'She’s harming poor children': Britain’s strictest headteacher backs Badenoch’s attack on Phillipson

0:02The Telegraph.

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1:40Kemi Badenog's under fire for describing Bridget Philipson as a spiteful class warrior. But Britain's strictest headmistress, Catherine Berbelsing, tells us that the education secretary means well, but she is harming poor kids. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tomini. And me, Tim Stanley.

2:10Tim, we're in the only right-wing enclave of Hammersmith. We're surrounded by people at the ARC conference, the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. Correct, yes. It kind of was founded by Philippa Stroud and Paul Marshall and others with the help of Jordan Peterson. And it's basically got bigger and bigger as the people here have tried to make the argument for restoring the West from what Eric Kaufman once described as the great awokening. It is very Christian and it is concerned with saving Western civilisation. Yes. Which in this weather and this talk, I'm not really into at the moment. I've got more of a Sufi vibe.

2:48Yeah, that's right. Although if you can't save Western civilisation in linen, what can you save it in? This is not a time to be suited and booted, folks. Did you wear your kilt for Scotland versus Brazil last night, by the way? No, I did not. It was super hot. My mind was just on keeping the dog cold. You didn't even watch that Scotland match, did you? It was the great Scott. I knew you wouldn't. But I know they lost 3-0 to Brazil. Yes, that's right. And I know they lost because I heard my neighbours cheering. This is how I've discovered that my neighbours are Brazilian, through watching the world.

3:19I thought you were going to say your neighbours were English and they just hate the Scots as the Scots hate the English and therefore we're cheering them on. All right, your neighbours are Brazilian. Fantastic. And is it hot enough? That's the other question I need to ask you. Ruddy heck. Ruddy heck. Last night was worse, by the way. Yes, it was. The problem is we are in the middle of the dome. Yes. And so we're not just getting heat, we're getting high pressure and moisture. so you've got a permanent headache. Listen to Michael Fish over here. I love this. Well, because I'm very concerned about my dog.

3:50Yes. I've been reading lots of tips and advice on how to keep him cool. Yes. And, of course, I keep waking up in the middle of the night and going to check and all this sorts of things. He's fine asleep with his legs in the air. But as I said on a previous podcast, I go in in the morning and I open the door to his room and it's like a fridge. Well, you need to... I keep on saying you need to get into the dog bed with him. That seems to be the calmest part of your flat. He's much happier than I am. Me and my husband are rowing over who should leave the bedroom. It's like, it's too hot to have two people in one double bed.

4:20So I've said, you feel free to move. Well, this is what Western civilisation is about. This is Western decadence. I insist on sleeping under a duvet. What? Even in this heat. Why? Even completely naked, the day I was born. So I have to get the room to a temperature. What a vision. Where a man can sleep under a duvet, because I cannot get to sleep under a sheet. By the way, don't tell anyone here that I am sleeping separately from my husband because I don't think the faith family and flag crowd here would appreciate that. They would say, at all costs, regardless of the weather, you must remain in the marital bed.

4:56We're going to speak to Catherine Burblesing, who's at ARC. She's speaking at the moment. We're going to catch up. She's renowned as Britain's strictest headmistress in charge of the Michaela Academy, which is one of the most successful schools in the UK because of its extraordinary Progress 8 school which for the uninitiated is the score that defines how a child starts at the school and then finishes. We admire her and we fear her. We fear her. It's how it should be. Well, and we're going to get her onto the row between two other quite scary women, Kemi Badenog and Bridget Phillipson, because that row is deepening.

5:27But can we just talk about Rachel Reeves? Yes. I'm fascinated by the Chancellor now, repositioning herself as one of Burnham's babes. This is a bit cringeworthy, Tim. It's been painful to watch because she doesn't have the elan to pull it off. No. She wasn't present in Downing Street when the Prime Minister resigned, but she was present for the photo with Andy Burnham with all the kids. And then she also, she was present at the Prime Minister's, well, third to last PMQs. Yes. But she didn't sort of smile or say anything. And when it was over, he didn't even talk to her when he left. And she looked a little bit tearful.

