The biggest mistake of Prince Harry’s life has just cost him £18 million

0:02The Telegraph.

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1:57Andy Burnham says he wants to reform social care, but he won't tell us how much it will cost and doesn't want journalists asking questions. Is this the best indication yet? We've got that Labour is gearing up for an early election. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Poppy Copern.

2:24To discuss Harry's financial situation, We are joined by Gordon Rayner, who has been following the cost hearings. We'll explain what that is in a moment. And by Hannah Furness, who's going to give us more on what's going on behind closed doors, or what you can imagine. If you put your ear to it, what you can imagine is going on behind closed doors in the Markle household. As we all know, on July the 7th, Harry and six other people lost their case against the male group. As a result of that, they have to cough up for expenses. Gordon, how much are they on the hook for? Well, the total cost of this hearing is about 50 million.

3:04Now, of that, about 34 million is the associated newspaper's costs. So, in theory, what they're asking for is all of that money back. They are saying, we won, you should pay our costs. It's not quite as simple as that, in as much as the claimants were insured but their insurance only covers them for about 16 million of those costs so there's a 18 million pound shortfall and that is what the current hearing is all about that's what they're arguing over at the moment right and crucially it's not just rich people who are involved in this case there's also some poorer people too yes so there's baroness lawrence doreen lawrence mother of stephen lawrence she is not at all wealthy there's simon hughes the former lib dem mp he's he's not a millionaire.

3:56Some of them are very wealthy, Elton John, Prince Harry, obviously. So we don't know if they were to be told they have to pay these additional costs. We don't know who would shoulder the bill for that. We think and we are told that there may be some arrangement sort of behind closed doors that Elton John and Prince Harry may help the other claimants. Right. Now, sorry, just to say, the involvement of the Lawrences is itself controversial, right? Because some people suspect that they were brought in to provide a kind of veneer of respectability and ethical crusade to this case. Yes. Dorian Lawrence was described in court as a trophy claimant.

4:40And there were various things that came out after the hearing about the way that the claimant's lawyers had behaved and hacked off this group that is sort of behind this whole campaign against the tabloids. They had tried to get Gary Lineker involved at one point, and then they settled on Baroness Lawrence. It's interesting that Baroness Lawrence's name is first on all of the documents. So if you look at the judgment, it's Baroness Lawrence and others versus associated. So she was their sort of lead claimant. They really wanted her to be involved partly because she's so sort of unimpeachably respectable, but also because the mail had of course been behind that campaign to get Stephen Lawrence's killers convicted and identified so if they could get her to turn against the mail that was going to be a huge win for them.

5:34Obviously they lost. And we heard in court, didn't we, that Harry bore some personal responsibility for getting Baroness Lawrence involved and he and Baroness Lawrence were the two who signed this statement together, the only two who accused the judge of a whitewash. Yes, after they'd lost, Prince Harry and Baroness Lawrence, as you say, put out a statement saying exactly that, that this is a whitewash. The other claimants didn't sign that. Do you think that the kind of braggadocious behaviour of Harry following this case to its conclusion is actually going to put them on the hook for a lot more money?

6:07Because I was reading about some discussion that the insurance company that they had the insurance in case the case didn't go their way, have discussed whether or not they're going to pay out the insurance that they think they will get. Because when they tried to claim an amount, they put such an unbelievably high figure down that they're now going to refuse to actually pay it out. Is that a likelihood? I think that there were plenty of people who said at the time that Harry put out that statement that it wasn't the cleverest thing to do when the costs hearing was still to come because he was effectively, well he was, just accusing the judge of getting it wrong and by saying it was a whitewash he wasn't just accusing the judge of getting it wrong he was almost sort of suggesting that the judge was somehow conspiratorially connected somehow dodgy, I don't know So yes, you could imagine that if you're the insurance company that's agreed to underwrite them, that's not the sort of behaviour that they're going to thank him for.

7:01the arguments in court have been around whether the way that the claimants behaved was so egregious that they deserve to have what's called indemnity costs imposed on them which means going you know above and beyond what the judge had previously said would be the limit of their liability for the claimants Nicholas Bacon QC has been on his feet today he's been saying that these were very serious matters, that there was every reason to have this fight in court. And he's also arguing that the mail group had said earlier that their costs would only be maximum 20 million. They then got up to 34 million.

7:45He's effectively saying, well, why should we be on the hook for that when we insured ourselves at the 20 million figure, albeit slightly less than 20 Okay, so cost hearings have begun. Court will consider how much the people who brought the original case will now have to pay. What is the mail's argument here with regards to Harry and his behaviour? Well, the mail are saying that Harry and others have behaved very badly. They are saying that not only did they pursue a case which was completely unfounded, but also they They sort of, you know, were doing things on the fly in court that David Sherborne, their barrister, was putting things to people that hadn't even been suggested in the written arguments that were submitted to the court beforehand.

