'Stuffing Government with paedophile apologists': Starmer in fresh vetting crisis

0:02The Telegraph

0:09How dare he criticise us We weren't the ones stuffing government with hypocrites and paedophile apologists He can't build a team, Mr Speaker He has no plan He can't even run his own office, let alone the country That's Kemi Baden-Ock's damning verdict at this week's PMQs As Keir Starmer's week from hell just got even worse with the new revelations about his former head of comms, Matthew Doyle. And the Reform Party's Sarah Pochin joins us, having just been banned from a debate by the debating society of Bangor University. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tominy. And me, Tim Stanley.

0:57I regret to inform you that Keir has decided that Keir should be Keir. Oh dear. It raises the question of who he was before. Norman Wisdom, the Duchess of Malfi. We don't know. But now we are seeing the real Keir Starmer, who turns out to be a man whose father was a toolmaker. Really? My God. He should have told us this sooner. I know, I wish I had known that. He turns out to be a class warrior who is both angry and vituperative. Please translate vituperative. Well, whereas before he just got beat up at Prime Minister's questions, now he's trying to land some blows himself. But the problem he has is that even if he changes who he is, you can't alter the political context.

1:44Can we get on to PMQs in just a minute, but just discuss Keir Starmer saying he's working class. Yeah. He isn't working class, OK? I'm going to apply this mantra or this dictum to my own family. My grandfather was an ice cream salesman, OK? He stood in vans on the weekend and sold ice creams along with his sons and daughter who helped out in the family business. He then self-improved because he sold ice creams and moved on to selling things on market stalls and eventually running a restaurant. He was working class. That's my father's father. But when my father got into grammar school, ended up studying medicine at university and becoming a GP, my father ceased to inherit his father's working class status.

2:36In exactly the same vein, just because your dad is a toolmaker doesn't mean you're working class because you then in turn went to a grammar school that became private, studied at the same university as me, university as Leeds, did the same subject, law, ended up becoming a barrister and then were director of public prosecution. So you aren't the same as your dad, Keir Starmer. You're not working class. Why is he pretending to do this, first of all? And why does he think that's going to give the public any more sympathy for him? It's just another lie. Also, his father was a skilled labourer. They owned a semi-detached house in Surrey.

3:18Nowadays, for most middle-class people, those are things beyond their wildest dreams. Yes. It has also been suggested that after he learnt how to make tools, that Keir Starmer's father had a role running the factory that he worked in. So that he ascended into a degree of seniority that isn't quite reflected in the, my father was a tool maker description of what his father did for a living. Whatever he was, one of the appealing things about Keir Starmer was supposed to be that he was a public servant who just got on with the job. And part of the problem is that he has chosen, since being leader of the opposition, to make politics personal.

4:02Attacking Tories for personal reasons, presenting himself as above reproach. Which, to bring us to the substance of PMQs, is why this one went so horribly wrong. He has tried to close the door on the Peter Scandelson affair, which was about someone lying about their connections to a convicted paedophile and then working in government, only for the door to creak back open like in a horror movie to another affair, which involves someone lying about their connections to a convicted paedophile while working in government. Yes. Enter Matthew Doyle. So this is the former Downing Street head of communications who, it's been revealed, was offered a peerage.

4:46A day later, it emerges, thanks to the Sunday Times and its reporter, Gabriel Pogrand, that he has campaigned for a man called Sean Morton. In Scotland. In Scotland. A long time ago. OK, a long time ago. But by that point that... In 2017. By the point that Matthew Doyle campaigned for him, Matthew Doyle knew that he had been charged with possessing indecent images of children. He was a Labour councillor. He was seeking re-election. When he was charged, the local Labour Party withdrew their support for him. But he continued to run as an independent. And some people who believed that he was innocent came and campaigned for him.

5:27And one of those was Matthew Doyle. It's important to note that when Doyle was campaigning for him, he had not yet been found guilty. Yes. Which he would be later on. He had been charged though. So this is a, one might argue, this is another case where someone chooses to believe that a friend is not guilty of the thing of which they've been accused. Whatever the relationship between Doyle and this man thereafter, I don't think we should give people the misleading impression that Doyle was campaigning for him after he was convicted. OK, fine. Right. Doyle then went on to have a career in the Labour Party.

