Robert Jenrick on Farage 'farce': "He’s ready for mother of all fights”

0:02The Telegraph.

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0:41Has Nigel Farage made the biggest mistake of his political career? Reform UK MP Robert Jenrick joins us to explain why Farage and the party are ready for the mother of all street fights in the new Clacton by-election. And where does poor Prince Harry go from here? Will the rattle Duke of Sussex now finally give up his battle against the press? Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Poppy Coburn. And me, Tim Stanley.

1:15I'm joined today by Poppy Coburn, who also presents the very funny Saturday Daily Tea with Michael Deacon. Yes, I'm filling in for Camilla today, because I think she's doing some kind of TV superstardom you told me about. She's on the weakest link, which I find so funny. When did it start? Are you old enough to have seen it? I am, I am. Anne Robinson was my hero. I always thought she looked like my grandmother. And she was very stern. And apparently she's not hasting this anymore, which is a shame. No, she's not. It's a comedian instead. I haven't seen it for a very long time. But I have a feeling Camilla's going to win.

1:49Oh, she has to win. She absolutely has to win. Because it's a game. It's a psychological game as well as a knowledge one. and she'll just terrify people into putting her through. We're going to talk about Nigel Farage's by-election. It's a big day. Did think that I might spend the day in Clacton. Yes, I did not to because who would I interview? Binface? Count Binface. I think that's the only person you can chat to. Nigel Farage or a man dressed as a giant bin. Literally all the main parties, even the Greens, have said that they're not going to run in this by-election, which leaves Nigel Farage spending many weeks debating with Count Binface, whose policies include bringing back CFAX.

2:32Which I've already said to you, I don't know what that is. Sorry, Tim. Oh, I feel so old. But he also wants to build one affordable house in Clacton. I don't think he needs to. I think most of the housing in Clacton is very affordable. I can tell you're not for messes. So rude, so rude. To discuss this, we are joined by Rob Jenrick, who is the Shadow Chancellor for the Reform Party. Rob Jenrick, thank you very much for joining us. Good to be here. How are you? I'm very well indeed. Good. Pumped for Clacton. I am. I am. Yeah. And I was doing the media yesterday and then I hot-footed it back to Nottinghamshire and watched England thrash India at Trent Bridge.

3:12Now I'm back and looking forward to the big Clacton by-election. Well, we all watched Nigel's speech yesterday and it was obvious that he is angry. Can you explain to us what he's angry about? Well, look what happened to him in the last week. You had the leader of the Cazote Party, bizarrely and offensively, comparing him to Jeremy Thorpe, a 1970s politician who stood trial for conspiracy to murder. You had the Labour Party attempting to change the law in Parliament to prevent British citizens from giving donations. to reform, which came on the back of their failed attempt to block the election for five million people in May.

3:54You had Sky News hounding his daughter, knocking on her door when they knew he wasn't in the country because they knew he'd gone to the US to the celebrations there and to meet the US vice president. So they obviously didn't need to do that. And I think he felt enough is enough and that it wasn't for uh the two kind of traditional old parties the uni party and bureaucrats and their acolytes in the media to play judge jury and executioner it's ultimately for the people so why not do the brave thing which is put yourself forward for a by-election and let the people of clacton decide who do they want representing them and ultimately who should be driving this country forward into and beyond the next general election.

4:41But there was something quite interesting about that address, which is he starts off by saying this£5 million donation, which has been in the news for weeks and weeks and weeks, is not a crime, that he's done nothing wrong. And that is where you can really see the anger, I think, coming out of Nigel Farage's voice. Why is he so angry specifically about this£5 million donation story? Because it didn't seem to me that he was annoyed as much about those other things so much as this continuing news story that's been following after him. I'm not so sure about that, to be honest. Look, I think he's obviously frustrated that, although not surprised, that the two parties and those in the media who support them have always done, you know, newspapers that have backed the Tory party or the Labour party since time immemorial, are doing everything they can to drag him down.

5:29And he represents change. You know, that is at the heart of this is that what Nigel stands for is a fundamental change in this country. The end of the old two party system, the change that I think millions of people in this country are crying out for. And people will obviously try to throw everything they can at him in the months and the years to come, however long it takes to get to the next general election. And he's just saying, you know, enough. I'm going to circumvent all of that, the circus that they want to have, and let's do the democratic thing, which is to go and trust the people. And he's challenging the other parties.

