Jess Phillips on the battle of her political life

13:25Jess Phillips:That ruins their lives as well, and she's obviously happy with ruining the lives of British boys. in this way, if that is her attitude. I care much more about British boys.

13:35Lewis Goodall:There is obviously a conversation that has been going on about as you say, boys and the way that they're brought up. Is there a danger though which might be what she's sort of getting at, Mr Lee and clearly, a way that you find offensive or clumsy I don't think she cares

13:50Jess Phillips:is the problem. I think that all she cares about is getting a good media line. So well done Kemi. Well, is there

13:56Lewis Goodall:a danger that we vilify boys?

14:00Jess Phillips:absolutely there is a danger and that is not what the government is seeking to do that is maybe what some of the headlines and some people who don't know uh like like kemi who wish to make that seem like what we're trying to do but i i will focus on the outcome i am the mother of i've raised two men they are men this idea that boys will be boys i think considerably more of british men and men across the world than that i think men are completely capable and in control of their faculties and their behaviors but i i think it is hard to grow up uh as a boy not just now but i think that has often been the case and i don't think that they've been included in the conversation a conversation whether it was the me too movement the the the outpouring of what has been happening to women and girls has felt like an attack well i was struck by something you

14:51Lewis Goodall:said in the comments i was watching your statement in answer to one of the um questions you had you said that you never liked the phrase toxic masculinity no i don't well well what's the

15:01Daisy Cooper:alternative so that you never talk about the alternative for there's some you know you can't

15:05Jess Phillips:have a rainbow unless you have the rain like why don't we ever talk about like beautiful masculinity as well like i like there and maybe it comes from my own lived experience uh of this and bear in mind i am a woman who has been victim of uh i mean at the this morning uh i think i had two emails about different court cases of people who have stalked and harassed me um so i'm not unfamiliar with the experiences um british men who have stalked and harassed me i'm not unfamiliar with the experiences of the women in our country but my experience of the man i raised my my sons my men with is uh one of strength the strength of masculinity um and so i don't really if you if you talk about toxic masculinity you should talk about the alternative as well now there's some obviously there's some horrible men in the country and there's some horrible men encouraging other boys to harm themselves by being horrible men as well so but i i don't i don't want men and boys to feel vilified by this i want them to join in and you know what the vast majority of men and boys in our country want to.

16:14Lewis Goodall:I wonder if you, as well, I mean, we talk a lot, obviously, and the person who comes up in these conversations when we're talking about boys is Andrew Tate all the time for obvious reasons. I wonder as well, isn't it, that in a way, when we focus on Tate, there are other figures, some of whom are women, who create, I mean, create an impression of womanhood, which is really toxic, and of men. I mean, for example, I wonder, it strikes me, I always feel that someone like Bonnie Blue, for example, is almost like a female version of Andrew Tate or has a similar sort of impact. And she's just been,

16:42Daisy Cooper:you'll know welcomed into the reform party what you might think of that look look i don't think

16:48Jess Phillips:that the ideas of misogyny or harmful behaviors against women solely comes from men male individuals we live in a patriarchal societies that make people have expectations of these things um that women have certain roles and men have certain roles men and women are different that's

17:07Daisy Cooper:okay that's that's fine but i think that also the sort of obsession with andrew tate and also the obsession with the idea of online uh misogyny like these things are definitely things that we need to

17:20Jess Phillips:challenge and in fact ai when i was in a school yesterday the thing the teachers were really raising is that the teenagers are asking ai uh about these difficult questions about sex and

17:31Daisy Cooper:things and like talking to actual like it's not that they're getting it from andrew tate they're getting it from a thing that doesn't even exist it's a concept it's a string of zeros and ones and like there are all sorts of things to worry about but misogyny and hateful attitudes towards women existed before the internet and i don't want to ever give andrew tate too much credence

17:52Jess Phillips:but when men and boys didn't have other places to go and talk about this stuff

17:57Daisy Cooper:they they turned to the internet and found people like him um and that is why as a state as a

18:04Jess Phillips:policymaker for the state i have to look and say well well let's contextualize these things for people in in uh education but it's not just because of andrew tate it's because violence against women and girls has existed in relationships since the beginning of time and i want to try and stop that being the case is there um a case do you think i know you'll have

18:28Lewis Goodall:been thinking about this and following it obviously there's so much talk about um social media bans particularly in the wake of australia i'm sure it's something that you thought about the home office um i mean not specifically social media bans but like what what do we need to do in the tech space do you think there was a case space um are we really interested to see how

