted on that because he's Captain Flipflop. And the working class turned against Labour on the Brexit issue. And if you look at a map of the UK, reform just won all the Brexit areas. Yes, but there's a bigger irony here because he's also, the buzzword of this speech or the buzz phrase was, we must not return to the status quo. How can you say in one breath that the public is fed up of status quoism and then say that we need to get back in bed with Brussels?

9:48Camilla: If Brussels and getting back in bed with it isn't a representation of the status quo, I don't know what is. Why doesn't he realise that he is status quo? OK, he's not rivaling Francis Rossi. You know, he's not going to take to the stage and start belting out his greatest hits. He doesn't have any. People look at him and see, Mr Lanyard, you are all about just maintaining mediocrity. There's no vision. You don't have a vision. You're not creative enough. You're not charismatic enough. So you're coming out with the same status quo. We've heard all this nonsense before. Going back to the EU is another contradiction within the whole speech.

10:27If we return to the EU flat cap in hand, they will go from hating us for voting to leave to laughing at us for trying to come back. And then shafting us. a high price for us to do that. But also, if Britain fails to make something of Brexit, isn't that the ultimate state failure? Yes. And yet here he was saying in the speech and questions, I don't believe Britain is broken. It's still working. It's still a great, fair, diverse country, etc. But you're giving up. This is the equivalent of Britain saying we're going to go to the moon. We're definitely going to be on the moon. And then we're not going to the moon.

11:02Camilla: No. Or we'll only go to the moon if France and Germany say so. But this is reminiscent as well of Rachel Reeves banging on about the only way we can get growth in this country is to align ourselves to the EU. And everyone who got a basic grasp of economics is saying, hang on a minute, isn't their growth rate really low? Aren't you contradicting yourself? Because you keep on banging on about us having a higher growth rate than the Eurozone. Yes. Why would you want to tag yourself to failure? And there's always an argument for lower trade barriers. And there are small businesses. and individual citizens who've been hit very hard by those barriers, some of which have now been taken down.

11:36But OK, it is a no-brainer that you want to facilitate easy trade between us and the continent. But the future of the world is AI and emerging economies, right? So again, it comes back to state failure. If Britain has hit 2026 and gone, we need to try to replicate the economic experiment of 1973 and join the equivalent of the common market, it just looks like we've horribly failed.

12:02Camilla: Also, if we wanted to pioneer on AI and data centres, as the Chancellor has said, we absolutely do not want to be aligned with the EU, which has got really stringent regulations on both. We want to break away and have a bright and bold new future. I tell you what, though, I tell you what the biggest problem facing the UK is right now, and I'm so glad the Prime Minister pointed it out, because after Thursday, do you know what I'm really, really worried about? I'm really worried about Tommy Robinson and the far right right now. I don't know about you, we've got a rising anti-Semitism problem largely propagated by the Greens and the left and their bonkers ideas.

12:39Camilla: But we should all be extremely worried about the far right. Well, there is a far right Robinson march planned for this weekend and he has said that he will block far right agitators coming from outside the country to attend it. Now, A, why not just stop the march if it's that much of a threat and B, there have been some other marches you might want to have paid some attention to We could all be worried, let's all be worried about Isn't that letting the cat out of the bag? In this speech, to make a big fuss about the big far-right march and not address the week after week after week pro-Palestine march It's absolutely cravenly self-interested And by the way, we can all worry about the far right and Tommy Robinson.

13:26Camilla: And you and I have spoken about him in the past. But the last time I checked, the far right in this country and Tommy Robinson weren't going around stabbing Jews outside synagogues. They weren't actually calling for the Israel state to be wiped off the map. They weren't calling to globalise the Intifada. So can we please maybe concentrate? I did write my column about this at the weekend. Can we actually see the extremists operating in plain sight here and take them on? Because unlike the far right and Tommy Robinson, they appear to have been elected to many, many local council seats. And that should put the fear of God into everybody in this country.

