278. Question Time: How reliable are the polls?

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1:05Welcome to The Rest Is Politics. Question time with Miror is shared. I'm Mr Campbell. I'm already the first question that allows us to talk about our splendid interview with the former cabinet secretary, Goss O'Donnell, which is the latest episode of leading. It's what even my months have got GOD jobs. GOD. So notes to TB Tony Blair, CCJH, Jeremy Haywood, J. Poe, Jonathan Powell, and it will say, God, that's so dull. Any other question from Ben Reed? What happens behind the scenes when there is a change of government, change of prime minister? Presumably there are a lot of operational things that need to be handed over to the new PM.

1:43How does this happen? Does the outgoing PM have any involvement? Or is it entirely civil service and security service led? How long does it take? So there's something called the access talks. This is something that GOD Goss O'Donnell talks about. In our leading interview, which people can listen to now? Yeah. So basically the existing prime minister gives permission for the civil service to talk to the opposition parties. Now, obviously there's only one opposition party that might take over, but they do actually go through the same process with the Lib Dems and other civil parties. And it's been going on for months and my memory of this is the civil servants will have been preparing huge contingency plans.

2:16They'll be going through the Labour manifesto over the fine tooth came. And they'll be trying to guess what the new Labour administration will want and they want. So the civil servants will turn up with briefing files. They'll get them. And so the minister, maybe someone, we're assuming Bridget Phillipson will be the education secretary where the health secretary, that'll be their assumptions. But that might not inevitably happen. They might decide to bring someone else. And was there anybody who was a shadow minister in 97 who didn't become a real secretary of state? Oh, I can't, I honestly can't remember.

2:46I bet the were there. I'm not sure the were because the other thing is even if even in the landslide you sometimes get free results. So for example, in this election, there is a lot of talk about whether the one of the seats the Greens might pick up is Thangham, Debenerci, which then means, and I hope Thangham wins because I think it's terrific and it'd be great to have a culture secretary really gets culture. But let's say that happened, then one of the first things he has to do is to find a new culture secretary well, that might be an existing cabinet member who moves into that position. Then there's another gap somewhere else and all of a sudden he's playing jokes.

3:17And then the poor civil servants are turning up and they've prepared a briefing assuming it's Thangham, Debener. And then suddenly somebody else comes then and they've got to come up. Well, just on that, for example, at the Treasury at the moment, so if Rachel Reeves becomes a chancellor she'll be the first female chancellor. Well, I have been in the chancellor's lavatory. And there is a stand -up urinal in there. I mean, not to get too sort of delicate about it. So if you have a female chancellor, do you want to change that? And then you have this thing I said I don't talk about, which is simply things like office spaces and accommodation.

3:49So if you've got a young family, sometimes people choose the premises. Which both of the current contenders do? Yeah, and are we right? Was it Tony Blair chose to go into the apartment above number 11 the chancellor's office? Because that's slightly more comfortable for me. Figure, yeah. And so the flat above number 10 is smaller than the flat above number 11 and 12. So Tony moved into the bigger flat. Gordon had the smaller flat. Alistair Darling moved into the smaller one because by then his kids were at university. And then one of the things the ministers get to do is choose where they're offices.

4:22And I remember this because I remember Justin Greening who'd been the sector's state in the Department of Frantational Development. She'd been in a council and she had a pretty pure technical view of the world had placed herself in a tiny little box up in the attic, surrounded by an open plan office. And I suggested a pretty patell when she came in that she needed a bigger office. And sure enough, she came in and took over what had been a place trying, probably 20, 30, 7, 7s. Michael Heseltine, famous, said, my office isn't big enough. And the response from his parents actually was to take the biggest meeting room in the place and try to turn it into Michael Heseltine's office so he could have an office being a, Michael had some many, many virtues but great modesty and humility not so.

5:08Yes, anyway, there'll be lots of changes. And of course, the other thing that I got some very interesting traffic over the weekend about the extent to which within some departments in particular, the treasury being one of them, there has been quite a lot of politicisation of staffs. You'll find quite a lot of Sunak people who are there as civil servants. Remember I got quite angry recently when the treasury press office were tweeting out of stuff which I felt was straight forward Tory party propaganda? I discovered the other day, Roy, the head of the government car service is a former Tory MP.