8:33And they say that a lot of people, there were 77 journalists involved in this. We heard today talk about how that had been, you know, the whole four-year process had been very traumatic for a lot of those people, that their careers had suffered, that they'd been under a lot of stress, that they had been trolled online. The judge heard about Nicole Lampert, who writes The Telegraph sometimes. She had been trolled after she had written about this. So it's that sort of the way that people's lives have been affected by this in what the males say. it was a completely unnecessary way. And they have also taken, a gamble isn't the right way, but it was a big call for them to actually defend it in the first place rather than settling, as other newspaper groups have had.

9:17And they have had to accept that they will be paying a lot of money for an 11-week case, spending a lot of time and a lot of money defending themselves. And there is a strong argument, I imagine, that they're making a call of, well, that can't be for nothing, and we've won. And 97 counts. I can only feel like I have to get slightly psychological here. Why is Harry still doing this when he's pursuing behaviour that's actually making his life and the lives of the people around him that have taken a gamble to go through this claim with him so much worse? I mean, I'm thinking again about the letter that was put out by Associated Newspapers when they lost the case in the first place, almost saying like, this is it now.

9:55OK, I mean, it's quite insulting towards Harry, but it's almost saying you've had your punt, you've had your go. Step back now and stop. And yet he cannot seem to stop himself. Is it pride? Why is he doing it? Well, he's been really clear that this is a personal crusade for him. He's called himself the dragon slayer. I slightly paraphrase, but he sets himself up as the dragon slaying prince looking after the little people. So he sees himself as having the resources to take on the kind of evil British tabloid press that in his mind ruined the lives of other people who don't have the capacity he has to fight it in court.

10:29Obviously, that narrative needed him to win the case. He's lost it. Paul Dacre, in his very strong statement, called him poor, angry Harry, didn't he? and urged him to move on. I'm sure that will have gone down incredibly badly in Prince Harry's camp. But there is a grain of truth in it that there have been a lot of legal cases. This should be the last one. And Harry needs to make a little bit of a decision of, as far as we're aware, he's not contesting this now. They're talking about the amount that they need to pay and then they can move on. And can he be free of this and can he move on to a happier, more positive future where he isn't defining himself with crusades and battles constantly?

11:13Maybe. Hopefully. Hannah, he lost on every single count. Yes. We thought he might get one or two in there, but every single one. And it really challenged his interpretation of his relationship with the media because he was claiming that people were pursuing him, but in fact evidence was presented that suggested him trying to build a relationship with journalists. Yes, and it's a whole world view. And when you take a step back from it, it's terribly sad because a lot of this case is him saying people must have acted unlawfully to get information about me, my girlfriends, my private life. It turns out that a lot of this stuff was people in his private life telling journalists this.

11:52Or he seems to have just forgotten that he's built relationships with journalists. He doesn't accept that anybody in his circle, in his social circle, could have just been talking to journalists, even if casually at a party. And it's a very difficult thing for him to accept if he's built this worldview that everybody, the establishment is against him, to sit and take it in, will he accept that what associates have said in court has been proved true, that people around him were the ones talking about it? That's a big thing. Even if he doesn't accept the substance of what's happened in this case, I think he has accepted that he's going to have to pay some amount of money, even if we don't know what that exact figure is going to be.

12:34Where is that money going to come from for Harry in particular? not looking at the other claimants. As you know, pointed out, Elton John probably does have the money to pay for this, but potentially other claimants do not. But what about Harry himself? What are his finances? On that point, before you say, I do want to quote an email from Ronald Ray Gunn. See what he's done. I think it's a joke. I think it's a joke. But he says, I'm in two minds about it. Yes, the Duke of Woke should have to pay up for the costs others have incurred as a result of his legal shenanigans. But to top up their finances, it would likely mean the Duchess of Woke churns out more Netflix nonsense and horrible jars of jam.

13:11The world does not need this. Well, it's a lot of jam, 18 million pounds, isn't it? Harry has money, obviously. He is a prince. He's a Duke of Sussex. He inherited money from his mother. He inherited money from the late Queen Elizabeth. His amount of money is not tech billionaire, private jet, unlimited security, houses around the world sort of money. And it's not infinite. that they have no regular income in a way that the royal family is paid for by public funds. He lives in a$14 million house that has a mortgage on it. Their household spending must be enormous to keep up a lifestyle. He could find this money somewhere.