18:47Jess Phillips:uh it works in australia i have to say i i don't think it is the the silver bullet that maybe other people think it is because like i say like as a teenager most of me and my friends suffered these things and the internet didn't exist so i think that we still have to uh be providing that context within schools and environments but do i do i think that there is a case for looking at what our young people uh look at absolutely it is clear though isn't it from all of the data that

19:18Lewis Goodall:something is happening actually in this case particularly with young women in particular girls in terms of the outcomes, psychological outcomes, mental health outcomes, you know, you can plot it generation, generation and something profound has happened and it's not easy to explain what that is if it's not about smartphones and it's about social media.

19:35Jess Phillips:And also just putting it down and interacting with ordinary with each other, young people just actually like, I don't know, hanging around in the park.

19:42Lewis Goodall:Yeah. Something's happening to their brains.

19:44Daisy Cooper:Yeah, look, I don't not worry about this and actually the anxiety of parents across the country around this is very, very real. It's funny, though, because there actually are varying conversations.

19:55Jess Phillips:I was up in Cumbria recently talking to a group of teenage girls in a local high school and the varying feelings of parents that phones actually provide their children with more safety. These people lived in much more rural communities than I grew up in about like being able to keep in touch. So there is a varied views about how safe your phone is. but look I will look I will skin any cap that we have and we will look at any policy that we think will make our children in our country safer and like I say I will watch what is happening

20:29Daisy Cooper:in Australia with real keenness but I am also quite pleased that we're the first country often when I go around the world you get this sort of ticker tape parade about how Britain is really brilliant at regulating the tech environment because I think we have comparatively done more through the online safety act but there are real reasons to be cheerful

20:49Jess Phillips:about the pornography the the consumption of pornography massively falling because of age verification we're in the foothills of all of this regulation and i think we've got to look at what is working here and elsewhere and do more of it and when you hear then i mean you'll

21:05Lewis Goodall:have heard from farage from others talking about this being certainly what you've introduced in of age verification, changes on VPNs and all those sorts of things. They say that this is a fundamental derogation of British freedom, of freedom of expression.

21:22Jess Phillips:I don't know that, I don't know where it says in which document that 11-year-olds should be able to watch violent strangulation porn, otherwise their human rights might be affected. But like, I'm happy to look at the documents where they exist. I'm not sure, it was in Magna Carta.

21:36Lewis Goodall:Oh gosh, that's what they were all at Runnymede for, those folks. Yeah,

21:39Jess Phillips:yeah, that's it, magna carta big on the old we really want eight-year-olds accessing strangulation porn that i just fundamentally don't agree with that i fundamentally think that safeguarding in almost all rights whether that's the right to privacy the right to freedom of speech the right all of those rights i as and you would expect me to say this as the safeguarding minister the safeguarding especially from sexual violence of the children in our country trumps any of those.

22:13Lewis Goodall:Because we have never had, and again, I think we've kind of, again, as you say, we're in the foothills of it and we've got kind of used to it. We've been in a situation where, I mean, children can literally carry around in their pockets all of the pornography that has ever been devised. Can you imagine it, can you? I mean, it's like...

22:27Daisy Cooper:When I was a kid, like, genuinely, like, porno, Max, they were on the top shelves and they were sort of like, I don't know, marketed to the older gentlemen. I don't know how to say that without sounding... Yeah, exactly. They were marketed to the older gentlemen. And actually, the sort of nicheness of the women in them being mature, actually. Like, this idea that then you see the rise of online pornography being... Like, the idea of prepubescence being the thing as well. That, like, this idea... Like, you know, there was definitely pubic hair in pornography when I was a younger woman. And so, but also like the ability for children to access that, that can, I mean, I can look at the data on the number of young women who say that they've been strangled during sex, which is one of the reasons in the strategy we are banning pornography.

23:22Jess Phillips:It's also causing, you know, increasing numbers of strokes in women. Strokes? Strokes. Yeah. The heavy use of strangulation. In sex? In sex. as if that is a completely standardised behaviour. And that's only come from porn. That can only, I mean, that can only have come from porn. And so when I... Because that was not a normalised thing until relatively recently.

23:49Daisy Cooper:Absolutely not. And so that can only have come from pornography. And so do I think that, you know, it's a freedom that I think we can't live without?

23:59Jess Phillips:No, I don't. And what do you think?