6:08If they care so much about these issues, if they're so exercised by them, put a candidate up. Stand against him. You know, debate this on the streets of Clacton. Are they? Well, at the moment, as far as I can tell, they're all running scared. They're cowards. Suddenly they don't care about these issues after all. and that tells you a lot about them. I'm afraid the Tory party and the Labour Party are the uni party, as Nigel or Zio would say. They're absolutely bang on. Do you think they're the leader? It's like George Galloway very crudely used to say, two sides are the same arse. It is two parties conspiring together to block change.

6:43You think they're conspiring together with the Green Party, with the Liberal Democrats? Of course, because they don't want change. And I've seen this very, very strongly since I've been in reform, where you stand up in the House of Commons, You voice something that millions of people care about. And all around you, these MPs from the Gaza independence to the Tory front bench, you know, jeer, they heckle. Let me give you an example from this week. There was, would you believe it, a statement on police leadership. And I was the only member of parliament to talk about two-tier policing. Nobody else did.

7:22As soon as I mentioned the word, the phrase, and that terrible incident that happened in Birmingham the other day, which you might have seen, where the young white man was arrested, having been assaulted by two black men who then fled the scene. People started jeering, heckling. Tory MPs, one of them shouted racist at me. And the speaker, deputy speaker, cut me off. Now, that is something that happens to reform and peace every single day in the House of Commons, because we're a threat to the cozy consensus. We want to shake things up, to change things, to deliver the big change that people want to see in the country.

8:01And the parties are going to try everything they can. They're going to work together in this conspiracy, this cozy consensus to try and stop us. Some of those politicians, Rob, would say that's an example of the Reform Party being, thin-skinned, especially for a party which is so pro-free speech. I mean, as you know, when Andy Burnham was signed in... I'm not thin-skinned, Tim. I don't care. I don't care. I mean, did it make me back down? Of course it doesn't make me back down. But when Andy Burnham signed on as a new prime minister, people were heckling him and saying things like, he's not the messiah.

8:35They were just classic kind of jokes that people throw at things. It's not the same. But I'm not bothered. I will be in the House of Commons today, tomorrow, next week, doing exactly the same. But it's worth your Daily Tea listeners just really knowing what's going on at the moment in politics, which is that reform is the only party that really represents that change. It's not the Tory party. It's not the Labour Party. They all want to do Nigel down because they know that on the current trajectory, if there was a real general election, then reform would win. Nigel would be our prime minister. They would be out.

9:15in many cases. Yes. You know, the Westminster gravy train would come to an end for them. And there would be big changes in this country. A sensible energy policy. Yeah. Taxes might actually come down. We would have secure borders again as a country. A foreign policy that actually puts British people first. Okay. This change would be brought about. Is the media part of this conspiracy? Right. Okay. Including us? Are we part of this conspiracy? No, I think there's obviously newspapers which have a house line in the Sunday Times, supported the Labour Party at the general election. And in fact, the investigative journalist that published some things about Nigel the other day had tweeted that he despised Nigel.

10:03That's correct. So, you know, excuse me if I don't think this man is someone who's entirely impartial. And Sky News, for example, knocked on Nigel's daughter's door. No excuse for that whatsoever. I did notice Sky News knocking on Keir Starmer's family door when it was revealed that he had been staying at Lord Alley's luxury flat in the time leading up to the general elections. And there were questions about where he lived and in his own properties. But I don't know if you saw Jeremy Hunt talking about this. And he made the point that knocking on doors is something I personally, I loathe it. I could never bring myself to do it.

10:41but it is a part of journalism. And he described how when he was dealing with the Leveson inquiry, he would go out of his front door and there'd be rows and rows of photographers and he had to leave early to avoid them taking photos of his kids and things like that. Well, Reform has now released the CCTV footage and what we see is someone goes up to the door and then goes away again. It's not that big a deal. Answer me this question then, Tim. given that we all knew that Nigel was not in the country because he was in the US and he told everyone that what possible public interest was served in knocking on a door of his daughter's house knowing that Nigel was definitely not there the only possible reason to do that to my mind was to put some kind of emotional pressure on Nigel as a dad, someone who loves his kids and actually as a parent myself it's very difficult to do He's been in politics for 30 odd years and has managed to keep his children out of the public eye.

