In short
The hosts react to UK local election results (England, Scotland, Wales) and what they imply for Keir Starmer and Labour, arguing that Reform’s surge is being driven by media/campaign finance structures and that Labour’s messaging has failed to win the centre.
Guests (backgrounds)
Rory Stewart (former UK MP; political commentator) and Alastair Campbell (Labour strategist/communications figure; former adviser to Tony Blair).
Key claims
- Reform’s vote share is strong but not majority: turnout is higher, yet only about one in four of voters are “natural” Reform voters; one in three to four did not vote Reform.
- Farage may be “next PM” in narrative terms, but local results don’t prove national victory.
- Labour’s losses are amplified by many more Labour seats being contested this time; Scotland looks bad for Labour and Wales likely worse.
- Farage benefits from money, media-friendly coverage, and relentless attacks that hit Zach Polanski more than Farage.
- Starmer is likened to “Joe Biden”: staying put despite damage, with leadership change unlikely because of fear of alternatives.
Notable examples
- Wales: Labour “historically safest” seat shows Labour third behind Plaid and Reform; Plaid vs Reform neck-and-neck.
- Scotland: SNP likely win; John Curtice suggests SNP may fall short of a majority; Reform could be second.
- Farage: £5m donation from Chris Harbourn (Thailand crypto billionaire) and Reform’s London tube wraparound advertising.
- Polanski: Times reports on council tax non-payment on a canal boat and a disputed CV claim.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOLocal Elections Overview
1:13 to 2:09
Discussion on the implications of the recent local elections in England, Scotland, and Wales.
“Visit FuseEnergy.com for full details and terms and conditions.”
Election Results Analysis
2:09 to 3:08
Analyzing the election results and what they mean for the Labour Party and other parties.
“And it was very neck and neck between Plaid and reform.”
Reform Party Dynamics
3:08 to 4:08
Exploration of the Reform Party's performance and its implications for UK politics.
“Yeah, I think Labour doing better would mean probably gaining some seats and certainly not falling behind reform, which we'll see.”
Right-Wing Party Trends
4:08 to 4:59
Discussion on the trends of right-wing parties in Europe and their influence in the UK.
“Yeah, but I think if you look at the polls and if you look at the expectations that they were trying to create, I'm not quite sure that they've hit the mark.”
Media Influence on Elections
4:59 to 6:00
Examining the role of media and campaign financing in shaping electoral outcomes.
“There was some very odd reporting over the weekend that Nigel Farage was not doing your famous Ken Baker trick of setting expectations very low.”
Farage and Media Dynamics
6:00 to 7:10
Analyzing Nigel Farage's impact and media portrayal during the elections.
“through, this is like a big opinion poll on Keir Starmer, we'll come on to that.”
Labour's Challenges Ahead
7:10 to 9:50
Discussing the challenges the Labour Party faces post-elections and strategies for improvement.
“And this is Chris Harbourn, based in Thailand.”
Reflections on Leadership Accountability
9:50 to 14:02
Reflection on how electoral outcomes affect perceptions of political leadership.
“But effective government has to be about seeing in advance the sort of changes that actually might be to the benefit of the country.”
Impact of Local Election Losses on Labour
14:02 to 15:00
Explores the emotional and political fallout from Labour's local election defeats.
“So today we'll be feeling really, really bad for a lot of people.”
The Blame Game: Leadership Accountability
15:00 to 16:10
Discusses the tendency to blame party leaders for electoral losses and its implications.
“So then that is inevitably giving rise to the question about whether Keir Starmer stays or goes.”
Show all 35 chapters
Keir Starmer's Leadership Challenges
16:10 to 17:45
Analyzes the potential challenges and perceptions surrounding Keir Starmer's leadership.
“And then you add to that, that we were saying shortly after Starmer was elected, that Labour looked like it was in with a good chance in Scotland.”
Hope vs. Reality: Strategies for Labour
17:45 to 19:41
Considers the strategic options Labour has moving forward amidst leadership doubts.
“Because I think that he can't be enjoying this.”
