262. Modi loses his majority, Sunak takes on the Treasury, and Welsh Labour in crisis

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1:20Welcome to The Restless Politics with me, Mr. Campbell. And with this selection going on, it is certainly keeping us very, very, very busy. So, another live podcast on YouTube following the other one last night and we'll also put it on our usual audio feed. I think we should apologise to those who say that they can't keep up, but it's important to meet the demand of so many people who keep telling us they want more of these lives, not less, fewer rather. How I want to start the start of the row is explaining that though I've said pretty much nothing apart from welcome, I have now taken 42, 43, 44, 45 seconds to say it.

2:05So, is it too much to hope that we never, ever see that particular format ever, ever again? Can I just say who has well done? Can I just say, I think you've illustrated it well with the 45 seconds. Here's a way of stepping back at it. Many people listening to this podcast, I mean as to most people, will have to make judgments all the time. Judgments about who they want to work with, judgments about who they want to employ, judgments about, who they want to trust. And would anybody, anybody think the best way to do it is to put two people up on podiums with a moderator and make them speak for 45 seconds and shout over the top of each other.

2:52In other words, I did just stepping back, if you were designing a system where your question was out of step, I'm going to try to be as objective as possible. I want us a voter to work out who's going to be the best prime minister for the country for the next five years. I really want a chance to assess these two candidates. Look at them. I've probably got some criteria questions I want to answer in my head. Is there any way on earth you would think the way to do it is to have these two people standing at podiums with the moderator and shouting at each other? No. And I think as we said last night, I don't, I think Keir's thumb went into it hoping not to be a shout -out to you, Matt, but just got drawn into it.

3:33The more I've thought about it, we gave our instant reaction last night. The more I've thought about it, the more unsatisfactory I think the whole thing was. We say that we're fed up with politics as soundbites, but when the entire structure is a debate is around the idea that all you're going to hear is a soundbite, then I think it just, it fails on a real level. And of course, what's happened since then is the issue, I mean, we said last night, Rishi Sunak had managed to land what he wanted to land, which was this 2000 pound tax claim label will put your taxes up by 2000 pound. And I think, and I'm very pleased about this, it seems to have unraveled.

4:18And I thought it would because I thought he was quite careful with these words, but Claire Coutinho this look at the year this morning, and I think also something Jeremy Hunt has been writing in the forward to conserve the party document. They have been saying that the 2000 pound figure, they've been trying to give the impression that this was as it were the treasuries analysis of labor policy. And it was quite something, if you remember Simon McDonald who was permanent, the Foreign Office, he was a big part of bringing down Johnson because he's an unfettered but there's not going to tell any more lies.

4:52And he said, Johnson's not been telling the truth. And now James Boller, who I know quite well from when he was working for Gordon Brown, James Boller, who's now the head of the Treasury, replacing Tom Scholler, who was sacked by Liss Truss and quite, quite, he has come out and said that no, they can't say this has been costed by the Treasury because it's made assumptions that have been put there by particular advisors. And you'll know this, Roy, from having worked in government. And I've done this, you know, and Gus O'Donnell, an amazing interview on the world at one, really angry, Gus doesn't get angry.

5:27Gus is a former Treasury civil servant, former head of the civil service, and he said he found this whole thing grubby. He said, both parties have done it at times. And it's true. We would say to the Treasury or any other department, let's say we wanted to build a road from Penrith to Carlisle. How much would that cost? Okay. And they would go away and they'd do some costings and they'd come back. What they wouldn't necessarily know is that the reason we were asking that is because Roy Stewart, and promised, as candidate for Penrith, that he was going to get a new road built from Penrith, you then get the costings.

6:08That's what they've done. They've asked for costings. Given them the questions they want answered. And here's why I think we've got to be careful. Sorry, Roy, on your go. Just so quickly, just a bit of context on this. I mean, one of the things that's really worrying Mr. Bola is that it's very likely. I mean, I think inevitable that we'll have a Labor government in five weeks time. And he has to make it absolutely clear to the incoming Labor government that the civil service is impartial. I mean, he will be worried that the Labor Party shocks by what happened last night. And it obviously caught Kierstown a bit off balance.

