Same faces, same failures: Burnham’s reshuffle solves nothing

0:02The Telegraph.

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0:52It's like a desperate game of musical chairs, the same faces, just in different seats.

0:57Camilla: As the country crashes and burns, we dissect Andy Burnham's cabinet of mediocrity. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Camilla Tomenon.

1:15Camilla: Tim, we're back in the studio after yesterday's fashion show. I'm proud of us. I thought we looked great. We looked amazing. Don't you think... No one was watching Burnham. No. All eyes are on us. They're watching you and your olive green jumper. don't you think that mrs burnham looks uncannily like vivian westward yes and she got a bit of stick for her victoria beckham dress i like the color of it yes did it work did they both work so he got stick because he did up both of the buttons on his suit jacket what's the protocol i have i have learned never to comment on how women dress good idea so but i'm very happy to be a complete cow about how men dress.

1:56Camilla: Go on then. And that jacket was simply too small for him. Yes. It was about one size too small. Yes. And it's difficult to keep a track of these things. I make errors too. But what you should never really do is one button, which is what he was doing. Oh, he did one button, not two buttons. Well, sometimes he was one, sometimes he was two. If it's too small, it's too small. You're going to look like a bag of potatoes, whatever you do. but if you do one button it always looks like the jacket has been pulled together by a piece of string around the middle of you yeah you sort of the tummy comes out and the chest comes out but he also did two and that's when it starts to look like a straight jacket but either way uh the man just cannot wear a suit but then i guess that's part of his image isn't it that i'm not comfortable in a suit yes i feel more comfortable if i was wearing a black plastic bag yes that's right but do we don't ever want to see him in like an everton shirt do we i mean no there are a bit There are not editorial standards to be upheld here.

2:51There are, yes.

2:52Camilla: It reminds me of, I say Sunak, because Sunak was always in his younger brother's trousers, wasn't he? They were just... Well, like Sadiq Khan, he was dressed by mother care, right? Just go to Savile Row and just get a suit that fits. Yes, yeah. But let's have a look at the new cabinet. OK, well, nobody predicted John Healy as Chancellor of the Exchequer, did they? But I'm not sure that's true. They've been talking about John Healy becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer for ever since Keir Starmer entered office. That's true. They haven't mentioned in the last few weeks, but that's because he quit.

3:25We should remind everyone he was Secretary of State for Defence. He resigned from Keir Starmer's cabinet in protest at the underfunding of defence. And that's one of the things that triggered Andy Burnham becoming leader.

3:36Camilla: Yes. The resignation. So he's being rewarded for his resignation, but at the same time being told by the new prime minister, You want to prioritise warfare over welfare. Good luck with that. You make the spending cuts to pay for defence and then we'll have the public blame you for it. This is the interesting thing. What will happen? A, Healy enters offices and says, right, here's the money for defence. Although Dan Jarvis, who previously was Defence Secretary, has already got a bit of it. But he might come in and just say, OK, we're going to do the whole realment of Britain thing and hey, everyone will be happy.

4:10Or he comes in and as you say, His appointment is actually used as cover for him not raising defence. Because if they are going to do it, it has to be done by taking money out of welfare. And we're still not sure if Andy Burnham is able to command the PLP in a way that, of course, Keir Starmer never could.

4:26Camilla: No, although he's kept Pat McFadden at welfare, which is significant after the revelation in the Mandelson files, that McFadden was getting increasingly frustrated with the idea of taxing people more to pay for benefits. So it's almost more interesting who he's retained in cabinet than who he has brought in. And if you think this stuff matters, as we will see with the other appointments, you could argue this has been a win for Blue Labour. If you think Blue Labour is patriotic, fiscally conservative, then Healy's appointment points us in that direction. Now, interestingly, an MP told you after Keir Starmer left that his wife was taking him away to get drunk.

5:06Words to that effect. That's right. That's exactly what happened. Actually used the P word.

5:10Camilla: That's a swear word involved. They were off to get... They went to the pineapple pub and Rachel Reeves was also photographed drinking. And smiling. And smiling. She's never looked happier. Yes, she looked very happy. And Darren Jones posed with a pint by himself, I noted. Yeah. He said, see you in September. I mean, I know recess goes over summer, but perhaps your constituents wouldn't mind you doing a bit of work for the next six weeks. I mean, you're not a school teacher. So as Patrick Maguire said on Newsnight, Right. Keir Starmer never really had a faction, but now he does. Yes. It's the people who just got sacked.