11:44Unlike a lot of other people, you know, there's pictures of my kids in the public domain. There's pictures of all of, you know, my home in my constituency in London in the public domain. These things can never be taken away once that's done. And it does change your life. The only reason to do that, I think, is that they wanted to hound him. And I think that the two old parties and much of the media, they want to put pressure on Nigel because they think, and they're wrong, that if they do this, Nigel's somehow going to back down. He's not backing down. And that is what he showed in this calling this by-election, that he's just getting started.

12:23I think the question that people would have is, Nigel Farage wants to be the next Prime Minister. What level of scrutiny would he feel is acceptable as someone who wants to lead this country? because, you know, I agree. Yes, it's not comfortable when the media go after politicians' families. I understand that. But what level of scrutiny is allowed? Because it's not just the knocking of the door that he's been describing as hounding. It's also all of the scrutiny that's come with that£5 million donation. So are these questions not legitimate? I hear this argument and with all due respect, I do think it's a bit of an odd one.

12:55Nigel has been scrutinised more than anyone else in British public life because he's been in politics at the absolute heart of it for years. There's multiple books that have been written about him, you know, Lord Ashcroft, Michael Crick. There's dozens of them. He's done thousands of interviews over there. I mean, I was a teenager when Nigel Farage, I mean, let that sink in. I was a teenager when Nigel Farage was a big public figure making the arguments that he does today about mass migration, net zero, you know, overbearing state. So he has been present, a leader in British politics for 30 years now and is probably the most scrutinized politician there is.

13:38And on the by-election, what in a democracy is a more powerful way to face the public than to say, I'm going to resign my seat? And bear in mind, Nigel has wanted to be a member of parliament for years. He loves his constituency. You know, he talks to me about it all the time. and go and face the public. That's a big risk. Who knows what will happen? I don't think anyone... I hear Kemi saying it's a fake election. There's no such thing as a fake by-election. It's a big decision to have a by-election, and to somehow demean it is ultimately demeaning the electorate and democracy. There's no better way to test the public's opinion and to put yourself in ultimate scrutiny than to call a by-election.

14:26And that shows bravery. And that shows what you have said about the scrutiny that Nigel has faced. And I agree with you. I mean, heavens, they've been talking to his school friends to try to find out if he may have said unpleasant things when he was a teenager. I just say this, Tim. Compare this to Andy Burnham. I mean, I find it stunning that you've got the front pages of newspapers in the last few days, weeks, asking, in the scheme of things, pretty minor and obscure questions about, did Nigel Farage fill in some forms that he may or may not have been required to do by the House of Commons authorities?

14:59And yet you've got our next prime minister about to sail into number 10, where we know next to nothing about his agenda. And what is the ultimate diagnosis of the failure of Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves? Everyone seems to now agree that they had no plan, didn't have the foggiest idea what they were going to do, that the media didn't hold them to any real scrutiny in the lead up to the 2024 general election. And the same cast of characters, this media establishment that I think lets the country down time and time again, is doing exactly the same with Andy Burnham. No doubt we'll be sat here in a year's time and Nick Robinson will be doing political thinking with whoever has been sacked as Andy Burnham's chief of staff saying, wasn't it a shame he didn't have a clue what you were doing?

15:46but he's not asking those questions now. It is a stitch up. And who is the ultimate loser in this? It's the British people because we're so badly led as a result. Picking up on this argument that the media perhaps is doing the wrong kind of scrutiny, would you welcome the scrutiny that asks, what are Nigel Farage's plans for government? Yes. So you welcome that kind of scrutiny, the ones that we didn't get when the Labour government came in. Of course, you know, with all due respect to you two, you know, who I have greatest admiration for, and, you know, we are going to spend this interview with you asking me about Nigel Farage and the ins and outs of the by-election when I could be telling you what are my plans for the economy if I'm lucky enough to be the next Chancellor of this country.

16:27Exactly. Following on from that, you've made the decision to call this by-election, right? Now this by-election is happening. Is it fair to say it's perhaps not got exactly as planned when Nigel gave his speech? I imagine he saw it as an opportunity to say this is what reform stands for against all of these other political parties. This is what makes us different. we are focusing back on the issues that actually matter for this country. We're not talking about the donation anymore. We're talking about why reform should form our government. But that's not going to happen now, is it? Because none of the other parties are standing.

