264. Rishi Sunak’s defining moment

22:47He's probably right. These guys have got no control over immigration. He's probably right. You get a vote reform. I'm not going to vote reform. No, I'm definitely not going to vote reform, but because I guess my punchline is this is why it was so stupid of the conservatives to run a far right campaign instead of what they should have been doing, which is focusing on regaining votes in the centre, being a moderate sensible party and trying to eat in there. The problem is they've got it so much in their head now that this was a campaign on the right, they will see come the election that they've lost all those right wing votes to Frosh and they will draw exactly the wrong conclusion instead of thinking, wait a second, we had the wrong strategy from the beginning, they will convince themselves, if only we'd gone further to the right, maybe we would have got Frosh and now we're into this big question, which I think sums up the whole question for the conservatives.

23:34For Arche said, yesterday, there is no longer a question. Keir Starmer is going to win the election, so my question for you, the voters, is who do you want to be the opposition to Starmer? Do you want me or do you want the conservatives? And this is where some of light me in the centre is like, the answer has to be a sensible, credible, decent opposition, composed the thoughtful conservatives. The Asian Tory, not a bunch of crazy, crazy, it's not going to be up for my vote. So I mentioned the solar bravaman in the times today and you got Robert Buckland, who's a more moderate conservative saying, no way should we have Frosh back in the Conservative party, you had the four mentioned Chris Phil, sort of running around in circles, trying not to answer the question.

24:17But I think there's a problem for Labour in this as well, by the way, because my worry for Labour in this is that if the debate about the future of the Conservative party is already as it were post -defeat, I think, given we're all already in our problems with registration and turnout and apathy, there's a real danger that people who don't vote, not because they necessarily want the Tories back or don't want Labour, but they just think, well there's no point voting, because everybody else is voting. I think that's a real problem for Labour. Which was a problem potentially for trees for me. Absolutely.

24:43Absolutely. There's a lot of other problems than 2017, you said. I've never heard of it. It was going to win. Yeah. So that's why this is quite a dangerous thing for Labour. And it's obviously dangerous for the Conservatives, dangerous to the point of being existential. Well, they could find themselves in a position where Frosh does so much damage to them, that it begins to look as though they're no longer the credible second -fourth Symburgish politics. Yeah. And he's now with the help of the Sunday Express yesterday, which has always been one of the things that people do is reverse take over on the Tory party.

25:18But I think once you have an election where people start to think, and I've been really worried this weekend, I was at the Rugby League Cup Final and loads of people who were saying, oh, I can't wait to see the back of the Tories, can't wait to see the back of the Tories. But the mood was, there's no point worrying about Labour. And it's just not so, you have to worry. And the other thing that comes through in our poll, not massively, but there is without doubt a little bit of bleeding from Labour to the Greens. And I think that's driven by several things. One is Gaza. The other is this sense that Labour aren't bold radical enough.

25:49But the other is, well, it is a matter of whether it's Green Cross Labour going to win anyway. Sure. Once you start thinking you can vote for somebody else because the team you actually want to win is already one, that's a very, very dangerous, good mood to get into. Maybe it's the final bit of the segment. I think let's again step back and get away from the personalities into the policy. And we remain with a kind of big central elephant in the room. Which is that all these parties have said they're not going to borrow any more. In fact, they've all said they're going to reduce the amount of debt within five years.

26:20And there are only, literally, only two ways in which they can do that. They can cut spending or they can raise taxes. Labour's not going to cut the... Or they get lucky with the economy. That's by the only other one. Yeah, yeah. That's... I mean, even that isn't quite going to get me out of the hole. Because our finances are now in an unbelievable situation. This is our joint hero, Paul Johnson, writing today in the... I'm not sure if it's a hero. Well, I'm... The most respected Paul Johnson. One of the most interesting studies. Points out that since 2019, we have found ourselves spending an extra 140 billion pounds a year on things like health benefits, care, mental health and other things, which doesn't look like it's coming down anytime soon.