6:07She did look sad. Because they'd not attacked her since she was rubbish. Now she has done a morning round of interviews in which she has said, I have a record. I would be quite keen to carry on. But I want to make it clear that I support the party leader who I anticipate will be Andy Burnham. Yeah. Newsflash, you're losing your job, love. I'm so sorry about this. But it's now seemingly a two-horse race between Wes Streeting and Ed Miliband. Burnham is probably playing both off against each other. Yes. I'm getting the feeling that Streeting's likely to win it. Burnham's already spooked the markets himself with this whole, I don't want to be tested on the fiscal rules nonsense.

6:46So to then have Miliband, who really will spook the markets, because, frankly, he's an ardent socialist. What it's like as The Apprentice, our Andy has become Alan Sugar. Yeah. And he's choosing between two teams of the socially awkward lunatic Ed Miliband, who, nonetheless, quite good at getting things done, versus Rachel Reeves, who's done what many apprentice candidates do. She's terrible at it, but she doesn't say a lot. No. So she somehow just slides through round by round. Yes. And you eventually reach the final five. And you're like, how is she in there? She's still here, and I'm not 100 % sure of what her name is.

7:23Yes, that's right. And this is the moment when she finally speaks and says, I think I've done a very good job the last few weeks. I beat Sasha on sales twice in a row. I came up with the company name. Yeah, exactly. It's always I came up with the company name. No one else would stand up. I stood up. Yes, you stood up and fell over. Horribly lost. Oh, my goodness. In fact, you actually lost money on this task. Can we also discuss all of the lefties wetting their pants over Badenock's quite brutal performance at PMQs? Yeah. I mean, they're discombobulating overnight on social media, saying this is just, this is cruel.

7:57Yes. She's been so horrible to Reeves and Starmer and Burnham and indeed Bridget Philipson, which we'll come on to. I'm sorry, but this is absolutely ridiculous. There is no nastier brand of politics than the hand-wringing, the right aren't just wrong, but actually racist and bigots left. OK, these people don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to criticising their enemies. we've got a situation where Angela Rayner once famously referred to the opposition as Tory scum at conference. These people are in no position to lecture others on parliamentary or unparliamentary language. Remember Lynch the Bitch?

8:38Lynch the Bitch, that's right. They weren't his words, but he was quoting someone in relation to... Was that about Esther McVeigh? It was in relation to Esther McVeigh. Friendly people. I mean, I remember getting hounded out of a bloody Unite meeting at a Labour Party conference simply because I had my telegraph lanyard on. I mean, these people aren't always warm and cuddly. No. So, of course, Babe Nock's job description is leader of the opposition. Yes, she's there to oppose. She's there to oppose. Yes. It would be very strange if she stood there and said, this is a sad day for the nation. Well, quite.

9:05But was the language unparliamentary? She called Bridget Philipson a spiteful class warrior. She used the word traitor. She said they don't like it up them. which is actually something I said on X at the weekend about restoring Rupert Lowe. I may take credit. Trademark, Camilla. But traitors was a reference to his backbenchers. It wasn't like someone accusing people of being traitors to their country. I mean, that could be regarded as whipping things up. But nothing she said was technically unparliamentary. As someone pointed out, there is a Venn diagram crossover between people who thought Dennis Skinner was hilarious and Kemi Bednock was awful.

9:40The double standard makes no sense. That's right. This is the beast of Bolsover. Of course, who used to tear Tories to pieces. But he used to puncture every speech by a Tory by saying something, shouting something from the front bench. Yes. There's really no difference. So there's a hypocrisy there. But the Labour Party wants us to act as though this is their private funeral, as though they're not the government of all of us. It's an internal affair. Yes. And we should show consideration and step back and let them get on with it, not really comment upon it. We should mourn the career of Keir Starmer respectfully.

10:12Yes, but we should also just really get it together and admire Andy Burnham. What is wrong with us that we cannot admire Andy Burnham? Now, he did have a comeback to Kemi that was very good. It was. Shall we just have a little listen to it? It was in regard to her suggesting that all he represented was eyelashes and a black T-shirt. He flutters his eyes at the camera, points at his shirt and says... It's dark blue, actually. But I looked at that and I thought, oh, God, is this all looking like it's lacking a degree of seriousness? I mean, he's got quite a good social media thing going on. He's got a good game.