16:56Well, because they've stitched it up, haven't they? They're too cowardly to stand. Look, if they felt they had a strong argument against reform and Nigel and a chance of persuading the people in Clacton, of course they'd be standing. I mean, look at the Tory party. Before the last general election, Clacton was by any accounts a safe conservative seat. had a massive majority, over 20 ,000 majority. They know that if they put up a candidate against Nigel Farage, they wouldn't just lose, but they would lose their deposit and they would be humiliated. So they've chosen not to put that up. But is it still worth doing a by-election?

17:29That reflects on them. You made the point now that all these parties refuse to stand. So why continue to do a by-election? Well, I hope that the people of Clacton will return Nigel. We don't know that for certain, but I hope that they will and they'll do so by a strong majority. And that will send a very powerful signal to the other parties that, look, the stitch-up has failed. Well, it won't because it'll show a signal that he can win a seat in which he's already proven before that he's very popular while running against no one. And I'm just not quite sure. Well, if no one's willing to stand, that reflects more on the others, doesn't it?

18:07What is the message to the wider electorate that Nigel Farage can beat a field of one talking bin? Well, the message is this. Nigel Farage had the courage to put himself up for a by-election, which very few people do in politics. Very few people do. Well, you didn't. Well, quite. Very few people do it. It takes great courage to do that. Yes. I can't imagine Keir Starmer or Kemi or Ed Davey doing it. Very rare. Or Rob Jenner. He's the only one. He's the only one who's had the courage to do that. I respect him for it. and none of the other parties were willing to take him on. Yes. That tells me that they know that they can't defeat Nigel Farage at the ballot box.

18:51When you're making a decision about what to do, did you war game this possibility that they would not run? For sure. We know that they're like this. Look, what's happened in the last few months in British politics, every time there is an election, like the May elections, you know, there are some exceptions for sure, but by and large, reform has been winning. we won elections all over the country, you know, did extremely well in Scotland, in Wales, in big cities, in rural counties. You know, Kemi would have lost her seat if she'd been standing. That's why we're surprised he's running. You're ahead in the polls.

19:26You've been ahead in the polls for well over a year. There is no evidence that the£5 million donation story was really moving the dial at all. The public didn't seem to be paying much attention to it, which is why we're genuinely surprised why Nigel Farage would come out and say, I'm really, I'm angry about this when the rest of the public don't seem to care. So I'm going to force a by-election. Because it's pretty clear to me what's going to happen because the Labour and Conservative parties have come out and said, well, we're not going to stand in this by-election, but we're going to stand in the next by-election.

19:59Right. A by-election which at the moment doesn't exist. We don't even know if there is an inquiry. I mean, the Standards Commission hasn't even come out and said that he has launched an inquiry, let alone that he's going to decide against Nigel and that there's then going to be a by-election, it suggests to me they've obviously prejudged the whole thing. Labour, Tories, Lib Dems, you name it, they're going to conspire together to call a by-election. So Nigel said, well, look, if the ultimate sanction that Parliament could bring about is a by-election, let's, excuse my language, cut the ****. Let's have the by-election now.

20:37let's stop wasting time when we should be debating the issues that the country really wants to and have this by-election right now that's what he's doing once he's had the by-election those other parties and the media are going to conspire together to hold another one after that but they'll look even more ridiculous then won't they what an utter farce I know but Nigel could look strange too I don't believe that what an utter farce if those parties say in November that they're going to have another I mean how many times does Nigel have to go before the people of Clacton. Once, twice, three times, four times.

21:09It will become plain to the British people. But how many weeks is he going to waste on the campaign trail? He's a leader of a major party that could form the next government. I want him in the Commons interrogating the new Prime Minister who comes in in a few days. I can assure you we'll be doing that as well. But he'll be distracted, won't he, by running a by-election that he's guaranteed to win. Every day, Tim, we are setting out more plans, more policies. We are ready to form the next government of this country. You know, in the last couple of weeks, for example, I've said that we will be the first party to scrap Rachel Reeves' Employers National Insurance, that we will only do it for British workers.