6:44He didn't have an easy way to answer to it. We'll be thinking that some conspiracy, if the other people's health be thinking, you know, what on earth is going on? What are you doing providing costings to the conservatives that they can use in a debate to crush us? So he immediately contacted Darren Jones, said these figures include costs beyond those provided by the civil service published online. I think to be fair, I think Darren Jones wrote to him. Okay, because I think the thing that what he put out was the reply to Darren Jones. I agree that any costings derived from other sources or produced by other organizations should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service.

7:21The Treasury was not involved in the production or presentation of the conservative party's documents, Labor tax rises. So I think he's really trying to say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you're coming into office and you can rely on it and we're not part of a Tory plot. Yeah, the other thing, I've been I've been pointing out in recent weeks though, and this is something Jeremy Hunchen have got to grip on. The Treasury press office, the Treasury official feed on social media has been putting out stuff with the words, the plan is working stick with the plan. Now that is a conservative party slogan.

7:55You cannot do that. You cannot do that. So I hope that this will put it into it. James Boler, but you see the tourism that doubled down, they're now saying, well, actually we think we're being quite generous. We didn't allow to put taxes up even more, but I think that, you know, we've talked about this a lot. We should, by the way, say we're getting loads of messages about Vaughan Gathin. We know about Vaughan Gathin. He's lost the vote and we'll talk about that briefly in the moment. So you don't need to keep telling us that Vaughan Gathin has lost his vote in the in the Senate. But let me just say that if you go back to when Richie soon that became prime minister.

8:28Yeah, he promised he would usher in a new era of integrity, professionalism and accountability. That is very, very, very first prime minister's questions. He said that he has chancellor had reinstated nurses, bursaries. He hadn't. He hadn't. He'd replaced them with something that was worth a lot less. He also said at his very first PM cues that they had because of Brexit, they'd been able to have the fastest roll out of the vaccine, which has been completely debunked by everybody who was involved in that. I think he's lied quite a lot about Rwanda. I think he's lied about the cost. I think he's allowed about his views on it.

9:09So I'm not going to debate that, but I think your bigger point is a sort of more fundamental point, which is that really the conservatives lost this election when Boris Johnson collapsed and let's trust blew up the economy. You just look at the statistics. We can see it. John Curtis pointed this out to both of us. The figures are pretty clear. That's when they lost the selection. Not really what's happened since and and Richie's part of that. Richie's in X very much part of that because and this is an argument I had on Times Radio yesterday with a guy called Matt Chouly, who was saying to me, well, Rory, why did you leave the Conservative Party in 2019 if you'd stuck around?

9:50Maybe you could have been the Prime Minister instead of Richie Suneak. And I said that the decision of Richie Suneak and a lot of these other key figures, Oliver Dowden, Deputy Prime Minister, Robert Generick, all these people, to get behind Boris Johnson when they knew that he would be a terrible Prime Minister, for the MPs to support this trust when they knew she would be a terrible Prime Minister. All of this stuff comes home to roost because what you're doing is you're putting power ahead of your principles. You're just giving up on being a serious party from 2019 onwards. And so Boris Johnson's collapse, Liz Truss' collapse, are completely inevitable and it's impossible for Richie Suneak to turn this around because they loom over the whole thing.

10:43Boris Johnson destroyed their moral credibility. Liz Truss destroyed their economic credibility. He's got a terrible record. It's not winnable. I do think we've said this so many times, Roy, I think he's one chance was the signal genuine change. Now maybe it was impossible. Maybe the factionalism that you've talked about a lot, these sort of seven tribes, but let's go back to another thing, the fact that he put Selah Braviman in the cabinet, just a few days after she'd been sat for trashing the Ministerial Code, shows that he doesn't care about the Ministerial Code. And I think there's something, I mean, listeners may or may not, listeners of you may not know, you're not allowed to call another politician a liar in Parliament.

11:21You get thrown out of Parliament. We saw that win in Black for Got Throne Out and others. But today you've got Kierstarma, Rachel Reeves, Darren Jones, who you mentioned, Jonathan Ashworth, across the airwaves, saying, and I think with some justification that he got desperate last night and he told a lie. And I think I don't know whether they already have this letter. I know Darren Jones, that I don't know where the Kierstarma already knew that this had been rebutted by the Treasury. The Machiavellian me says, I wonder if you knew and he just sort of wanted to let him land this point so as they could produce.