6:03He became director of communications. And then, as you said, the news came out that he was going to be put forward for a peerage. This is back in early December. Immediately it then is revealed that he had a relationship with this now convicted paedophile. So number 10 knew in early December. Yes. So we have two situations where Downing Street knew about the links of two individuals in their own government and their links to convicted paedophiles. Yes. And yet they proceeded with Doyle going forward for a period. Also, can I just point out that this newspaper, I had forgotten I had co-contributed to a piece in January 2024.

6:49It's a lengthy piece written with my colleagues, Tony Diver and Victoria Ward, laying bare the true extent of Peter Mandelson's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, exactly what it involved, the allegations, even suggestions around the leaking of confidential information. I appreciate that it was backed up by the Epstein documents, but I was reminded that we had written this piece in January 2024. And by the way, as we reported this week, it had been shown to the prime minister. Right. So we have prima facie evidence that number 10 saw a 2000 word piece by three Telegraphs journalists. And this is it.

7:31Laying it all out before them. And yet still they appointed Peter Mandelson. And this is the key thing. I don't like judging people for maintaining relationships with people who have been accused. And I also don't think we should be in the business of saying you cannot have a public career if at some point you've known a convict. That would be a ridiculous rule to apply. The issue here is that number 10 could say in these cases, we knew about these things, but on balance, we made this decision because we thought Peter Mandelson would be a great ambassador. We believe Matthew Doyle was not a friend with this man anymore and would make a very good peer.

8:11They haven't done that. They denied that they knew what they knew. What they tried to do is say it's all on them, they lied to us and we never knew. But we now know that that itself is a lie. Also, in Keir Starmer's case, it's even more damning because his entire career history is built on being a prosecutor of actual criminals... Exactly. ..and making judgements of character. As Stephen Flynn said at Prime Minister's questions... Mr Speaker, if I've just listened to the Prime Minister correctly, he's essentially rolled the same pitch in relation to Matthew Doyle as he did with Peter Mandelson, that they weren't clear with him.

8:55He appears to be the most gullible former director of public prosecutions in history. So when you say it was disastrous, you mean for the Prime Minister? What was the mood inside? Because obviously if you're watching it on TV or listening to it at home, you can hear the... ..and everyone, you know, clap, clap, here, here, yes, he's here. So they tried to rouse the House when he arrived. They did, and he opened with a nice gag about... He always has to report that he's had meetings with his ministerial colleagues. Mr Speaker, this morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues, and there's been quite a few of those this week.

9:29in addition to my duties in this house. I shall have further such meetings later today. And sitting not far behind him was Wes Streeting, who was wearing a big rosette that read, where's the Prime Minister? So there was a mood of apprehension. How is he going to play this? It wasn't the fullest chamber I've ever seen. I don't think the whips brought out every single Labour MP, and there were a few faces that I would expect to see there that I didn't. Who knows? Holidays are about to begin. Recess is coming. Some people may have gone home early. But nonetheless, they were sort of waiting to see how he would play this.

10:05And the tack that he chose was to refuse to be beaten by the accusations of harbouring friends of paedophiles and instead to turn things around and fight back with a bit of class war. So the best form of defence is attack. I did find it quite astonishing as I listened on my way back from Politics Live today that he has reverted to blaming the Tories. Yes, Liz Truss came up. Wow. And ousted austerity. Here is an interesting exchange that captures it very well between Ed Davey and Keir Starmer. This speaker, to a point one paedophile supporter, cannot be excused as misfortune. To a point two, shows a catastrophic lack of judgement.

10:52The Right Honourable Gentleman once told this house that when a Prime Minister refuses to take responsibility, and I quote, it only serves to convince people that things cannot get better, that governments cannot improve people's lives, and that progress is not possible because politics does not work. Does he still agree with himself? And does he share my fear that that is exactly what is happening now? People in this country, millions of people, have been let down for years and years and years. And one of the reasons was austerity, which his party supported. He should take accountability and take responsibility for what he has inflicted on this country.

11:37There'll be many people who Labour's just given the vote to who won't remember austerity. Yes, that's right. Lumping every problem in Britain onto the coalition, I think, is a bit of a stretch. Nonetheless, that's the kind of thing that does excite the Labour benches, as does having a pop at the SNP. But when it came to arguing with Kemi, she just came across as the better lawyer. Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister is demonstrating stratospheric levels of delusion if he thinks the problem is on this side of the house. And he didn't. He didn't say anything about why the Cabinet Secretary is going. We know the truth.