13:52I'm sure Elton John would need to auction off a piano or two. Elton John has announced he's doing two concerts in Mexico City. Oh no, he's not going to have to go back on tour. Well, he is going back on tour. Right. Poor man, he's 96. Well, they insist this is a pure coincidence, Tim. Right. It's got nothing to do with the court case. It's been in the, you know, it may be three years since he lasted at concert, but it's got nothing to do with the court case. Do you think he'll do a call out? Are there any journalists in the crowd? Leave now. They do have some earning potential. So MasterChef wasn't paid as it happened, but there were plenty of things they could do that are paid.

14:26I'm sorry, Meghan Markle has done MasterChef Australia. Yes. Right, OK. I mean, that says something, doesn't it? I mean, isn't the trajectory of most careers that you go from Britain to America and then you go to Australia and then you end up in New Zealand? I mean, when she starts doing bargain hunt, rest of Christchurch. I was under the hammer in Mondesita.

14:51Australian MasterChef? She couldn't even get on the British one? Okay, so she's doing MasterChef. You're saying that wasn't paid? That wasn't paid. You know, they have some earning potential. He would be paid to do speeches. She could write a memoir. It's not that there's a totally untapped resource. It's that, for me, these figures are enormous. It's monopoly money. For people in other worlds, for Elton John, as we say, this is not very much money. There are seven claimants in this case. Somebody is going to have to carry the burden of it. Yeah. In a moral sense, I would argue. Yeah. And the whole of the hacked off sort of campaign against the media was bankrupt by the estate of the late Max Mosley.

15:31Right. I don't know if there was still money left in that. Is he? Who knows? Yeah. There's always been a very strong argument, I think, from if you're looking back from the Megxit days, the post-Palace days, that the best outcome for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex leaving the royal family was them to be commercially successful. If they've got steady income, some money in the bank, they can kind of relax and they don't need to rely on this. What is their main trump card, which has been criticised in the royal family, or talking about the dirty laundry in the royal family? this adds just another little twist in the tail doesn't it it's a it's a big amount of money that they will have to find also americans don't like losers do they and um that's true if that's where his income is coming from right but the brief press does have a very bad reputation in america so they might they think we're they think we're muckrakers don't they which we we do try our best and this is some high quality muck it has to be said i mean hannah you talked about their resources being left they're really the personal resource of biography it's all what i can find to share with you that you will pay me for it's katie price method how many more autobiographies can i yeah exactly a story arc it needs a narrative they've had the they've had the phase they've had the airing the dirty laundry phase they've had the sort of victim narrative phase of everybody is against us and for it to keep working in the public eye and for people to stay interested they need to move on to a new phase.

16:57So we have seen them obviously coming back to Britain. We've seen all those photos from Meghan about their happy life behind the scenes at Old Throp House where Diana's grave is, their holidays in Portugal. We're going to see Harry coming back to Britain again for the Well Child Awards in September, no doubt, Invictus next year. There's always been this idea that the story arc needs to move towards reconciliation for the public to stay interested. And it seems to be heading in the direction that everybody predicted quite a long time ago. Well, there was this idea a couple of years ago that reconciliation was a kind of active buzzword, like mood board behind the scenes that, you know, you'd get the memoir done, the Netflix done, you'd get everything out there and then you'd reconcile with the British royal family and that would be a new phase.

17:42And I have to say four, five, six years ago, I thought that was, I was incredulous that that could ever happen after your Oprah interview and after all those accusations. But we seem to be there. I think also if you're trying to sell your association with royalty, you really need to be here to do that. Royalty doesn't work in exile. We need to be visible. Isn't it going to be harder though to monetise if they are reconciled with the royal family because then the royal family will say, if we're going to be reconciled, you've got to stop with monetising your royalty. No, you're half in, half out.

18:16The late Queen's wishes, you can't be half in, half out. but they're kind of making it up as they go along aren't they yeah a letter here from karen woodward who says why on earth is he sorry an email here from karen woodward who says why on earth doesn't he just get on with his life he has incredible opportunities and could have done pretty much anything he wanted instead this highly privileged man uh highly privileged instead this highly privileged man child spends his time whinging about the terrible life he feels he has had and suing people a shame he met and married someone just as self-pitying and delusional both are very fortunate people it's about time they grew up and realized this poppy is that unfair i mean i'm sure that harry would think it's very unfair the problem is it is pretty difficult to feel sorry for someone that literally had a silver spoon being put to their lips as soon as they entered into this world yeah i i just think the sympathy game for him has always been he's trying to get it out the americans right and it's almost like a proxy like you feel sympathetic because you hate this other institution more than you like us and i think the problem is going to be for Harry and Meghan when it's just them.