5:43And according to Maguire, one thing they were saying was, how predictable that Burnham replaces Rachel Reeves with a man. Now, the rest of us don't give a hoot what the gender of the child's tree of the Exchequer is.

6:01Camilla: Provided they can count. And provided they know themselves what gender they are. But in Labour land, this is being interpreted as a step backwards, that you've replaced Rachel with a grey man. Do you know what, this is such Jess Phillipsism. We must have a quota of women just to point women if they're good. I can't bear this as a woman. I mean, I'm sure of my own gender, just in case you were in any doubt of my certainty about women and their ability or not to have penises. Somebody pointed out, it's a good thing David Lammy's got some more time on his hands. He's now got some time to grow a service.

6:35Camilla: And we look forward for him sharing his ultrasound scans when the time comes. But I just don't promote people for promotion's sake because you're ticking boxes. It's just so insulting. Talking about continuity, Stama, obviously, Shabana Mahmood not becoming chancellor, staying at the home office. Again, it's a good idea because she's doing quite well there. she's coming up with quite strong measures that Labour backbenchers don't like but they're finding it difficult to criticise her because she is herself from an immigrant family and a Muslim and therefore the optics of it if we can talk in political language which we must it looks good and again it's a blue Labour appointment because her biggest fan is Morris Glassman who is the Labour peer that's kind of running that can we all be a bit more sensible movement, so that's good.

7:26Yes, she was rumoured to be tipped for Chancellor, but is supposed to have said, no, I want to stay on as Home Secretary in order to see through my reforms.

7:33Camilla: Yvette Cooper goes to health, where she was once a junior minister. By the way, John Healy... She was Foreign Secretary, now in health. John Healy, somebody pointed out, was in the Treasury for five years leading up to 2008, the global financial crash. Whether that will blot his copybook or not, no one knows. Yeah. We've talked about McFadden remaining at work and pensions. Bridget Phillipson out as education secretary, replaced by Lucy Powell, who also beat her to the deputy Labour leadership, which was a sign that the Starmites were increasingly in the minority. That's going to hurt. That's clearly a reward for Lucy Powell's support for Andy Berman.

8:11He simply wouldn't be where he is without Lucy Powell cheering him on, but also helping to persuade the NEC to let him run in the Makerfield by-election.

8:21Camilla: Less well known is Louise Haig. She's known for being, quote, a convicted fraudster. Yeah. Because there was this episode when she was once not in politics where she claimed that a phone that had been stolen perhaps wasn't. Yes. So everyone now... It wasn't. No. She filed a police report saying a phone had been taken and then she found the phone. So it was a false police report and Keir Starmer sacked her and now she's back in government and she's technically someone who was found guilty of filing a false police report. Sure. And it's been pointed out that if people are going to keep on talking about George Cottrell, posh George is a convicted criminal, they need to do the same when it comes to the new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

9:03Although George Cottrell was offering to launder millions of dollars for drug dealers, not just misreporting that a, I don't know, Motorola phone had gone missing. I appreciate the scale. It's in a different league.

9:17Camilla: The scale is in a different league. But also all of this talk about Nigel Farage. I mean, unlike these two who have been convicted of something, Nigel Farage remains under investigation, but as far as I can tell, hasn't been inside a court of law for anything. Just making that point. Second of all, Haig is in charge of propriety and ethics now. Yes, that is problematic. Yeah. For a lot of people, Haig will be known only for the being convicted fraudster. Yeah. And for once having pink hair. And I was about to say, and for having Coronation Street hair. Yes. But we are told, we are assured there is a brain underneath that, Bob.

9:54Camilla: Well, somebody said she was the smartest woman in the room. And then somebody else this morning said, well, I've been in a room with her and she isn't. Right. So the jury's out on that. I played football with her. Got on with her very well. She's a nice woman. But she is supposedly the intellectual architect of Burnhamism, which is why she's been given the very important job of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Poor old James Murray's out. My old friend Steve Reid is out. All of these old faces are out. Let's talk about your bestie, Wes Streeting. Now, he hasn't got the chancellorship, even though he wanted it.