12:16It is because he is throwing everyone under a bus except himself. And Mr Speaker, the Mandelson episode was not an isolated incident. A few weeks ago, he announced a peerage for one Matthew Doyle, his former director of communications. Immediately after that, the Sunday Times published on the front page that Doyle campaigned for a man charged with child sex offences. Yet despite the Prime Minister knowing this, he gave Doyle a job for life in the House of Lords anyway. Why? And Badenock has followed through on her attack on the appointment of Matthew Doyle now by demanding to see the vetting documents that Downing Street relied upon when it elevated him...

13:06And accept the Mandy story as well. Well, indeed, to the House of Lords. I mean, all of these documents that we're meant to be getting at any given time, Tim, are presumably going to say that... We've had jokes in the past, haven't we? what was the vetting around Peter Mandelson? Is your name Peter? Is your surname Mandelson? Do you know where the UK embassy is in the US? Could you name the US president? Can you spell Washington? Seemingly, the Matthew Doyle appointment, because this is also raising huge questions about who does end up in the House of Lords. What happened was Matthew Doyle was credited with helping to kind of reinvent Labour in the aftermath of Jeremy Corbyn, but he couldn't go the distance as Director of Communications because of all of this internal wrangling, perhaps also involving Morgan McSweeney.

13:50They have to let him go, but we must give him a reward. And this is how we get into this situation where the House of Lords is filled with people who are rewarded for failure. You say we must give them a reward. I did notice that in the WhatsApp messages that Wes Streeting leaked his own messages, one of them begins by Mandelson saying why his toil had been sacked. And Wes says he should go and work for you in the United States. I'm not saying either of those two men knew anything about it, but it speaks to the boys club style of government that surrounds Keir Starmer. Listening to Kemi's questions, it's clever because she could ask a really big question that says, you've done this, this, this, and this.

14:33By just asking a laser focus one, you don't let him off. Because if you give a very big question, he can choose to answer any bit of bit. And as the questions went on when he attempted again and again to pivot away from being asked a question about harbouring paedophile apologists, as Kemi put it, into attacking Liz Truss or the Tories who've defected to reform, the problem with that response is that plays well to the benches behind him. But precisely because the Tories are so irrelevant right now, deflecting from paedophile apologia to, well, you've lost some people to reform. In January, she said she had full confidence, 100 % confidence, she said, there'd be no more defections from her party.

15:2048 hours later, the shadow foreign minister defected. Eight days after that, the former Home Secretary defected. The only question now is, who's next? She needs to wake up. Her party is dying. Yeah. Just sounds really crass. It's really crass. We're not here to discuss the silly story of Suella or Rob have joined reform. Nobody cares about that outside W1N. We're not interested in this this week. Today we're discussing the Friends of Pedophiles story that you need to address. Yeah. And also the clue is in the name Prime Minister's Questions. Can you please answer some of them? This is the other frustration which actually Badenock is playing into, this constant frustration among the public, even if I'm interviewing politicians on the show, that they simply can't answer the question.

16:15He then goes into the House and I think doesn't give us anything concrete at all. All we got was him saying, quite ironically actually, Tim, I've taken responsibility. When he was leader of the opposition, the Prime Minister said, and I quote, I never turn on my staff. When they make mistakes, I carry the can. What changed? Prime Minister. Well, Mr Speaker, I've accepted responsibility and apologised for the mistakes that I made. But let me say this, Mr Speaker. Let me say this, Mr Speaker. Morgan McSweeney helped me change our party. The whole point is that you haven't. Yes. because you're claiming you were lied to.

17:02You haven't taken any responsibility. And you've not resigned. Exactly. Maybe he shouldn't, but it's so odd how he lacks the ability to respond to these things. According to one poll, the Politico poll, 52 % of the public think he should resign and only 15 % say he shouldn't. Mehdi Hassan, the journalist, asked this question from America. He's British, but he's living in America. Why is there so much anger, personal anger, towards Keir Starmer when Britain's not that bad off. Whisper it, but it's not that bad off. No, it's broken. It's broken. OK, and he's not the worst prime minister we've ever had.

17:38And it does seem very... I think a lot of it comes back to he embodies all the frustrations of modern life, of dealing with systems that don't work, with people who you think are lying to you. It's the whole, please do not abuse our staff. Yes. When you're at a train station and the train is an hour late. Yes. And there is a big poster saying, please don't abuse the staff. It's like, well, I want to. Yes. Because the train's late. And you saying please don't abuse the staff makes me oddly want to abuse them even more. No. But it's the gaslighting. The other thing is the gaslighting. It's a misdirection.