27:05We're going to stay up at 80, 90 billion. A lot of money. So that means that if Labour doesn't want to cut spending and I don't think they will want to cut spending, they're going to have to tax. And the question is, where is the tax going to come from? This will be true of the Conservatives too, but I just don't think the Conservatives are going to win the election. I mean, so... So let me put it on record. This is not an attack on Labour and it's a attack on both these parties, right? The Conservatives also are being completely fiscally irresponsible. But given that it's Labour that's likely to get in, what are they going to tax?

27:30And they've ruled out the four biggest taxes in the country that produce most of the money. They've ruled out income tax, they've ruled out national insurance, they've ruled out corporate checks. So where's it going to come from? The ADT. And the answer is, I don't know, is it going to be a health and social care levee? Is it going to be some sort of environmental tax? Is it going to be something on capital gains tax? It's got to come from somewhere. Some money's got to come in. You're looking at me, Ruiz, I might know the answer. You're going to have to wait for the manifesto, though. If I think you're probably going to have to wait for the first budget to be absolutely frank.

28:00Now, I think there is something that's slightly alarming about the sense of the back drop to the debate is the country's in a real mess, massive change required. But we're still at that stage. Pre the Labour and Tory manifesto. So we've got the Tories coming tomorrow, Labour on Thursday. I hope that once those documents are out there, we start to engage in a much more productive and positive debate about the future of the country. And Labour have always said, you know, they're going to buy their time, get to the campaign, get into the campaign, that's when the alternative starts to come. If I was Labour reflecting on the first debate and we both thought at the time, bit of a no -score draw didn't really change much of the fundamentals.

28:41If there's one thing I think Labour should take from that first debate, I met a lot of people in the subsequent news, said they were disappointed they didn't get enough of a sense of what Labour would do. That's got to become the focus now for Labour. You know, yes, they keep attacking the Tories fair enough. You've got to do that. But the Tories are doing so much damage to themselves. It opens the door for Labour to be much more. This is now about us. Here's what we're going to do. And I hope when the manifesto comes out of that. And that's also because, as we've said in the past, that it is very, very helpful if you're going to do bold things to have it in your manifesto, because it gives you some legitimacy.

29:15Absolutely. You have to. Okay, well, take a quick break now and then we'll come back. We'll talk about the European Union elections, Macron's massive gamble and also Israel. Guys, see you soon.

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31:09So, Europe - Now we're - Europe, yes. La France. So two big things, obviously, for people - Many big things. Constraining, but there's results of the European elections, which we're going to get into, where as we predict it, the far -right populist parties have done quite well in some countries. Not as well as they wanted to. Yeah. Well, we can go into the details, but - Yeah. But in the big countries, France and Germany, they've done very well. Yeah. In Germany, though, not as well as they wanted to. They've actually fallen from where they were a few months ago with all these scandals. But yeah, they've come second - ahead of - ahead of - A head of - A head of - A head of - A head of - A head of - A head of - A head of - A head of - A head of - A head of - A head of - A head of - A head of - The fact that - Ursula von der Leyen - who I think a week ago was probably thinking her future was really in some peril - that sort of coalition that she's part of in the centre -right - actually has held up.

32:04The centre has held. You will - They will be - The social democrats - and the conservatives, the moderate conservatives - will be able to kind of put together some sort of coalition - which probably ensures that she carries on as the commission -president. France is something of an outlier - so the Le Pen's party - Bardela's party - Rassommelmann National getting 32 percent - that is a bit of an outlier compared with the rest of it. Yeah. AFD below 20 in Germany - Yeah, I mean, let's just quickly go through the results. So - France, Le Pen gets 32 percent. Macron, the president's party gets 15 percent.

32:43In Germany, as you say, the centre -right leads - but the AFD, which is this far -right - Nazi -associated with some of their leaders - German party. So right when - you'll Le Pen won't touch them. Yep. Comes in second, and chances of shorts as party comes in third, and the Greens collapse down from 21 percent in 2019. All three members of the governing coalition did badly. In - In Italy - Georgia Maloney gets 28 percent, runs a big campaign, you know, very much using her Roman accent - a lot of social media moments. Last time she was campaigning with melons. Now she's campaigning with cherries.