11:56I don't think so because I still need to control his own. I think, and we're getting a lot of comments. I don't think I didn't think that would make sense. So let me just sort of know I agree. I agree. Because actually the fact that the polls suggest that people narrowly thought, Rishi Sunat one is a bad thing for Starma because most people watching debates in my experience go in was very strong prejudices. And given that we know that Labour's 20 points ahead in the polls, you'd expect by a 20 point lead, most people leading to be watching to be pretty sympathetic towards Kierstarma. And therefore him to win that pretty comfortably without anyone watching just on the sense that if you look at our thread on the right here, which people be following, basically, you know, as I pointed out last night, if you've got a Twitter handle abolished the monarchy, you're going to think that, you know, if Sunak did terribly and Starma did well and if you've got a Twitter handle, hold on a bit.

12:52Hold on a bit. If you got a got a, you know, Starma does not want to abolish the monarchy. Are you suggesting Kierstarma wants to abolish the monarchy? So basically, if you're a, and I know this is, you know, watching my friends, if you're on the left, you think Starma one, if you're on the right, you think Sunak one. So the fact that against the polls, it seems from the you you gov poll that is the 51 49 lead for Sunak means that even people who are sympathetic towards Starma, not all of them, I mean, you have 49 % still supported Starma, but a lot of them were like, ooh, that was not a great night for Starma, even if they think as people are saying here that Sunak was a petalent bully and all this kind of stuff, it was not great for Starma.

13:37It wasn't great to see him not be able to respond to 2000. And David McCarris just pointed out that abolished the monarchy is not here to defend themselves. That is very funny. A couple of things there. First of all, there have been several polls today and the one that we talked about last night was the initial one literally instant from I think. I'm just interrupting once more because this isn't coming down the thread. You know, Charles George, you know, Starma didn't win the only thing I can remember from the debate is the 2000 pound. Yeah, but the same the Sun polls, for example, had the Starma winning 53 to 39.

14:10So anyway, the truth is, I think we both agreed it was a bit of a messy draw and let's just let's not worry about the polls on that. There is a poll that's coming coming out later, I believe, that shows the reform have had quite lift and are not far behind the behind the tourist. There's a question though from Charlie George, I don't know if that's the footballer, but I'm sure you remember scoring a winning goal in the cut. But he's he is he is saying to me, haven't you learned anything from the Brexit debate and the big red bus. They won't usually be talking about this, but I still we have to talk about this because the truth is, unless we learn something from the big red bus, then our politics is in deep trouble.

14:47What I really worry about from last night, what Sunak tried to do is I think he confirmed himself as one of my three P leaders, populism, polarization, post truth. If we have people standing for Prime Minister, who genuinely think and then you have journalists saying, even journalists, I really like respect, I saw that Sophie Ridge on Sky, who I think is a good journalist, but she's she did something on social media saying, well, you know, might there be a danger here that this is actually quite a good move because everybody's going to be talking about it. I think once we start saying that I'm not saying she's saying this, but once we start saying that lying is clever politics in a campaign, I think we're in real trouble, I think we're then going down the Trump route.

15:28So what's that let's just get back to the number of this. So the number of this is that, you know, regardless of the exact numbers, and I'm absolutely with you that he pushed it far further and implied the Treasury endorsed figures that he extracted largely from a special devices. The number of it was that he managed to land with the viewer, the idea that labor was going to cost you money, you know, he had this line, which I thought was quite good line where he said, if you're going to vote for labor, start saving. And what Starmer needed to do, which I think should have been central to everything because it's right in the core of Rachel Reeves is just say straight off.

16:11No, absolutely not. We have told you that that is not what we're going to do. We're not going to raise in contact says we're not raising VAT. We're not doing this and just reinforce labor's fiscal credibility. Don't don't I mean just undercut a whole thing by saying that's not ideal. And then turn around and say and by the way, listen to these guys look at all the incredible unfunded things the Tories are offering. I wouldn't get into this because what's happening is that if you get into arguing about whether it's 2000 pounds extra 1000 pounds extra 3000 pounds that you're falling into that trap, you're accepting their assumption.