10:46He's got a good online game. But do we want future prime ministers having a good online game or do we want them to actually have policies and ideology? It's the world we live in now. Just a thought. Would we like them to have some conviction, some courage? It would be nice to have both. Some determination, some decision-making skills, leadership? Or do we just want them to make really amusing videos? It would be very nice if they could have both. But I think right-wingers have to be honest and acknowledge that this man is a different prospect to Keir Starmer. And that in the last week, politics has radically changed overnight.

11:17It's amazing how that just happens. And you don't even notice it taking place. And there are some things which used to matter that don't. There are some things that suddenly matter much more. And it's because there is now a man about to enter the ring who is quite good at this. Yes. He might not be good at running a country. We shall find out. but he is good at politics, at empathising and communicating and that will require a different style of politics from the right. I would remind you in the 90s when Thatcher stepped down, Kinnock was way ahead in the polls because at that point, I'm sorry to say this, everyone was sick of Margaret Thatcher.

11:52No, she thought she was the actual queen. I was never sick of her. No, I know. But by that point she was in her Gloriana stage being wheeled on in Elizabeth I style dresses, the poll tacks and all those sort of things. There's much to admire. Look, you can't make an omelette without breaking some legs. But by that point, Neil Kinnock was actually more popular. The moment she was gone and Major came in, then Neil Kinnock's shtick didn't work anymore against a man who, by contrast, was very reasonable and pragmatic-seeming. Well, that's a really good point. This is what will change. I can't wait to see that first PMQs.

12:24Yes. When Kemi is lobbing these verbal bombs at a man who is capable of wittily batting them away. But... It's going to change the dynamic. It's going to change the dynamic, But then you made a very interesting observation yesterday. If the battle now does become a kind of pure socialism versus capitalism fight across the dispatch box, because it could see some kind of bad not revival if she handles it well. Now, I'm only referring to that because this is quite interesting from YouGov. When Britons were asked if they think Andy Burnham would make a better PM than other party leaders, 43 percent preferred Burnham to Farage on 23 percent.

13:02But then when it came to Burnham versus Badenock, 32 % preferred Burnham and 28 % preferred Badenock. So sorry not to blind you with numbers, but the public is basically saying, I think that Badenock takes the fight to Burnham better than Farage. Can she cash in? Maybe. We need to see, right? Maybe. I think she's still like a car in early testing stage, right? What, could smash straight into a wall? Yeah, she's only had two years. Farage is a quantity that's very well known, has been around for decades. So I think people are able to make a more informed judgment on which person they prefer. But the whole reform pitch is at the red wall.

13:43Burnham is competitive in the red wall. At the same time, Farage has been hit with the accusation that he received£5 million and we don't know where it's gone. It's not an accusation, it's a fact. He received£5 million, we don't know where it's gone. I think it's increasingly harming in that, by the way. I think it is. They tried to dismiss it, but it's kind of, it squandered his sort of man of the people appeal. Yes. A little bit like Boris Johnson when he was driving around in that brie ridden, clapped out old banger. Yeah. He was able to transcend his own class and education among the working people because people thought, God, he's sort of gone into politics and doesn't have much money and maybe he can, you know, his whole life is chaotic and he dresses as if he's just, you know, had a rummage around a charity shop.

14:21Yes. Similarly, people looked at Farage and said, oh look he's left behind this big career in the city because he really cares and he's got moral conviction and he he cares so much about Brexit that he's given it all up and now he doesn't really have a pot to pee in and and I think if you take five million it's such a large amount of money yes it looks the Tories are loving this because they're now trying to depict him as just like the rest of them yeah he's not unique yeah he's just on the take like any politician is also So I think there's evidence that reform's salience is linked to the salience of immigration.

14:54Yes. So when the country is very concerned about immigration, reform's lead strengthens. And I agree with you that I think the next election is more likely to be about pocketbook issues. If only because if we believe what Andy Burnham has said in the past, then he does want a more redistributive economics. Yes. And then we've got things like this war on ISIS, which I don't pretend to begin to understand, but I don't like the sound of it. It sounds bad. But neither of us can count particularly well. We need someone on the show to explain to us how badly this affects us. We'll do that. How much of our hard earned cash are we going to lose?