18:13The issue is my train is late. My train's late. It's not how the staff feel. And it's the same with Keir Starmer. And the more the story becomes about Keir Starmer, about Keir now being Keir, which we know is going to mean more stories about tools and broken windows, the more I dislike him and I just want my train to run on time. Also, if you're going to make it personal, Prime Minister, then expect some real critique of your personality or, frankly, the vacuum that is your personality. So if you're going to respond to every crisis with this sort of technocratic, well, we followed the process, no, man.

18:46The reason why the British public can't connect with you is because they don't even know who you are. You're like a mirage of yourself in the House of Commons at the dispatch box, sort of strangely robotic response. No difference from every other week, just louder. Also, by the way, the other thing that people really, I think, object to is this self-styled paragon of virtue and this man of great decency actually appearing to be really quite arrogant and patronising and full of himself. So he's meant to be this man of the people and yet appears to have no sort of introspection at all, no ability to recognise his own flaws.

19:28And he brought up the Rob Jenrick white faces thing again, implying that Kemi is racist or tolerant of racism. She's black. I wish she'd turned around. It'd be like accusing Keir Starmer of being anti-tool. Also, he is, I'm afraid. I know men don't like it. He's such a mansplainer. And yet he's banging on about how much he does for women and girls. She landed the really good point about, sorry, you're running a boys' club here that has actually briefed against various women in Labour. Nobody buys it, Mr Speaker. Not even, not even the Labour women, because they know he always puts the Downing Street Boys Club first.

20:09Still can't elect a female leader and all the rest of it. So even that in itself is a grotesque contradiction. We keep on hearing this thing about, He's done so much for the victims of sex crimes. And it's like, well, he had to be like hauled over a barrel to have the rape gang inquiry. Let's not forget that. So the gaslighting of it all, you know, I'm saying this, but the public knows I'm doing the opposite. Why doesn't he understand? And it's because he is in this ivory tower. Is it because in a way, if he was a man of the people, he would understand these sentiments. You know, again, I keep on going back to it.

20:45I keep on going back to once asking John Mann, the former MP for Basset Law, who was the least popular colleague he ever brought up to the Working Man's Club. And it was Keir Starmer. And I said, why? And he said, because he didn't wear a suit and tie and because they regarded him as a, quotes, brill-creamed spiv. You know, the good people of Basset Law said, I think he spends a bit too much time on his hair. And I think that's a point. So this is the other thing. You're trying to convince us that you are the working class man of the people. No, you're not. You're Holborn and St Pancras. You're elite class.

21:21We know best. We know better than the little people. Nobody thinks that I can be besmirched because I'm a decent person. Speaking of hair, there was a magnificent example of the comb over of the week. I won't say who it was. Oh, come on. I'll leave it to people. I'll leave it to people to watch it back. But when this MP stood up and spoke, Stephen Flynn started sort of making exaggerated signals over his own hair, parodying the comb over, which I think is a bit rich because Stephen just doesn't have anything to comb over. I know. Well, if you have something to comb over, you might just want to comb it over.

21:56But while we're talking about insults, we have to mention the rather sparkling one from the Gaza Independent. Reform were in the Commons, Nigel Farage breaking his own rule and working from the House. Wow. See what I did there? Yes, I can. We shall be speaking to Sarah Pochin about this in just a moment, but go on. And behind them, Ayoub Khan stood up, Gaza independent, who, bearing in mind, literally beneath him is the Reform Party, asked this question. Mr Speaker, rubbish is building up right beneath my very nose. It's becoming... LAUGHTER LAUGHTER

22:37Easy, Tiger. It's... It's... It's... Fantastic. It's becoming a serious problem in Birmingham. Now, did any of them find that funny? Richard Tice thought it was hilarious. Nigel just has a face of granite throughout PMQs. I don't know what he's thinking about, but it's not politics. Sarah Pochin looked horrified, absolutely horrified. And you can ask her about that. But when it was all over, what the cameras wouldn't have captured is Nigel got up and patted Aoub Khan on the shoulder in a sort of a nice one mate kind of way. So those two, that little corner of the Gaza independence and the reformed people.