10:25Camilla: He lended those 81 votes to Andy Burnham to secure Andy Burnham's coronation, and he's been rewarded with Defence Secretary. Now, I don't know whether Wes Streeting and Defence Secretary is the right fit. I think that you do need to have somebody who once served in the armed forces. They had Dan Jarvis, quite kind of personable, sort of the kind of man that looks comfortable atop a tank. Ex-military. Ex-military, and he had accepted that he'd have to push forward the defence spending as had been agreed by Starmer. he's out and streeting i just think that's a really bizarre department to give him well the criticism has been made by ben wallace that quote removing dan jarvis to find a spot for where streeting shows a contempt for defense at a time they need continuity and someone who understands the new way of warfare and the men and women of the armed forces defense is as important in the tory imagination as health is in the labor imagination yes and it is really a character post.

11:24It's one where you expect it either to go to someone who is from the military or someone of real stature publicly, who will be dealing with some of the toughest people in Britain to deal with, the armed forces. You've got to sit down with generals and air force marshals and things and fresh up budgets, etc. So it's a job which also requires to be on top of a vast amount of complex technical information as well. Now, I'm not saying West Streeting doesn't have the intellect necessarily to do that, but he has only been a government minister for two years at health. His career before that is entirely in politics.

12:05And he has always struck me as an over-promoted student activist. I've never understood the appeal. Right-wingers like him because they think he's a bit Blairite or something. I don't know. But I understand why some people are uncomfortable. What you always have to ask yourself is, can you imagine them standing on a nuclear submarine?

12:25Camilla: No. No. No. I mean, Penny Mordaunt. Oh, gosh. Who looks like... You could imagine her being launched on a nuclear weapon. Just sit straddling it. Yes, exactly. Or Marc Francois, you can imagine him pressing the button in a nuclear submarine. But I understand why people are uncomfortable with the appointment of West Streeting. Now, the story of his appointment is fascinating because in the morning, I was told he had been seen until quite late in the day wandering around in a T-shirt. Yes, he was in a T-shirt in Portcullis House at around... I sound like I'm... Like you're stalking him. Like I stalk him or be doing kind of human cluedo with politicians.

13:08Camilla: He was in PCH dining room in a T-shirt at around 1.32ish because I was having a good old chinwag with some of my lefty mates. They do exist. And he then put on a suit because he was spotted later on in PCH in a suit, presumably waiting for the call to go to number 10. But it was a late call. He was one of the last one in. Yeah. Does that mean somebody rejected defence and he got it as a kind of sloppy seconds? Well, it has been suggested that Rachel Reeves was offered defence. What? Which, if nothing else, it speaks to Burnham not taking the portfolio very seriously. Well, isn't she a bit too lachrymose for defence?

13:44Camilla: You know, Putin starts being horrible and she's... I think she's going to burst into tears. I tell you what, actually, Streeting's appointment reminds me of the inappropriateness of Gavin Williamson in that role. Do you remember saying to Putin, shut up and go home? Yeah, why don't you just shut up? Why don't you just shut up and go home? Oh, it was dreadful, wasn't it? Putin hasn't left his home in years. For those who forget, that's the creepy weirdo with the tarantula. Yeah, that's right. Let's talk about Ed Miliband now. First of all, I'd like to give you some breaking news. I am told that his brother, David Miliband, who one could arguably say is more suited to the role of foreign secretary because he's a globetrotter.

14:23Camilla: Used to be one. He did used to be foreign secretary. I think he did. Yeah. David Miliband, apparently, despite all of the rumours in the media, was not once approached by Andy Burnham's team to serve, even though he was willing to serve. Right. Just lock that in the old Stanley brain. Second of all, now it looks as if Ed Miliband has been given a very important role in government. Yes. But has he? So he's leaving energy where he was Mr. Renewables and was arguably one of the most effective and radical ministers in the Starm of government. And moving up, it looks like, to one of the top three positions in government.

15:01Camilla: I'm told not quite. I'm told he's going to be given a John Kerry-esque role to be kind of the UK's representative for climate change, going across the world and speaking to people who are interested in that kind of stuff, which, by the way, excludes Donald Trump and the entire Trump administration. And that the person who's really going to be doing the heavy lifting on foreign policy, including our relationship with Europe, is Hamish Faulkner, who was a junior minister to Ed Miliband. And Faulkner's role is going to be intergovernmental because his position is also straddling the very important cabinet office, which is the nuts and bolts department of Downing Street.