21:45We'll pay for that by doing a levy on foreign workers to give a massive incentive to good British businesses to back local people rather than reaching for the easy lever of foreign labour. You know, I can give you many other examples. We've set out what our procurement policy would be, that we'll scrap the woke nonsense that David Cameron brought in, like the social value test, where companies to get government contracts have to say that they will have inclusive recruitment policies or have foreign languages available. We're just going to have two simple principles, value for money for the British taxpayer and buy British wherever you can.

22:19So every day we're setting out more of our policies and our plans. All good policies that listeners and viewers of this will like and millions of people are already supporting and millions of people have already cast a vote in local elections to support. But instead of promoting those policies on the national stage, Nigel Farage is going to be discussing whether or not we should nationalize Adele with Count Binface. No, no, no, no, no. Will he debate Count Binface? I have no idea. I have no idea. I have no idea. He actually stand against me, Count Binface. Right. When I stood in a by-election back in the day.

22:51He interrogated me at Rishi Sunak's Count. There was an embarrassing video of me trying to swat off questions for Count Binface. Everyone runs a mile when they see Count Binface. What I think is happening in British politics at the moment is that Nigel stands for change. We have the plans to turn this country around. The other parties know that that's true and that were there to be a general election, reform would probably win it. And so they are trying to use every tactic they possibly can, changing the law, stopping people making donations, cancelling elections, conspiring with each other, getting their friends in the media to write nasty columns or knock on the door of people's kids.

23:37They are trying to stitch this up. Well, I'm afraid that's not going to work because the British public have had enough. They want change. And when that general election comes, we're going to finally get it. But until that time, this is going to be the mother of all street fights. And with reform, we're going to be fighting it every step of the way. The gloves are off. We're not backing down. Nigel isn't walking away. He's just getting started. So it sounds like there's absolutely no way that this by-election is going to be cancelled on the grounds that no one is running against Nigel Farage. You're in this to win it.

24:11You will be fighting this by-election. There'll be no U-turn on this. We don't do U-turns. We're not Keir Starmer here. The Guardian reports that the£5 million donation was reported for potential money laundering. What's your response to that? I don't know exactly what the ins and outs of that are, but, you know, I'm a former lawyer myself. It's quite normal for banks and law firms to report unusual transactions to the National Crime Agency. That happens all the time. From what I've read, it sounds as if that's what happened and the NCHO chose not to take any steps. Therefore, they concluded that there was no impropriety there whatsoever.

24:57However, what I have heard is a very concerning allegation that the National Crime Agency have or somebody within the organization has leaked the bank account details of potentially Nigel Farage and Richard Tice to the media. If that is true, and I think it needs to be investigated, that is a very disturbing allegation and one that should worry everyone in this country. That one of our most senior law enforcement agencies has people in it who are so partisan that they would leak the private details of politicians to try and score advantage. That is very disturbing. And it does show, I'm afraid, once again, exactly what's going to happen between now and the next general election.

25:47Because Nigel Farage represents change, because a Farage-led government, a reformed government, would be the end of the old cozy consensus. Everyone who has benefited from that is going to chuck the kitchen sink at us in the months and the years ahead. I'm prepared for that. You know, we all are. We're not backing down. But that is exactly what's going to happen. and your Daily Tea listeners should be prepared, but this is going to be a very tough time. Rob Jenrick, thank you very much. Thank you.

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27:06we're now joined by hannah finesse our royal editor now we mentioned you yesterday on the daily tea we did just to say that you were at the invictus games event where harry was speaking when he heard the news that he'd lost on all 14 counts of his case against the mail What was that moment like? Well, let me paint a picture for you. So normally with royal or ex-royal, in this case engagements, you turn up a very long time in advance. You wait for a long time. Royal turns up at the exact moment they're expected and everybody does as they're told. Everything yesterday was quite confused. He turned up much earlier than he was supposed to, presumably because he wanted to sit down in a private room with his team to figure out what this ruling actually meant.

27:48He looked very shaken, very down. He looked gutted, actually. I felt a lot of sympathy for him in that moment because he walked into the room. He had a chat with his advisers to figure out this, what was it, 436 pages of a very long, complicated judgment, which I'm sure he, along with most of us, were expecting to have something they could claim as a victory. And it was just loss after loss after loss, 97 claims all lost. The moment he walked into the room where there were about 200 Invictus delegates waiting for him to speak, The judgment was made public. So if you think there's the press here, there's Invictus members, competitors, advisors here, and a stage at the front.

