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Podcast Summary: The News Agents - Episode: "Is Keir Starmer Britain's Joe Biden?"
Episode Overview In this episode, the hosts Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel, and Lewis Goodall analyze Keir Starmer's recent speech at the Labour Party conference. The discussion centers around Starmer's political positioning against Nigel Farage and the Reform party, as well as the implications of his rhetoric on Labour’s future strategies and identity.
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Key Themes and Discussions
Starmer's Speech Highlights
- Patriotism vs. Politics of Grievance:
- Starmer attempted to reclaim patriotism from the politics of grievance, targeting Farage as a central opponent.
- He framed the political landscape as a battle between "decency and division."
- Targeting Farage:
- For the first time, Starmer directly addressed Nigel Farage in detail, portraying him as a primary opposition rather than Kemi Badenoch, the current Conservative leader.
- Starmer claimed that Farage represents a threat to the soul of the nation.
- Emotional Appeal:
- The speech aimed to connect emotionally with the electorate by asserting that "Britain isn't broken" and highlighting national achievements (e.g., references to Oasis and the Lionesses).
Strategic Implications
- Political Shift:
- Starmer’s approach represents a tactical shift in Labour's strategy, moving towards a values-based critique of opponents rather than merely opposing their policies.
- Challenges of Status Quo:
- The hosts discuss the potential risk of Labour being perceived as defenders of the status quo, especially if they fail to articulate a clear vision for national renewal.
- Comparison with Joe Biden:
- The conversation draws parallels between Starmer's positioning and Biden's approach in American politics, cautioning that simply being better than the alternative may not be sufficient to win over voters.
Responses to Starmer's Strategy
- Mixed Reactions:
- Some Labour MPs express discomfort with the accusations of racism within the party's rhetoric, fearing it could alienate certain voter bases.
- The need for a clear program for national renewal is highlighted as essential for Labour's long-term success.
- Wes Streeting's Perspective:
- The Health Secretary emphasizes the importance of addressing real challenges facing British society, claiming that Farage's approach exploits division rather than providing solutions.
- Streeting's passionate defense of the Labour vision aims to connect with working-class voters, asserting that inclusivity is key to national unity.
Conclusion and Future Outlook
- Tough Times Ahead:
- The discussion concludes with an acknowledgment of the significant challenges Labour will face in the upcoming budget and local elections.
- The necessity for Starmer to maintain momentum and effectively communicate a comprehensive vision for the future is underscored.
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Key Takeaways
- Starmer’s Challenge: He must balance the defense of liberal values with a compelling narrative that resonates with voters' concerns about national identity and integrity.
- Voter Engagement: Emotional connectivity and clear communication of Labour's vision are crucial to counteract populist narratives from opponents like Farage.
- Political Landscape: The evolving political dynamics necessitate that Labour continuously adapt its messaging to ensure it aligns with the electorate's sentiments and expectations.
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Additional Resources
- For more analysis and interviews, visit: [The News Agents Website](https://www.thenewsagents.co.uk/)
- Podcast Accessibility: Available on Global Player; just ask Alexa to play "The News Agents."
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This structured summary aims to encapsulate the key discussions and insights from the episode, providing a clear and accessible overview of the political context surrounding Starmer's speech.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:01Keir Starmer:This is a Global Player original podcast. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has just finished his conference speech in the conference hall here in Liverpool. We have been surrounded by a sea of flags, of St George's flags, the Sol Tyre and the Welsh Dragon. It was a not so subtle embodiment of what this speech was all about. the attempt by Labour and Keir Starmer to wrest back the mantle of patriotism from the forces he described as the politics of grievance. And in terms of delivery of the speech, this was probably, I think, one of Keir Starmer's best. But given the headwinds this government faces, when people leave Merseyside, is it going to make any substantial difference to Labour's position in the country?
0:53Keir Starmer:Welcome to the newsagents.
0:59Keir Starmer:The newsagents.
1:00Nigel Farage:Free speech is a British value and we have guarded it for centuries. But if you incite racist violence and hatred, that is not expressing concern.
1:09Keir Starmer:It's criminal.
1:15Keir Starmer:And this party, this great party, is proud of our flags. Yet if they're painted alongside graffiti, telling a Chinese takeaway owner to go home,
1:25Nigel Farage:that's not pride, that's racism.
1:31Nigel Farage:And conference.
1:35Keir Starmer:If you say or imply that people cannot be English or British because of the colour of their skin, that mixed heritage families owe you an explanation, the people who've lived here for generations, raised their children here, built their lives here, working in our schools, our hospitals, running businesses, our neighbours. If you say they should now be deported, then mark my words, we will fight you with everything we have, because you are the enemy of national renewal. It's John. It's Lewis. And that was Keir Starmer, the Labour Party conference, with his keynote speech. And it was a sort of classic of the genre in some ways, in that you present two competing visions, the high road, the low road, good, bad.