15:41Camilla: And incidentally, he's going to be sharing an office with Annalise Midgley, who is the new chief whip, who is basically Andy Burnham's eyes and ears. So symbolically, it looks like he's given something to Ed Miliband. And actually what he's done is sidelined him and importantly and crucially ensured that he's hardly ever in the country. And that's clever, isn't it? Because on the one hand, he had to reward Ed because Ed made Burnham's rise possible. On the other hand, he also doesn't want Ed controlling policy, domestic policy. So what is the one position you can give him that ticks both those boxes?

16:17It's foreign. But then, as you say, having put him in there, you clip his wings further so that he can't actually do any diplomacy and foreign policy. Now, John Kerry, who looks like an animated statue of himself, is... Good hair, though. Come on. He does have good hair. Is officially, it's ranked in the Guinness Book of Records, the most boring man alive.

16:41Camilla: Really? Have you heard him speak? Yes. I once sat in on a select committee with John Kerry. and if you could bottle that man's personality, you would eradicate insomnia as a problem. Really? All right. Extraordinary. It's been a feature coming on. I say all of this because the comparison with John Kerry is very interesting because, yes, Kerry became this one-man State Department, travelling the world, having conversations with activists in the Philippines or Polynesian lesbians, I don't know. Flying there by private jet, though, though. Of course. Yeah, lovely. Nice work if you can get it. By Zoom, you know.

17:16Honestly. And if you can park Ed Miliband into that role while at the same time actually getting rid of net zero, that's quite a clever trick.

17:25Camilla: Let's talk about his replacement as Energy Secretary, Miata Van Bulla. Now, she's a less known MP, very close to Burnham. Yes. She is treated with some suspicion by the Labour backbenchers because, shock horror, I think she was privately educated. Yes, yeah. But she's already being blamed for this slightly bungled decision on scrapping VAT on an aspect of our winter fuel. So Burnham is saying this is going to save an average household£45 a year. The policy itself is going to cost£850 million and Graham Pack has crunched the numbers on this. Listen, it's not a difficult sum, but it's not one that you and I could do in our heads, Tim.

18:06Camilla: No. Basically, families will be saving 85p a week. Yes. Which is not nothing. nothing i i give him it's not nothing he said i'm going to give you breathing space i'm going to help you with the cost of living and that he is but it is such a small amount yes and of course what we need is to expand our energy supply that's what's ultimately going to drive prices down the aton business is energy 20 even charities are charged five percent so it's a drop in the ocean right so the knives are already out for her a little bit like oh she's you know not experienced enough what's she thinking because there seemed to be a suggestion that they'd be funding this with the money saved in adverted commas from scrapping digital id darren jones when he's not too busy having a pint and then enjoying his summer holidays has pointed out on x well there was no cost saving in scrapping digital id because we hadn't actually rolled it out so where are you getting the money from so by the way this whole kind of starmerite i'm going to be very responsible i'm not going to be that former prime minister that keeps on sticking his oar in He might not, but you can bet your bottom dollar that his allies on the back benches are going to be needling at some of these Burnham policies.

19:15Camilla: Because it's all very well saying, I support him. And yes, of course, we all want the best for Labour. It is factional. There's no doubt about it. That's what the party's like. So, of course, you're going to get sniping from the sidelines. I mean, because this is the Labour Party, right? I mean, they're like the Tories, you know, fighting like rats in a sack. And on that note, your favourite, Angela Rayner. And can we just play tribute to the outfit? Yes. I tried to channel my inner Alexis Colby. Okay. She outdid me, didn't she, yesterday, Tim? Oh, yes. She walked into the party like she was walking onto a yacht.

19:48Camilla: She had shoulder pads. She had the whole like cropped jacket, nice high-waisted trousers going on, a bit of a flare. And the walk. The walk. The walk. You can't buy class like that. No. If I was prime minister, I would have said when she walked through the door, have whatever department you want. In fact, have mine. Indeed. Be prime minister. And we could have had that as prime minister. Instead, we've got this retund, boring middle-aged man whose whole thing is, I'm mad for it and I like the 80s or whatever. I don't know. Well, he doesn't like the 80s. We could have had... He likes New Order, but he doesn't like Margaret Thatcher.