19:19They're no longer a proxy to disdain the British monarchy or disdain the British press. It's just Harry and Meghan. And I think there are already signs that people are getting a bit bored of them as a couple, rather than who they are, they're bored, versus what they represent as an institution. The further away they get from that institution, you start to realise what's left. What are these people? Yeah. I spend a fair bit of time in America and I think they are now just being seen as minor celebrities rather than this sort of you know having this royal sheen and hence why they're desperate to sort of you know reconnect with the royal family i guess and they've got a massive issue with their branding i would say in terms of there's a real incoherence in their messaging so on the one hand they talk about privacy on the other hand they put their children on social media or megan does on instagram on the one hand they talk about leaving the royal family because they want their children to have a happy life this week a source close to the sussexes has briefed People magazine about their holiday in Portugal, where they can just be kids.

20:15And I read the comments under it and all the comments were, well, they are just kids. Who's saying they can't just be kids? They've got a private life in Montecito. So there's a very difficult message that isn't being delivered. I don't think anybody can quite figure out who they are or what they want. Do they want the privacy? Do they not want the privacy? Do they want to make money? Do they want to do good in the world? What are they trying to say about themselves? Well, if they want the privacy, that they don't get the money that comes from being influencers. And that's the contradiction, right?

20:43I come back to what we've always said about Prince Harry after leaving. He could just get a job. There isn't a world where the only jobs, you don't have to be a member of the royal family or a millionaire celebrity. There's a lot in between those two things. Well, there are T-levels now. I mean, Andy wants everyone to get a hard hat. She'd be an apprentice. Is that what you're saying? Retrain. He was so happy in the army where he had colleagues and stability and a defined role of something. But the British Army wouldn't take him back. No, but he was an exceptional pilot. He really was an exceptional pilot.

21:18Yeah, he should never have left. He has his talents. And I just think you don't need to create a lifestyle where you have to be kind of selling yourself and building a brand all the time. You could be so happy just having a much more normal, stable job. I'm not getting in a passenger jet piloted by a man that emotionally unstable. Tick me up when he finds out you're a journalist. That's going to be very dangerous indeed. Not once he's got those comments you're reading out. And FNS and Gordon Rayner, thank you both very much. Thank you. And coming up next, from one mounting bill to another, Andy Burnham's plan to reform social care.

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24:21Nirav Modi was a billionaire diamond tycoon whose jewellery was worn by Hollywood stars like Kate Winslet. But in 2018, he was accused of masterminding one of the world's biggest ever bank frauds, and he disappeared. This is the extraordinary story of the rise and fall of Nirav Modi. And of how we caught him. He was in the news all the time. Where is Nirav Modi? Why can we not find him? He's one of the most sought-after criminals in India. You owe a lot of people a lot of money, Mr Modi, who would very much like to know where you are. Sorry, no comment. The Indians will think we're a laughingstock.

25:02Here we are seven years later still speaking about this case. They think it's a sham. The Diamond King, a new podcast from The Telegraph. With me, Mick Brown. And me, Robert Mendick. Out now.

25:21Prior to the recording of this podcast, we couldn't find you. And someone said, where is Poppy? And I said, what we need is a Poppy appeal. Oh, God, that's so bad. That is really bad. In that spirit of twee whimsy, the Prime Minister today gave his first proper press conference in which he was asked questions. and the first speech in which he really got into a substantive policy change which could have tax implications. So this was a very big moment in the history of Andy Berman's premiership. He wore a tie for it. He went to a Jewish elderly centre in London. He spoke from the heart about his father's own experience with Alzheimer's and he spoke without notes.

26:07Now before we discuss the substance and everything, we do have to mark the passing of Lars de Starmer. When he would have spoken from a podium, he would have talked about tools and broken windows. He probably would have talked about his father, but in a way that was kind of blunt and plenty. He would have read about his father from his notes. We never got on. It would have been weird. But this is a key point, I think, that the right has to come to terms with. This is a very different style of politician and I thought quite an effective one. Whereas Keir Starmer didn't like Parliament, preferred Davos, Andy Byrne, in my sense, doesn't like Parliament because he's not doing any of this where he should, which is in front of the House of Commons, doesn't like Parliament.

26:55He prefers daytime TV. Yes, this is Andy Byrne and the campaigner, which is something that he did very, very successfully when he was Manchester mayor. He obviously championed the cause of the Hillsborough disaster. he would say I think he took behind the nuclear test victims as well. He picked up various social causes. He flirted with the WASP women giving them money for about a week or so and then realised that maybe that one was too expensive and dropped it. But social care is another issue that Andy Byrne wants to campaign on. So all the way back in 2009, for a very, very brief period indeed, he was health secretary in the dying days of Gordon Brown's government.