5:41Yes, yes, this is one of the things that's going on in the background as well that all these parties, the way the whips and force discipline is with these patronage things, that the biggest patronage used to be allowing people to be on select committees. So the Foreign Affairs Committee was a great option to get travel around the world. That was taken away from them, democratic change. Now these people are elective. Whips have lost their power. So they've only got two things left. They've got things like giving someone a job in the government car service which these very few jobs. And again, in the 70s, when we had nationalised industries, you could push your MPs into run, British steel, British rail, British telecom.

6:14They were all full of kind of ex -labour and Tory MPs. That's all gone away now because of privatisation. So they've got these niche things. All they've got are House of Lords which is why you cannot expect actually Starma to get rid of pointed House of Lords because it's the way that he's going to be running. Yeah, but one of the first things you'll have to do is to point hundreds of peers to get majority of the House of Lords. Of course, I'm presumably soon at will have a resignation on his list. Those resignation on his list should just be got rid of. Absolutely outrageous. Now here's one, future the Tory party.

6:43Adam Punca. Many people are discussing what happens with the Conservative Party if they lose the election. But what about the right -wing press? I know Alistair says they will go down with the Conservatives but is the Reposibility? They just lurch further to the right too. Let's talk about the party first, the Tory party first and then the press. I did it when I was at Sky on Sunday. I don't read the papers to go on. I say you've come armed with lots of newspapers. I just don't bother anymore. But on Sunday before I did Sky, I was in there. All the papers lying around. So there was the front page of the mail.

7:11Sunack Warns. Starma will ruin Britain in 100 days. Front page of the Sunday Express. Sunack Warns. Starma will ruin Britain in first -hundred days. Telegraph. As soon as Warns, Starma will bankrupt Britain. The Sun the same. I mean, it is amazingly simple. But they're just part of the press office. Step back for a second. Yeah, explain that. So if you wanted to achieve that when you were Labour's Director of Communications, what has actually happened there? Presumably there are people high -fiving inside the Conservative press office. So just talk us through. They will have come up with an idea that they will have pulled it or focus grouped it.

7:45I don't know if they want that. The Sunday newspapers before the election. They're not as important as they were, but they think they're unbelievably important. And partly because they used to be very important. Absolutely. And they're desperate. They're desperate for a lie. So in 97, there were far more people reading those newspapers. You know, we've talked about the fact that the evening standard since this 2019's gone from nearly a million readers down to 200 ,000 and just five years. So these papers, you know, as you say, I'm the last person in Britain actually reading the newspapers. I mean, they're kind of hemorrhaging readers.

8:14But let's take that. Assume they've got it in their head partly because they're all trying to copy you that they've got to get the headlines on the Sunday papers. How do they achieve that? What's the mechanism of getting those headlines? I think with this one, it's in normally what they would say is, well, yeah, we'll use that line. If you're coming from central office, say. So central office has come up with an idea. They basically said our line to give to the Sunday newspapers is to say, soon after making a speech tomorrow, where he will warn, Starmer will bankrupt Britain in a hundred days.

8:43And is that speech partly designed around those newspapers? Yeah, I don't even know if he made the speech. But that's potentially the hook for the newspaper. Absolutely. Speech is coming. Rushi Soonak will tomorrow warn. Will today warn. They then get on and they probably indicate to those papers dishonestly that they're only giving that line to them. So exclusive as to you. Yeah. So for example, the Sunday Express ran it as an exclusive. Soon after warn, Labour will bankrupt Britain a hundred days. And of course, it was in all the other papers. I just think for a Labour person, it's much, much harder because the only paper that the Labour people can really rely on, you know, take their line is the mirror.

9:22The Guardian, the Observer, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't like to be seen to be too close. So the mirror is the only the only one you've got. Whereas the right wing, the Tories have half a dozen of papers. And how Sena Closon, is it literally that the head of the Tory press office rings the editor of the mail on Sunday and says, this is the line we want you to take like the Bulgarian Communist Party. There'll be a little bit of that. So it's a little bit more subtle. How do you have the conversation a way that doesn't actually put their back up? You probably have the conversation by understanding how desperate the political editor is to get a decent line that they know will work well with the editors or already been talking to the leader a couple of times a week.

9:58So Rushi Soonak remains in regular content with the editors. You may be. I'd have thought so. Yeah. So for example, whenever we made a big speech, a really big speech that you really wanted to land. If you had half a hour in the back of a car coming back or going to the event, you might say, let's have five minutes on the phone with a mirror fight, but we're only blowing the car. With the editor, not the police class. With the editor, yeah. Yeah. And sometimes the owner. Yeah. So like for example, if you notice that so the Sunday times came up for labor at the weekend. And that's Rupert Murdoch.