14:04Camilla: I'm sorry, but sectarianism has taken hold. It's not a far right problem. It's a far left problem. And why can't the prime minister lance that boil? He can't because he is worried about losing Muslim voters. And that's a fact. The prime minister attacking reform said that they, quote, want more grievance politics, more division, not solutions, but someone to blame. As James Heale, the spectator, said, if he thinks British people don't like grievance and division, he hasn't met them. In fact, these are the things that get me out of bed in the morning, I might say. But it's the classic politician's trick of saying my opponent is spreading division and hate.

14:42and then dividing the country against your opponent and trying to get people to hate them by suggesting that Nigel Farage is a fraudster, a con man and by unsubtle implication in some way linked with the Tommy Robinson far right because that's why you put all the same names in the same speech.

14:58Camilla: Because it's easy. But by the way, my opponent is spreading division and hate but I am, if you don't mind, going to cherry pick one of his key policies about renationalising steel because I appreciate that this hateful neo-Nazi is actually quite good at winning over Labour voters. Perhaps he wants to consider why that is. Perhaps he wants to consider why huge swathes of the country turned turquoise on Thursday. And it might be something rather beyond everyone being racists and bigots. I mean, you know, I'm just hazarding a guess here that maybe those people exercise their vote in the completely opposite direction because they actually think the prime minister is not just a lame duck but a dead duck and that the party has failed to deliver on any of its promises.

15:45Well, that's the problem. The local elections were in large part, and MPs say this privately, a referendum on Keir Starmer himself. But we now have his strategy. He said we cannot win as a weaker version of reform or Greens, but rather as a stronger version of Labour. And we got some more evidence of what that means over the weekend by the return from outer space, with an angry look on his face, of Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman. Harriet is going to be in charge of women.

16:14Camilla: Which is interesting because she can't actually identify what one is. No idea what a woman is. She thinks a woman can have a penis, so that's a great start. Gordon Brown is our envoy, our special envoy. Vote-winning Gordon Brown, who was so economically literate when it came to flogging off our gold at record low prices. I'm sure that will really ingratiate Labour with those heartlands that they've lost to reform Well, Gordon Brown is back because, I don't know Lloyd George wasn't available Yes But my golly, he did look like a 19th century ghost God love him I mean, one shouldn't joke about people just getting old because they can't help it But as a visual Yes As a visual In a country in which one of the principal issues is generational inequality Yeah The fact that he's not only favouring the old over the young when it comes to the pension lock, but he's also favouring the old over the young when it comes to appointments within the Labour Party just really rubbed it in the face of so many younger members of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

17:12Camilla: Absolutely. Lost a bit of weight, hasn't he, Gordon Brown? But his hands are still massive, I note. And let's not forget that it's also a curious choice because I know Brown has come out very vehemently against it in recent times, but wasn't he the one who brought Peter Mandelson into his cabinet? Right, exactly, yes. I'm sure that's the best look. And did the resurrection of Mandy help Keir Starmer either? And, you know, again, I come back to stronger version of Labour. This is a prime minister talking to his party. These are appointments that the Labour Party might like. I'm not even sure the wider party does, actually.

17:46But certainly within Westminster, there'll be lots of people going, oh, yeah, they're great. And Harriet Harman, I mean, she's got that award-winning podcast. I'm not sure that anyone's heard it, including the judges.

17:55Camilla: but she is wildly popular. We'll win the next one, I'm sure. I think it was popular with Rachel Reeves because she's a brownite, which I think is slightly oxymoronic when it comes to being a chancellor. It is like saying, I'm a big fan of him because he's close to Gladstone. These terms are practically from a different century. And the fact that we are still being dragged back to Labour's personal internecine conflicts, we don't care. But they're making us care about it. Yeah, maybe Lord Kinnock's going to get a little cool in a while. Can we just pay tribute before we speak to Ben Riley-Smith to Matt, our cartoonist?