27:30And in that very limited space of time when he was in that role, He spoke very movingly about wanting to have a total reform of adult social care. Now, many, many politicians in the time since then have spoken about reforming adult social care. Theresa May spoke about it. Boris Johnson made a massive deal out of his reforms for adult social care. None of these things actually came to fruition. So to see Andy Burnham choose this topic as his first proper political intervention, I think is quite meaningful. I personally think it's admirable. I think this is one of the great social issues. It is very strange that Britain has failed to tackle it.

28:07And he first introduced Yvette Cooper in her new role as, is she a qualities? I'm trying to remember what Yvette Cooper is now. Yvette Cooper is health secretary. Is she? Yes, she's health secretary. Oh, right. OK. Angela Rayner was there. And I keep forgetting Ange didn't get health care. I'm trying in my head. She's back in her old housing job. That's right. In my head, I'm trying to, and they didn't let Angela near the microphone. I noticed that. Probably why. Very sensible. But Yvette Cooper stood up as the new health secretary. it's a lot easier than a foreign secretary, always trying to get through the White House, trying to get through to the president.

28:37Is this you flexing about getting through? I'm always in and out of the White House. But for someone like Yvette Cooper, it must be very difficult. Yeah. Obviously for you, it's... Can you imagine? But can you imagine Trump talking to her and trying to make sense of that? So anyway, so Yvette Cooper stands up. She looks very happy. She looked very happy. And she referenced the fact that there have been 22 attempts in the last few decades to reform social care. I'm not quite sure where that number came from, but she says 22, and that it goes all the way back 50 years to Barbara Castle saying we need to integrate social care and health care.

29:08And of course, the great problem is that as we are getting older as a country, and as actually our ability to do things gets better because of improvements in medical technology, people are living longer and that's posing a greater expense. And as Burnham pointed out, increasingly, things that should be done as a matter of social care are being done in hospitals instead. People who should be discharged are instead being left in the hospital. So never mind the personal tragedy, this is actually costing the country money. And Baroness Casey came forward to speak. He is going to expedite her review into social care to make it happen within a year.

29:43And she and Cooper were both boosting something called the big conversation to get the public involved. And then the Prime Minister spoke and putting aside, as I say, his very moving description of his father's condition, putting aside the things he said about the admirable people who work in care, he said next to nothing. Yes, this is the real Andy Burnham. I was waiting for this moment because it was very moving. I think he has a very good presentation style and he's certainly got a conversation started, but he hasn't finished that conversation. So we floated a few ideas around and the questions afterwards about the big one, which is, well, this sounds lovely, but how are you going to pay for it?

30:27Because the reason why, if that 22 figure is correct, the reason why that we have tried to reform adult social care 22 times had failed is not just because politicians are incompetent and forgetful, it's because it's quite difficult for various reasons, one of which is it's very, very, very expensive. And the one that always sticks in my mind is Theresa May. When Theresa May tried in 2017 to put in the manifesto reforms that would pay for adult social care, one of which would be that the value of your house would be taken into account with how much government money you could get to pay for your adult social care, people branded it a dementia tax.

31:04Dementia tax. Including left-wing commentators branded her dementia. Arguably, it was one of the things that actually meant that she failed so spectacularly in the 2017 election. It made people so angry. It was her version of the Winterfuel Allowance. She really angered many, many people in the country. And I think a lot of people haven't forgiven the Tories for it afterwards. So it's this theme of how do you actually pay for an integrated national care service when the national health service is something that we cannot seem to afford to pay for? I do agree that the problem with social care has been this kind of short-termism.

31:38You've seen that with how the Conservative Party dealt with staffing issues. Rather than retraining people and allowing wages to rise while they went through the health and social care visa, which Andy Burnham did briefly reference to seem to say quite positive things about these people. But regardless of the positive contributions they made, they would be in incredible fiscal costs when they are allowed to stay because of how badly designed the visa was. There's also the problem of people not being able to save up over a long portion of their life, which he does seem to address. He does seem to suggest that what will happen is some kind of taxation where your money will be put aside, a bit like national insurance, to pay for your future health care.

32:15But, but, but, because it's the Labour Party, it's a progressive tax only for some people and wealthy pensioners will be the ones expected to pay for everybody else. Right. So that could be incredibly contentious because I think what people see at the moment with the adult social care system is saying, well, why do I have to sell my house to pay for my mother's care or my grandmother's care? But these other people do not have to and they can just rely on the state. And so it's still going to be, I think, quite politically contentious if he does go ahead with that particular clause. Well, if people do rely upon the state, they can very often end up with quite a poor service.