16:50That labor's putting up costs what you should be saying is we're not doing it and actually the conservatives are doing it. Yeah, but yeah, but I think I think the reason why I disagree with Charlie George about why this debate has to be had out. I think anybody who knew Boris Johnson I knew him for years before he became a politician you knew him before he became prime minister. Anybody who'd ever had anything to do with him knew that he was a liar. Soon that comes along after him after the disaster of trust and says he's going to be the new bro integrity professional is accountability. And I think therefore I think it is entirely possible that Keir's thumb was actually genuinely taken a back that soon went on this so hard and it took him a bit of time to realize this was the entire strategy for the debate.

17:39Now so it's just tactically that gave soon act the tactical win strategically. I think it's it's it's the it's a gift to labor this because this is the means by which he can now tie him character wise to Johnson and trust and also a gift I would hope. And if if I'm right about this to labor because it means that in every single interview people are going to raise this question and it's an opportunity I think not just to do what you're talking about I think it's an opportunity to lay out their plans and say we're physically responsible on this other lot aren't and that's what I really think is the greatest opportunity it's a chance for labor to really put their economic program for it.

18:22Yeah, well I can I can I can I can I just come back to your thing we began with say by the way. I'm just doing two things. I've polished the monarchy says he's here and he's happy to be here and the other thing is you're getting a lot of somebody's actually pointed out that 2000 pounds is just two of your pots. Is that a pot behind you is that the pot always. No, I don't know can bring bring the bring the pot up later bring bring the pot up later. The yeah so just kind of come back to the big thing let's imagine that we were in some weird world able to have some influence on this what might be a better way of let's say that the job is to produce a format that allows the public to judge who might be a better prime minister.

19:06So here's one possibility the way that you know traditional school debating competitions do it. You know one of them gives a long speech 20 minutes the other one gives 20 minutes response and then they both do closing speeches and all like you might in a in a courtroom. I mean that's the way we don't for example we're trying to cyber the someone's guilty we don't do it by making the two lawyers do 45 seconds each and jump back and fall between when we're interviewing someone for a job. I guess we spend a good 20 minutes half an hour on it don't we and we're not saying give me so so can you think of a format which might be a little bit more democratic can give people a better sense to judge these people well I this is sort of you know slightly invested into speaking I honestly believe.

19:51Look at remember the interview we did with Andy street and Andy Burnham. You get two people from different parties you try to get some of their own character in their life and then you get them to talk about issues that they're both dealing with. So let's put it out there Rishi here if you want to do a different sort of debate let's have a three hour rest is politics special. Yeah just get forward and we can fail and we know maybe a bit more but we can we can sell it because we can I mean I think what we can be trusted on is to give people a better sense of the way we can do it. I mean I'm not giving people space and time I just I mean listen I've this is very self serving but I just got a not it's self serving for both of us I just got a nice email from somebody I really admire who was watching the quasi caught thing and that was a bit controversial you know our friend Henry Porter came back and you know it was all over Twitter saying we've been to find it to soft fun but somebody who read that once and watch it and said you know you watched it 2 am in the morning.

20:50I'm most firmly against Henry's you. Your courtesy with mild punchiness fitted the niche of this interview well. Nish niche niche I thought this interview to write a perfect example of a niche that you felt there's nothing else quite like it. The first hour was simply X in every way won't find such a good interview everywhere else. Alistair conveyed just the right tone. Down the line of courtesy so I I mean I think in a way and I to be I thought what works with it is that nobody came out of it thinking quasi caughting manage the economy well. Right nobody came out of it thinking the guy was responsible but we gave him space to essentially dice himself I mean yeah yeah no I think I think it would be I mean if you go back if I go back to the.

21:40I was talking to the financial times this morning you're doing a big piece about the way the countries change and the way that the media has changed and so forth and. You know I think some of the best things in history. And it's you know you're going to be careful about going backwards but those old fashioned you go back to I think the Brian Walden's the John Freemans the the interviews where you you really pen people you give them time you treat them with the. There's certain amount of respect but you don't expect them you don't treat them like children and so I think that could work I think the other thing that you could do them you could have a format that was you had like an interview or maybe a panel of interviews two or three.