18:36Camilla: If you've missed it, it's on the website. It's so good. It's a picture of Peter Mandelson going, I barely knew Keir Starmer. Which I think absolutely captures the zeitgeist of the moment. Let's welcome Ben Riley-Smith back into the Daily Tea studio. you're not only now chief political commentator, but who's the daddy? I'm literally the daddy. You are the daddy. He has become a father since we last spoke, which is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Can you talk us through the mechanics of how this, first of all, Catherine West effort to unseat the Prime Minister might actually work? Yes, it's a bit complicated.

19:17Catherine West, who is not especially well known outside of Westminster, or even if you're being uncharitable, inside of Westminster before the weekend, And the surprise going over the top and said, I will challenge Keir. Over the weekend, her pitch seemed to be using the formal mechanism for a challenge, which is someone comes forward and then 20 % of the Labour parliamentary party, which is 81 Labour MPs, would need to put their name to that person. Then it would trigger a contest. Publicly. Publicly. Yes. Critically. Unlike the Tories who have this no confidence letter, anonymous. So in other words, you have to take a really big risk to say, I'm backing that person if you're an MP.

19:52Yes, and the move is not, unlike the Tories, it's just I've got no confidence in the leader. Let's have a vote. This is, I want to be the leader. Anyone, people need to sign up for me. She's now on Monday morning after Keir's big speech says, OK, I'm not going to put myself forward as the candidate, but I am going to gather names to try and pressure the Prime Minister to announce a timetable. So essentially she's not using that formal mechanism. It's now an informal, I will become the person who will gather up these names, and the higher it goes, the more pressure there is going to be.

20:21Camilla: Gather up names of candidates to challenge him or gather up names of people who want him to be challenged. Gather up names of Labour MPs who say, look, Keir, we would like you to go. And the thing that everybody is coalescing around that she is saying is timetable. So not you've got to go now, but you've got to set out a timetable for when you will go. And that is shorthand in Westminster Parliament for set out a timetable for when Andy Burnham, the Manchester United, can come back in. Because I was about to say, Ben, why might she have gone over the weekend from effectively, you must go now. I'm building the names to trigger a contest to on Monday.

20:55Wait a few months. What's behind that? You saw this lovable position where on Friday, Saturday morning, lots of people on the soft left were coming out saying this is really bad. Keir needs to essentially come up with a plan for going. And then Catherine West said, great, I'll torpedo it all and immediately trigger a contest. And then all those people on the left said, no, OK, you've got to pause. Let's do this thing orderly. And the reason is, if you believe Andy Burnham, who has moved around politically a lot, but is currently positioning himself on the left, is the best person to be the next Labour leader, then you need the time for him to get back to the House of Commons.

21:31Remember, he's Manchester mayor. He's not an MP. Only MPs can run to be Labour leader. So you need the Prime Minister to say, OK, I'm going to go. I'll proceed in the post for a couple of months. And yes, I'll say yes to Andy Burnham when a by-election emerges. And yes, we'll support him to get back into the Commons by winning that by-election. So essentially, you need time. And if it had happened sooner, if she had succeeded in getting her 81 names. It could not be Burnham. It couldn't be Burnham, but it might be West Streeting. It might be West Streeting.

22:00Camilla: Which she wouldn't want because she was a Corbynista. Right, so the very people who are pushing for him to go over the weekend realise they might accidentally be inviting Wes Streeting in. Because the other part of this is Angela Rayner and she's not ready yet either. No, so Angela Rayner on Sunday released a thousand word statement today, gave a speech to a trade union, the CWU. There were lots of swipes at Keir. We need to do left-wing things. We need to be world change. We need to be a working class party. There was not a I am demanding now that you resign, Prime Minister. So she's not explicitly calling for the Prime Minister to go.

22:35And if she has leadership ambitions, I think there's still genuinely a will she, won't she if the position emerged. When you talk to people around her, they do say all the scrutiny in her private life has taken its toll. But let's say she does want to be leader and there was a contest immediately. She still has that hangover of the HMRC investigation into her taxpayers that has not yet concluded. I think there's an expectation it might conclude in the next couple of weeks, because now the election campaign's out of the way, that kind of perda period's gone. So she, if she wants to become leader, also needs some time to make sure that's all squared.