2:22Keir Starmer:And it was framed in terms of Labour good, in the renewal it wants for Britain and a United Kingdom, and bad with Nigel Farage showing division as you go. And I suppose the remarkable thing, just to underscore how much our politics has changed in the last year, I don't even remember last year Keir Starmer mentioning Nigel Farage in his conference speech. and here he was the absolute centre of the argument that Keir Starmer wanted to make and was calling it, you know, a fight for the soul of our country. Indeed, I mean, Keir Starmer in this speech legitimised an idea which had sort of been positive before but he basically made Nigel Farage leader of the opposition.
3:07Keir Starmer:Indeed, I think it must have been the first Prime Minister's speech or leader's speech of a Prime Minister at a party conference for some time when the leader of the opposition was not even mentioned, the actual leader of the opposition, Kemi Baden-Doc. In fact, Starmer didn't get many laughs in his speeches, but he got a decent laugh when he mentioned at one point the Tories, remember then, big laugh from the crowd. And that was 50 minutes in. And that was 50 minutes in. So you're right, John, in a way, this speech reflected and crystallised the extraordinary political environment that we're in and the extraordinary space that we've moved in such a short length of time.
3:38Keir Starmer:And look, I think that there's so many sort of things to say about this speech, and it's so interesting. and on the positive side, for a start, I think that this was easily the most forceful we have seen Starmer, in a sense expressing some of the politics that he most deeply has, right? The truth about Keir Starmer is that in some senses, I mean, he's right, his opponent's right, he's a London lawyer, right? And I think it is clear that quite a lot of the kind of traditional liberal politics that exists within him, that repeatedly throughout his leadership, he's often suppressed or tried to pretend wasn't there.
4:15Keir Starmer:It was on full display in this speech, right? At several points, and I think as a speech overall, it didn't always cohere. But most people, unlike us, aren't sad enough to be in places like this, listening to the full speech. Don't try to love meeting with your sadness. Well, you were there too. You were there. I saw you taking all your little notes like a little geek. Most people don't listen to the whole speech, right? So they don't care whether it coheres or not. What I think was clearly most notable and will be a win for them and marks a significant shift in approach is the bit of the bits, like we've just heard, where Starmer was offering a clear rebuttal and rejection of the sort of politics, populist politics, what he called the politics of grievance that Nigel Farage, he says, has and reform has.
4:58Keir Starmer:And, you know, you've got to think, what an excuse, you know, rejecting racism, rejecting the sort of, you know, far-right kind of accusations, the way they've seized the flag, all of these sorts of different things. You've got to think, you know, only a week ago or a couple of weeks ago, we had government ministers who were reluctant to come on the airwaves and condemn people for going to a Tommy Robinson march, reluctant to even discuss whether he's far right or whatever it happens to be. Only a week ago, we had the government reluctant to say that reforms proposals on indefinite leave to remain, which are literally deporting people who have a legal right to be here, the government reluctant to engage in a values-based critique of those proposals, right?
5:35Keir Starmer:Fast forward a week, and you've got Keir Starmer offering an articulation, a defence, if you like, of liberal Britain, of, he didn't use this word, but a form of multiculturalism, of a sort of Britain that I think he is most comfortable. And that is a marked shift very quickly. And those clips will travel. And for a certain constituency, a part of Britain, I think they will feel, a sort of more liberal Britain will feel that their values, for the first time in some time, are being defended and articulated by Keir Starmer and Ted Downey. But aren't a lot of people going to say about bloody time too?
6:06Keir Starmer:I mean, a lot of activists are going to say about Buddy Time, too, that you took the fight to reform. But he also took the fight, I thought, to the liberal elite of Labour, which is to say that, you know, if you are worried about the small boats, then you're a racist. You know, the working class people who are concerned about this, they, you know, you're just kind of, you know, horrible little people. And I think that Starmer was quite effective there of saying to those people who say we shouldn't be concerned about immigration, saying, bloody right, we should be concerned about immigration. It's unacceptable that people are coming in illegally, but also making the point that, you know, these people are our neighbours and these people, you know, they don't get kicked out of the country, as Nigel Farage has sort of suggested, with this reform of indefinite leave to remain.