20:23Camilla: Make your mind up. We could have had this absolute queen rocking it and representing us on the global stage. Speaking like a sketch writer, if ever there was one, you just wanted Angie there because it would make your copy more interesting. Now you've got to deal with Eyelash McGraw. We talked about Downing Street. You said Downing Street became Coronation Street. She turned it into a catwalk. Yes. Come on. It was like her on the way to the rover's return for a right old sesh. Get the tequilas on the table now. I've come back. It's a comeback, folks. I am very disappointed that she wasn't given health Because if that woman hasn't at some point Gone to a fancy dress party dressed as a slutty nurse I will Tim, I thought you were going to say If that woman hasn't been in A &E several times After a very late night out You can just imagine her doing a tour of the wards with doctors Cigarette in her hand Saying what time does the bar open?

21:17Camilla: Well, has there been a scrap Between her and Lisa Nandy For the department that Rainer has ended up in? Because MHLG or whatever it's called Ministry of Housing, Local Government, Communities, whatever it's now called. I think that Lisa Nandy wanted to move from culture to there. Yes. And I think Rainer, having rejected health, might have insisted on going back to housing because obviously if she can realise Andy Burnham's council house building dream, she's the Queen of the North, right? Yeah. She's the one who expunges, extinguishes Thatcher's dangerous legacy And she wants that because she wants to keep her union and lefty supporters happy.

22:00Camilla: So I think there's been a scrap. And I think Rainer is one versus Nandi. So Nandi remains at culture. Nandi is stuck at culture. But if you, so that's a good place to say, let's consider in the round what's really changed here. Nandi hasn't moved. Rainer has been brought back to her old job. Yes. very few in fact i can't rethink of any new faces at all no it does seem like it's moving people around all he's done is taken the exact same people that you had under starma and put them into new jobs okay some people a few new ones some people have been sacked who had to be sacked like reeves but really this is a question of rearrangement of the deck chairs which which leaves you wondering so what is burnamism well he even he can't define it tim and this is a problem My overwhelming feeling today, and again, being in Westminster, just chatting to a couple of the security guards that work in Portcullis House.

22:57Camilla: These two ladies who, OK, they're GB News fans, possibly more right leaning. But the general vibe was, what's going on? How can he come up with a 10 year plan without even calling a general election? Nobody's elected this man. So it's either that or it was a degree of, I saw somebody else who was like slightly distanced from what happened in Downing Street yesterday. like does anyone actually care did anyone notice so as of midnight last night of the top seven stories on our website only one which was the rolling blog was about andy burnham right the other six were about the football yeah donald trump or cancer and of the top like 30 maybe half were about burnham but burnham was being beaten in some cases by our interview with a gypsy lady who is running in Clacton.

23:50Camilla: Yes. Right. She's an influencer. She's an influencer. Gypsy lady. That is how she presents herself. I know. She's probably a gypsy. It's funny how you've called her gypsy lady. No, I know. I know the acceptable term is traveller, but that's how she presents herself. Yes, I know. My point is I am convinced, this is my big theory, that no one's paying any attention to any of this. The mood of the public right now is neither delight nor horror and it actually works to the advantage of left and right to pretend it's either because you've got to keep people interested in politics i think most people have completely tuned out so it's just and the atmosphere in the country is we are wearisome yes we've seen this done so many times before so let me get this right you didn't like your leader because they screwed up so you've kicked them out and then you've just moved some of the people around in the cabinet and you've got pretty much all the same policies you had before because you're still tied to your manifesto and your so-called radicalism is just doing what we said we would do, but more so, that's a repeat of Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak.

25:00That is what has happened every single time in the past decade.

25:04Camilla: Well, Truss, no, because Truss was radical, too radical, and then got chewed up and spat out. Well, Truss's biggest spending thing was actually a bailout on fuel. So she was, on paper, one of the most socialistic prime ministers we ever had. So I don't buy that. She'll disagree with that. No, of course she'll disagree with that. But my point is that for most people, this is deja vu. And this is the thing you have to bear in mind. Andy Burnham's rise to power has nothing to do with you. The Labour Party doesn't care about you at all. You've had no agency in it, so why should you care? No, this is a conversation within the Labour Party, within a party exactly like the Tories, that is undergoing a nervous breakdown.

25:53Yes. And they have persuaded themselves, much as the Tories did with Boris and then Liz, they persuaded themselves that actually this is not blind panic. We had just forgotten that we love this guy. Yeah. And we'd forgotten that there's this list of policies that we always really wanted to do. And now we're going to do them. So it's a reset. Yeah. You know, it's a reset.

