‘Same nonsense in a northern accent’: ‘Bimbo’ Burnham bungles first PMQs

0:02The Telegraph.

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0:54He's a bimbo. Andy Burnham did his first PMQs as Prime Minister and exposed himself as an airhead. It was a cringe fest of in-jokes and innuendos. Is this man really up to the job? Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Camilla Tomini.

1:18He's a bimbo. Andy Burnham did his first PMQs as Prime Minister and exposed himself as an airhead. It was a cringe fest of in-jokes and innuendos. Is this man really up to the job? Some people have one narrative that they stick to for all 75-plus years, and that seems to me what he's done. He's found his one narrative, which is life is tough. You know, look, he did English. He read North and South and only got halfway through it, right? He's just all about the North. I do find this whole narrative around Thatcher and how terrible the 70s and 80s were. More likely the 80s. He quite liked the 70s, even though nobody could collect the bins.

1:54and the country was bankrupt. No matter. That's still left for you. Why does he keep on attacking the woman that helped him to get to Cambridge? Him, the YouTube channel's going great guns. Huge success. Thank you, everyone, for subscribing. 23 ,000 subscribers so far, but we do want that to go into higher. We want it to be higher than the average MP's IQ, please. So could we please have that above 100 ,000 liked by tomorrow, if you don't mind? And we need to plug the fact that we're at the Reform Conference. We are. We will be holding two big panel events from 1pm until 2.30pm each day at the beautiful Birmingham NEC.

2:34Shall we wear teal? I might borrow Penny Mordaunt's dress from the coronation. Right. I think it's in a museum, isn't it? Possibly. I think it's on display next to the Bayeux Tapestry. That's right. But there is also pink. Reform is into pink at the moment. Pink football shirts, because Nigel Farage's right-hand man was wearing one when we interviewed him in Tuckton. What fun we had taking the mickey out of him. I know Hunter Biden has described himself as 48 % gay. Right. Which, as I pointed out, means you've still lost the referendum and you have to accept the result. But I thought maybe reform is also experiencing a moment of bi-curiosity.

3:13That's lovely, isn't it? It reminds me of Infantino, who's currently being investigated by goodness knows whom, giving that bizarre speech where he said, I'm straight, I'm gay. And it reminds me a bit of Leila Moran, formerly of this parish, who did the Sunday showdown with me, who famously announced herself as a pansexual. Yes, she's a pansexual. And the great late Silvio Berlusconi said that everyone has a bit of homosexual in them, and he said, and my bit is a lesbian. I can't follow that at all. But then since men have been identifying as lesbians, I've just completely lost track. Our guests include at the Reform Conference, Nick Candy, He is supporting reform morally and financially.

3:51Lee Anderson, 30P Lee as he's nicknamed, once in Labour, then in the Conservatives, now in reform, so we can ask him about his political journey. And Danny Kruger, thinking man's reform. Who asked a question at PMQs today. He did, and he's the one putting the policy together. And then we're having a women of reform panel with Nadine Dorrez, Leila Cunningham and Sarah Pochin. But are you going to be all right? I'll be outnumbered. I want to stress, those aren't the only women in reform. No, but they're the women that we are interviewing for the Daily Team. Exactly, yes. And you can find out more information about where to go, telegraph.co.uk forward slash conference events, and it's all there.

4:27Come and see us, come and say hi, ask a question, comment on our wardrobe, and indeed, Tim's beliefs on climate change. Because that'd be fun at the Reform Climate Principle. Oh, heavens, don't bring that up. I'm joking. People are going to bring graphs. Now, we were discussing absolute filth before PMQs this morning because we were discussing the word helix, and I said that I thought it meant two things. I thought it was the name for a mathematics set and I googled it and you can buy a helix mathematics set with like a, not a projector, what do I mean? We're terrible at maths. What's it called?

5:00A compass? For calculating angles. Yeah, what's that thing? A protractor. Thank you. A protractor and a triangle and a compass and a pencil. And then I falsely claimed that I thought you could have your helix pierced and I thought it was a reference to a woman's nether regions. Right. But actually, no, the helix is this part of your ear that you think appears to not actually a clitoris. And there is a reason for saying this because suddenly you went off to Parliament and did you appreciate that it would become carry-on PMQs with lewd and filthy jokes thrown in? It was a very sexy PMQs. Is that because Andy Burnham was at it?