6:51Keir Starmer:And I think that that was kind of effective and what Starmer wanted to do. And I think we'll give Labour ministers, MPs, a clearer argument that they need to make about what it is that he stands for. I think the thing we were also talking about, though, was disjunction between, on the one hand, keep on saying Britain is not broken, Britain is not broken, Britain is not broken, look at all the ways that Britain is not broken, and then saying, but we urgently need national renewal. Those two seem inconsistent. Well, look, I think on the first point, the approach to reform that Starmer and Labour have largely taken up to now has been more or less to basically say that Nigel Farage is actually right about a lot of stuff, but you can't trust him to execute it.
7:37Keir Starmer:No one can say that that is Labour's approach today. That has been completely changed. There's been a turning of the wheel in terms of how Labour are approaching this. We saw this. This was hinted at the very start of the week with Starmer saying that that policy was racist. Also, you know, a word, racist, racism, that actually Starmer invoked repeatedly in this speech. He also started to talk about Brexit again and the frailties and weaknesses and problems of Brexit, something else he has been very reluctant to talk about for many years. So you can see a rapid evolution in terms of the politics.
8:09Keir Starmer:So that's all, I think, for the good and to the good. And, you know, we've been sat here for a long time, and not just here, but on our show, many, many times over the past few months, basically almost yearning for and saying that, you know, Keir Starmer, get on the front foot. You know, don't be afraid to start talking about ideas, start talking about your values, because that is the sort of political environment we're in. So, all to the good. That said, there is a problem. There is a problem in a sense that this is, in my view, that this is the contest, this is what Starmer's talking about. Starmer basically is saying that the Labour Party is in the fight for its life, almost as if an election were around the corner or it were tomorrow.
8:47Keir Starmer:We know that's not the case. There's still about three and a half, four years of this government's mandate to run. I think that in order to deal with Farage, It is not enough to simply call him out as to where he's wrong on each individual policy, even just to take him on in terms of his values. What you need, what you need, as Starmer himself has basically indicated, is a programme, a programme, as he himself has said, of national renewal. And that is the bit that in the speech, and more broadly, I think, is still so completely lacking. What does a programme of national renewal actually look like?
9:22Keir Starmer:What is the Starmer project beyond simply not liking Nigel Farage? What is the Starmer project beyond being more decent, in his own view, than Nigel Farage's? And the truth is, John, and this is the other thing that we've talked about for a long time in terms of wanting to understand and know where Keir Starmer is going. The truth is that if there were a greater sense of what that national mission was, of what that political project is, then he would have spoken less about Farage today. A leader who had a very clear sense of their own momentum and where they wanted to take the country wouldn't need to make this dividing line because they would talk instead more about themselves and what they are instead of what they're not.
10:04Keir Starmer:Well, I suppose the thing that struck me as I was listening to the speech, and I'm sure Labour High Command and the government will hate this comparison because of how it ended. But it reminded me of Joe Biden, the best soundbite that he had, which was, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative, which is all well and good. The American people did compare Joe Biden to the alternative of Donald Trump and thought, yeah, we'll have more Donald Trump, please. You know, and Keir Starmer doesn't want to find himself in the same position as Joe Biden was. Now, I know there are different things.
10:42Keir Starmer:Joe Biden was very old. Or Hillary Clinton was. Or Hillary Clinton was, where you say, well, you can't go for this terrible kind of dastardly rogue. I'm better than that. And the American people thought, well, no, I'm willing to give it a go, which is what you said. Are you in this stage now of our politics that if you haven't got a clear argument, then people will think, you know what, I'm sick of all of you. And I will go for the kind of outsider who wants to burn the house down. Well, Starmer's central contention was the biggest problem in Britain today in our politics is the politics of grievance.
11:12Keir Starmer:But I didn't actually hear him articulate what the politics of grievance is. So, for example, if someone is aggrieved about immigration, is that the politics of grievance? if they blame, if someone blames the number of immigrants that are in the country because of the pressure it has on schools and the NHS or whatever happens to be is that the politics of grievance? Because that is Nigel Farage's argument and it is an argument that up to now, Starmer and Labour have largely subscribed to. Have they changed their view on that? More broadly as well, just on that point about Biden, which I think is a well made one.
11:42Keir Starmer:My concern about this would be, if you are in Labour, is that the history of the last ten years of political volatility has been littered, strewn, with progressive forces and progressive parties in different parts of the Western world who have made a bet that their country is more decent than they think it is. Yeah, when push comes to shove, they'll do the right thing. And that they can own the mantle of decency in a way that their opponents can't. Because the truth is that we have seen repeatedly, in the United States most notably, but in other places as well, that even when a lot of voters believe that maybe someone in some ways is a bit indecent, or they don't share their mores, or they don't share their tastes, or they don't like the way that they conduct themselves, or even like everything that they stand for and think some of the things that they stand for are indecent and divisive, nonetheless, we have seen again and again voters opt for the anti-system, non-status quo party, because there is such a sense in polity after polity, democracy after democracy, of burn the bloody house down.