32:50Yes. I say that from personal experience, whereas richer people end up with a very high class quality of experience with yoga classes, etc. So there is something sort of uncomfortably unequal about that. But when we talk about a national care service, it smacks of it's going to be an NHS for care. Do we have any hint at this point if he's talking about actually nationalising the provision of care? Or is this just a mixed market? It's a rebranding exercise. It's number 10 north of the health service, right? We're going to stick a new sign on something, but fundamentally it's not going to be what we've described it as.

33:28Right, OK. Because National Care Service sounds to me like there will be a series of state-run care homes that will provide a basic standard of service that everyone's guaranteed a place in, rather than it's just going to be the state pays for or contributes towards, based upon also individual contribution, private care. Because to be fair, we need to encourage private care in this country too. And we've not perhaps been doing that as much as we should have done. No, we haven't. And it's partly because of the role that the state has played. As with many other problems with the British economy, we have a half in and half out system.

34:00It's become so complicated. It's made these very, very weird incentives. So I was reading a piece about how private equity has bought up a lot of care homes. And it's a very easy way for them to bog down these businesses in the debt of doing a leveraged buyout. So they buy them with a very small amount of money. and then they say, well, if the venture fails, then it's on you, the care home, you have to pay for it. And actually that means the state has to pay for it. And if it succeeds, we make lots of money and we get to take billions of pounds. And that does happen. Billions of pounds have taken out the system every year in shareholder profits from these private equity companies.

34:32But it means that the state is paying an incredibly high fee for putting people in technically state-run care homes, but they're not state-run, they're quasi-private. So in that way, it can almost make sense to have a fully state-run care home system because at least you're cutting out a middleman. But has that system been successful in any other area of healthcare provision? I think probably most people in the country would say no. Satisfaction in the NHS has never been so low. That's part of the problem because the money is short because the bills are so incredibly high. So that's why it's disappointing that Andy Burnham hasn't told us how he's going to pay for it.

35:10Well, and the NHS rations care. Yes. You can't ration social care because you can't delay someone going into a home, or at least you shouldn't do. But if we end up in a situation in which there's only a certain number of places available for people, we'll end up with a rationing of care. And that's really no better than what we have at the moment. So the policy itself is blank. The check to pay for it is blank. But what we are going to get for the next year is, as I said, a big conversation, a dementia czar, the report from the Baroness, and also these talks with the Lib Dems and the Tories. Now, that's mysterious.

35:49Why does a party with a historic majority require talks with the opposition to get social care passed? It's peculiar, but I think it's also quite clever. And I think he's taking a note from what's happened in other social democratic governments in other countries where they do things like having citizens assemblies, where rather than as we're supposed to do in our system, run on a policy, take it before parliament, pass it, face scrutiny from committees and the lords and then end up with the policy being implemented. What he's doing instead is going over Parliament and speaking directly to the public and trying to build over the next 12 months a sense of emotional, sentimental consensus of something must be done.

36:37So that when Casey's report comes in, he can say, well, I talked to the people and I talked to Kimmy and I talked to Ed and they all said something needs to be done. So here it is. But of course, that thing, regardless, as we've said, we don't know whether it'll be public or private or whatever, but also crucially, we don't know what the tax implications are. And that's important during a cost of living crisis. I feel we're being set up to swallow whatever he comes up with in 12 months. You're really frightening me, Tim, because that sounds absolutely plausible. This is the worst possible way you can go about a very complicated issue like social care.

37:17frankly a very expensive issue like social care is to hit people over the head with sentimentality. What we need is good policy that works but also you've got national buy-in about what the cost is going to be particularly if it's coming from general taxation because I think a lot of people will rightly say if I'm paying for the elderly generation of social care out of my pay pocket and I'm still being taxed at a very high rate well how on earth am I supposed to save for my own social care if I want to go privately if I don't want to have to go into this state-run system which frankly the track record for state-run enterprises in the United Kingdom isn't fantastic.

37:52So I think you may be correct that that is what he's doing but this does not really bode well for what kind of leader Andy Burnham is going to be like because that's pure populism is it not? No it's the definition of populism but you're not sure always with that kind of populism if he's being led by the public or if he's got an idea of what he wants to do and he's actually just trying to sentimentalise the issue so that the public ends up going along with it. Now, it's very interesting that when finally he did turn to questions from the press, and they were very respectful, you know, they respect his agency and his personhood and his dignity and all those things.