23:20It's like the naughty step of parliament. It is, but they stand up and slag each other off. But when the cameras are off, they seem to actually be quite friendly. Well, that's nice, isn't it? Zia Yusuf objected to this cross-party collaboration. Do you remember when people had appeared on a TV show together and then had a photo? In the green room. Yes, had a photo afterwards and he was like, we shouldn't be behaving like this. We absolutely should if we're to find common ground in politics. Yeah, but also politicians are human beings and one can forget that when you hear Keir Starmer speak, but they are human.

23:51Is Keir Starmer human? He's part Amstrad. But they are human beings for heaven's sake. And if they do start treating each other off screen the way they treat each other on screen, well, then we're going to have a civil war. We spoke about Sarah Pochin earlier. She's coming on to explain to us her reaction to being banned from a debate by the debating society at Bangor University.

24:26Sarah Poachin, the Reform MP for Runcorn and Helsby. Welcome to The Daily Tea, your Daily Tea debut. It is. I am a Daily Tea virgin. Oh, well, there you are. I know you are a listener, though, which is a good thing. We wanted to speak to you about this bizarre situation that's developed at Banger University. You were due to join another person. That's right. To take part in a debate there. And then the debating society said, no, actually, we don't want you taking part even though it's a debating society? What actually happened was that obviously we've got elections in Wales coming up and I am going to do a lot of campaigning around the North Wales area and I suggested that it would be great to ask Bangor University if we could come and do a debate with their debating society.

25:13And the other person involved is Jack Anderton who is very much involved in our interest group Students for Reform. So I said to Jack, who's a great young chap, very articulate, a great debater, I said, go on, give Bangor University a call and tell them that happy to come and debate. And the next thing we knew was there was a post out which actually went viral. I've never been viral before. My boys, my children are very impressed that their mum's gone viral. But it went by and it was basically from the debating society saying that, and it named me, Sarah Pochin, MP, and Jack Anderton, the chap I was doing it with, are not welcome on the grounds that they are racist, homophobic and transphobic and that the university did not want anyone like that to be basically on their campus.

26:05So, as you can imagine, this for me as a reformed politician is shocking on several levels. First of all, I rebuke every one of those slanderous words that were used about me personally. And also, what have we come to if a debating society will not debate with somebody that may have different views from the people that are in charge of this debating society. I mean, how ironic it makes a mockery. And one of the worrying things, I think, is that these are young minds, supposedly intelligent young people, the business leaders of the future, potentially the politicians of the future. How are they going to get on in the world if they are not able to have a conversation with people that may have differing views?

26:59The end of the quote is, We are proud to be the first of the debating unions to take a stand against reform UK. We strongly implore our fellow societies to join us in keeping hate out of our universities. That keeping hate out, what's your response to that? Well, again, several levels. First of all, we have a huge following currently amongst the British people. We're polling at 30%. And are they then accusing, are these young people accusing of all those British citizens of being hate filled? How ridiculous. And, you know, if you look at somebody like me, I'm just a, I'm a mum, I'm a normal woman.

27:43I've, you know, I've not done anything particularly spectacular in my life. But I do understand what people want from their politicians. And I would say I'm the absolute opposite of hate. What I'm doing is representing people that simply want to see this country secure. They do not want to see, as we saw yesterday on the news, the case of the 12-year-old girl that had been raped by the Afghan asylum seeker. They don't want those people just able to come into the country and rape our children. That is not about hate. That is about putting the security of the British people first. And yet again today, I sit in PMQs and I hear our prime minister saying that one of his priorities is the safety of women and children.

28:32Well, he's not doing that, is he? He is letting in people that I'm afraid have a different culture to us, a different view of women. And we are watching the increase in the number of rapes and sexual assaults on women and young girls. And it is not acceptable. So he is not putting the interests or the safety of women and young girls first. That is not the politics of hate. That is the politics of protecting people in this country. We can get on to PMQs in just a moment because an independent Gaza MP made a comment that you may want to react to. Do you think this may be a weaponization of the response to you making the points earlier this year that you made about black and brown people being overrepresented in adverts.

29:16You faced a huge backlash for that. It's still being talked about now on social media. You say you haven't gone viral before. There are a great many TikTokers and others who keep on referring back to that. Now, some people may have interpreted those comments in the same way the Prime Minister said today that your new colleague, Robert Jenrick, was racist when he said he didn't see any white faces when he was in Birmingham covering the bin strike. Can you understand that some may have perceived your comments to be racist, even if you didn't intend them to be? Those who choose to perceive it that way will do so.