12:50Keir Starmer:We're so unhappy. That is something that, you know, Starmer himself has talked about and alluded to repeatedly. And my worry would be, even though I think he came out strongly, forcefully, he articulated, particularly on these questions of division, you know, aside to himself, we have not always seen all to the good. My concern might be that the message that has basically gone out from this conference is we are the status quo. We are the status quo that he's setting himself up as a dividing line between himself and Farage as the status quo, versus the change. And we know time and time again how that has worked out.
13:23Keir Starmer:Well, I suppose his argument to that would be, look, come on, I was talking about renewal. I was talking about the way we need to change. I was, you know, that we've got to change the balance of our society and opportunity for all of them. You know, everyone in Britain, la, la, la, la. So I would think he would say that that was his attempt to be the kind of change maker and not be the status quo candidate. But I think that there are, no, I think that, you know, So if we're going to have a budget in eight weeks' time, which is probably going to be really tough. This is the other thing that I thought about.
13:54Keir Starmer:Well, hang on. Have you started... Did you lay the groundwork for the budget? Now, there was a bit of that where saying, you know, we've got to have fiscal responsibility. We can't make unfunded spending pledges because that will hit the working people. And so I think he framed that quite cleverly about why you've got to have, you know, fiscal rectitude and discipline in all of that. I don't think the Labour Party wants to hear it. This whole week, John, has been a series of tummy tickles for the Labour Party in all sorts of different ways. And that underlines just how parlous his position has become as the leader in the 15 months since he was elected the Prime Minister.
14:27Keir Starmer:And it is remarkable how weak his position is. But I think if you're going to make an argument that is going to be prepare the groundwork for a budget, which is probably going to be pretty tough for an awful lot of people. You've got elections next year, which are going to be pretty tough. You've got to be starting to deliver on some of this stuff. because I think that if Labour do badly, you know, if the budget goes down badly and they do badly in the next May's elections, I mean, all talk about the leadership will be reinforced. And not least because of what Starmer has done in his speech. Because what Starmer has done in his speech is basically saying, we are in the fight of our lives, we're not just up against the Tories, we are up against a guy and a party that is indecent, un-British and where the stakes could not be higher because the forces they will unleash, he is basically implicitly saying, will be appalling.
15:13Keir Starmer:that basically legit if he can't therefore turn it around against them that legitimizes a move against him because the labor party itself could say you yourself kia starmer has said we are in a fight of our bloody lives here so if you're not the guy to take over if by 2026 in those elections or slightly beyond that you showed no signs of progress then we have no choice but to roll the because the stakes are simply too high i thought the other thing that was notable about kia starmer's speech was not just taking aim at Farage, he also had a pop-up populist solutions, whether they be from the left or the right.
15:50Keir Starmer:Listen to this clip. It sounds like he's got Andy Burnham in the crosshairs. We can all see these snake oil merchants on the right, on the left, but be in no doubt conference.
16:04Nigel Farage:none of them have any interest in national renewal because decline is good for their business. I mean think about it. When was the last time that you heard Nigel Farage say anything positive about Britain's future? He can't. He doesn't like Britain, doesn't believe in Britain, wants you to doubt it just as much as he does.
16:31Keir Starmer:So he resorts to grievance. I will always remember where we were for the Burnham coup, wasn't it? 72 hours or so that it lasted for, you know, Starmer, I think, just thinking about this conference sort of wrapping up now, technically wraps up tomorrow, but obviously loses the life after the leader's speech. I think, you know, Team Starmer will be pretty happy with it. They've got on the front foot, which hasn't been true for quite a long time now. Burnham, they've seen off. They were lucky in his enemies. He has completely retreated now. He said that he thinks Keir Starmer is the right man for the fight.
16:57Keir Starmer:That doesn't mean that he's going to retreat entirely and he might not come back and his prospects rise again. Someone caught a photo of him just leaving the conference hall and going out of the conference centre before Keir Starmer spoke. We've identified the strengths of the speech, of the approach. It is a big change in approach, I think it is. Interesting to see if it sustains. But also, of course, what he did not do, and I say this has been a week where I think has been largely kind of tummy tickling for the Labour Party. I don't think it's been a week where anyone from the, you know, the Chancellor or the Prime Minister has said to the Labour Party anything in particular they didn't want to hear.
17:30Keir Starmer:You are right, John, that is about the reflection of their relative political weakness and there are some massive political landmines that are ahead. We've got the budget in a month's time. We've heard virtually nothing about the massive public spending problems that Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has got. The taxation that she's maybe going to have to look to, you can guarantee the next month in the run-up to that budget, is going to be exactly what we saw with the last budget, with endless speculation and endless potential sort of damaging stories about different things that you might do or might not do.