24:01Lewis Goodall:I mean, something that I just find sort of almost unspeakably tragic is the fact that one of Britain's most successful companies is OnlyFans.

24:09Daisy Cooper:OnlyFans, yeah. Isn't it like bigger than...

24:11Lewis Goodall:It's a huge company.

24:12Daisy Cooper:That and Warhammer are like bigger than fishing and oil or something.

24:14Lewis Goodall:Yeah, yeah, you know, it makes huge amounts of money. And we've seen, in a way, again, that even, you know, for my generation, I think would have been sort of unthinkable. Oh, totally. Like, basically OnlyFans and a form of prostitution, effectively, becoming a kind of mainstream sort of option as something to do with your life. Not least, and I think that feels to me tragic on so many levels. One is just that that's sort of available and normalised and fine, but also economically speaking, a whole generation of Gen Z, younger people, whatever, feel it's the best option to them.

24:49Jess Phillips:That is an absolute tragedy, isn't it? Because the argument that people like me have often made against the idea of prostitution being an angler's is that the sort of liberalisation of prostitution people the argument was always, oh, would you want your daughter to do it? And I'm afraid to say, I'm not sure that argument stands up anymore because it seems to have become quite a mainstream idea that you do a bit of OnlyFans on the side. Of course, I find that upsetting. The idea that women and women's sexuality is such a high-value product.

25:30Lewis Goodall:And when you see, you know, there are people like Bonnie Blue or Lily Phillips who have become huge cultural figures. They go to universities. I think Bonnie Blue went to, you know, go on these college tours and sleeps with a thousand men. And as I say, she was just welcomed into the reform party. What do you make of that?

25:47Jess Phillips:Look, I don't really know anything about Bonnie Blue as an individual. And I also I don't want to belittle her or speak for her. she is a woman who is completely capable of speaking for herself. And I also, I have been heavily trained over many, many years not to judge women for their behaviours. Do you judge the men? Do I judge men who pay women for sex?

26:17Lewis Goodall:Who queue up and are willing to be filmed queuing up?

26:20Jess Phillips:Look, the truth is that adult sexual exploitation that I have worked in for many, many years it can only survive and I've worked with women trafficked both into this country and around this country for sex in exchange for either money or that usually doesn't go to them or for drugs and sustenance that can only exist because there is demand for that amongst men and so yes I judge that men in our country and around the world this is not a uniquely british uh attribute i judge that that they prop up um a market of sexual exploitation but that is not how bonnie blue would describe what is happening to her and i don't wish to speak for her do you think that

27:13Lewis Goodall:we've um the pendulum has been swinging though in terms of so many of these things i mean the normalization i mean in the wake of um in the wake of the sort of me too movement there was obviously a big cultural conversation about misogyny and about violence towards women and girls. It feels there's been a cultural turn, certainly since Trump won the election again. It feels like there's been a cultural turn in the other direction, doesn't it?

27:37Jess Phillips:Well, look, I would say that apart from the fact that, you know, I sit here as a government minister, proudly feminist government minister in one of the richest and, you know, powerful countries in the world, having just launched a strategy that is about entirely about stamping this out so i think that we have to be careful that we don't doom scroll our way into inaction as well um but look like there is absolutely no doubt that unless you keep your foot on the pedal of progress it can slide backwards and we've seen that with abortion rights in various places across the world um that don't don't don't assume because you had it you will always be able to keep it that has to be fought for and women across the country know uh the both the cost and the work that goes into that but i have to go back to my launching of what i know and i was about to say i think but actually i'm you know one of the country's experts on the matter i know will be a cultural game changer with regard to men's violence against women and i have to say look it can't be that bad can it?

28:48Lewis Goodall:We'll be back with more from Jess Phillips right after this.

29:17Daisy Cooper:WBC, leading Britain's conversation.

29:24Lewis Goodall:The News Agents. It's obviously, as we've been saying, a huge moment for you at the end of the year. You've had quite the year, I think it's fair to say. You started the year.

29:33Daisy Cooper:January, yeah.

29:34Lewis Goodall:Very much in the headlines. January was a big moment. You were being talked about... Yeah, I bet you're knuckered. You were being talked about by one of the most powerful men in the world, Elon Musk.

29:44Daisy Cooper:Now you'd think that somebody so rich would have something better to do this time.