15:29Now, Tim, have you done your homework? You can't claim that Bertie's eaten it because we do need to speak to Miss Burble Singh in just a moment. Be on your best behaviour. Yeah. Yeah. And we want to pick up on Labour's attitude towards schooling. Yes. And class. And this interesting tweet by an MP, I believe you know. Yes, I do. I played football with her. Anna Turley. Anna Turley, who wrote, note to all the pearl clutching Tories out in force today. You don't have to send your kids to private school. We have universal education provision in this country. If you choose to do so, the rest of us shouldn't pay for you to have a tax break for the privilege.

16:10I pointed out to Anna, who I'm very fond of. She's a really lovely woman and she had a lot of trouble under Corbyn and left the party and came back in. I mean, she got an academic scholarship to an independent school called Ashford. Her parents took a choice there, didn't they? They said, should we take this academic scholarship because we've clearly got a bright daughter? Or should we send her to the local comp? I don't like the sort of dishonesty around some of this state education that the cabinet has enjoyed because a lot of it is selective schooling. It's grammar schooling. The Prime Minister himself went to a grammar school which then turned into a private school and he stayed on on a scholarship.

16:47So he technically attended both a grammar and a private school. So there isn't just choice between state and private, is there? There's choice between state and state. There's choice between comprehensive and selective. and therefore if you're not going to condemn your own for those choices why are you condemning people for privately educating their kids they can choose how they educate their children i've got two in private and one in state for reasons i can go into on another podcast but i just don't you know also i think it's hypocritical to have enjoyed private education and then try and deny it of others i think the phrase tax break is also very misrepresentative because for a start no one else in the rest of the world has done this.

17:27No. Well, they've tried it and it failed. In New Zealand? Yes. Yeah. So it's something which no one else in the rest of the world applies. But also, it's not a tax break in the sense that you make money out of it. That's normally what a tax break means. Rather, it's that the government is choosing not to tax education in this regard. In the same way, they don't put VAT on children's clothes. Right, exactly. But I think she's also betraying how out of touch they are with the reality of independent schools, which is that they are now, well, in some places just dominated by foreign students and the super rich.

17:59And that's because they've become so expensive. But there is a layer of people who either choose or feel that a private school works best for their child, because for instance, they have special needs, special learning needs and things like that, which is why some labor MPs have opposed the imposition of VAT on school fees. And what school fees does is it just for that group of people, it just takes it out of their reach. And it's true. The school system hasn't collapsed. That's true. No one ever said it would. The point was that for that layer of people, it's just made private schooling that little bit less likely that they can afford it.

18:39So you're consigning education really to something which is for rich Chinese people. Yeah, no, that's right. And I just think that's unfair. That's a form of social engineering. Let's take a quick break, have a biscuit and a glass of milk, because Miss Burblesing will be with us in just a moment.

19:02Catherine Burblesing, lovely to see you here at the ARC Conference. You've just spoken. We've been speaking ourselves about the row overnight between Kemi Badenog and Bridget Philipson, and we really wanted your perspective on it. Badenock called her a spiteful class warrior in the House of Commons. Some on the left have thrown their toys out of the pram and said it's unparliamentary language. I know you have had some history with the Education Secretary. What's your take on it? I don't know about being spiteful, but she's certainly a class warrior. I think she would probably describe herself as one.

19:36I mean, she believes that she's fighting for poor kids and that, you know, in order to do so, they need to, for instance, slap VAT on the private schools because that will help to equalize things, you know. And she thinks that by bringing out various rules from central government that schools have to follow, things like banning us from being able to have more than three pieces of uniform, branded uniform, she thinks that's helping poor kids. What's unfortunate? I mean, I genuinely think what she wants, it's coming from a good place, right? She wants poor kids to have a better chance at life. She just doesn't understand that the things that she's doing will actually harm poor kids.

20:13That's the problem. And Kemi said afterwards in the house, it was something along the lines of, I will never stop fighting for children because you don't care. What was it, Tim? She claimed that Bridget Phillipson was actually ruining children's life chances. Is that fair? Yeah. Right. I think ruining them. I mean, the fact is she's making them worse. As I've just said, she wants to help poor kids, but the things she's doing will actually make life more difficult for poor kids. So as an example, let me give you the example of the uniform. She thinks to herself, branded uniform costs. Therefore, let me stop the schools from having too many branded pieces of uniform.