5:37I think this is because he's quite... He's not a bad-looking man. Let's get this out now. I've already said that to you. Let us get it over with. I think Andy Burnham is a bimbo he's quite good looking but there's nothing between the ears classic English undergrad and I do need to be honest and say to you on air that I did say to you yesterday back in the day yes I probably would right okay when he was younger or now no when he was younger I've been married for 20 years obviously I don't look at any other men than my darling husband no but I'm okay but my point is good for good for a role on a college beanbag but the next day when he's sending you texts which are rip-offs of bits of Shelley and Byron it starts to dawn on you Oasis lyrics are dodgy or something he's heard on Loose Women or just going, you're not a Thatcher supporter, are you?

6:26Yeah, exactly, but that's when the penny drops ooh, he's quite thick Hang on listen, this man has gone to Cambridge I know you've also gone to Cambridge I haven't, so I don't think I'm in a position to comment on the intelligence Cambridge grads Yeah, but it's English, so they can't see each other out. Can I make my very basic and idiotic and lowbrow point that I always make, but I want to make it in the face of your academic esteem, that I do find this whole narrative around Thatcher and how terrible the 70s and 80s were, or more likely the 80s. He quite liked the 70s, even though nobody could collect the bins and the country was bankrupt.

7:02No matter. That's the left for you. Why does he keep on attacking the woman that helped him to get to Cambridge? Yes. I mean, forgive me, but he is of that generation that is born in the north to a lower income family. I don't think he was kind of on the breadline or brought up in a cardboard box in the middle of the street. But he shares Keir Starmer's son of a toolmaker-ish narrative, right, along with people like Rachel Reeves. These are all children of Thatcher who socially mobilised all the way to Oxford and Cambridge. What's so terrible about all this? But I think life is about growth and you change over the course of your life.

7:37and some people don't. And some people have one narrative that they stick to for all 75 plus years. And that seems to me what he's done. He's found his one narrative, which is life is tough. You know, look, he did English. He read North and South and only got halfway through it, right? He's just all about the North. As Ben Abisjecti, the Tory MP, has pointed out, Greater Manchester is the new son of a toolmaker. Yes, it is. And he just deploys it all the time because there's no growth. Nothing has happened to him to really change him, it seems, since that formative experience of having been born in the north.

8:13Also, the regeneration of Manchester, like Liverpool, is a cross-party affair. I mean, you can point to Lord Hesseltine renovating the Albert Docks, even though everyone in Liverpool seems to despise the Tories. I mean, that was quite a good thing that he did. Also, there is a little bit of, I don't know, revisionism going on in the history of some of these northern mining towns. As our correspondent Frank from Burnham Market points out, note Burnham Market. Maybe there's some familiarity there. One would have been forgiven for assuming that the new MP for Makerfield, an ex-mining community, would know about the coal industry if nothing else.

8:46It appears that the now Labour-appointed Prime Minister does not know his history. The Labour governments before Thatcher, from 1964 to 70 and 1974 to 79, closed down substantially more mining pits overall, about 295. Thatcher's government closed between 115 and 154, depending on the counting method used. The Labour Party of the 1960s and 70s told us the future was North Sea oil and gas. Thank you, Frank. That's a very good point. But then Britain hit overproduction on coal at the beginning of the last century. And that's why you had the Great Strike in the 1920s because they were producing too much of it.

9:24And the owners decided that the way through was to cut people's wages and make them work over time. And basically, coal has been a struggling industry here for a very long time. but I just don't know why we're talking about it. There isn't a coal mine anymore. No, but also... It'd be like having a PMQs in which we discuss the fate of Woolworth. Because he's inviting us to go back to the past and blame it for all of today's ills. But the trouble is his memory is selective. So there's no mention at all of what happened between, curiously, 1997 and 2010. Yes. And correct me if I'm wrong, Ting, but I don't remember Tony Blair and Gordon Brown re-industrialising our industries.

10:01Yes. I remember that they took the decision... No. to increase migration to this country, which therefore saw low-skilled workers from overseas taking British jobs, particularly on the factory floor, by the way. And second of all, I think that they wanted to develop a services economy rather than manufacturing. They were the key proponents of that. Of which Bank of England independence and a strong pound were a critical part, and it meant it was harder for particularly businesses in the North East to sell their exports overseas. So you're absolutely right. But I just don't care. I'm just sick of discussing the past.