29:48Lewis Goodall:But he was talking about you. He was spreading lies about you via what remains the most influential news website probably in the world. Your name was being put up in lights for MAGA to see. You became a sort of moment of a sort of big political problem in a way for the Prime Minister at the time. He defended you. He did. I mean, that must have been very, very difficult.

30:11Daisy Cooper:It's surreal. It is surreal.

30:13Jess Phillips:to become it's very very very surreal and still today like my kids my my son will say to me like so weird that elon musk knows who you are like almost like he is a uh like a fairy tale figure like it's almost like he doesn't exist and this thing that doesn't really exist is like this idea knows who you are and so i it is that is very very surreal but the fundamental thing that I found really, really problematic about that is somebody who has done this work for a long time and has to remain continually focused on the outcome. And the outcome is much of what is in this document today, such as across the country, every one of those children that he claimed to be defending will now have access to therapeutic support services.

31:03Lewis Goodall:Just to remind people, I mean, he called you a rape genocide apologist and said you deserve to be... I don't know what that means. either but it's clearly extremely unpleasant one way or the other.

31:12Daisy Cooper:I don't think he meant it. I don't think he meant it.

31:13Lewis Goodall:He called you an evil witch and said that you deserve to be in prison. Did you ever in your own mind kind of come to any conclusion about what his game was? What was motivating him? Or did you not even care?

31:29Daisy Cooper:Oh gosh I'm not going to try and get inside his brain it seems odd. I've got work to crack on with. No, look it's not that I didn't

31:37Jess Phillips:care. I don't particularly care what elon must thinks if i'm perfectly honest but um it's not that i didn't care and it didn't cause me uh reflection and concern actually yeah yeah yeah my life was fundamentally changed in those moments and it remains to be the case today because he put you your safety yeah he put my safety uh uh well you know what he said it was incited a huge amount But what fundamentally for me... Because some people believe it.

32:08Daisy Cooper:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some people believe it. And I can't control that. I don't own an enormous media platform. Well, you're on the newsagents. Here we go. He hasn't been on it. But the thing that bothers me the most about it is it's a distraction. It's a distraction from the work I was trying to do. And you have to, and look, along my political career and as a campaigner, What I know is that bad faith actors and sometimes even good faith actors come along and trying to derail you from the thing you are trying to achieve.

32:41Jess Phillips:And I refused to allow Elon Musk to change the path that I was on, which was to improve the lives of children who have been sexually abused and assaulted. Do you think he's a dangerous man?

32:58Daisy Cooper:honestly i don't think about him anywhere near as much as he thinks about me but do i think that what i see on his platform is um i mean i don't ever go on it anymore out of absolute choice and design because it is just hate filled and it's a far right misinformation platform at this point well i mean i'm gonna have to take your word for it there is because i live in a world of great mental health where i don't ever look at it and uh i can't tell you how much of my life I've got back. It made me way more productive since I came off Twitter. But I think he's an incredibly powerful man and I think that lots of incredibly rich people have a huge amount of power over our populace and I want to make sure that the right checks and balances are always in place.

33:44Lewis Goodall:Half a British politician seems to go and work for these companies. Nick Clegg went to work for Meta. We just heard George Osborne is going to work for OpenAI. Oh, is he?

33:51Daisy Cooper:Yeah, have you not congratulated him? No, no, I didn't. He's on his 14th job. I have not congratulated him congratulations george look look i don't think that there is something inherently bad about technology companies my husband actually works in tech or not not for one of these enormous uh companies hell of a scoop if we learn you're not correct actually my husband is elon musk uh no um like i there's not anything inherently bad about uh tech companies uh look but they wield a huge amount of power and it's important that we work with them to make sure that they wield that

34:22Lewis Goodall:But obviously the substance of what was being talked about there, I mean, obviously there's no substance of his allegations, but the issue that was being talked about was the question of grooming gangs. Do you regret, I mean, obviously there was a sort of sequence and timeline to those events, which we've spoken about before and no point sort of going over it all again in detail. But do you regret how that panned out? In a sense, do you regret that a grooming gang inquiry wasn't announced earlier and that the government was seen to have to respond to the pressure of that from outside?

34:51Daisy Cooper:Look, not really on reflection. I'm sure there's plenty of people who would answer this question differently because of the politics of it. But frankly, I don't care about the politics of it. I just care about the right thing happening.

35:06Lewis Goodall:But there were people, victims of it, who did want one earlier and it would have meant something to them.