10:27Well, that is Rupert Murdoch. Will the times do the same? Will the sun do the same? I doubt it. I think even if they do, it will make no difference to how they cover a relationship. Sure. But the ownership matters because Murdoch appoints the editors. So he does have some control over directions. Well, I mean, whether it I don't know, people sort of have varied views about the extent to which Rupert Murdoch is still engaged. Right. But certainly in our day. Yeah. In our day. Yeah. Rupert Murdoch frankly told them what to do. No doubt about that at all. And so we, yeah, we did manage that relationship.

10:56And you know, and we got a lot of flight for it. But I think it was, I do think it becomes so much less important. I was at an event yesterday with lots of young people asking them what newspapers they read. They looked at me like I was asking them whether they spoke so easily. I mean, like they, they just don't. They get everything online. Of course, and TikTok has become such a big thing in terms of their digital culture. This is something that's relevant for the, the US election. And we've got a question that's come in here saying, Duncan Salkeld, what is the argument for Biden staying on? And I've been barrage with arguments for Biden staying on partly because you and I have said that he should step down.

11:30And one of those arguments relates to what you've just been saying, which is many people are saying only one in six Americans watched the debate. Almost everybody is getting their news from clips. Yeah. Now, I'm not sure that helps the argument for Biden staying on because that just makes me think you're even more likely to get a clip of Biden being completely incoherent and hopeless. And it actually makes a situation worse. What are the other arguments from staying on? Well, the fundamental experience, and fundamentally, they think that it's more risky to try to find another candidate with all the chaos of the Democratic Party.

12:04You're less likely to be Trump going through a painful six -month process, stick with the devil that you know. And then they have this other line, which I think is quite undemocratic that we talked about a little bit in the last podcast, which is he's got a great team around him. But I think that is undemocratic because to say we're asking you to vote for somebody who isn't really up to doing this for another four years. And he obviously isn't up to doing it for another four years because he's going to have a great team. It's an unelected team, isn't it? Okay, Rory, lots of more questions. Let's take a quick break.

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14:34Why do you invite him? And we are out of time. Are you really cutting me off? Uncrustables are the best part of the sandwich. Sorry, Crust.

14:49Here's our Nicola Morgan. How does the USA with all its extensive resources and education and talent have a political system that ends up with such inadequate leaders? At least soon, our customers are suitable candidates, even though some are disappointed by them. They can at least give the job a good go. I mean, that is a question that a lot of people ask around the world, isn't it? How, I mean, you hear it everywhere. How did this country that's so amazing? Has so many amazing people that this is the choice? And I guess it is because of what politics has become. First of all, you have to be able to generate literally billions of dollars in fundraising.

15:23Now, that's a big ask for most people. You have to be able to tolerate unbelievable pressure, unbelievable digging into everything you've ever done in your life. You have to be able to make really, really big decisions. And you remember when we interviewed Tucker Eskieu for leading? He was the Republican strategist we talked to a while back. And he said, you've got to have something a bit weird going on up top that you think you can do that. So not many people actually think in reality that they can be president. We also don't focus enough on just the mechanics and structures. So part of the answer is that the conservatives traditionally in Britain, large, you generated their leaders from the views of the MPs who sat alongside them knew them.

16:06And that is more likely, if you ask the MPs to produce a sort of Rishi Sunak figure. In fact, one of the problems the conservative parties and reason we got Boris Johnson and Liz Truss is that when you start reaching out to the conservative party members, they don't know these candidates so well. They're more likely to go for these kind of slightly boisterous perfunished Boris Johnson's efforts. Labour party had a bit of a problem, which is that a lot of our people we liked in the Labour party thought Jeremy Corbyn was a problem. The MPs, but they couldn't get rid of him because the structures the Labour party allowed that get to America.

16:36It becomes much, much more difficult. You'll hear in a lot of the commentary people saying the Democratic party is getting behind Biden or the Democratic party will only accept Kamala Harris, a small tangent. But of course it isn't the Democratic party. That doesn't mean the Democratic senators or Congress people, nor does it mean the general public, millions of people who support the Democrats and the primaries. What it means is these very, very mysterious groups, the Democratic National Convention or the D -Triple C, it's to do with donors, it's to do with money. And then you get into very, very strange worlds of ideology, which is how somebody comes through, can end up with a very, very weird result, and getting rid of someone becomes very difficult.