22:27And you had half an hour each with the two candidates separately yeah yeah. And you might and your panel might be presumably relatively experienced interviews who put quite a lot of thought into this and they. And real like a job interview they sit down for 40 minutes and the three people between them you could have you could have if you were to be interviews from today you know Andrew Neil. Emily Maitless Kay Burley there's a lot of Victoria Darbyshire there's lots and lots of good interviews there or you had a mix you had somebody from the world of business you had somebody from the world of of culture you had somebody from the world of the military.

23:07And you had three different people there who had half an hour you knew what their particular interests were and I think they find it because the thing about political interviews now you've done thousands of interviews I've done thousands of interviews. Everybody knows how to handle these sort of silly questions about garas out gates you know blah or you know hands up if and hands up not it's kind of it's all past itself by date. So I think I think something something much more serious some and I think the public are ready for it. I think the people are all and I say dear from somebody Jacob Mehue what if you had former PMs get Blair and Cameron that's on the on the on the thing.

23:45I think it's me hard in Camelon's the foreign secretary Blair and major okay. Yeah yeah yeah um Theresa Mayn Gordon Brown or you got or you got I mean you you imagine they actually might be able to ask some quite interesting questions they've been primers. Yeah absolutely absolutely. So there's somebody the saying would the rest is politely so is that about yes we would somebody suggesting Jonathan Pi I think that might be a bit tricky would have to be after the after the after the water show on that one. So anyway I think it's been an interesting day and I think that I really think I've been saying this for months now.

24:21I think there's never been a better time to make something about the Nolan principles and standards in public life. Listen what do you please what next time you're going for walk with your different care staff. Can't why won't he sign up to something I think is very simple every minister will serve a minimum of two years in their office unless the some crazy scandal. Yeah and we can and we can claim that we can pray and aid Mr. West treating says you I hope care star base has all stick there for quite a long time. What's the problem with that why won't you just come out and say everybody will serve a minimum of two years maybe maybe maybe we maybe we need to just find a way of making sure he's asked that question.

25:04But you know I saw I think the one thing that has happened today is that whether he likes or not I think soon acts characters on the ballot in a way that maybe it wasn't yesterday. Another thing that we're we're going to get on to and we'll get on to India in a second which has been just amazing really really interesting because we talk a lot about populism and that that's a amazing result. But just I guess a month ago two months ago we were saying isn't this extraordinary. Great Britain now has a Hindu Prime Minister responsible for England. We have a Muslim First Minister in Scotland and we have a black leader in Wales and this is extraordinary and it now looks as though the entire thing may have come crashing down that within five weeks time we're going to end up with three white men again.

26:00So what's going on in Wales. Well what's going on in Wales is that the opposition who got together put down this motion of no confidence involved getting we talked about this issue before it was about a donation that he took from somebody who'd been found guilty of environmental crime. And he defended himself took the money kept the money won the campaign won it without a lot of support from his colleagues in the Senate. And the he's lost the vote I haven't seen the numbers because we we were literally coming on air just as as that happened. He said in advance that I think they knew he was going to lose because some of his colleagues disappeared for the day.

26:44He needed every single labor and that was interesting. So he's got I'm right he's I think that he's got 30 labor and piece which is half labor a and say and yeah in the in the Senate. Yeah and and two of them was sick but one of them was somebody who'd already called for him to return the money. Yeah is 2927 the vote. So so I guess the I guess you might question actually even if they weren't sick how motivated those two am's really were to getting in behind ball guessing so there's a problem isn't an underlying problem that he seems to have angered quite a lot of people in the labor party. We talked a little bit about how he seemed to exploit trade union rules to yeah I've got late and Andrews and Chris Bryant shouting at me metaphorically my head is MS it changed from a and assembly member to member of the Senate.

27:38So now let's let's just that they're called that then people now telling us that. Yeah I think this is this is really tricky it's obviously not perfect for labor in the middle of an election campaign. The other thing that happened in the Welsh Assembly today somebody sent me this things that if you seen this it was marked drapeford his predecessor making a really emotional speech about to change that the government in Wales was making to plans that he had been making to change the nature of the school year to give to to to have fewer some weeks of the summer holiday. Because his his view is that it was so difficult for parents and kids from poorer families to get through these incredibly long.