10:36And it's really interesting, isn't it, that the right, which is perceived as being Thatcher obsessed, and don't get me wrong, there are some necrophiliacs on the party fringe. Am I one of them? I do have a picture of her downstairs. Yeah, and last year they literally put her dresses up at Tory party conference. It is creepy. They need to get over that. I don't think I'd ever wear one of Thatcher's dresses. I just want to point that out. But the right is perceived as being stuck in the 1980s. But actually that's not true. Anyone who's been following them knows that they philosophically developed.

11:03They've shifted away from neoliberalism towards a kind of populist nationalism. They're all about border control now, and reform is talking about nationalising steel. The right has moved on from Thatcherism. It's the left under Andy Burnham who is obsessed with Margaret Thatcher. Also, the right's only obsessed with the growth rate while she was prime minister, which was, I think, on average, nearly 3 % a year. Well, and they also admire one of the great statespeople in British history. She's up there with Churchill, with Clement Attlee, with Lloyd George. She is admired by people as a human being and as a person who had beliefs and was capable of articulating them.

11:42Well, on that note, they admired her because she was a great parliamentary performer. Yes. Now, I was watching on the telly again. You were in the upper gallery. Yes. Now, I told you he was rubbish. I know. And I wrote a sketch saying he was rubbish. I know, it's a good sketch. And I've had a number of people say to me, I thought it was Hwakot actually. and a lot of people sort of online say oh so it's a breath of fresh air is it and then i then so i thought well we'll need to see how he watches on a second go at pmqs and well he stunk even worse than yesterday why is he speaking so slowly so slowly i think it's a sign of a lack of confidence and he also does that thing of speaking staccato which is a sign of a brain that's trying to think a couple of sentences ahead clinging on to notes for dear life i noticed as well there was no There's spontaneity there.

12:30The job is hard. And Keir Starmer had spent several years as leader of the opposition, and he wasn't very good at it, but he had learnt how to speak to the House. We're dropping Burnham straight in it and expecting someone who's been out of Parliament for a very long time to be able to do that. And I'm not sure he's capable of it. What he's trying to do is kill with kindness by constantly either saying, I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute. And he paid tribute to almost everyone. I think the cleaner got a name drop at some point. Yeah. So he tries to say, so you can't criticise or have a row with a man who's just being so nice.

13:02And the other thing is he kept saying, we shouldn't have point scoring, we shouldn't have problem solving. But then he tried to score points by accusing the Tories of creating all the problems. Yeah, well, let's listen to that, because, of course, he couldn't help but mention Liz Truss's mini budget again. Some PPS to the DEFRA secretary, with all respect to my right-on-one friend. He was in the Treasury, Mr Speaker, as a senior minister on the day of the trust budget. She mentions mortgage rates. Well, that was the day that they spiked. And that was the day the British public were hammered by the previous government.

13:42We are taking the action needed to get debt down. This will be a government grounded in fiscal responsibility. It will stick to the fiscal rules, but at the same time, we will help reduce cost of living pressure on our constituents, and that's the approach that we will take, and that's the one I would suggest the party offers it, they should follow too. Mr Speaker, he is the Prime Minister now. He needs to answer the questions instead of spending time attacking someone who has more private sector experience than his entire cabinet. The trouble is with those figures, and I know you and I don't like talking about the guilt yields because it reminds us of our Catholicism and it also reminds us that we're both terrible at maths.

14:29However, this is the only stat you really need to care about today. The guilt yields are higher now than they were at the peak of Liz Truss's reign. So we are in a more parlous and perilous state of borrowing in this country than we have been since, I think, the global financial crisis. Yeah. And either the Labour leadership, I come back to airhead, either they are maliciously misrepresenting this, or, as I genuinely suspect, don't understand it, the situation has got worse in the last two years. But they're trying to suggest to us that it's a legacy of what the Tories did that they are still trying to fix.