20:50and then it'll mean less of a demand of money coming from the families. She ignores the fact that the poorer families will be helped by schools in the first place, but to meet the amount of her uniform. I mean, my uniform, you're looking at about 70 to 80 pounds, depending on the sizes. But, you know, that's how much the uniform costs. So one, it's not way over the top in terms of expense, but two, schools will help families who are genuinely struggling with that issue. What she doesn't understand, because she's never worked in schools, is that uniform is how you sort out your behavior. If you have a failing school and the behavior is terrible, broken windows theory, you look after the tiny details.

21:28That means you look after the uniform. You make sure that you look after those tiny details. If you don't have enough branded uniform items, you can't do that. Therefore, the behavior gets worse in schools. Therefore, poor kids suffer. She doesn't understand that she's actually making it so that poor kids will not achieve as much as they would do if they had branded uniform items. And I mean, that's a very short version of what I would really like to explain, but that's the crux of it. So now it's not going to harm a school like mine because I've already established the behavior and I'm the strictest headmistress in Britain and all that, so it'll be fine.

21:58But for those schools that are trying to improve their behavior, this is a genuine problem. I have a thousand visitors visit my school every year. Many of those teachers, most of them, the teachers come in from other schools and agree with me on this issue 100%. They say this is a disaster. We don't know what to do in terms of, you know, headteachers are struggling because of what she's decided to do. And she thinks she's helping poor kids. She's actually harming them. You have said something really interesting, which is that you think middle class parents avoid your school due to snobbery. Can you explain that?

22:31Well, look, all of my kids are ethnic minority, mainly working class kids, you know, from the inner city. I mean, there may be another reason, but my guess is that white middle class parents look at the kids there and think, I don't want my kid to go there. I also think they don't want them to go there because they think schooling is about something other than, you know, working really hard and getting great teaching. I don't know. I suppose they want rowing. I don't know. I mean, I don't I don't really understand it. Admittedly, we don't have massive green fields. We are restricted in various ways.

23:03But I think teaching, the quality of teaching and quality of discipline should be the number one thing that any parent should be interested in. But we have prioritized the wrong things as a culture. And in the West, you know, if you're in China, you're in India, you're in Jamaica and Ghana, any developing country, all of those families know that what you're looking for is the best possible teachers, teaching well from the front, leading the learning and being the adult authority in the classroom, and excellent discipline that goes along with that so that the kids can actually hear the teacher and can learn lots.

23:37For some reason, we Westerners don't value that. And I think that's one of the problems with the West. You know, I've just been saying it in my speech, you know, that we have created a culture amongst our children. That means our children grow up into young adults who are unable to hold the same sorts of values that we all had 20, 30, 40 years ago. People talk about Gen Z and why is Gen Z the way they are in the workplace? They're like that because of how they were brought up online and in school. You see, everything you're saying makes perfect sense to me, but what critics of Michaela would say is because you define and promote those values, you're attracting parents who share those values.

24:14And in a way, it's a form of selection through the back door because you're attracting tiger mums and dads, and therefore you're giving them an education which suits their values. And you're not perhaps attracting kids from parents who don't share those values and therefore they get left out. The admission system doesn't work like that. We get a whole lot of kids whose families haven't chosen us fourth, fifth, sixth. That's how it works. You choose your school one to six. You get the same amount of chance getting into the school if you've chosen us sixth than if you've chosen us first. So it's just not true that those families...

24:46So there's loads of families who have chosen our school first who do not get a place at the school because families who have not chosen us have got a place at the school. Forgive me because I'd really like to know, if you have parents who are clearly not supporting their child in their education, what do you do about those families? Do you speak to the parents? How do you handle that? Yeah, I mean, like all schools, all schools will speak to the parents. But I always think that schools spend far too much time trying to please everybody. You can't please everybody all the time. You need to be clear about what your values are and what you're offering.