28:32Press at the back had their laptops open and this judgment dropped. He walked into the room and then he went on stage to do about six minutes of a pre-prepared speech about the Invictus Games, the importance of veterans, the importance of military service, and what the games meant. And he tried very hard to hold it together. He didn't make any comment at all about the legal ruling, of course. because he didn't want to overshadow Invictus, but he was, you know, swallowing hard, looking around, went through his jokes, but he looked very flat. And this is the end of a huge battle for him. Did any of what he said take on a kind of double meaning?

29:09There were a couple of lines that you sort of maybe heard differently in light of it. They were pre-written, obviously. Because it's about resilience and endurance, the Invictus game. Picking yourself up when you've been knocked down, travelling along a difficult unknown road, all of these things, if you wanted to, you could try to read into more if you wanted. He just looked as if he was getting through. Then he sat down. It was a two-hour session, so he then sat down and was looking very resolutely just at the stage. He was listening to a lot of panellists talking about what Invictus meant to them, the previous games and so on.

29:41And then he disappeared to sort of get on with the real business of the day, which is figuring out how they were going to respond to all of this stuff, having set it up as this dragon slaying crusade for him. How was he then going to turn it around somehow? And we know now that the result after about an hour of being upstairs with his lawyers and his advisors was to come out with this written statement much later in the day. So physically he came down the stairs, he left the building, he conjured up a very good smile and a thumbs up to the camera. There were a few fans sort of waiting around to shout things at him to kind of cheer him up.

30:15And he got into the car and not long afterwards he released this statement with Baroness Lawrence, where he called it a complete whitewash. And that's interesting because we've just been talking to Rob Jenrick, who and Reform like to frame everything as an establishment stitch up. And here again, Harry's essentially saying the same thing. If I lose, it's an establishment stitch up. But it's not right. No. How does he go forward from this as well? I mean, as you say, he's put so much into this litigation. how does he continue to like a hold as he did that the press are the enemy i mean how can he continue to do this when as you said he loses on every single count it is a humiliation so there was a world which more for me as always with harry i always think the best of him and that he's always going to suddenly turn into this slightly different person so i thought yesterday and i wrote yesterday in the royal newsletter that maybe this is a moment where he could pause he could think he could reset.

31:13It's a chance with the legal battle over to reset his relationship with Britain, with his family, who can't be seen to be too close to any legal disputes, but could absolutely, if you drew a line in the sand, there's a world there where they could sort of start creeping back to a bit more of a happy situation. I thought there was a chance of that until this statement came out. And it's bullish Harry. It's the same old Harry. He wants to fight again. We don't know whether he's going to appeal. We don't know what chance there is of any kind of appeal being remotely successful, given how comprehensive the judgment was.

31:50But he's appealed a lot of things that he hasn't won on, that haven't changed, but he's gone on to the next step and the next step. So we're waiting to find out whether he and Baroness Lawrence, they're the two of the seven complainants that bound together yesterday to do this extra statement while the other five have been quiet so far. So we wait and see officially. It doesn't feel to me like there's any resolution for him here. I think he will either need to find another cause. Obviously he's still got security on the go. He's still fighting for. I would like to think, I'm sure the royal family would prefer that this was a moment to just take a breath.

32:27He's back in Britain. He's got four more days now of engagements and they're engagements that are really easy for him. This is the stuff he's brilliant at. He can do Invictus. He can do another proper rallying speech on a stage once he's had a moment to gather his thoughts and talk to his wife and children. He's going to visit children in a hospital. He's visiting bereaved, sometimes orphaned military families and children. There's so much good, positive stuff he could do. He can do it. It's just what is the decision he's going to make now? Because I do feel about that appeal. You know, it wasn't the only statement that came out today.

33:00Paul Dacre of Associated Newspapers. I mean, it is excoriating. It is really blistering towards Harry. I mean, the language that he uses, it's almost patronising. Poor Harry. Poor Harry. Do you mean that, Paul Dacre? I mean, but I feel like it's not just losing, it's the humiliation of knowing that the press has been vindicated in this way against him as this victory for free speech and free media in this country. How could he possibly think of appealing? I mean, surely he has very little grounds to actually do so. And I'm amazed he would have the money to, given how much it's cost. Let's listen to a little bit of Paul Dacre in his statement.