17:59Keir Starmer:And then, of course, you've got the local elections next year as well. So this has been a good placeholder conference. It's reset political strategy, Labour's political strategy. But my word, as Starmer himself said, in fairness, there are some very tough times to come. And if you just looked at the polls coming into this conference of Keir Starmer's standing, I do think this is interestingly an area where we are becoming more like America, where things are being polled continuously. Oh, it's ridiculous. And there are almost too many polls. I don't want to put the pollsters out of business, but there are almost too many polls now.
18:31Keir Starmer:But you can be absolutely sure that No. 10 Downing Street will be looking at the next set of polls to see if there's any kind of bounce from this conference and whether this is starting to change the terms of debate. Because coming into this conference, Labour's position, Keir Starmer's position, was absolutely frigging awful. Well, I can't think of any way better to end other than using the word frigging, but there we go. You don't get that with me, mate. Let's do it. We'll be back with West Street and the Health Secretary just after this.
19:03Keir Starmer:News you can trust and the conversations that matter. With award-winning journalists at the heart of the stories from the UK and around the world. Breaking news here in Edinburgh. I'm Simon Marks. My American Week is next. Reporting from the heart of Cardiff. Discover how today's story
19:18Nigel Farage:affects your life.
19:19Keir Starmer:Listen on our free Global Player app or the new LBC app.
Read the full transcript
19:24Nigel Farage:LBC, leading Britain's conversation.
19:32Keir Starmer:The News Agents. Well, we are joined now by the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, who had a very successful morning with your speech. And let's talk as well about the speech we've just heard from the Prime Minister. He said he was setting out the stall of the fight of our lifetime for the soul of this country. how is it going to change? How is the country going to change? What is the change that we're going to see? We want Britain to feel like a country that's on the up.
20:01Nigel Farage:And I think part of the challenge for the country today is there are so many people for whom life not only feels hard, either because of the pain in their pockets or feeling that their communities, their streets aren't safe or they don't think we've got control of our borders. and worst of all a lot of those people think that Britain is going to get worse not better and that the opportunities for the next generation will be worse than the last and the truth is that unless we tackle the big challenges and injustices facing our country that decline will materialize and what you heard from the Prime Minister this afternoon is someone who is determined to arrest the decline, tackle the big challenges facing our country and give Britain not just its future back but its hope back and I really think that's what he did.
20:54Nigel Farage:Explaining what motivates him particularly as someone who wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth so that to work hard for everything he's got, learn from his parents who grafted really hard and I think the essence of what his speech was about was saying that kids from working class backgrounds like ours should have the same choices and chances, security and opportunity in life as those from the most privileged backgrounds.
21:17Keir Starmer:Wasn't there a contradiction? He kept on saying, you know, Britain is not broken. Look at this, look at that, all the areas where Britain is not broken. And at the same time saying what we need is national renewal. Isn't there a contradiction there?
21:30Nigel Farage:I think what he is really alive to is the risk that if we're not careful, we, and I don't mean the politicians, I mean we, the country could end up talking ourselves into decline people are crying out for hope and people want to feel like not just in their hearts but in their lived experience that things are getting better now for some people in our country as we heard very powerfully from some of the contributions this afternoon for some people they are feeling that change if you're a steel worker in scum thought your job has been saved by keir starmer's leadership if you're a worker at jaguar a Land Rover, your job was saved by that US trade deal.
22:12Nigel Farage:If you're a shipbuilder on the Clyde, then not only is your job saved today, but for more than a decade to come. And if you're one of the kids at one of our breakfast clubs from one of the poorest families, then you'll be starting the day with a hungry mind instead of a hungry belly. And that is a lifetime's worth of change and opportunities. Have we solved all of the problems in our country in the first year? Of course not. There's so much more to do. Change has begun and the best is still to come.
22:37Keir Starmer:Prime Minister kept talking about, basically said, the central problem for the politics to come is the politics of grievance and those who peddle the politics of grievance. I'm not sure you define the politics of grievance. What is it?
22:49Nigel Farage:Well, let's give it a name. I think Nigel Farage seeks to exploit division in our country, to sow division in our country, and looks at some of the challenges facing Britain as an opportunity for political gain, rather than as challenges to be solved. And if I think about just some of the things that Farage has said just in recent weeks, he says he wants an insurance-based system for our NHS. And that'll be a system that checks your pockets before your pulse and your credit card before your care. He says he wants a country where those earning less than£60 ,000 a year are sent home to where they came from if they've come from overseas.