35:10Daisy Cooper:Yeah, and there were victims of it who didn't want one as well. There is no one victim's voice. So do you regret that this happened?

35:17Jess Phillips:Look, and I think that, you know, you have to go about making these decisions. I cannot be pushed around, I suppose, by whether it's tech billionaires or, like, I have to.

35:30Daisy Cooper:I have to do what I genuinely think is right. And often, I might be wrong. I'm not perfect. I'll say that for one second. I'll disagree with myself by the end of the day. But like fundamentally, like the politics of it is sort of took over.

35:49Jess Phillips:And I had to try not to be distracted from the outcome, which is that those people get justice, whether that's from the criminal justice system or the truth project. But the government was pushed around, wasn't it, Jess?

35:59Lewis Goodall:When the government was pushed around, it didn't want to have an inquiry and giving into pressure.

36:03Daisy Cooper:But there's a framing of the idea that you don't want to. Look, we're having an inquiry that I think that I will be incredibly proud of, actually. And I really look forward to how robust that is going to be and the results of it. But the idea that we didn't want it because of anything other than...

36:26Lewis Goodall:Well, the accusation was that you didn't want it because Labour refused to acknowledge.

36:30Daisy Cooper:Oh, that's just total rubbish because I've just worked in that field my entire life. I've literally stood on platforms. I wrote a book about the Rochdale whistleblower. So I will push back against that idea that I don't want to talk about it. I have been literally talking about it for, as has Keir Starmer, for a long, long time. But look, it's all just a bit of a distraction, I have to say. All I have to do is focus on what is the outcome. And this week we have announced the biggest rollout of support for child victims of sexual abuse in the entire time that I have worked in that. That's what matters to me.

37:09Lewis Goodall:Do you think that there are problems with particular problems with grooming among certain ethnic groups or is that simply a confection?

37:16Jess Phillips:Look, I think that all I can speak about really is my own experiences of where I live and the cases that I have worked in and amongst. And I have seen a variety of different ethnic groups that have taken part in child sexual exploitation or grooming gangs historically. historically uh it absolutely my experience of that was that that the perpetrators of that uh in the cases that i came across uh were more likely to be um british pakistani ethnicity and i've never ever shied away from that fact um ever not before this for a ray after this for a ray i've never ever shied away from that this fact i have also met and and i think this is really important when we're out talking to victims, talking and expecting victims to come forward as part of an inquiry.

38:09Jess Phillips:I have also met black and Asian girls who were horribly sexually exploited. The idea that sexual exploitation by gangs hasn't occurred to black and Asian girls as well. It has. And I have met them.

38:25Lewis Goodall:In the pattern of my work. Do you think that there was too much squeamishness in the past? The fear of being accused of racism?

38:33Daisy Cooper:Look, I can read the reports, the various different reports. It's been very well documented. I mean, like I say, I wrote a book about the whistleblower in Rochdale and I wrote about it in that book.

38:46Lewis Goodall:Do you think it's still happening? Do you think that's still happening?

38:47Daisy Cooper:Look, I have to say, I don't think that that is. I see less evidence of it now, but that's what the inquiry has to find out, isn't it? I do think that that is less likely to happen today. What I think is much more likely to be happening today, actually, is that grooming is happening online. The pattern of how children are groomed now is, and you will still get absolutely classic grooming gangs,

39:14Jess Phillips:as the public sort of understand it from those cases. That still exists. But from what I see now is that that is very much an issue that is moving into grooming children online.

39:25Lewis Goodall:You and I are both from Birmingham. We are. Proudly so. Yeah, very. it's interesting isn't it how much our home city it seems to be occupying a particular place in the minds of certain political figures and the online right you're not an expert if you were you'd see Birmingham is one of those places that the online right is sort of obsessed with and it's basically a hell hole and dystopian and all this

39:48Daisy Cooper:there was an American who said something about us and then everybody had their photo taken outside Mecca Bingo I can't remember it was somebody from Fox News said something I can't remember what it was

39:58Lewis Goodall:If they want dystopia, they should have gone to Snobs Nightclub in the next round. But, like, why do you think that is? Why is Birmingham this sort of occupies rent, that sort of lives rent-free in their minds, a lot of these people?

40:09Daisy Cooper:Because, look, Birmingham is a multicultural, multi-vibrant, you know, very vibrant place.

40:16Lewis Goodall:People often talk, the online right, they're constantly saying that Britain's going to go the way of Birmingham.