26:13Camilla: It's the ultimate reset. And they're telling themselves that. It's more of the same. They're telling themselves that. And because they are a cult and they're all related to each other and they're all married to each other, it's got worse inbreeding than a Mormon village in Utah. That's true. They're all just talking to each other. And if they feel happy for five minutes, they persuade themselves that the entire country is happy. Because their history of Britain, which begins in about 1945, They don't think there was a Britain before then. Their history of Britain is everything good was done by Labour.

26:48You go to schools and you have cheap bread because of Labour. Anything bad was the Conservative Party. And that's literally, their history features no culture, no sport, no music, no space race. Nothing else happened in the last, say, 100 years except politics. And so if we can get labour right And if we can feel good about ourselves We can put growth in every postcode And hope in every heart And they're saying that And for the moment God bless them in their strange little cult They really believe this They really believe we're all into this But you just look at our board You look at what people are watching You look at what people are reading You speak to people in the street Look at the polls Look at the polls

27:36Camilla: They haven't really changed I mean, I know we've still got some surveys to come. We don't have properly up-to-date polls yet. But are they going to move, Tim? I don't think they are. The Burnham factor has been at play for about eight weeks. And Labour is saying, look, we just haven't worked in the fact that Burnham has become prime minister yet. And that's true. But as I say, the public has known for a long time that Starmer is going and they have been introduced to Burnham for a long period too. And the latest polls show things more or less unchanged, things a little bit closer but reformed just about ahead and the Tories in some cases ahead of Labour or nibbling at Labour's heels so thus far that hasn't broken through and again as I say if this was the radical reset which is supposed to be making us all so jolly excited then you'd imagine you'd already see a bounce in the polls well also if Labour is so great if everything's going so swimmingly well, why yesterday did Andy Burnham call for a circuit breaker?

28:37Camilla: Yeah. I need to break the circuit on the last two years of labour to bring you more labour. And that is a point that is going to be made by our next guest, because as we were walking around the newsroom this morning, we bumped into comedy legend and all-round national treasure, Griffish Jones.

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29:24Camilla: He was in the news all the time Where is Nirv Modi? Why can we not find it? He's one of the most sought after criminal in India You owe a lot of people a lot of money Mr Modi Who would very much like to know where you are Sorry no comment The Indians will think we're a laughing stock Here we are seven years later still speaking about this case They think it's a sham The Diamond King A new podcast from The Telegraph With me Mick Brown and me, Robert Mendick. Out now.

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30:42Camilla: The Telegraph's a funny place because you and I were just preparing to go and record this podcast. And then we bumped into Griff Rhys-Jones. Yes. And then we said to Griff Rhys-Jones, why are you here? How did you get into the building? And he said, and then basically, to cut long story short, Griff, you offered to come on to the podcast and we just took you. I have to admit, it's very difficult to get into this building. I had to pass through two sort of security things. I mean, I'm not saying that. We try and keep more than systems. We try and keep rabid lefties out. I see. Is that what it is?

31:12Camilla: And therefore, we're going to accept you. And before you come to talk to us about what you're writing about for The Telegraph. We're going to do Andy Burnham's big cabinet reveal today on the show. What are your thoughts about all hail Andy Burnham? I mean, to quote, you know, time's gone by, he is the next messiah apparently. Do you agree? I mean, I have to admit that I think the Labour Party have gone through a strange shooting themselves in the foot. I mean, his first comment sounded as if he was taken over from a conservative government. Yes. He seemed to say, we are making a fresh start and a new start, and he felt that's a real admittance of failure.

31:49But I have some hopes of Andy, but I've met him a few times, and he's a charmer. And, of course, he read English literature at Cambridge, like so many of us did. But most of us, from David Baddiel, Fruit of Stephen Fry, never thought that politics was anything but a second-rate way of using whatever skills you'd learned in Cambridge. But it's a worry, because with Burnham, in a funny way, with English literature, as any fool do know, the secret of English literature is to bullshit. So if you're writing in an exam on English literature and you sort of get asked, you know, why did Virginia Woolf embrace modernism in such a way, you immediately start by saying, well, that's the wrong question to ask.

32:34And you get points for actually challenging and being rather sort of, not so very different, though, from Boris Johnson and PPE, is it? really in a funny sort of way. So I wonder whether there's a link here. That's a good training for politics. We'll see working way out. Yeah. It's a good training for politics. Didn't Peter Cook say that all the people who went into politics were the people who got kicked out of footlights? That might be the case. But there were a lot of people who went over to the union and stood up there. Yeah. That's right.