23:08Camilla: Her rhetoric on X and beyond appears to be very much that she sees herself as the junior partner in a Burnham-Rayner alliance, right? And we had that meeting where they got together on a Friday night in Manchester. He was photographed looking as if he was wearing a rain bonnet, but it wasn't actually. It was some trick of the lens. But this is quite surprising because the membership want her and she seems to be doubting herself and thinking that she should play second fiddle to Burnham, even though he's the one without a seat. It's intriguing this. Also, he does a chicken run. Can we now say after last Thursday that any Labour seat is safe?

23:46Camilla: What if a chicken runs to a so-called Labour seat, reform throw the absolute book at here, and he doesn't win it? And it's won by the Greens or reform, which could be very, very embarrassing. I am disappointed that Angela doesn't think she can do it in her own right. I know you are. I think she would do a ruddy good job and it would be very funny. Can you just go? Surely not your prospectus to me. But when Angela Rayner... This is Angela Rayner's foremost fanboy of Westminster. Oh, totally. I think she's amazing. What about the policies? Not your policies. What policies? We need to take his telegraph pulse.

24:20You don't need policies.

24:21Camilla: Realise he's brain dead. But carry on. She said in her speech, John Prescott said to me, you've got a voice, kid. Use it. So many people are sitting there thinking, please don't. Please stop. You were winning it on. But when I saw Clive Lewis tweet out his own manifesto for a Burnhamite government, I did read it and think, OK, fair enough. The thing about Burnham is that he has this laboratory of Manchester. He's been testing out his own strategy. Manchesterism. Manchesterism. It does feel as though he's a man who's got a plan that's ready to go, whereas Angela doesn't really have that. Manchester's just gone turquoise, by the way.

24:58Camilla: This is absolutely ludicrous. Burnham has been all over the place politically. He's a Brownite, he's a Blairite, he's a Starmerite, he's a Corbynite. Who is this guy beyond his very impressive eyelashes? Second of all, Greater Manchester has been demolished by Farage. Well, they would say local elections people are actually just kicking the central government. So it was a vote on Keir. It wasn't a vote on Burnham. But we are, in terms of him having the plan ready to go, we are told mainstream this Burnham Aligned think tank is publishing a 12 ,000 word policy perspectives this week. So we are going to get a reveal on genuinely what he means, because you're right, Camilla, there's a lot of claims that he moves around the place and some of these policies are contradictory.

25:39I'm thinking since he last went over the top at conference when he got sat down and everybody feels like they've been doing six, nine months of serious thinking and we'll get this perspective to judge whether it is.

25:49Camilla: What about streeting though, your old comrade? I mean, does he have a chance? He says he has the numbers. He's now holding his council somewhat. I thought on the weekend, well, go now or never, mate. He's told the Prime Minister, according to this newspaper in our exclusive, that he is ready to run. What does that mean? This is a bit like I'm not plotting, I'm planning. Yes. Come on then. I mean, there is a phrase about this and it involves defecation and getting off the pot. Just do it or don't do it, Wes. Show some backbone, man. But he's not going to publicly come out against Starmer because he's looking to be the heir to Starmer.

26:26Camilla: But you would do that if you did have the numbers. So this is why I'm finding it all intriguing. Is Streeting briefing that he's got the numbers and he hasn't actually got the numbers? Well, step one, he is the only one of those obvious leadership contenders who has an incentive to go now. because I think there is an assumption that if Burnham is back in the Commons, Burnham beats streeting quite comfortably with the MPs as well as with the members. So if he goes now, Burnham's not here. He's got a better chance of getting it. And then you think, well, is he going to go publicly or is he going to go privately and encourage people to sign this Catherine West attempt to oust the PM?

26:59I think it all comes back to that classic Westminster cliche, he who wields the knife never wears the crown. Sometimes that's true. Sometimes that's not. You know, Boris Johnson quit Theresa May's cabinet and became prime minister eventually. Rishi Sunak quit as Boris Johnson's chancellor and eventually became prime minister. So I think the street in current right now is judging that it's better to let this just collapse and possibly encourage MPs to back this Catherine West move rather than publicly walk out of the cabinet and be the one who everybody says, you're the backstabber who brought down this PM.