25:17The children are with you all day, every day. You need to get the children on board. The parents, I mean, most parents you don't really ever hear from. I mean, you know, it's the children who need to engage. And so in the end, you have children, we have children who will apologize for their parents' behavior. Wow. And that's because they buy into what the school's about. They know what they're getting out of it. So there are children who will come to our school, and then they will, they don't want to be there. Their parents will have perhaps signed up to some other school somewhere. when a place six months later comes up, they say to their child, okay, we can go.

25:50And the child says, no, actually, no, I'll stay now. Now that they've realized what it is. And the only reason why the child didn't want to go there in the first place is because they hear these rumors. Oh, well, it must be a prison, strictest headmistress, all of that. But you'd be very welcome to come and visit us. All of your viewers, very welcome to come and visit. All you have to do is go on the website, you sign up for a visit. We get 1 ,000 visitors a year from all over the world. And there's a reason. Look, if you want to feel better about things, you look at the country and you think, what is going on, I'm telling you, come and see our school.

26:19It will lift your heart and soul because you'll look at it and you'll think, why don't the white middle classes want to send their children here? They're crazy. I think they're crazy. But I mean, it's up to them, obviously. So Michaela is very much open for business. Many schools are closed today, Miss Burblesing, because of the weather. You mentioned Ghanaian and Jamaican schools. I'm not sure that they close their doors if the thermometer tops 30 degrees. What do you make of this, the schools closing i think planning needs to be so we have air conditioning in our various different rooms and obviously we would never close and when the snow is out whatever we never close i mean you know obviously we are always open and the kids are there and they know it and they're working to some extent i have some sympathy and this is coming from the strictest headmistress i have some sympathy with those schools where for those teachers who are in those classrooms because the kids will literally be asleep on the desks because the discipline isn't there yes nobody's listening to anything.

27:12And then you think, what is the point of being here? Because everybody's just exhausted and nobody's learning anything, right? But if you've planned it and you've made sure that you've thought sensibly about your budget and you've put money into getting air conditioning and so on. Now, obviously, we all want more money in schools and so on. And I'm not saying it's easy running a school. It's difficult finding the money to do things. But you've got to be prepared, I think, as a school leader for situations like this. I spend a lot of time thinking about my staff and their well-being. So, you know, they have a lovely staff room, the teas and the coffees and the air conditioning and lots of printers.

27:46The sort of thing, the photocopiers, you know, breaking down, I'm trying to, I want to make sure that they're looked after. And I think sometimes we can prioritize the wrong things in schools. And I very much do prioritize my staff. People will think, well, what do you mean prioritize your staff? I look after my staff, my staff look after the children. Yes. That's and I think too often people in school leadership roles are spending too much time looking after the children. That's not their role. Their role is to look after the staff and then the staff look after the children. And it means, you know, I remember the days when I was in the classroom and the kids would call me miss and then make a mistake and they would call me mum by mistake and so on.

28:27You know, we've all been there. I love them. But the fact is, the fact is that it's my role to look after the staff and we all need to know what our roles are. Final quick question. The Prince and Princess of Wales have decided to send their eldest child, Prince George, to Eton. Should they have chosen Michaela? Of course they should have chosen Michaela. But is it okay that they chose this elite, privileged school? Some on the left have criticized that decision. Parents can choose whatever school they want. But to be honest, the teaching won't be as good at Eton as it is at Michaela. On that note, Catherine Burblesing, thank you very much indeed for joining us on The Daily Tea.

29:06Thank you for having me. Coming up next, we speak to Sunday Telegraph editor Alastair Heath, who says Andy Burnham, if he becomes PM, is guaranteed to betray Brexit.

29:29We're at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, or ARC, conference in West London. I'm with Alistair Heath, editor of the Sunday Telegraph. Let's talk about Burnham and Brexit, because you've got a big Telegraph event on Monday night. It's at the Emmanuel Centre in London. Around seven. Tickets are still available, folks. Yes, they are. Please buy a ticket. Buy a ticket. We've got a lot of people. We've sold hundreds of tickets already, so it's going to be a really, really big event, really great event. How worried are you about Burnham if he becomes the next prime minister, as is looking increasingly likely, trying to reverse the referendum.