Evaluating Alternatives to Starmer
19:41 to 21:15
Debates the potential candidates who could succeed Keir Starmer and their prospects.
“Let's just see who's got the talent and who sounds more like Prime Minister, I think give him a chance.”
The Risk of Inaction: Lessons from the Tories
21:15 to 22:47
Draws parallels between Labour's situation and past Tory leadership changes, exploring risks.
“Seems to me that the objective that needs to be set out and understood is to do a hell of a good job governing Britain for the next three years.”
Public Sentiment and Political Longevity
22:47 to 24:28
Examines how public perception affects political leadership stability and choices.
“a great communicating, strategic, big thinking prime minister.”
Strategic Communication in Leadership
24:28 to 26:25
Discusses the importance and challenges of effective communication in political leadership.
“Now, so what I'm saying is the only possible means of getting to what you're saying, I think, is if Keir Starmer actually looks deep into the soul and says, maybe I was good for that, but I'm not as good for this.”
Labour's Narrative and Future Direction
26:25 to 28:00
Analyzes Labour's narrative shortcomings and the potential consequences for its future.
“And the second thing, which is the boss himself doesn't want to go, which is why I call the Joe Biden problem.”
Labour's Narrative Challenges
28:00 to 29:19
Exploring Labour's policy weaknesses and the lack of a compelling narrative.
“And what has he actually done in policy terms?”
Voter Dynamics and Local Elections
29:20 to 31:37
Analyzing voter behavior in relation to local election results and party appeal.
“were very excited by Labour before the election, thought the Tories, particularly under Liz Trust, had blown their credibility on the economy.”
Labour's Missed Opportunities
31:38 to 32:58
Identifying areas where Labour failed to capitalize on voter sentiment post-election.
“So one classic example, which I think confirms this point that Labour's missed a whole trick and the center ground is what's happened with Westminster Council.”
Public Perception of Leadership
32:59 to 34:10
Discussing public perceptions of political leaders and their electoral implications.
“See, this is the other thing which I think, the other element of all of this since the election, let's go back to the election.”
Farage and the Conservative Influence
34:11 to 36:28
Examining Nigel Farage's role in shaping political dynamics and the Conservative Party.
“Listen, we had some lots of feedback, but one interesting one, which I think - Oh yeah, yeah.”
Election Campaign Strategies
36:29 to 37:58
Evaluating the impact of election strategies on voter decisions and party standings.
“friend David Gork, who just got a knighthood.”
Brexit's Legacy on Politics
37:59 to 39:59
Discussing the ongoing impact of Brexit on the current political landscape.
“let's just take the£5 million thing, the donation.”
Media Bias in Political Coverage
40:00 to 42:00
Analyzing media representation of political figures and its effects on public perception.
“is not the same as them being a sort of radical reforming prime minister who's going to improve the country.”
The Legacy of Starmer and Political Risks
42:00 to 42:31
Discusses Keir Starmer's potential legacy and the dangers of political missteps.
“So this is, again, the Biden critique, right?”
Coalition Against Reform?
42:31 to 43:55
Explores whether Labour, Greens, and Tories should unite against reform policies.
“Here's another question for you from Hester.”
The Lib Dem Conundrum
43:55 to 45:59
Analyzes the Liberal Democrats' recent performance and challenges in politics.
“I guess because, I'm sorry to keep banging on about the media, I think we've got a trivial media.”
Discontent with Starmer
47:18 to 49:56
Discusses public discontent with Keir Starmer based on local canvassing reports.
“On the doorsteps, Labour canvassers reportedly encounter a visceral dislike of Keir Starmer.”
Burnley: A Case Study
49:56 to 51:55
Examines the socio-economic conditions in Burnley and its electoral implications.
“Well, I don't know whether this is one of the – if they've lost every seat, I don't know whether this is one with just the third going or the whole council.”
Understanding Reform's Appeal
51:55 to 56:04
Explores how the Reform Party connects with voters and critiques Labour's strategy.
“spot define for me the four key elements of Labour's growth strategy?”
Understanding Political Strategy
56:04 to 56:31
Hosts discuss the necessity of addressing the realities of billionaires in politics.