40:21Daisy Cooper:Well, I really love it. Honestly, I can't wait. I'm going back there after this interview and I cannot wait. So if all of the world was like Birmingham, I'd be happy. But look, Birmingham has its problems. Of course. There's absolutely no two ways about that. Looking at child poverty figures, there's many things that are nothing to be proud of.

40:46Lewis Goodall:Can't collect the bins.

40:48Daisy Cooper:Can I just say, this is also a common misconception, my bins are collected every week. Are your mum's bins being collected? you see people believe that our bins aren't being collected my bins are being collected just don't worry about me but Birmingham actually funnily enough as places go it is quite well integrated it is quite a well integrated place that much not what Robert Jenrick says well once again I don't take my advice from Robert Jenrick didn't he say that like you'd be scared to walk down the Soho Road or something like go to Hansworth or something

41:21Lewis Goodall:he went to Hansworth and then he said didn't see a single white face while he was there and that was an example of the city not being well

41:28Jess Phillips:integrated okay well look um i mean had he seen many uh of the people who uh have white faces who live in hansworth and i can literally think of like 30 uh examples off the top of my head of white people i know who live in hansworth he maybe he he they're not quite good enough for him because most of them would have been Irish migrants from some point. So sorry if that is a purist enough. I walk down the Soho Road frequently, but also, like, so what?

42:02Daisy Cooper:So what? So, yeah, that he didn't, like, yeah, like, was anyone innately horrible to him? Like, you know, like, if he didn't encounter any one type of person and all he encountered was horrible people, that would be awful. he'd have a reason to complain like I really love the Soho Road and I'm going to make a fierce representation of it absolutely, people in London let me tell you you don't know good samosas

42:31Lewis Goodall:just finally you've obviously been pressing ahead with your work, how do you think the government is doing overall?

42:37Jess Phillips:Look I do live in quite a tunnel and I feel like you just said Birmingham was alright No, you live in the Queen's Way tunnel.

42:46Daisy Cooper:Not the Queen's Way tunnel, where you'll have to hold your breath. No, I mean, I haven't been very, very focused on my work. You must have noticed that the government overall... But look, my view on the government, my experience of certainly the Prime Minister and the government is so much positive than the world view that seems to currently exist. And so I find myself at slight loggerheads. This is a man I talk to very, very, very regularly and has been really, I can't tell you the level of leadership that he's shown on this particular issue. And so I find like the, I'm not saying I haven't noticed, I have noticed, but I find it so at odds with my experience, my own personal experience as to sometimes then just think, is it just sort of slight, like, I don't know, like, am I going mad?

43:37Daisy Cooper:You haven't noticed the plotting? Do, do, genuinely not. I feel really offended. You left out.

43:43Lewis Goodall:You haven't got a red box. I haven't got a red box. The plotters aren't bringing you on board. Nobody's asked me to resign.

43:48Daisy Cooper:Well, the papers are. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, honestly, I feel very out of the loop. But you think the plotting is a bad idea? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just haven't, I genuinely haven't got the time for it. And I think that we've been, it's a real gift, isn't it, to be in this position? Especially me, like this person. I fought to get into politics because I cared about an issue and now I have the privilege of having the responsibility for that issue. I really haven't got time for anything other than trying to make that issue work. But having said that, I don't want to underestimate. I don't want to make out like I don't know what's going on in the world.

44:24Daisy Cooper:It's going to take time and people are, I was about to say, people are impatient for change. And that makes sense, it means saying that the public is impatient. That's not what I mean. What I mean is that rightly people are impatient for change. And I can understand that people want to see like things being overhauled overnight. And that isn't what they're experiencing. But like, you know, I actually haven't seen any of the news today. What happened with the interest rates? I've been literally in the chain, but they were cut. So now that's the sixth cut in interest rates. And as a person whose mortgage went up by£1 ,000 weeks after Liz Truss's calamity...

45:04Daisy Cooper:Because the economy's not doing well. It's not a great sign of success. Well, inflation is also... Yeah, but you say that. But people where I live, and certainly in my own family, the feeling that things are coming down in price and that we will have less and that the government is putting things in place to alleviate bills and things, That matters. I don't think that we should underestimate that that matters and the sense that people will start to have more. Wages are also going up, Lewis. Wages are increasing.

45:40Lewis Goodall:So you think Keir Starmer should lead Labour into the next election?