38:26They weren't treating him like they did with Keir Starmer, you know. But when he was asked the question about euthanasia, which was very funny, because you're in an elderly care home, and you're asking a question about assisted dying, and Sam Coates had to say, I hope people won't find this distasteful. It's quite a brave one. Do you support his sister dying? Now, what I find curious is, first of all, his answer was not, absolutely no, because I'm a Roman Catholic. And I'm reading lots of articles at the moment, generally by quite liberal Roman Catholics, saying he's our first proper Catholic Prime Minister.

39:01They said that about Joe Biden, didn't they? Right, exactly. He wasn't the first proper... And look, he might be, he is baptized a Catholic, so he's part of the body of the church. So on paper, he is a Catholic. Don't get me wrong. I'm not criticizing. I don't know his soul. But if he is a full-blown, hardcore Taliban Catholic, he ought to automatically say, no, I'm just against his sister dying because that's church teaching. He didn't. He said, we got the argument round the wrong way. You can't discuss a sister dying until you fix palliative care. Now, that's a very clever dodge of the central ethical issue.

39:35But it does draw a contrast between what he's doing here and what was done with euthanasia. With euthanasia, government didn't support it, private members bill, and it became an oligarchy decision. It was what MPs wanted to do. So when it finally went to the Lords, the Lords said it fails the sniff test and we're not going to pass it, and so it failed. What they didn't do was involve the public. If they had, like he's now doing with care, spent a year doing citizens' assemblies, having proper inquiries, having a dementia czar, I bet it would have sailed through the Lords because they would have properly got the public on side with it.

40:15So I think it's an interesting study in contrast of how you pull off big change like this. And he's probably approaching this in politically a savvy way. That's quite an interesting interpretation of what Burnham's doing because it kind of implies to you that what we said earlier in the week about him being continuity starment, isn't completely correct because if he is smart enough, if he is smart enough in method to be able to get these sort of things done, contentious issues, or frankly issues that I think most people would probably emotionally be in agreement with, but they'd quibble with the details, what a great way of dodging the details.

40:48And just instead getting everyone standing up and saying, something must be done, we must take action on this issue. And then you, as a political leader, get to work out, basically when the issue has already been solved, how to do the detail afterwards, which is quite interesting. Again, it's not how our political system is meant to operate, but it's quite another way of trying to exploit those decisions. It's going to be a year of talking about dementia. And don't get me wrong, that is a very noble subject and a conversation we should be happening. But I just feel that's going to be part of a process of softening us up for accepting something that we haven't yet been told what is going to be.

41:21Nor should we have the indecency to ask. and we must listen to this little clip of Andy Burnham pleading with the media not to be the media. Do ask colleagues in the media again, can we not let the country look at this in a quite clear-eyed way without all of the hype and the overwriting of some of these issues? On this issue, I'll just ask it again, on this issue, please, can we have a factual debate? Can we allow people to weigh up the different options that Louise might put forward and then just come to a considered view based on those facts? Is that too much to ask? Poppy, we can't help it.

42:04We are journalists and it is our job not to speculate as such. I think that's a misrepresentation of what we've been doing. But to ask reasonable questions like what are you going to do and how much will it cost? It's quite interesting that Andy Burnham has gone with this line directly to the media because I know he's been getting criticism, I think completely warranted criticism, although I would say that, over the last couple of weeks where he's just refused to engage in press conferences. So this man's about to become our Prime Minister on the basis of him winning the Maker Fiat by-election and getting the support of Labour MPs.

42:37And yet we didn't really seem to understand what he stood for and what he wanted to do in his parliament. Occasionally he'd say something about sticking to Keir Starmer's manifesto, but we all know that doesn't really mean much. But I kind of think this is connected to his media strategy. And again, this is what Keir Starmer tried to do but failed. Keir Starmer thought that he could do without the media, that he would put out his own press releases directly to the public through a social media strategy that basically meant the only engagement he was having with the press was through press releases.

43:05And these are the lines that I'm feeding you, but I don't want to actually let you ask me questions beforehand. And Andy Burnham has done the exact same thing but successfully. So he's had multiple viral videos that he's been putting out. I think it's very David Brent, but apparently some people do like it. And then his first proper sit-down interview was with Laura Koonsberg at the BBC, where the hard-hitting questions in this interview were, will you bring your dog down to Downing Street or will they be staying in Number 10 North? Yes. That was the kind of level of questioning. And it was a pre-record, it was recorded on the Friday and it came out on the Monday.