17:15And in a way, Britain, with its, in a vertical, with less democratic system, where in the conservative case, the MPs have much more sayover who becomes leader than the general public, can often produce a more moderate result than the US with all its apparent more democratic openness. Now, there's a question here from Queen Mary University about universities. The crisis in universities is one of six problems that Sue Gray identified for Labour to tackle with urgency. I think this was a note that sort of emerged where she was talking about the big policy challenges. Yet it has not been part of any election discussion.

17:47We know why, but could you reflect on whether you think this deflection of what needs to be done is healthy for the democracy? Well, no, it's not. If you think about the big issues that have not been debated, one of them is Brexit, we've talked about that before. But the other thing, you will know, and I keep hearing from people inside the prison satire that we're very, very close to real problems within our prisons because of overcrowding, summer coming up, et cetera. That's barely been debated. I think the mental health has barely been debated in this election. So we've had a long campaign for us six weeks is a long time, but the have been big issues that haven't been on the agenda.

18:22And universities, I mean, an incoming government is going to have a really, really big challenge on its hands. Almost every sector that she talked to and universities are really good example. See extreme crises, which have many, many different factors. This is part of the problem for the incoming government. So what are the problems in universities? It's partly about funding. It's partly about tuition fees. It's partly about visas. And the number of foreign students coming in to keep these things going. It's partly about the courses they're offering. But equally, NHS fixing that is unbelievably difficult.

18:55You know, we keep 165 million GP appointments a year. Trains. I mean, all of us are struggling with national infrastructure. Somebody's really got us. I mean, some of my mother would say, I'll vote for any party that just makes things work. Nothing works in this country. I mean, he's through. It's just got a completely unmanageable. I got, you know, as you can imagine, like everyone else, suddenly find myself stuck abandoned because they're sure of everything. I was trying to talk to them about how do you sort out the problems that he throw turns out that the problems are everywhere. They don't have enough people to man the planes.

19:35They don't have enough planes. They don't have enough maintenance staff. They don't have enough catering people. They don't have enough baggage handlers. Have enough anything. And then we get to the bigger things, which is where's the money coming from? If you're not going to borrow the money and not going to raise taxes. I really want to challenge you. So I had a scratchy half hour with Andrew Neil yesterday, where he kept saying but Britain's got the largest tax burden ever on record. And as we discussed last week, this is really unhelpful, really misleading. In fact, Britain doesn't have a very high tax burden compared to many other countries.

20:06And actually taxes for median incomes have been reduced in so far as there are high taxes, actually, on higher income taxpayers and it's on corporation. There's a lot of space actually to raise tax. But none of this stuff is being discussed. And if labor would come in and just say we're going to make things work, I think my mother's right. They'd get a huge number of rates. But it would cost money. Some of this big infrastructure stuff is going to cost money. What I think will happen, and you and I both spoke a conference a few weeks ago, this related to the housing sector, but you do have a sense of a private sector that really does want to work with the government to try and get the economy going again.

20:42So there will be a lot of investment, I think, on the back of change. Maybe this one to close off before we head off and prepare for our all -nighter with Channel 4. Michael Cross should polls be banned once a general election is called, and essay would. I'm slightly wary of polls because I've never been polled. Where are polls taken and how do I know they represent me? I do feel that maybe because the result has been seen as a full gone conclusion, which as you know, I don't think it is. But because of that, I do feel that the polls have been getting way too much share of the debate. You know, we've done polls and we've talked about it.

21:17We've tried to do it in perspective. But actually, when you see the polls leading the coverage of the election, I think that's a bad thing. And now you've spoken about this. You've spoken about the fact that in France, polls dominate everything. There's polls every day from huge numbers to come. It's such a pretty accurate in France. They did pretty well from then predicting the results. In India, polls have banned throughout the entire very, very long, luncheon campaign because they see them as influencing. As you say, if Labour doesn't end up with a really big majority, the number one reason for that will be the polls.

21:47The number one reason will be that the polls suggest that the Labour so couples and it affects the polls can really make a huge difference. So banning polls in the election is an interesting idea. And it takes us back to something that you've been chipping away out. We've both been chipping away out for a long time. There's huge opportunity without spending money for Labour to bring some very fundamental reforms into the way that politics works. You could ban polls. You could do what you've pointed to. They're doing the Welsh assembly, which is to demand that people retract statements that are not true.