15:09It might be a partial legacy of what the Tories did because the markets were so spooked by trust and what happened with these LDIs. I'm not explaining it. I don't understand it. But remember, the bottom fell out of the whole thing. And therefore, the markets don't have as much confidence, particularly overseas investors and others in the British economy than they did. Yes. Because of the disaster of that trust period. But we were rebuilding it. She has to take a bit of the blame. But we were rebuilding it under Sunak and we've lost it under Rachel Reeves because of decisions that they have taken to spend and to borrow more.

15:43Yes. So when he talks about how this will be a government that will root everything in fiscal prudence, that's not what they've been doing. But he's trying to play a trick on us of suggesting that this is year zero in Labour governance. Yeah, it's not. It's not. We're in the middle of a parliament. He is clearing up the mess that he inherited. And I don't think he either has the experience or the political ability to do that. And I'm, of course, I'm a sketch writer, a man with a hammer just sees nails. I judge this all on parliamentary performance. But what I've seen in the last couple of days is a man who needed several years in opposition to reach the level whereby he could compete in the big leagues.

16:23and to give an example, I think this has become more apparent as the weeks go by, Kemi Baden-Ock is really running rings around him. Yes. But she began, we talked about how this thing seemed to descend into dirty talk, she began with what I don't think was intended as an innuendo, but it was one for the ages. Can I congratulate the Prime Minister on his stamina? Three hours. Yesterday.

16:52Yesterday, he faced 125 questions from MPs across the House. Of course, Labour and the Lib Dems just wanted more government spending as taxpayers' money. But can he name a single spending request to which he answered no? How did he react to the opposition leader making that remark? He turned bright red. Bless him. And then he continued with what appeared to be, to carry on the sex talk, a fumble in the dark. Because I just found him then to be completely, like, basically searching for the political equivalent of the G spot. Must be the P spot. Because, I say this, because he was trying, for instance, he was asked a question about whether he understood the fiscal rules.

17:39And he did respond with this. What I can say to the right honourable lady is I was quite clear in my statement about the need to get the welfare bill down. I do not want to be a Prime Minister that sees a situation where we have so many people in their 20s, not in education, employment or training. I can't defend that, and I want to change that by giving more support to young people so that we start investing in their success, Mr Speaker, rather than paying for failure, as we have done for many years under successive governments. Now, this seems to me, Mr Speaker, to be one area where we can both engage in problem-solving rather than point-scoring, and I hope the Right Honourable Lady will take up my offer on that point.

18:33However, he then refused to rule out borrowing more money, even though the guilt yields are in this terrible situation that we've just discussed. Then we had a real bungle, not just a fumble, but a bungle over defence spending. Let's hear him make the defence spending commitment. The very reason I appointed this Chancellor to his position is because of his strong commitment to the defence of our country and to defence spending. We will fully fund the defence investment plan. And at the spending review, we will set out a plan to meet our NATO commitments by 2035. While not realising that the year he should have cited to get to 3 % of GDP is 2030, Tim, not 2035.

19:21Interesting. Interesting. And when pushed into a corner like this, he lashed out. And he started to attack the Tories and to attack their record. and it was so interesting to see because you cannot do this whole i'm bringing oh we got the alliteration i'm bringing hope positivity and all this sort of stuff again the english degree comes out he's into repeating p's all the time and repeating h's all sort of thing um but you can't just do that because eventually you've got to answer a question and if you persistently dodge it as he's doing all you can fall back on is lashing out yes and so he started to attack the Tories and their record.

20:00And then he encountered Tim some friendly fire on defence spending from his own backbencher, Tanmanjit Singh Desi, who said this. The nation faces a significantly increased threat level, especially from Russia. But also we have a US leadership for whom European security is no longer a focus or priority. And that is why it is imperative that we invest in our armed forces in the here and now, rather than be sorry later. Indeed, defence is definitely one area where vibes alone just isn't going to be enough. So rather than kick the can down the road waiting for a fiscal event in the future, in a future year, will the Prime Minister urgently commit to charting a pathway to reach 3 % of GDP spend on defence by 2030?

20:55which, as his chancellor rightly noted, is critical to keep our country safe. Now, this shoots the government's fox on two counts. One, Burnham keeps saying when asked about 3%, I appointed John Healy as my chancellor. I appointed John Healy because he resigned. OK, he resigned. And now we all assumed that when he got the job of chancellor, the very first thing he would do is say, and here is the ring-fenced money to get us to the 3%. But what he's being asked here is, where is the money then? So it shoots the fox of, I appointed Healy. Yeah, you did. And he hasn't come up with the money yet. But it also shoots the fox on this question of delay and obfuscation.