33:04Camilla: But politicians are effectively failed actors. Yes, it's theatrics of people who can't. Or too ugly. And doctors too. Too ugly for showbiz. This is the other thing, isn't it? Politics showbiz for ugly people Yes, yes Now you're very concerned about the fate of Liverpool Street Station Tell us why A while back I was, I would like to say elected But I was just appointed president of the Victorian Society And we became very agitated by Network Rail and its plans for Liverpool Street Station I mean frankly the simple truth is that I can't quite work out why the city deserves its railway station to be completely transformed.

33:44The first, I don't know if you remember, Herzog and de Meurham put forward a scheme which was so awful that everybody, everybody, I mean, the whole world, including all the boroughs of London, said, we can't have this. So that stopped. But they're still trying to put about almost a million square feet, almost 20 stories of office block bang on the top of Liverpool Street Station. And I can't work out why the city would, I mean, the city have just passed it, but they passed 98 % of things that come before them. And it's part of their plan, as you're probably aware, the city to big up their offices.

34:25I mean, people think they're fighting Frankfurt or New York or something, but actually they're fighting Canary Wharf. And they have built, built, built over the last, and we've seen this wall of glass. But they really don't need to build on their heritage sites. They've got three major heritage sites. They've got the Tower of London. They've got St Paul's. And they have Liverpool Street Station. And if you look at a sort of model or a map of the City of London, you go, oh, yeah, those are like three great sort of things sitting. It's absolutely extraordinary that Network Rail should want to do this because they're claiming it's the only way they can pay for reform of the station.

35:08and you have to go back there. They have a statutory duty, Network Rail, for example, to put in disabled lifts. So they use disabled lifts while they're PR. So we have to ask ourselves, what are they trying to achieve? What are they doing with this very, I mean, I'm going to say it's dodgy. I'm just saying it's already been assessed as unviable. In other words, that the actual building itself is not going going to make the money to pay for the improvements that they want. It's difficult enough to make a profit on building in the city. And how old is the station? The station is a sort of 1860s station.

35:50And it's a very interesting station because although they talk about a gateway to London, it's a commuter station. It was built to serve Upminster and Ilford. And it runs, as you know, out east. So it's very much my station because I'm an Essex boy. So I've always been associated with Liverpool Street Station. And it has a very beautiful restoration, which was undertaken at the behest of John Betjeman and Spike Milligan and others when they saved the station. And they have a very, very beautiful concourse and a very wide, big concourse by London standards. So a lot of this is a mysterious sort of obfuscation of the truth.

36:25Camilla: Don't you need to make a direct appeal now to our new housing secretary? She's made a comeback, Angela Rayner, because ultimately decision making on planning is vicariously hers, I believe. Well, we are worried because, first of all, it has to go to the mayor. Now, the mayor has already been advised by his own independent design committee that this is overreach. That the justification for building this office block is not met by the needs of the station. and that is in black and white and has already been put before him. So there's been a bit of a pause. So we rather hope that Lord Sadiq, as he is now, but we rather hope that he thinks himself.

37:10And what I really want is Lord Sadiq to go into the House of Ermin, sit opposite all those other lords, and those other lords ask him some pertinent questions about it. And I think that's what I really want to see happen first. I fear if it goes... Angela Rayner, when she was housing social, she said, I don't want to decide what beauty is. She took out any sort of sense of good design out of planning. She said, I don't want any of that. That's holding up growth because people are disputing it. And I understand this idea that people think that it's all subjective, all elitist, but look at it this way.

37:53You go to King's Cross, you go to St Pancras, great buildings saved, in St Pancras' case, by the Victorian society from being demolished. And what they did recently was take off the modern accretion that had happened, especially in King's Cross, and reveal these two huge monuments to the Victorian age. Very different stations built within 10 years of each other. And a sort of real statement of London. and I can't for the life of me see why the City of London, who ought to be guardians of the city, the planning committee, have said, oh, we don't want anything to do with that. Tom Slay said, look at the amount of amazing growth we're achieving in the city.