27:33Camilla: What do we think of West? because there was, you know, she's called a stalking horse. Somebody called her a stalking donkey. What's going on here? Yes, yes. I mean, she's quite brave. Yeah, but she's one of those politicians who when you see her, the first thing you think is I've literally never heard of you. No, although I thought I had heard of her and then I thought, I remember now why. And Maddy, formerly of this parish on The Spectator, said, you've heard of her because she was the one that took on Geoffrey Cox when he gave that barnstorming speech about saving trial by jury and said, well, I will be shorter in my comments and a lot less pompous.

28:04Camilla: I mean, she's a proper dyed-in-the-wool lefty, right? So she's doing this for the sake of the country, which is quite admirable. It is. But I'm wondering, Ben, how many people does she really speak for in the PLP? Are you meeting anyone who says, no, no, this is stupid, just stick with Starmer? I think there is a debate about timing and the way you do it. I mean, my instinct with her, she's kind of a maverick. I don't think she is a puppet for Reina. Or Streeting or Burnham. And you could say, actually, admirably, she's not one of these Labour MPs who's just texting a Westminster journalist saying, oh, it's all crazy.

28:38She's saying, look, I'm really concerned about what's happening with my party in the country and we need to change and I'm going to force the change if nobody else is. So you've got to give her some credence for doing that. But no, I think she's just a maverick who's decided to go for it rather than part of some clever... But is the overall vibe in the PLP one now a matter of when he goes, not if? Oh, definitely when he goes, not if. I mean, you would struggle to find any Labour MP who said, yes, I think Keir should fight the next election. Right. So that's three years away. Right. So is it Keir should?

29:08He's given himself 10 years. I mean, that was a bizarre kind of line to deploy. Do you think that's a performance or do his people think he really has an end? I honestly think that's just him repeating a position that he's had in his head for years. Right. Because forever he has been saying pre-elections, that's two years ago, he was saying this is a 10-year plan for renewal, not a five-year plan for renewal. And so I think he, a bit like Theresa May used to, I think he has these place card holders of positions that if he's nudged, he thinks, not thinking through what are the politics of me saying now I want to go for 10 years, but just that's what I always say.

29:37Camilla: Why doesn't he get Dame Louise Casey to carry out a review into his premiership? Then he can knock it to the long grass for six to 12 months. Yes, yes. Ben, we'll let you get back to your keyboard now and a little later your changing mat and night feeds. Yeah, and my very little sleep. Ben, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Coming up, he's been accused of several untruths. Now we expose Zach Polanski's latest fib.

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31:26Camilla: We did discuss last week that Zach Polanski had been rather amusingly nicknamed Walter Titty because he keeps on coming out with a load of old nonsense. Yes. It's too good, isn't it? He worked for the Red Cross. No, he didn't. He can make your breasts larger just by looking at you. He was a full... Jury's out on that one. Well, you can try with me if you know. I'm not sure it's going to have any effect now I'm the age I am. He said he was a full member of the Royal Society of Hypnotherapists and he isn't. Yes. What's the latest? By the way, these are described by his allies as smears. There's another word for that and it could be truths or facts.

32:02Camilla: What's the latest smear to be accurately reported, Tim? The Green Party leader falsely claimed to have worked at the Ministry of Justice while campaigning for elected office. It said on his official campaign website in 2020 that he was, quote, currently working at the Ministry of Justice on their training and diversity programmes. But it turns out the MOJ has no record of Polanski even working for the department. When asked about the claim, a spokesman for Zak said he had worked for the Justice Assessment Committee, which he described as a programme to improve the diversity of justice appointments based in the MOJ.

32:37Camilla: There's a problem with that, though. That committee does not exist. Also, he's put on X. I worked inside the Ministry of Justice. Now, Zach, sorry, but that's not quite the same as working at it. On the basis that we work inside places and are able to claim them as places of employment, I have been employed by Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the White House, the Royal Albert Hall, the O2. I mean, the list goes on and on. Is this guy just, I've said it before, he's a charlatan. Well, the only known public reference to Justice Assessment Committee appears in a comment made by Zach Polanski during a City Hall meeting in 2024.