23:34Nigel Farage:that's our doctors, our nurses, our care workers now I think those people give to this country, not just through their service, this is their home and even on that question is paracetamol safe Mr Farage, for pregnant women do you back the doctors? but what's that with the politics of grievance? because that is a prime example where instead of giving the obvious evidence based answer, that of course it's safe if you're pregnant to take paracetamol, that's what the doctors say. He instead said, well, I don't know. But isn't that just wrong rather than grievance? He's leaning into populist clap track.
24:11Nigel Farage:He's leaning into conspiracy theorist politics.
24:14Keir Starmer:So if you're grieved that immigration is too high and you believe that one of the reasons that we have, you know, a higher weighting list than we should or school place problems is because there's too many people in the country, is that OK? Is that OK to believe?
24:28Nigel Farage:Or is that the politics of grievance as well? No, I wouldn't say that's the politics of grievance. I would say, in fact, one of the things that I thought was interesting as the Prime Minister was approaching the conclusion of his speech was he effectively said, if you're a patriot and you love our country and you want to solve the genuine problems that exist in our country, whether you vote for us or not, the hands reached out. We want to work with you. And, you know, this is a government that acknowledges that we've got real problems with migration. levels of net migration are too high, and we don't have secure borders.
25:00Nigel Farage:We're determined to change that.
25:02Keir Starmer:That's what Farage thinks.
25:04Nigel Farage:I don't think that Farage offers real solutions to problems. I mean, look at his track record. On Brexit, he campaigned for it, told us our country would be better off as a result, said that all of us who were saying this would be really bad for our economy and for living standards were telling porkies. And the moment that referendum was won, he buggered off, didn't take any responsibility for it, And we've been left picking up the pieces for the negative impact that that decision has had on our country and on some of our poorest communities in our country.
25:33Keir Starmer:Don't you worry that, you know, you set out two competing political visions, that there is this sort of dark and grievance filled vision of Farage and there is this enlightened view of Keir Starmer. We've seen that play out in politics in America. You know, you can have Joe Biden, that's exactly the way he tried to present the fight against Donald Trump. And we know what happened.
25:58Nigel Farage:Well, so I think that is a good cautionary note. And I'm now going to invoke my other favourite Labour leader, Anasawa, our Scottish Labour leader, who on the fringe this week was making almost precisely this point, that sometimes on the centre-left in recent years, whether it was at general elections or that Brexit referendum, we were making the head case and the rational case, but not the heart case and not connecting emotionally. And we've really got to learn from that because you can't just go around spitting facts. You've got to make sure that you connect with people on an emotional level about their experiences, their fears and their hopes and their dreams.
26:42Nigel Farage:And I thought that's what Keir did very well in his speech this afternoon, actually. I felt an emotional connection to what he was saying. And although our backgrounds are slightly different and, you know, I am very much the product of social mobility and, you know, worked my way up from, you know, growing up in poverty on a council estate to sitting around the cabinet table today and went to a great university. I felt Keir's passion viscerally and emotionally that social mobility for a few, while important is not in itself sufficient, you need social justice for everyone, as I put it in my speech to the Labour conference today, it's not enough for a few of us to beat the odds in our country we've got to change the odds so that kids from my sort of background have a wide range of opportunity available that gives them real security in life.
27:37Keir Starmer:Isn't there a worry, though, Wes, that whenever people start talking about apprenticeships, whenever people start talking about reducing the number of kids going to university, it's never middle-class people who don't send their kids to university, is it? It's never middle-class people or the kids of politicians or journalists who do that. So actually, haven't you just... I've just watched Keir Starmer, basically, a man who has benefited himself from exactly that system you have, I have, basically saying that you potentially want fewer working-class kids to go to university?
28:06Nigel Farage:Is that what Labour government's really about? No, I mean, one of my questions about this policy is, is there a risk that university once again becomes the middle-class route and apprenticeships become the working-class route, and that you have an inequality of parity and a lack of parity of esteem? You know, do you remember, I'm showing my age a bit now, but do you remember that game of life where you'd sort of spin the wheel and basically you had to go down the university route to win the game and earn the money. And if you went down the other route, you didn't earn so much. I don't want to return to that.
28:39Nigel Farage:I don't think that's what the Prime Minister was talking about. We actually want to see participation in our universities widened and we want to see access to our most academically elite universities widened. I think one of the tests of our success will be how many old Etonians and old Horovians can we get into really good quality apprenticeships in this country? I reckon you're a bit zero. Yeah, exactly. How many do you think would be? Well, I'm the eternal optimist in politics. But I do think that we've got to make sure that there is not just social mobility, but social justice in this country.
29:14Nigel Farage:Both are important.