33:21She's using a great deal of jokes about her accent. So - Now that's important because before we get on to the other countries - the European Parliament is done basically by population. So - Germany has 96 seats, which is the same as - Hungary, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Greece combined. Yeah. Right. So - You're absolutely right. We're going to go on to the fact that the far right didn't do as well as maybe expected in Belgium, the Nordic countries. But in the big ones, France, Germany, Italy, far right populism is flourishing. Yeah, absolutely. No, I think that's fair. And I think it means that when it comes to, for example, the other jobs that have to get handed out, assuming Vunderline does get the - get the top job, that there will be a lot of change in terms of the other senior positions and the commissioners and so forth.

34:18But I think if I were trying to look for the kind of anti -populous perspective on this, I think the, for example, Tusk in Poland, one - Tusk would put narrow - narrow - 37 to 35, so - So, nor did justice not rule that - No, and also there was an even more extreme party came third. But what a - and then, and then, Vilders, although Vilders has now got his party in Holland, has got some seats, they didn't win. So, they led in the general election, but didn't win in this one. Not only defeated again, 10 months on 21, Vilders on 17. So, a lot of this is more knife -edge. It's not a clear victory for one - True.

34:56Well, Portugal, Cheg, we talked about Cheg, a while back. They did - I think they got nearly 20 % in the general election. They're down to 10. So, my point is, I think the general sense was going to be the far right on the march everywhere. And I think France, Germany, and Italy, not with the standing, and don't forget Salvini and Italy, he's, you know, because Malone is basically beaten into all of his support, he's faded slightly. So, look, I'm not pretending, it's a really filthy bed of roses for the sort of anti -populist, but it's not as bad as people expect. Well, maybe the way to think about it for listens is there are sort of three categories.

35:31There are the countries where the far right populists have triumphed. France, Italy, and although Hungary, there's been a bit of a drop, still by far the largest number of votes have gone to all -bound in Hungary. Yeah, although the guy who came second has come out of nowhere to get to 30%, which is quite a big thing, and he's focused absolutely as a kind of anti -all -bound campaign. But so, there are places where they've won at France, Italy, Hungary. There are places where they've come second and caused a bit of an upset. Germany, places where they've come second, where they haven't created so much an upset, but where it's still a real reminder that there are considerable force, Netherlands.

36:11Belgium. Belgium and Poland, I love it. I forgot Austria, actually, here's an example of the first category, where they live in France. Yeah, but because Austria is the one where I think everybody thought that the far right were going to win there. Then there's the counter examples. So Greece, and if people haven't listened to our interferon leading, that's a really interesting example, because there you have somebody who seems to be straight out of a kind of Blair Cameron playbook, a kind of socially liberal, economically conservative guy doing well. And the only opposition to him is not from far right populist.

36:46It's it's on that. Absolutely. Absolutely. He, by the way, I think if Vondalayan had been pushed out, was going to be one of the two candidates for a job, Mr. Tarkis. And I think the other thing that's really interesting, we'll come on to talk about Macron's gambit. But I think it was because there was some talk that Macron was kind of slightly losing the plot with Vondalayan. He's going to be so tied up now with his election, with his Olympics that I think maybe that is another reason why Vondalayan is probably saved now. So Mr. Tarkis is probably staying in Athens. Final reminder, because we talk about Spain quite a lot, because there have been these controversies around, you know, was the premise to kind of step down, what's his, you know, what's his wife been up to, corruption charges.

37:28Spain again has remained relatively moderate, center rights and left -dominating in the European election results and Vox added a few seats. But they must disappear, but small exactly down at the bottom. Now, this then brings us to just a quick reminder on these different groups that you have in the European Parliament. So there are the kind of big four groups, European People's Party, Socialist and Democrats, Renew, which is the kind of liberal Macron party. And the Green Block. And then you have these far -right populist groups. So you've got Maloney's group, which is called ECR, and you've got Le Pen's group, which has got Gelt Villas in it, which is called ID, and Orbán floating around trying to decide which one of these to join.