33:35Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking, and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn't a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him to complain about his privacy being invaded takes not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious breakup with Charles. She and I would speak and meet.

34:25The Mail's superb royal reporter was her friend and confidant. The truth is that this trumped-up action, which has cost well over 50 million pounds and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time, should never have been brought to trial. I will admit some journalists were punching the air with joy when this verdict came through, because obviously people see these things understandably from the perspective of the person who feels their life has been intruded upon. But you have to see it from the point of view of journalists as well, which is we have a job to do. And we obviously have to behave within the law.

35:05And nine out of 10 journalists are perfectly ethical and wish to. And we always face the threat of regulation of our industry, over-regulation, to the point where we can't do that anymore, which means we can't hold the rich and the powerful to account. That was what was at stake here. If Harry had won this, it might have been a really bad day for journalism, and it could have led to a Leveson-T. And with a Labour majority, they might have been minded to talk about parliamentary statutory regulation of the press rather than the very tough self-regulation that we currently all are under. And I was just thinking, bringing it back to Nigel Farage, and the CCTV footage of the journalist visiting the House.

35:47I mean, Hannah, I don't know how long you've been in this business, but I can remember some of the bad old days, when people were really going through bins. And as has been proven in court, people were listening to messages and things like that. It doesn't work like that anymore. I thought that was so polite, going up to the door, apparently no one being in or being turned away and just leaving. And that was that. I think some of this litigation reflects a different era. And the press has moved on from that, hasn't it? Absolutely. I mean, some of this stuff, not at Associated Newspapers, as we now know, but elsewhere is unrecognisable to anybody working today.

36:24And it's a relief, I think, for a lot of us still working, that the findings have gone this way, that our sort of rivals or colleagues have not done these things that they're accused of. It's a huge relief to know that all of this journalism was legitimate. Given the experience that William and Charles have had with the press too, will there be some sympathy in Buckingham Palace right now? I think I'm sure there will. I'm sure there will be a sense of how has Harry got this far? Who's been advising him? He's been out of Buckingham Palace advice for a very long time now and he's been in the hands of lawyers.

37:00A lot of people have commented over the course of this case that the only winners have been the lawyers. There'll be concern about his response to it. And there's also a really emotional element for Harry here. Don't forget, so a lot of this case was him saying, my friends, my family, not the royal family, my associates, people in my circle could never be talking to the press. People who I met who were strangers, even around a campfire, I trusted those strangers. There's no way they would have rung a newspaper desk to say, I've just seen Prince Harry and this is what happened. He really believed that and really wanted to believe that.

37:35And the fact that the findings suggest that that was happening, it was people going to parties, making conversation and chit chat. People close to him who knew things about him talking to journalists, not even in a nefarious way, but as part of conversation, that will be a very difficult thing for him to come to terms with and believe. I suspect he may not even believe it now if that statement is anything to go by, but it's a difficult thing. And impossible to regulate. It just sounds like you want to regulate gossip, which is what all human beings do all the time. He famously said once, didn't he, that he wanted to start his own newspaper so he could just write the truth about himself.

38:12I think that was when he was at school. I mean, can we just, is Prince Harry delusional? I mean, is he delusional? I don't even mean that in a cruel way. It does almost feel as if because of his response to this ruling is still so aggressive, it's still so kind of chippy. And there is a suggestion that he might go back to court again or at least try to. I mean, who is around him telling him that this is the right thing to do? That cannot be right for him to do this again. Meghan. Well, the lawyers, of course, he has advisors, he doesn't always listen to the advice of his advisors. There's a big, as I keep saying, there's this emotional element to it.

38:49You know, if you think about the security case that he's still fighting, fighting, fighting, even though he's been told the same thing for six years, he may yet make, he may yet bring about some changes there. But it is all this sort of crusading, I'm protecting my family, I'm protecting my children. In the case of the Associated ruling, it was about how he was protecting the little people who don't have the resources that he did. He thought that if he could win this big tabloid media battle, it would stop intrusion into other people's lives. He is somebody who wants to do good. He just might not be looking in the right place to do it.

39:27Hannah, thank you very much for that. And we'll be back tomorrow with Camilla Tominy, who will have returned from The Weakest Link. I bet she's won. I hope so. We'll be back tomorrow at 5pm.