29:15Keir Starmer:Just on, Prime Minister's basically set up this battle today between yourselves and between reform. You say, he said, the stakes couldn't be higher. It's the fight of your lives. If he can't turn it round, potentially perhaps by the 2026 elections, which at the moment look potentially catastrophic. If he can't turn it round, is he the man for the fight? Shouldn't he stand down if the stakes are as high as you think they are?
29:38Nigel Farage:I think we've sort of had enough of that sideshow of speculation this week. And one of the things that the Labour Party conference has done has really galvanised the whole party, galvanised them behind Keir's leadership. We've had a bit of the sideshow this week. What we saw from the boss was the main stage act. so it doesn't matter if the polls are staying where they are I think the thing that I took most heart from in a way from Keir's performance was that the character that I get to see up close as a member of his team I think the country will get to see from that speech, we need to dial that up we need to do more of it I think we need to give Keir more opportunities to show who he is, what drives and what motivates him I'll give you one example of how this works sometimes, I will never forget my very first um you might forget the bleep already by the way i remember my very first visit with keir starmer as shadow health secretary and we went to a university where a bunch of medical students were kind of showing us their like their cpr demonstration and we walked in surrounded by this scrum of cameras and these students are like you know going at it trying to get um this um heart on the dummy going and the pro vice chancellor says so how's it going and And there was this awkward silence.
30:55Nigel Farage:And then Keir just turned around and said, it'd be going a lot better if these two fucked off. And everyone roared with laughter. Everyone was put at ease. I was almost crying with laughter. And I just thought, shut up, you cynic. And I just thought, I honestly thought, if this was on camera, I think people like my dad would watch it and go, I like that bloke, he's a good guy. But because he swore, he wouldn't go out on television.
31:19Keir Starmer:But do you think that guy is what the British people think or they see?
31:23Nigel Farage:No, I don't think it's the Keir Starmer they always see. And therefore, it's the responsibility of all of us, not just Keir, the party of the government to make sure they see more of the Prime Minister that I'm proud to work for.
31:35Keir Starmer:Just on a point of information about Wales, if Labour lose Wales next year, the Senate, you think Keir Starmer should go on, even if they come third or fourth, which is what you're currently for?
31:44Nigel Farage:I'm not here to set tests for the Prime Minister. He set himself one. And what the Prime Minister set out today was a vision for the whole country, not just UK PLC, but for Wales, for Scotland and communities right across England. And I would just say to our Welsh listeners, the idea that the party of Bevan would send to the Senate in Cardiff a representative of a party that would dismantle his legacy is unthinkable. Be very careful before doing a dance with the devil. Reforms stand against everything that our country represents, our party represents, and Wales has given our United Kingdom. Just on talking about the dance with the devil,
32:27Keir Starmer:I don't know if you've seen Nigel Farage has said, accused your party of inciting violence, inciting violence against him and his party because of the accusations of racism and so on that you've made. What's your response to that?
32:38Nigel Farage:Here's a question for Nigel Farage. if he's so inclusive and cuddly and kind why did his party in a scottish by-election put out a leaflet about our leader in scotland saying that he'd be standing up for pakistani communities is it possibly because anas sawa is a proud pakistani heritage why put a leaflet like that out against a scot leading the scottish labor party just because of his pakistani heritage I'm sorry, like, Nigel Farage likes a bit of straight talking, so let me just give him a bit of straight talking. That leaflet was racist. It went out in the name of his party. He leads it. If he's not racist, because all of his supporters have suddenly turned into snowflakes today, saying, oh, how can people say this about him?
33:24Nigel Farage:If he is not racist, why did he let that leaflet go out? Why show that dereliction of leadership? You want free speech? You got it. That leaflet was racist. It should be condemned, and he should apologise for it.
33:35Keir Starmer:where has this attack been before now? No one's been saying this until the last week about taking the fight to reform.
33:44Nigel Farage:Well, I think it's a few things, to be honest, John. I'll just speak for myself here. I came back from my summer holiday. I had a week off abroad, and as I was driving down to Cornwall to spend some time with my partner's family, I was driving down the motorway and saw our country's flag hanging from various overheads on the way down the motorway. And I thought two things. Firstly, why are you hanging the union flag the wrong way up? I thought you're meant to be patriots. And secondly, I thought, what's happened while I've been on holiday? Where have all these flags come from? It's not the World Cup.
34:19Nigel Farage:It's not a European Championship. It's not Eurovision. It's not the Olympics. Flags were put up to try and make some people in our country whose skin colour or faith is different to mine feel uncomfortable. And I was ashamed of that. And I was ashamed knocking on doors in my constituency with people from backgrounds that I've grown up with, again, who look different to me, whose faith is different to mine, who are born in this country and feel less safe than they did only a few months ago. And that has shocked me to my core, hearing my constituents saying that they feel like the racism of the 1970s and 80s they thought had gone to bed has come back.