38:11Just a reminder is for kind of real political nerds. People remember that David Cameron made himself a very, very unpopular by leaving the European People's Party. Absolutely. Joining the CCR, which is the Maloney Party. Exactly. So briefly, that was the party, which the British Conservatives remember it off. When Orbán was still sitting in the EPP. Incredible, isn't that? Absolutely. That was, I think, when Angela Merkel decided that maybe your old Prime Minister was not an om -serial... Now, all of this has now led to the next thing, which I think is just beyond imagining, which is a Maloney or Macron.

38:49Responding to this result has suddenly decided he's going to call an election very, very quick election, the three -week election, is that right? Mm -hmm. For the Assembly. It's in two parts, though. And my take on this for what it's worth. I may be completely wrong is that he's lost the plot and that this is an absolute repeat of... Hums are used, and Richie's unack. It's these young men who suddenly get into their head, they're going to be bold, show initiative, surprise everybody, leaving their entire party thinking, what on earth have you just done? Yeah. There's something in that. There's something in that.

39:22Can I try and explain why I think you might have done it? I think he thought he was definitely going to be forced into an early election anyway, because the way the party... So people need to understand that they have a very different system. They have a president who sits atop, and then they have a parliament, who is elected, which is elected after the president is chosen. And it is not unusual for the president to be of a different party to the government. As in the US. Correct. Yeah. So he basically... I think he had a number in his head. I think he thought if the... if the national front, the RN, Le Penzlot, if they go above such and such a threshold, probably would have been 40 % then too risky.

40:09Yeah. Okay. If he goes below 1820, we've got to call it on. Because otherwise he can't govern. He won't be able to get anything through the national assembly. Now... He won't get any attention because the numbers don't work from at the moment? Because at the moment the numbers aren't working. And because as they bring it, let's imagine a budget, when they do the budget, let's imagine that he loses a few votes, entirely possible. And I think that's what they're thinking that they were losing control of the national assembly already. I think the risk of the whole thing, a risk is huge. The risk is huge because at least at the moment he's just about able to operate with the national assembly.

40:47The risk is he's going to come out and lose the whole thing. And Bramie, he's going into election where his main opponent has just got more than doubled the number of votes. No, I agree. How on earth does he think that this is the time to call an election? Well, I know there are a lot of people, including in his own team and government, who have been thinking... Including Prime Minister. Who are thinking that? Prime Minister's on the record saying he's lost the plot. Well, virtually. He's either with these out words. I'm trying to explain why I think he's doing it. So I think he knows his own party is going to lose seats.

41:22He knows that La Penz's party are going to gain seats. I think he thinks two things. One, having a domestic election where the turnout is normally about 25 % higher than it's been for this European election means that more of the people who stayed away will come to him. That's a risk. Okay, but that's I think part of the thinking. Second part of the thinking is that some of the arguments that he tried to get into the European elections about Ukraine, about La Pen and Putin, about the environment, about the future of Europe, about the economy, he thinks in a domestic election you'll be able to get those arguments.

41:59Go into the challenge. He's only got three weeks to do it. If he failed to land it yesterday, he has to go to the next three weeks time. Because I think what he did yesterday in a way is the opposite. Fierde said this last time with the news, always the opposite of the Ming -Var strategy. He's basically saying, I'm going to confront the country with this and I'm going to do it. This is bold. But I think he then wants to force the other parties to do one of two things. Either if the national front do get to a position where they form a government, that puts them on the spot running up to the next presidential elections.

42:33And if you go back to this back in 97, I think it was. Well, you first in power, you had this and it's a very different thing, but there are similarities. Sheerach president, Jossman became the prime minister with different parties, Kaua -Bita -Sion. And Jossman being prime minister was thought that will be the perfect setting for him then to become the president. He got wiped out. So put them into government, show they can't do it. Yeah. Or the other thing. That's very risky. It's a risk. It's a risk. Or the other thing that he forces the other parties to do a serious coalition with him. The risk of...