33:21Camilla: Right. So he's basically invented this thing. Love that. We've also got a story doing the rounds. He and his partner live on a houseboat. Yeah. And there's a question mark over whether... I admire that. Do you? Yeah, I do. It's funny, isn't it? If people who live on houseboats are either going to be really left wing or really right wing, you can go either way. You wouldn't just be a moderate living on a houseboat. No, you're a special kind of person. Can we comment on the politics of Rosie and Jim? I'm not sure we know. Or Eddie Shoestring. Indeed. Anyway, said houseboat, there's a bit of a kind of mixed message going on.

33:57Camilla: Polanski has at times insisted he lives there permanently, at times insisted he lives there occasionally. The tax expert Dan Needle, who helped Gabriel Poggrind on the Sunday Times expose some discrepancies in Richard Tice's tax affairs, suggests that there are some payments missing in Polanski's council tax bills. Right, OK. Well, why are you just going like that? This could bring down Rainer, combined with all of the other, quote, smears. quote reported facts. This is problematic, isn't it? Walter Titti could be about to have a real boob. That's the worst hackneyed thing I've ever said. As John Curtis said of Nigel Farage and the£5 million donation, the kind of people who support Nigel Farage have no problem with him having rich friends and being given donations.

34:48It's baked into their understanding of him. I rather think the same is probably true with people like Zach Polanski. If you're on board the Zach train, These scandals mean nothing to you.

34:57Camilla: I thought the young liked people's truth. They liked Meghan's truth. They'll call it a media smear, won't they? Well, that's the point, but it's not, is it? I mean, don't shoot the messenger. Sorry you've been caught out in all of these fibs. I mean, we will report it because you're behaving as if you're the second coming. I think if you have voted for a man who believed he could expand someone's breasts with the power of his mind, then you've already crossed the Rubicon of truth. If you vote for a party that wants to ban alcohol in Westminster but legalise heroin and crack, you yourself might need to take a hard look.

35:33But the star of the Green campaign is a person who was elected an MSP in Scotland. They, them.

35:45Camilla: Q Manivenon, who is here on a student visa and identifies as non-binary, the speech is worth watching, it's hilarious, my pronouns are they, them, was elected as an MSP on the Edinburgh and Lothian's East List for the pro-independent Scottish Greens. Now, we've been discussing the Greens on this podcast and I've cut them some slack. And I've often said I think they're just motivated by naivety. This was the moment that broke me. I'm glad you've had that moment. You could have had that moment when I had argued for the last six months that these are the most dangerous people in Britain. Go on. But this broke me.

36:20To come to this country, serious, I'm being serious.

36:24Camilla: Okay, go on. To come to this country on a student visa, so you're not even a citizen here, to run for office, something the SNP has made possible, on the platform of destroying that country. Yes. Because they want to get rid of the union is profoundly insulting. Yes. Profoundly insulting. And yet it doesn't surprise me because the brass neck of these people knows no bounds. Yeah. But if you think about it, what kind of country allows foreigners who want to destroy the country to run for office? If a foreigner donates to a political party, the left goes mad about it. Yeah. What's the difference to a foreigner running for office in this country?

37:12Camilla: Because he is on the side of good versus evil. So they say, but he wants to destroy my country. Now, a country that allows someone to come here to undermine it, that's an act of national suicide. It should not be permissible, and he should not be allowed to take up that position. But they have elected to office a great many councillors that appear to actively despise Britain and everything it stands for. We'll continue to expose it. Don't you worry, Tim Stanley. Now, I think your teeth have got to you and I'm going to go off now and buy you some Bongella. Thank you. I'm not going to apply it personally.

37:54Camilla: You're not going to rub it in yourself. But I will lend a sympathetic ear for your whining. We will be back, hopefully, with a Tim Stanley refreshed and with ibuprofen inside him tomorrow at 5pm.

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