21:41Yes. That it's all just talk. Because Burnhamism, what is Burnhamism? Burnhamism is a grand project to devolve power in the hope that this somehow will lead to growth and a fairer distribution of money. Even though it hasn't in Wales or Scotland. Whether that works or not, when you're in a war situation with Russia, it's totally irrelevant. The question that matters is, where is the money for the guns? Yeah. And where is it coming from? Exactly. The rest of it is all mad, balmy blather. Yeah. And the public, by the way, is going to get really sick of it. And it's going to get sick of it because the government itself can't explain it.

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23:06PMQs was followed by a statement by Louise Haig, the red-headed one, the one who lost her phone, a statement about, get this, rewiring government. does that mean she's does that mean she's pulling out all the wires from the walls i don't know what does that even mean and one assumes uh that after that one assumes that she was asked questions by mps and anything she said was took down and used in evidence against her yes but the thing is as well for those who have forgotten what i'm referring to that's right it was the i've had a phone stolen no this is actually louise convicted criminal hey who's in In charge of rewiring government.

23:48You might want to check it's still there when she's finished. Well, isn't this the public perception? It doesn't really matter who the personnel are. There's this impression of somebody like Louise Haig down in the basement fiddling with the fuse box while the roof is on fire. That's the trouble here. And also, this whole 12 billion black hole in the finances ahead of the budget as a result of our sky-high borrowing costs then engendered a debate between Burnham and Badenock about welfare spending. Let's have a listen to that. He's talking about working together on welfare. I already made that offer, but that does mean cuts.

24:23He wants to bring the welfare bill down by spending more money. Yesterday, the Prime Minister told the House that his summer of promises would be paid for by reprioritising within government. So what exactly has he cut? Well, in terms of what has he cut, Tax is the simple answer to that question.

24:54And we made a decision early to be clear about our priorities. Digital ID is not a priority for me or for this Government. We reallocated the funding and we made those commitments as a result. Mr Speaker, I asked what he cut He says tax cuts He hasn't said where the money is coming from He talks about digital ID Yeah, I know, he said digital ID But the Chief Secretary to the former Prime Minister Said that there was no money allocated For digital ID You can't cut something that never existed In the first place And really all Kemi's doing there Is constantly saying to him, yes and Yes it's not enough just to come out and say you know hope postcodes it's going to have a wildfire summit by the way Keir Starmer was always going to summits but he's going to do the same but just going to be in this country it really is Keir Starmer 2.0 and this the penny will eventually drop people will figure this out that it's going to be it's exactly the same nonsense just in a northern accent let's have a summit let's have a review let's get Louise Casey to look at this yeah and we will report back in a couple of years time yeah if we can be bothered yeah and by then will tell you that lessons have indeed been learned.

26:07Yeah. On the side, there was also, to come back to the sex theme, some flirtation with Ed Davey yet again, who began his question about Brexit by congratulating the PM on what he'd said about the faults of Brexit. And then, of course, Burnham began his reply to Davey essentially by praising him for quoting him. Oh, get him in, lads, honestly. Come on. It was bad enough with Starmer. I think one week Ed Davey is going to stand up and just say in a creepy voice from inside the house, I love you. And then sit down again. And of course, the other strange thing about this is all the action is on front benches.

26:48So there's Burnham speaking in his front benches and sort of going, mm, dude. But behind him, if the camera pulls back, the look of tedium and disappointment on Labour MP's faces. Clive Lewis was sort of sitting with his arms folded and his face all crunched up, just looking utterly miserable. I know, but Clive Lewis won't be happy until Marx's court is at the despatch box, spreading the news of communism everywhere. Until the People's Army is marching through Trafalgar Square. But the same is true of the Lib Dems, I noticed. Well, they can't be happy with Big Ed, can they? No. While Davey was speaking, and I congratulate the Prime Minister on his beautiful, beautiful eyes.