43:08You're not listening to that. Well, I'm listening to it, but what I'm what's worrying me about your strategy is... It's not my strategy. You seem to be endorsing a strategy that has two totally different outcomes. I mean, is the idea to put them in office because they can't perform in office? No, that's the idea. No, that's possible consequence. I say what he thinks. What he thinks. It sounds a bit muddled. I mean, we're in some way. We're in some way. I've had this brilliant idea because either, you know, I'm going to put them in office and that's going to be terrible for them. Or I'm not going to put them in office and that's going to be terrible for them.

43:37I mean, they're not in office now. Why is that not terrible for them? Well, because the reason that's damaging to him, though, and the French body politic, is that they've been able to operate always a bit like Farage here, just as a sort of, you know, campaign group. Whereas this is actually saying, okay, country, do you really want these people in government now? Now, but what we've seen with Trump is that even when these people in government actually we see it with Maloney, you have one of two possibilities. There's the Trump scenario, which is that they get into government. Govern very badly, but a lot of their supporters don't care.

44:09Yeah. Or you have the Maloney scenario where they come into government and they turn out to perform much better than you anticipated. Yeah, and you're wiped out. Yeah, yeah. And that is that look, I'm not, Delaide, it's a huge risk. I know, she's not bad because we're three weeks out, but I'm going to go on the record confidently saying this is going to go down as a catastrophic decision. Okay. And in three and a half weeks time, we're going to look at Macron's thinking. What's it? So maybe it's going to be exactly like Rishi Sunak and Homsiasov. It's young men being macho thinking I'm going to take a big risk.

44:42I'm going to jump off the cruise ship and it never ends well. Do you say, are you saying that you think Jordan, by Dela, this young handsome 28 year old will be prime minister within a month? Because that's the outcome. Otherwise, it'll be a coalition involving possibly the left, possibly the greens, possibly a Larry Public Amber. They didn't do very well. So I think he's basically, he's great. Larry Public House also said they won't go into coast from Macron. I think what he's doing is basically is breaking the vase, but he's hopeful that he will be have more flexibility in where to put the glue after it's fallen on the floor.

45:22Brilliant. Brilliant. Thank you. There we are. So in Israel, Benigantz, who is a very senior former general, who was not part of Netanyahu's coalition, but who joined after the October 7th attack to show a sense of national unity, has resigned along with Gadi Eisenkart, another very senior general, from this war cabinet to arrangement. He'd set a deadline. He'd said that unless Netanyahu came up with a sensible strategy, both for the war, and for the post -conflict reconstruction, he was going to be out. He was going to be out beginning June. He delayed it because he was aware that there was this huge hostage rescue operation about a take place.

46:13And he's now announced that he's leaving. And taken with him, Eisenkart, who was not a full member of the war cabinet, but was attended it. So I think we said at the time when he threatened to resign in the past that it wouldn't be as devastating as Netanyahu losing the Ben Gaviour and Smotrich, the two figures on the hard right. But Benigantz is a very, very, very significant figure in Israel. Yeah. And a military background, he was there in part because he's pretty well respected across the spectrum. So even though it doesn't topple Netanyahu, it's another very, very big break -taking out of the war.

46:52Yeah, I mean, the math still works for Netanyahu. He's still got 64 out of 120 seats in the after -gum. But he is very, very unpopular. Everybody's waiting for him to troke an election. Benigantz and Gavi Eisenkart are these two very senior Israeli generals who were brought in after October 7th to provide a bit of military balance and a bit of cross -party agreement. Around the war council, Benigantz represents, I suppose, a sort of broadly center -centred right party called Blue and White, which in the old days of 1990s, Israeli politics would have been seen as quite right wing. But in the current way, that has already been reorganized, now seems more concentrist left.

47:36You shouldn't, if you're looking at Israel from the point of view of this conflict, on the one hand, Benigantz is breaking when Netanyahu, by saying he thinks that this strategy doesn't work, that it's not returning the hostages. He is supposed to have played, although, you know, we're not in the inside of this, but the story is he played a very important part in stopping Smotritch and Ben Gaviere pushing Netanyahu to invade South Lebanon. And this remains a big, big story because there are extremist parts of the Israeli government who believe that the biggest threat to Israel is not Hamas, but it's Hisbalah, which is a Serenian back group in South Lebanon, still think Israel should be invading South Lebanon.