29:50Those who have nothing else to throw at me, because I would like to think I represent the politics of common sense and represent your average person in this country. And those comments were misinterpreted entirely. And I accept it was clumsy speech. But what I said is absolutely right. You know, I said that the British advertising industry has 52 % or 56%, I can't quite remember what the figure is, of ethnic minority actors represented in the adverts. And yet the population is 4%. So that is not a reflection of our population. Those comments were made on the back of a Channel 4 survey that came out.

30:32I think it was Channel 4. And I stand by those comments. You know, they were just reasonable, objective comments. Now, if people choose to use that, because they have nothing else to, like I say, to throw at me about the things that I'm saying, you know, then let them, because they need to find some other material, because the British people are not buying that. Now, if these small-minded people have nothing better to say than, oh, she said something that we choose to misinterpret, then shame on them because there are so many more important things we should be talking about. And small-minded people that want to talk about adverts, you know what, get over yourselves.

31:08Are you going to take it any further, though? Because I know James Orr, who advises Nigel Farage, has suggested that this could be a breach of the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act. It should be noted that James Orr is a professor, so he works in academia. Yes. And also, intriguingly, Bangor University itself has distanced itself from the debating society. It said, as a university, we do welcome freedom of speech. This was a student society that took this decision by itself. Yes, that's right. I mean, do you have any truck with the sort of vicarious response to this rather than this individual group?

31:41Well, several things have happened actually since this post by the debating society. So Zia, Yusuf, our head of policy, you know, he did. And it's in the public domain, put out a letter to Bangor University saying, you know, you carry on with this sort of behavior or any other universities that carry on and stop democracy and stop freedom of speech will pull your funding when we're in government. Now, clearly, that was quite an extreme threat. But that is the level of frustration, I think, that we feel about not being heard or not being given a fair hearing because we represent so many people in this country now.

32:21Now, Bangor University have reached out, the vice chancellor, and I am going to have a meeting with the vice chancellor this afternoon. So I clearly, he's called the meeting, he's requested it. And of course, I'm happy to have that meeting with him. I think all we're saying is, you know, no politician should not be given a platform, particularly an elected politician such as myself. Okay. But are you happy for Gaza independence to be given platforms? at universities? Look, you know, the comments today in PMQs are a disgrace. Well, let's just talk about that. This is Ayub Khan and he made a point that he was talking about the Birmingham Bing strike and he made an unfortunate point as far as your positioning in the House of Commons is concerned because you sit directly on the row in front that filth was building up under his nose.

33:15Rubbish building up. Did you see that as an assault on reform? 100%. He thought he was being terribly funny. Our leader, Nigel Farage, in fact, I was sat next to Nigel and this MP was directly behind Nigel. And he clearly thought this was very funny. And of course, it gets roars of laughter from the opposition benches. Richard Tice seemed to take it in a lighthearted manner. And indeed, Tim Stanley, my podcast colleague who was in the House of Commons, suggested that Mr Farage did sort of pat him on the back afterwards. Well, you know, it's an interesting one, isn't it? I mean, how you react to that.

33:50I mean, for me, personally, I can only give my view. My view is that it's a disgrace. And so much behaviour in the House of Commons is actually, I think, so discourteous. And I don't like that behaviour. It's not the sort of behaviour that I think politicians, you know, should, in the way that they should act. But in the interest of freedom of speech, I suppose I'm being a bit of a devil's advocate, but just because these two incidents have happened and I'm just thinking in my mind now, if you're allowed to speak at Banger, equivalently, you should be OK with somebody like Khan getting up at any university, speaking in favour of the burqa, which is something you oppose, speaking in favour if he wants to.

34:31Oh, he can speak where he likes. I'd love to debate him. You know what? Bring it on. And absolutely. And that's exactly my point. Yes, we should all be able to debate our views because going back to the crux of this, we're talking about young minds, in my opinion, being brainwashed. So I had an appointment cancelled in a primary school in Runcorn, my constituency of Runcorn and Helzby, because they said they didn't want a racist politician in their school. Now, I am an elected member of parliament in the constituency of Runcone and Helsby, and I'm not able to visit a primary school. Who do you think took that decision?

35:08Pupils, staff, parents? Well, the letter came from the head teacher. So, you know, one has to assume that I don't know what pressure they were under. How does that make you feel? Again, deeply concerned about the brainwashing of our children. But isn't it also personally upsetting? you've got to have a thick skin in this game so I don't actually get personally upset I get frustrated because look I've got two children I've brought up my children I hope to be very balanced decent young men I've got two boys who are in their 20s now and it makes me very concerned about young people of today and particularly you know I worry about the sort of 16 to 24 year olds that really are not engaged enough, I don't think, in their ability to debate with people, to often even look grown-ups, I'm still calling them, you know, me grown-ups and them children, but look us in the eye, have a conversation with us.