27:31Yes. Will you go out with me? Yeah, behind him, everyone was just sitting and just, again, looking glum. No one's enjoying the Samantha Niblet. I tell you what, somebody who's enjoying her parliamentary life is, I'm just going to call her the dildo lady, what she called Samantha Niblet, which in itself is filthy. I mean, the funny thing is, someone called Samantha Niblet would in a past life be played by Barbara Windsor in a carry-on film, wouldn't they? She would be. Nurse Niblet. and she'd introduce herself as, I'm Miss Niblet. Sir James would say, I bet you are. Niblet stands up to speak and she has a little moment with the PM.

28:10This is her parliamentary, this is her PMQ's debut. And she chose to speak about, and I appreciate I did speak about it at the beginning of this podcast, but the topic of conversation was vaginas. I have discovered that shame, guilt and embarrassment around talking about sex and body parts like penis and vagina is even leading to late diagnosis of health conditions and illnesses such as cancer for many in my constituency of South Derbyshire and across the country. Something I've spoken about with the Eve Appeal and constituent Louise Clark, a GP who specialises in cancer of the vulva. They're really great for my campaign.

28:45So as September is National Gynaecological Cancer Month and as the summer of sex comes to a close, will the Prime Minister agree to meet with me to talk about my campaign? What? What's she doing? What's she doing? Ms Niblett has been campaigning for what she calls a summer of sex. Yes. I don't know if everyone else has enjoyed it. All I can say is one swallow does not a summer make. No, can I also say it's been extremely hot for sex. We've had heat waves. Well, now you know why the fires were so wild. But she says that the problem is that, you know, she has a semi-serious point here, which is that if people don't understand sex and sexuality and they're afraid to use rude words, which she put into Hansard.

29:30I mean, it's the first time Hansard has become worth reading. Well, she didn't use any rude words. She used the word penis. I mean, I can think of... It's quite a rude word. I can think of ruder ways to describe it. But we're not going to do that now because I'm not with my older brothers. Carry on, too. So she's got a sort of semi-serious point there. But I think the problem with her argument is, first of all, this isn't 1860. No. And I think we're all over that now. Yeah. I think we've all moved on. And the funny thing is, is that in a post-60s society, using rude words actually leads to giggling in a way that...

30:05Especially with a British audience. Well, exactly. But when we were puritanical and you would say, that was like a lovely pair, you know, that got people to laugh. But actually when you're post-puritanical and you say, Winkle, that gets people to laugh as well. Or just nibble it. So whatever serious point she was trying to make has been lost in the childish giggles coming out of the press gallery. Also, people were leaving at the point she was speaking about Volvo and things and therefore it just gave it a comical feel. Although, to be fair... Well, I think she had reminded them of an appointment they had to keep.

30:36But... Stop it! But, to be fair, it did gift the new Prime Minister with an opportunity for his own little moment of humour. Yes. I will indeed, Mr Speaker. And she's been raising important issues that others haven't spoken about and it's very clear to me that her summer was more exciting than mine. As someone, Madeleine Grant, said to me, I find it very funny that the Prime Minister sort of slut-shamed her there. Yeah. Suggesting she'd had a filthy summer, the little mink. He's obviously jealous. He's been spending all of his time running across the UK and banging on about Number 10 North and, I don't know, installing some IKEA furniture.

31:16Well, having had a summer of sex, as is the way with Labour governments, it's now followed by a winter of discontent. Quite right. Well, if you want to return to the 1970s, that's what you're going to get. Shall we get the readers' comments? In fact, these are our YouTube audience members. Did we mention we've got a new YouTube channel? I'm not sure if we mentioned it enough. Do subscribe. Please do. Andrew Davies, this man is now the leader of our country. God help us. William Money, incredible that we have to accept this man as PM. I despise the Labour Party. Somebody calling themselves 4321ORT.

31:52Burnham sounded like a primary school headmaster doing his morning crap. My God, he's the PM. There's some incredulity going on. There is. Urban power. Burnham is a great example of the mediocrity we have come to expect in all levels of public life in the UK. Colin. I watched Burnham's first Commons performance but fell asleep with boredom. Oh, Colin. God, that's not good. Oh, hello. And Horst Defner, which sounds like something Ms Niblet might put on Put on the record. I thought you were going to say put on charge. Carry on. Says they warn that he is a cheap copy of Starmer. They are right. Same circus, different clown.