48:20Benigantz, apparently, was the voice that counts against that. On the other hand, he seems to have supported the attacks on Raffa, which was breaking with Biden's red lines. When the hostages were released here the day, so four hostages released, still lots left and an assumption that quite a few of them are dead. And sort of this outpouring of kind of euphoria across Israel and these shots of Netanyahu meeting the hostages and their families and hugging them and singing and dancing and all that stuff. And the footage of the death and mayhem that was caused in the pursuit of getting those hostages out was just, I mean, it's horrible as anything I've seen during the high, during the entire thing.

49:07I mean, it was utterly horrific. So, and I know you can't play a numbers game, but four hostages, 274 people dead, according to the elder ministry. The hostages, it's you really reunify Israeli public opinion because the fracture and Israeli politics has been often about the hostages and some of the strongest critics in Netanyahu have been the hostages families and people trying to get the hostages back and the biggest criticism of Netanyahu's military strategy has been it's not bringing back the hostages. So, getting those hostages back will have been a big, big boom. I think it's also a reminder of Hamas and what they did, their brutality, their mass because in the fact that they are still keeping all these hostages.

49:57It's also pushing against what Joe Biden was trying to do because the basis of this plan that Biden announced, which he said wasn't Israeli plan, which had been negotiated in Paris with the head of Israeli intelligence, was about the returning of the women and the elderly in return for Israel's ceasing operations and raffer followed by the return of all the hostages combined with the total withdrawal and then reconstruction. So, this is Netanyahu's signaling, he's not going that, he's going to go after the military means. A few years ago, I did some work with the Israeli Labour Party when the leader was Isaac Herzog, who was the current president.

50:38And I was talking yesterday to somebody who I worked with during that period, who I think has kind of had a bit of a fallout with a whole lot of them. But he was saying that he thinks the entire momentum now is towards an election. So, on the one hand, people, yes, are desperate to get all the hostages out, desperate for this war to end, desperate for Hamas to be defeated. But there is a very, very, very large momentum, including people who have worked with Netanyahu in the past. Now, I actually just want to drive this as fast as they can to an election. And I think that's part of Gantz's thinking.

51:15I guess the danger moment for Netanyahu comes whenever these forces on the right feel that they're in a strong position, as opposed to I don't know where they feel right now. So, I think that although Gantz's move is not fatal, I think it's I think it's very, very undermining of Netanyahu. So, Alistair, we had the privilege of Intuying Ehud Alment, the previous Israeli Prime Minister, who was almost the last stage of an attempt to put together a two -stage solution and a peace process that collapsed when his political career blew up. I thought he was such an interesting guide. I mean, if people have a chance, maybe to listen to our interview, as a way of trying to hear a very thoughtful, highly experienced Israeli politician who started on the same party as Netanyahu, who came from the Israeli right, trying to work his way through these options and the moral choices involved.

52:12I thought that was a really, really powerful voice. So, that's it for today. This is going out on Tuesday morning. I think we're going to be doing another live podcast on Wednesday after the next TV debate between the leaders. And we've also got a few interviews already in the bag, both the main parties. I know you don't want to interview Nigel Farage -Rorri, but I've got a bid in to him as well. I think we can't ignore him even though we might want to. And that seems a little critical, I don't know. And I think the manifesto one, listen, I'm really looking forward to that, because that is the chance for us to do what we keep talking about, which is be serious about policy.

52:54So, to find out when we're doing live streams, emergency pods and all the rest of it, just go to our social media and it'll be there. And look forward to seeing a great deal of you this week as we come in again and again following the ins and outs of this election and politics worldwide. Well, I and isn't it marvellous for me after the fallout of European elections? I am just by an amazing coincidence going to be in Germany on Friday. No. Absolutely, yeah. Well, come back and tell us about whether it will really feel like a defeat of the AFD or whether they're feeling a bit sort of... I think I'm more concerned about whether it will be defeat of Scotland, but yeah, okay, we'll do it.

53:32Goodbye. Bye -bye.