34:56Nigel Farage:That's why we're finding our voice, because this is our fight. This has always been the Labour Party's fight against prejudice and injustice. And we won't stand for it. And I won't stand for people that I've grown up with and people I'm proud to represent being made to feel like this country is any less their home than it is mine. And that's why today, as our country's health and social care secretary, I said unequivocally to those people who've come from overseas to work in our health services, to work in care, Faraz says go home, I say you are home. Thank you for your service. not just through your taxes, but to our care.
35:31Nigel Farage:I'm really proud that you're here in Britain. And with Labour, this will always be your home and you will always be welcome. West Streetson, thanks so much.
35:39Keir Starmer:Thank you very much.
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36:19Keir Starmer:The News Agents. Wow, still calming down from all of that. So suddenly the temperature rose about seven degrees in here as Wes Streeting warmed to his theme. And suddenly there was passion, there was fire in the belly, there was intensity, there was sort of his eyes were burning as he was talking about this stuff. As you say, Lewis, will this continue? Will they continue to take the fight to reform if they don't think it's working? But that's what I mean in terms of the kind of change in political strategy. I think Wes Streeting, he's pretty straight-talking and he is fiery. I don't think he would have spoken like that a week ago or 10 days ago or two weeks ago.
36:58Keir Starmer:You know, Starmer has reshifted, he's reoriented, basically, the terms of political trade, the sort of things that the Labour Party is willing to say. As I say, it's terrain, using the R word, racism, completely in an unabashed way, being forthright, defending those values, moving to a values-based politics. That is not where Starmer and his government, which has largely been a managerial project, has been. I think, largely, that is to be welcome, because I think that's the way the modern media environment works. I think you have to fight fire with fire sometimes. I think you're in a situation where politics has become highly, highly charged and big P political.
37:32Keir Starmer:And you're up against people like Farage who are very good at this sort of thing. And if you just we've talked about it before. If you just basically vacate the values field, the pitch, all that happens is the values just keep moving further and further away from you. So I think that's all to the good. That said, there will be and there are going to be lots of Red Wall MPs in particular. I was talking to some of them last night. They are very uncomfortable about the racist stuff. They are uncomfortable about it. They think that it does allow Farage to paint them into a particular picture, the sort of liberal elite thing saying, oh, you know, if you're concerned about immigration, you know, you're a racist.
38:02Keir Starmer:Therefore, they have to stick to this messaging because they need to stick to it in order for it to land. And they need to be nimble in how they justify it and how they use it. And I would just say that this Downing Street does have a bit of a history of picking up themes, picking up ideas, picking up framing, and then just dropping it before it's even began. And if it does that, then basically you will have got all of the negatives of this week without any of the positives. Just one little example of what I mean about that. What did we have last week as their apostate to reform on irregular migration?
38:34Keir Starmer:Digital ID. It's barely been talked about from the stands at all this week. There's been no explanation for it. And what has filled that vacuum? Hard right conspiracy nutcases on X and elsewhere, basically suggesting that Keir Starmer is Joseph Stalin and wants to use digital ID to take you off to the gulag. They need to take this framing, pick it up, explain, explain, explain, explain, and be relentless, like West Streeting, to be fair, just was. You got a bit West Streeting there. It's because I'm sat in the West Streeting chair. It's because I'm sat in the West Streeting chair. At least you didn't, by the way, suggest like you did last year, that you should be on Ozempic.
39:03Keir Starmer:So we got through that this time without suggesting the health secretary was overweight. Right, Lewis, I think you need to calm down. We need to pack up. We'll be in London tomorrow. We'll see you then. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
39:16Keir Starmer:This is a Global Player original podcast
From the publisher
The PM took on what he called the "enemies of national renewal" in his conference speech today - accusing Nigel Farage of exploiting the “politics of grievance”.
Keir Starmer instead pledged a Britain "built for all" - he spoke of the fight for the "soul" of the country. It was all spelt out in quite stark terms, and Starmer's clearest enunciation yet that he sees Farage and Reform, not Badenoch and the Conservatives, as his main threat. He portrayed a new political clash - between decency and division.
The Labour faithful lapped up his patriotic lines, and cheered his attacks on Reform. He nodded to Oasis and the Lionesses in declaring that Britain isn't broken. Is that a smart strategy? Or is he risking painting Labour as defenders of the status quo? Is he making the same mistakes as Joe Biden?
Jon and Lewis speak to the health secretary, Wes Streeting, about whether the PM is getting his message across to voters.
Visit our new website for more analysis and interviews from the team: https://www.thenewsagents.co.uk/
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/