36:06It's very concerning. We did a poll about this actually at The Telegraph. We asked our readers, should free speech be added to the curriculum in schools? And the result was overwhelmingly yes. 96 % yes, 4 % no. Would you advocate that? Freedom of speech lessons? Well, look, children pupils should be encouraged to debate. That's where we learn life skills going forward. And how do these young people now even perform in job interviews, etc? Because if they're not allowed to learn how to speak publicly, I mean, my children at school did public speaking lessons, you know, and they are the most amazing now public speakers, you know, they can stand up and give a speech.

36:54How wonderful. That is exactly the life skills that children need to be taught in schools. And debating is a fundamental part of that. But going back to a primary school, you know, I wanted to go in and talk about clearly not politics as you and I know it. But talk about what Parliament is, what it is to be a member of Parliament, what it means to be an elected representative, just all of the general education of our children about our political system, but without getting political. And I wasn't allowed to do that. I've also written to the six state secondary schools in my constituency asking for an audience.

37:35I thought, well, I'll change tack. Let's ask for an audience with the head teacher first and see how that goes. And at the moment, I think I've only had one and the letter went out a good three or four weeks ago, one response saying that they would meet with me. Now, how shocking. So, of course, my team will be following that up. But again, you know, what is the concern here? And I tell you what one of the concerns is, is that I've highlighted the fact that in the secondary schools in my constituency, Not one of them last May, when I last checked the statistics, got half their pupils to get a grade C in maths and English at GCSE.

38:15How shocking is that? We are failing our young people. But if we're not having the conversation, how can I help? All right, let's just end on a final note of some controversy. Nigel Farage speaks in Birmingham, gives a kind of, you know, rousing speech saying reformer on electoral footing because the Prime Minister is in so much trouble. Really kind of like setting down the gauntlet for May the 7th. He thinks that May the 7th is going to be this big electoral moment for your party, may well be true. Now you've got these additions from the Tories with you and we hope you're all getting on swimmingly.

38:50You and Suella are rubbish. Oh, it's nice to have another girl on board, I have to say. That is true. And he's made this comment about working from home, which I just want to just repeat. So he said he wanted an end to the work from home culture. People aren't more productive working at home. It's a load of nonsense. They're more productive being with other fellow human beings and working as part of a team. And it grew a few titters over in the office just because he was actually speaking to a group of people that are already available at 3pm in the afternoon on a Monday in Birmingham? Could they be retirees?

39:25I would merely make the point, look, isn't that a little bit outdated in its thinking? Of course, there are roles that require you to be there face-to-face, teachers, doctors, frontline workers, journalists, working on stories, interviewing politicians and all the rest of it. I work from home on a Friday to write my column. Am I less productive because I do so? My husband works from home permanently. He doesn't go into the office at all, maybe once a month. He's run off his feet and can barely get a sandwich. What's Faraj talking about? I think, look, my interpretation of that and my personal view is that there does need to be a balance.

40:01But I do think the fact is, is that human interaction in the office. And again, I go back to young people, which I feel so passionately about. it's important that people do interact and learn you know how to do what we're doing now you know you know and so I think there's a lot to be said for going into the office and clearly there are some jobs where you have to go into the office or go into the workplace yeah I guess with the COVID you know the horrors that was the COVID four years or whatever it was we went perhaps too far the other way everyone was working at home and it's quite hard to now drag people back into the workplace.

40:38I think we need a balance. My own view is, yes, there is probably room for a little bit of both. But I do think we're human beings and we get the most out of each other most of the time when we are able to interact face to face. But the other criticism could be that's typically blokey from Mr Farage, who, bless him, has had a wife around or a partner to bring up his children while he's gone on a political journey, which has ended in him being at the helm of reform and possibly being a future Prime Minister. You know you're there representing now along with Suella and others, I appreciate the girly numbers have been bumped up, women's issues.

41:14What does it say to women who work from home because they need to collect their children or because they need to run a household as well as having a career? What does it say if the leader of reform is basically saying they're not very productive? You and I know because we will all have these girlfriends who work from home who can help when our own children leave behind their gym kit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK? These people are perfectly productive. It is a bit outdated, old fashioned, and possibly a bit sexist to be saying this, isn't it? Well, the comments weren't directed at women. And again, you're probably very similar to me in that you were superwoman.