29:59He came out with one line, didn't he, back in the day where he said, I think the referendum will be reversed in my lifetime. But then he kind of peddled away from that in Makerfield because it's a 65 % leave seat. Well, like with everything else, Burnham has had multiple views on every subject, including on Brexit. But clearly, he's a Remainer. Clearly, he's a rejoiner. Clearly, the Labour Party would love to get back into the EU somehow. Now, the question is whether they do or not. And my big worry is that Burnham is actually going to have a big bounce in the polls. And it wouldn't entirely surprise me if, you know, you might even call an early general election and so on.

30:35And if he does do something like that, then I think he will certainly put into that manifesto much closer ties with the EU. But how can he do that if he gives a speech on Victory Day for him in Makerfield saying that that constituency, which is largely leave supporting, which supported reform in the local elections, is the touchstone for his premiership. He was talking about that from the perspective of looking after the North, and we've already heard him come up with ideas like parts of number 10 are going to be hived off to Manchester. OK, whatever. That's going to change everything. Yes, so far, so predictable.

31:06But if Makerfield is the touchstone and he wants to win the Red Wall back from Nigel Farage, then he's going to have to lean into Brexit, not remain. I don't quite see the political sense in all this. Yes. I mean, I don't really see the political sense in any of this. I mean, you've got this incredible euphoria because this man, Burnham, has just suddenly come down. You know, he was mayor of Greater Manchester and now suddenly he's the messiah who's going to save the Labour Party. I don't buy that. That said, compared with Starmer, who is completely incompetent as a politician and who, you know, in addition to having terrible policies, Burnham, obviously, by comparison, is much more charismatic.

31:40And there's clearly going to be a bounce in the polls. But I think there's massive, massively, massively overrating Burnham here. I mean, the fall when it comes will be severe. The question is, when does it come? Is he able to increase his power in the short term? And I'm just very worried because I think the way the Labour Party is going is simple. It's massively higher taxes on wealth and property. They all believe in that. They want to achieve that one way or the other. Much higher capital gains taxes, probably higher income taxes. Generally speaking, the Labour Party needs to tax a lot more because they need to spend even more on the NHS, on welfare again, because they're not going to reform welfare.

32:18We know that. And on defence because they want to spend more on defence. That's good. But I wouldn't put up taxes for it. And the final area is the EU. They've all convinced themselves that the reason the economy is not growing is because we left the EU. That's not the reason. The reason is because we're highly regulated, highly taxed. You know, nothing can get done in this country. and so on. But they're looking for some sort of magical solution to our growth woes. And Burnham will come along and say, that's it. I'm not Starmer. We've got rid of Reeves. We're going to get some growth now. And of course, nothing will happen.

32:51Because even if you borrow a few more billion pounds to spend on some overpriced, useless infrastructure projects, that's not going to create growth. So all of the incentive will be to listen to these ridiculous model building economists who come up with made up numbers saying, you You know, Brexit costs X percent of the economy and stuff. And to get closer and closer to the EU, even though, of course, France and Germany are in crisis and are growing. They got massive problems, too. None of this makes any sense. Well, also, we've got the fastest growth in the G7. But at the same time, we want to peg ourselves to people who have got less good growth.

33:22Yes. I mean, obviously, obviously, if you go to the EU and you go to Poland, they're doing very well. Right. But if you look at France and Germany, they're doing very badly. Germany in particular is in a spiral of decline. Yes. So the point is, I do not believe for one second that getting closer and closer to the EU again will boost our growth. But when you're the Labour Party and when you're committed to higher taxes and more and more regulation and you still want to pretend that you're serious about economic growth, what do you do? You concoct a narrative about the EU. And that's why I'm concerned about that.

33:52We're going to get on to who you think would be the preferred next chancellor. I mean, it could be a case of would you rather be shot or stabbed? But we will get onto that in just a minute. Just on the Burnham bounce, you just slipped into conversation there that there could be a snap general election. What's your theory behind that? My theory is that Burnham will be at his peak in maybe two months' time. Yes. That he will win. He will make a speech. I mean, he's already won, but he'll actually become prime minister. Then he will make a speech. He will be funny and charismatic by comparison to Starmer.