43:38So that tells me that Andy Burnham, this isn't just a one-off over a particularly sensitive issue. He doesn't want to deal with us full stop. My feelings are slightly hurt by this. I don't know how you feel, Tim. But I don't really think that's the best way to run a country, frankly. I can see this all ending in tears because, funnily enough, putting out a slick PR video is not the same as proper democratic scrutiny. Well, what he's done is not only is this his first proper press conference, but he's chosen an issue where it's very difficult in the midst of that press conference to say, And while you're here, Prime Minister, I'd like to ask about this enormous cock-up that happened last week.

44:17Because you're surrounded by care workers in a home for looking after people, and you want to be sensitive to the people there. So choose the territory on which you fight the battle. That's how you win a war. And by choosing to have that press conference there, it meant that the journalists probably would have felt uncomfortable about going too hard on negative things instead. Plus, I suspect he's going to copy the strategy of, say, the Treasury under Rachel Reeves, where you say only one person from every outlet, which is bad news for us sketch writers, and they must be an expert in the area.

44:56So we'd like to have our social affairs correspondent at this press conference rather than a political affairs correspondent. And that, again, games it towards let's please discuss the issue that we want to discuss today rather than the fact that we accidentally declared war on France last week or something like that. It's quite sweet, isn't it? Imagine if they did ministerial appointments on the basis of you having some subject expertise. Yes. Someone should tell West Strati about that. By the way, we should mention while we're discussing war with France, why is no one discussing the fact that France tried to kill Chris Philp?

45:31Well, Chris Philp is discussing this. What I love about it is so cute. He is going around studios saying, the French just tried to kill me. This is when he was on a boat in the channel and a French ship was obviously doing some kind of military exercise. And it looked like a reenactment of Trafalgar, but it was just Chris Philp against the entire French Navy. But funnier than the attempt to kill him is also that the country seems deeply unmoved by the fact that the French tried to kill him. Bless him. Anyway, well, one way of judging whether or not the prime minister has cut through, the election of the new Prime Minister has cut through, is to introduce him to the public.

46:08Of course. And here he is speaking to a resident at the Jewish care home. Nice to meet you. Are you Andy? You're me? I'm Andy. Andrew. Yes, that's it. You are the local candidate, are you? Oh, no, I was a local candidate. I had a by-election a few weeks ago, but no, I'm now the Prime Minister. You are? He's the Prime Minister. Well, another one. Another one. I've changed you every Friday. I know, I know, I know. So I just think it's delightful that his first proper on-camera outing with the public in a way that wasn't set up by him, it sort of hits him that no one knows who he is. I know, so it's actually quite sweet.

46:54That's possibly the only representative view of the general public that we will get today, which is most people are, Brenda from Bristol, going, oh, not another one. Which one's this one? Haven't I seen him before? How's he come back? How's he managed to come back? But there is a small movement in the polls. We do have to acknowledge that. Yes, yes. I mean, for the first time in how many weeks now is it? I think 180 weeks. It's a long time since the Wars of the Roses. Reform has lost its lead. Reform has lost its lead and the Labour Party is ahead. At the moment, I think four points. There's a head where there does seem to be some movement with other polls.

47:26So whether or not this is going to be maintained, we don't know. I don't want to seem like a Debbie Downer, but if that's the burn and bounce, it's quite a small one. It's not very high, but I just think the right has to come to terms with the fact that they've got a Labour leader now who is a much better communicator. That's going to change the game. He now has this power to call an election when he wants to. And all this care stuff, it may be setting things up for an election in one year's time because there are tax implications. So maybe that's a cue that you need to really be getting ready for an election.

47:56and Labour doing a little bit better, probably by winning back green votes because Zach Polanski is just drowning out there at the moment, it's going to really bring to focus the problems of having a divided right. Well, I completely agree with you and also, frankly, having a right that is divided in and of itself because reform, if Labour is going very big on the social care issue, which is something that a lot of people really care about and experience personally in their everyday lives, where is the reform health spokesperson? I heard Sorella Bravman saying that it's Nigel Farage. Well, frankly, I think he's got his brain pretty full at the moment.

48:32If that is the full-time health spokesperson for reform, it's not surprising you have people like Robert Jenrick coming out with their response to Andy Burnham's speech, which was, as far as I can tell, quite incomprehensible. He's angry about something, but I can't really tell you what. And Burnham refusing to include reform in these talks is interesting, I think probably actually a clever strategy, because it reinforces the idea that reform is not a serious party. But reform are complaining, and people have been pointing out to them that Nigel Farage has resigned his seat. So who exactly is Burnham supposed to invite to the talks?

49:08Because Farage, leader of the party, isn't currently an MP. If we are going to get an election in one year's time, that is a very, very short time period indeed for reform to get its act together. If it doesn't even have spokespeople for major offices of state at this stage, it does not lay a raid for government. We will be back tomorrow at 5pm.

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