41:52Well, you know, I was bringing up my children. I worked full time. But look, the childcare in this country is better than ever. I walked into Parliament this morning. You know, there's toddlers everywhere. I know, but not everywhere. It's more expensive than ever, child care in this country. It's hugely expensive. I absolutely don't disagree with that at all. That's why some women are working from home, right? They're working from home because they can't afford the child care. So they'll put their working hours around that 8.30 drop-off, 3.50 pick-up, maybe spend some time with the children. The children go to bed.

42:23They continue working. Look, of course I have sympathy with that. I've been on the receiving end when I worked as a counsellor, in fact, a borough counsellor. That's exactly how I worked. And I'd work in the evenings to accommodate what I was doing with my children in the daytime. So I think there has to be a balance. But I think the overall point that Nigel was making is, as I've said, human interaction, you can't beat it. It's also so good for social skills. And let's face it, we know we have a growing problem now with anxiety and and, you know, just social interaction in this country. And I do think a lot of that is people isolated at home.

43:00And actually, you know what it's like, you know, even myself, if I'd been home for a couple of days and suddenly going out, you think, oh, God, I won't go out. But no, I think there has to be a balance. Look, I think he was just making the general point that we need to encourage people back out, interacting with each other. And for me, particularly our young people. How long are you giving the prime minister? And when do you think there'll be a general election? He definitely will not go before May the 7th. So we obviously have the by-election on the 26th of February coming up quite soon. Nothing will happen then.

43:34I think Labour will lose that. Will you win or the Greens, though? I think we will win. I think we will. And I'm not just saying that, you know, I analyse the data like the rest of us. I think we've got a very, very good chance of winning that. Clearly, that would be another massive blow for Labour at that point, because that will be the second safe Labour seat, mine being the first, that's been won in a by-election. So I think that's a massive blow, but nobody is going to want to come in before that. Then we've got the May elections on the 7th of May. Nobody's going to want to come in before that either because we believe, again, it's going to be a repeat of last May when there's a massive wave of turquoise, where we've been allowed to stand, of course, because we all know masses of elections have been cancelled.

44:17I think Keir Starmer, I think he'll take a massive blow in May and I think potentially he'll go after that. But what's with this general election by 2027? Why on earth would anyone that takes over from Starmer be a turkey voting for Christmas? They're just not going to do that. I think they'll hang on as long as they can. So you don't agree with Nigel on that? You think we'll probably have to wait to 2029? Nigel's the expert on these things, but my own view is why would Labour, they know they're going to lose a general election, Yeah. Why would you give up your ministerial cards and your CPOs and all the frills that go with all this stuff when you know that you're not going to you're not going to win?

44:54So I think they will hang on as long as possible. There's several things that can happen, though. And that is firstly the public unrest and becomes a problem. And I don't say that lightly. And I certainly don't say that with any desire to see public unrest. But the fact is, you know, we're in the winter period again. When the weather gets better, when the boats start coming in again, when Shabama Mahmood, for all of her promises and big speeches, does nothing about, you know, the invasion of illegal asylum seekers into our shores, you know, people are going to get very upset again. As things get worse with the economy, so I held a business breakfast in Frodsham, actually, in my constituency last week, 35 small businesses there, all talking about the problems they have now employing people, you know, national insurance, minimum wage, a workers' rights bill, you name it.

45:53that is all going to kick in in April of this year. Okay. Believe me, you know, the effect, we're already seeing the effect on the hospitality industry of zero-hour contracts going out the window and all of this stuff. But when those new taxes start to kick in, small businesses are already telling me they are not hiring at the moment because there's too much risk. Then I I think we're going to see a real economic decline. People like Richard Tice and Zia, they talk about the gilt market, the bond market, with all the knowledge that they've got. You know, the bond market won't sustain, you know, the next budget that comes along and all that sort of thing.

46:32Look, I mean, I'm not an expert in that. But there's clearly all sorts of ways that potentially a general election could be forced upon Labour if, under the next leader, things get even worse than they're potentially going now. But I do think you're right. I think they'll hang on as long as they can. on that bombshell that things could get even worse. Sarah Poachin, thank you very much for joining us on The Daily Team. Thank you so much. We'll be back tomorrow, 5pm.