34:25Flutter his eyelashes. Yes, a few percentage points of the population will move behind him thinking, well, OK, let's give these guys one last chance. And suddenly Labour will be at 27, 28 percent, maybe even 29 percent of the polls. You'll have the first polls showing Labour with Burnham ahead of reform. So there'll be panic in reform. The Tories will presumably be in third position by then. And it will look like neither reform nor the Tories are ready for the general election, while Burnham is actually consolidating the Green vote because the Green Party, I think, is imploding. It's collapsing because people have realised that Polanski is not exactly the sanest of leader.

35:01No, quite. And so therefore, you've got this very unusual moment where even if Burnham doesn't actually achieve anything, he's going to be much more popular. I suspect the peak of his popularity and the peak of the Labour Party's popularity, if one can talk of a peak, because we're not talking about very high numbers here. No, but it will come at conference. It will come, exactly. It will come September, October, that sort of thing. and if you really want to take the initiative and go for it and have the legitimacy to tear up Starmer's manifesto and go for broke on stuff like wealth taxes rejoining the EU or half rejoining the EU and you're putting up the top rate of income tax and doing all that sort of stuff then would be the moment and when your enemies are not ready why not pounds yes and you know Gordon Brown the other day was saying uh you know uh someone asked him what advice have you given to Burnham and Brown said you know don't listen to me effectively and to me I read that as saying that Gordman regrets not calling an earlier general election.

35:53Sure. I mean, you know... But hang on, if he goes fully leftwards, then don't we have a straight fight between left and right, socialism versus capitalism? And actually maybe Badenock can cash in on that. We've got some interesting polling from YouGov saying that actually people would prefer Kemi Badenock versus Andy Burnham than Nigel Farage versus Andy Burnham. Just part that in your mind. Does it make a difference, therefore, who the next Chancellor is? We're hearing that the idea of having Ed Miliband looking after the Treasury's coffers has been sidelined for the idea of West Streeting doing it instead.

36:28And let's be honest, Streeting is owed somewhat because he's lent his support to Burnham. Yes. And indeed the MPs are backing him. Yes, I mean, it may well be West Streeting, we'll see. But if I were Burnham, actually, I would engage in a display of strength. And I wouldn't actually give it to Streeting just to show that he doesn't owe anyone anything. Who would you give it to? Oh, I see. So Burnham can really flex his muscles and say, I won't be pushed around. That's right. I mean, if I were him, I'd go for Yvette Cooper or somebody like that. But look, I don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what's going to happen.

36:59From Burnham's perspective, Miliband's probably too powerful, too autonomous. He's got too many of his own ideas, former Labour leader and all that sort of stuff. Plus, that's the first problem. Second problem, he will spook the markets because the markets know that he's extremely left wing and so on. So that's very dangerous. The market would obviously prefer Streeting or Cooper or someone else like that. But I think at the end of the day, it won't make that much of a difference because, as I say, the Labour Party has become obsessed with taxing wealth. They've become obsessed with taxing property.

37:27I think we will end up with wealth taxes that are much, much worse than what we currently have. So, you know, obviously, Reeves has introduced some so-called supplementary counter tax thing. I think you're going to end up with a wealth tax, you know, maybe even to replace stamp duty. So people who are currently paying three, four thousand, five thousand pounds in council tax will end up paying 15, 20 ,000 pounds a year. That sort of stuff will be like a nuclear bomb going off under middle England, especially the south and in London. So we're talking about a very, very important moment coming up, which is, you know, will the Labour Party try and do, you know, what Lloyd George tried to do, what Clement Attlee tried to do, which is to completely redraw the economic underpinnings of our society.

38:09You know, Lloyd George tried to impose the wealth tax. He failed. Labour was talking about the wealth tax in the 70s. They never managed. No country's ever managed to do this, by the way. It always ends in complete catastrophe. Yes. But will they give it another go? I think they will. And I don't really think it matters which of these characters ends up as Chancellor. When Ed Miliband was calling for a mansion tax, which was the embryonic version of this, he was defeated. But the world's moved on. Things have moved more to the left. The Overton windows, you know, very damaged when it comes to the economy.

38:39Gary Stevenson's seen as some kind of economic sage. That's where the world's moved to. Thank you very much indeed. Good luck with your big Brexit event on Monday night. Tickets are available. Thank you. Please buy some.