38:35And you go, well, that's not the point. You have heritage there as well. It's one of the reasons why the City of London is so revered. Yes. And you need to be there as a planning committee to preserve that and he needs to learn that. Otherwise, we're heading for a terrible time. I think there's a reasonable standard of beauty that everyone can grasp. And it's partly about character. It's not difficult, is it? No. Honestly, it's not difficult to look at a thing. And it's about story. But funnily enough, the legal arguments with this particular case are so strong. And there's so many questions to be asked of legality, of intent, and how the network rail are interpreting what they claim is a diktat from the Department of Transport, which includes the idea, the most bizarre idea I think I've ever read, where they say, We are instructed to build on brownfield sites, and we have determined, as it were, that brownfield includes the airspace above any concourse we own.

39:44Now, you go, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I think a brownfield site is a sort of disused sort of brown bit of old industrial thing. But according to them, no. They think that the air, they say if it's underutilized, then we need to go up. And that really licenses a terrible sort of prospect across Britain, really, if they say, well, any concourse should be able to take a skyscraper on top of it. The difficulty with the mayor is he doesn't really have, and this is one of the funny things with Andy Burnham, mares don't really have an enormous amount of power. No. And they are involved in acts of charisma building.

40:29You know, they spend a lot of time sort of opening things and standing around pontificating, which gives them the opportunity, as Andy Burnham has had, to build up a sort of personality because they don't really have a huge workload and they don't really necessarily achieve very much. But Mayor Sadiq has Transport for London under his control. Transport for London only owns a few sites that it can play with and one of them is Liverpool Street Station. So he has already gone down to the south of France and put his backing behind putting in more development on top of Waterloo and on top of Victoria Station next door to where we're sitting.

41:09Camilla: Oh, we don't want to sit. We don't want development next door. We don't want the builders in. We've got the podcast. What do you think, Camilla? Do the Londoners really want to see random skyscrapers popping up like the Shard, you know, on all the railway stations of London? I don't think it will be a disaster. We already have them around Victoria. Victoria has changed a lot. It's gone from a 60s eyesore to 2010s eyesore. It's like being in Dubai. Griff, before we let you go... Yeah, you've got to let me go. You can tell. otherwise I'll be here for another I've been involved in this I've been involved in this fight for four years I just have a lot to say someone's coming to escort you from the public because we've taken up enough of your time but can I just ask you this as a kind of Griff's a national treasure we've got a national treasure in this city a great British institution in the vein of our greatest Victorian buildings six feet down waiting for a rediscovery but do you because we had a very interesting day in Downing Street yesterday, Griff, were sort of watching these historical events unfold with a degree of incredulity, really.

42:15Camilla: It all felt a little bit surreal. How are you feeling about it all? How are you feeling about seven prime ministers in 10 years and everything that's gone on? I mean, are you tearing your hair out? Well, I just think that the political classes have gone through a terrible time of not really understanding what the ordinary person in this country sort of wants. Now, I can't speak for the ordinary person because everybody, all the politicians are. But in a funny sort of way, my reading of history is that prime ministers are important parts of the management system. And that the messianic qualities they need to have is for good management, not necessarily for the various missions that we keep hearing about.

43:03I mean, good management is the essential quality that we look to politicians to do. And Conservative and Labour have been mismanaging their opportunity to tighten up and get their management working to the best degree. And whether or not you're a fan of Mrs. Thatcher, when they talk about her commitment as a commitment politician, she was a commitment. She had a commitment to grosser shop management type beliefs. That sort of tightened up things a bit.

43:35Camilla: Do we think Mrs Thatcher liked Smith & Jones? Just thinking it's the same era. No, I don't think she did. No, no, she liked... I certainly didn't like another nine and a half years. I bet she loved Griff. We did. Exactly. I bet she did. But we just finished in... I just finished in Sorry, Prime Minister, which was the last play, which was in the West End. It was great. It was a big hit. This is the sequel to Yes. Yes, it was the final one with the two of them sitting there sort of powerless. And lots of things started happening which were relevant to the debate going on. But the interesting element was that she, at one point, determined that she wanted to write a sketch for it and got Nigel Hawthorne and Paul Eddington to come in and do her sketch.

44:22They said it was one of the most embarrassing things as actors they'd ever been asked to do. Wow.

44:31Camilla: Griff Reith-Jones, thank you very much indeed for joining us. Unexpectedly, but you've been so welcome in the studio. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

45:26Camilla: We'll see you next time. book host reads or run your own ads, and track every conversion in real time. Same skills you already have, brand new results. Acast. Acast.com slash advertise.