32:26Where's the eject button? Ask Officio 698. Keep the comments coming because they're all good fun. Can we just have a moment as well to reflect on Zach Polanski refusing to rule out standing in Holborn in St Pancras, which is Starmer's old seat. Reactions to the timing of yesterday's resignation. So I was on Newsnight with Jenny Chapman, who is a Starmer fan, insisting, you know, it was the day everyone went back to school, so why wouldn't he announce his resignation? And now that is looking particularly petulant, isn't it? Not least because he didn't appear in the House. Sorry, you don't start the school term by resigning.

33:01No, of course you don't. You do that before the summer holidays. Yes, but it's interesting to see the bookmakers putting Labour 2-7 to win, but actually the Greens are bringing up the rear. I just said 3-1. We're back to Miss Niblet. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I just can't stop thinking about it. Just stop your filthy mind. You need to get down to Westminster Cathedral, honestly. And also, should we just talk about voting intention? Yes, because a poll came out. Yes, a youth trill that More in Common suggested... The Tories are up by one point over reform, putting them into second place for the first time in 18 months.

33:35And if you look at the raw figures, it's actually closer to 2%. Yes. Which is significant. Well, it is, but the poll of polls, and we've got one running on our website. Do check it out. Telegraph have got one. Everyone's got one. It still puts reform ahead. Of course it does. The Conservatives and Labour level pegging. It's of lesser concern to Nigel Farage than it should be to Andy Burnham. Where's this bounce? Well, that's a good question. There's no bounce in his ball. Yeah. And as he is doing an Instagram PPMQs. Why? What? People's major questions, I think it's called. Oh, stop it. Come on.

34:12This is going to be, do you like a hobnob or a digestive type? Yeah, it's going to be that sort of thing. And the answers are going to be equally banal. But I think that I am convinced the public's having the same reaction as me. I know I think I'm an outlier within the lobby. I think everyone else is giving him time and is thinking at least he's a bit more charming and witty than Starmer. But I think he's trying to do this act at a moment when the public's patience is exhausted and has been really for bordering on 20 years. but he's also trying to do it halfway through a government rather than at the beginning of it.

34:46And I just think we've entered a new era in which constitutional arguments aside, you can't become PM and command the confidence of the public without a general election. I just don't think until you've been introduced to the public and explain what you want to do, I don't think that they're going to give you a chance. But on that note, if these guilt yields continue to rise and the cost of borrowing continues to wipe out any remaining fiscal headroom and he has no other option but to tax us more, which seems unbelievable when the tax take is already at the highest rate since the Second World War.

35:22He's then going to have to cross the red lines in the manifesto. And then there'll be an election. And then he'll have to have an election. He can find some sort of wealth tax that's not called a wealth tax and that's not one of the headline rates of tax. So he could theoretically raise that. In the same way that he raised national insurance on business and that didn't demand an election. But I think it's worth noting, because our conference season begins tomorrow, that we're heading into a very different conference season from last year, where the story last year was really reform on top, Labour collapsing, and the Tories just practically didn't exist.

35:55The Tory conference last time was the conference of the last of the faithful. It was like the Spartans' last stand. Although they've not brought it all around at the end. With a very good speech promising to abolish stamp duty. How is she going to beat that speech, by the way? That's a pressure. Yes, but now we're entering a conference season where they're all ranked pretty much the same in the polls. There's everything to fight for. The Tories feel rejuvenated and are very excited by that one-point poll lead over Reform. Reform is, they've won Clacton, so they're happy about that. They're going to be addressed by Jordan Bardella of the Front National, controversial.

36:27I like how you pronounce that. Mordiou. So they still feel like they are the one to beat. And of course, Labour now thinks it's bouncing, it's on the way back up again. So it's just really interesting that we're entering a conference season now where we're not quite sure who is the most popular and it feels like there's everything to fight for. By the way, trust the French to be in town when PMQs has just descended into filth. That's true, yes. They can't help themselves, can they? And by the way, you discussing... Along with the tapestry. You discussing whether Farage or Badenock are on top suggests to me that you need a cold shower, cleanse your filthy soul honestly enough of this we are going to be at the reform conference tomorrow as we say with those series of live events all the details are in the show notes back at 5pm

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