45:44Daisy Cooper:Yeah. I mean, I can't even begin to think about the next election. Oh, my God. I don't know that I'll get to the weekend, Lewis.

45:51Lewis Goodall:When you see Wes Streeting or your Bosch Shibana Mahmood or Andy Burnham or any of these people, you don't think maybe they'd be better?

45:57Daisy Cooper:Wes Streeting and Shibana, Mamone Shibana is my neighbour and fellow Brummie, so big up at Bad Self. And Wes Streeting and Shibana are both not just colleagues. I've heard people say, oh, they're very important colleagues. They're my actual friends. And I would absolutely die in a war. I do. I think that there are some things that they're better at than each other and than Keir Starmer. Do they think they're things that I'm better at? I think everybody has their skills and do you know what I think? I think it would be better off as a team, wouldn't we?

46:27Lewis Goodall:Okay, and Andy Burnham as well? You don't fancy him back in Parliament?

46:30Daisy Cooper:I mean, look, Andy Burnham was in Parliament with me for, I think it was probably only less than a year before he became the mayor. So I have never really had the experience of working alongside Andy Burnham, so I can't speak from personal experience of that. But when I spoke to you at the weekend, what I will say is the idea that constituencies are crowns

46:55Jess Phillips:to help people get a job in Westminster I find distasteful. But I don't know if Andy Burnham has even actually been doing that or it's just what got said in the paper. And just your reflection really on

47:06Lewis Goodall:how you feel about politics now? I mean, I sometimes think...

47:09Jess Phillips:Knackered. Knackered.

47:10Lewis Goodall:Because you've been in Parliament for 10 years now.

47:11Jess Phillips:10 years, yeah.

47:12Lewis Goodall:It's been a hell of a 10 years politically. I mean, even obviously, and now you're in government and being a minister. Do you enjoy it? Do you still enjoy politics? Do you enjoy being a minister? Apart from the change, I know the change is important. Yeah, look,

47:24Daisy Cooper:Look, you can tolerate almost anything if you're changing things. Like, if my life was really, really miserable and I was still changing things, I think it was worthwhile, actually. The honest answer is, Lewis, is that I really, really love the work that I have been doing. But do I like politics as much as I did when I came in? No. Maybe I was a bit of an idealist. Like, you know, I feel quite tired. I feel politics has got quite brittle and quite brutal in a way that I don't think I was expecting when I was first elected. I have multiple, multiple court cases of people who've tried to harm me.

48:03Daisy Cooper:Do I think that this is something, you know, like I look at people like Harriet Harman, who stayed for 30 years. All power to her elbow. That's like, you know, I don't think that that's for me. You can't see it. Yeah, no. Like, I like it. It's all right. It's all right, man. I mean, to say something is all right, as you well know, is the highest form of praise where we come from. It literally means it's the greatest thing on earth.

48:28Lewis Goodall:Well, you've been all right, Bab. It's all right, yeah. Jess Phillips, thanks so much.

48:32Daisy Cooper:No worries.

48:43Lewis Goodall:The News Agents. Well, maybe I'm biased because I'm a Brummie, but whatever you think about Jess Phillips, in a government which is marked by its technocracy and managerialism of ministers who seem grey and struggle ever to stand out hers is a colourful political life but it is not just fluff or flip again whatever you think of where it takes her no one can deny her mission her zeal to do the work that she is doing her cause it is authentic not something that you can say about all of politics most of politics, or all or most politicians. She shows no sign of wanting to do anything else. But I wonder if in 2026, whoever is Prime Minister, they might end up making even more use of Jess Phillips.

49:29Lewis Goodall:That is it from us for this week. Thanks as ever to our production team on the newsagents, Natalie Inge, Michaela Walters, Mikey Baggs, Jess Williamson, Anna Georgievich, Lizzie Ward, Shane Fennelly and Arvin Baddowell. Our executive producer is Louis Dagenhast. Our editor is Tom Hughes. It's presented by Emily Maitlis, John Sopel and me, Lewis. could all do join me for my Sunday show on LBC this Sunday. And like Laura Koonsberg, we aren't skiving off early. And indeed, do not fear for this podcast, because we asked to cannavite Santas, our newsagents, and we're not hopping on our sleighs just yet.

49:57Lewis Goodall:We'll be back on Monday and Tuesday next week, assuming John's head has recovered from the four bottles of Rioja on the newsagents' Christmas party. We'll see you then. For now, have a lovely weekend. This has been a Global Player original production.