The Need for New Leadership
56:31 to 57:08
A conversation about the need for effective leadership in the Labour party and beyond.
“Let's hope they demonstrate on growth, on immigration, on AI, on values, because probably the best way to defeat Faraj is not just being slicker with the communication, but actually improving people's lives.”
Cabinet Performance and Internal Battles
57:08 to 58:22
Discussions about the effectiveness of the current cabinet members and their priorities.
“And I'm not looking at Ernie Bevan and Nye Bevan and being like, whoa, these guys.”
Upcoming Interviews and Insights
58:22 to 58:48
Preview of the upcoming interview with Angela Rayner and insights on relevant topics.
“because i i think i think sometimes yeah it's obvious and i think hmm yeah i think through the possible consequences.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Thanks for listening to The Rest is Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to therestispolitics.com. That's therestispolitics.com.
0:14Rory Stewart:This episode is brought to you by Fuse Energy. Energy policy rarely stays in Westminster for long, usually arrives with a bill. And from the 1st of April, 75 % of renewables' obligation costs will come off electricity bills and move into general taxation. So if bills are meant to fall from April, why would anyone bother switching? Because policy sets the floor. The saving itself is automatic. What suppliers offer beyond that isn't, and that's where real competition operates. Fuse goes beyond the mandated saving. Customers who switch save around an additional£200 on average. In the Fuse Energy app, you can see exactly what you're using and what it costs with 24-7 support if you need it.
1:00Listeners to the show will also receive a free TripPlus subscription when they switch. Get more than just lower rates. Switch today at FuseEnergy.com slash politics using the code politics and save around£200 on your bills.
1:13Rory Stewart:Visit FuseEnergy.com for full details and terms and conditions.
1:43Rory Stewart:Could be a huge change for the way the British electoral system works. Yeah, we've got a new system, very new system in Scotland and Wales. And I guess we're recording this, we're doing this at one o 'clock on the day after the vote. And the main focus so far has been elections in England. Wales, I am reliably informed by Labour people in Wales, is going to be a disaster for Wales. I was talking to somebody who was in at the count at one of Labour's historically safest seats ever, who said that they were going through the boxes and in every single one of them, Labour was coming third behind Plaid and reform.
2:23And it was very neck and neck between Plaid and reform. In Scotland, I think the SNP are going to win. The question will be whether they get a majority. Some sort of optimists in the Labour camp are saying it's going to be slightly better than we expected. We shall see.
2:39Rory Stewart:And slightly better, I guess, is that John Curtis was looking famous for John Curtis, the great pollster, seemed to be suggesting that his polls were thinking SMP will do very well in Scotland, but they won't quite get a majority, which won't be enough for them to push for a referendum on independence. But he thought it's possible reform could come second, and Labour and Conservatives neck on neck on about 17 seats. So doing better presumably would mean Labour coming second rather than equal third. Yeah, I think Labour doing better would mean probably gaining some seats and certainly not falling behind reform, which we'll see.
3:14And then the votes in England, again, complicated because the places where the Greens and the Lib Dems might expect to do a bit better, many of them still to declare. So the overnight headlines were very much about what the BBC seemed to delight in calling the reform surge. and they're looking to be around about one in four of those who voted voting reform i actually think for those who i suspect most of our viewers and listeners are kind of not necessarily natural reform voters we do have some but not that many i think to those who are not there is quite a lot of comfort to be taken in that because the turnout is higher than usual but still less than half but it means that one in three out of four did not vote for reform.
4:04This vote does not say to me that Nigel Farage is the next Prime Minister.
4:08Rory Stewart:The one in four is interesting also because broadly across Europe, the parties on the right, so parties like the AFD in Germany, Le Pen, I mean further right than the conventional right-wing parties tend to be getting between 20 and 30 percent, don't they? And at the moment, of course, people like me who are very disturbed by the rise of the AFD in Germany, very disturbed by Fraser Nelson reporting that Robert Jenrick was talking about essentially tracking down and getting rid of 2 million people from Britain, presumably predominantly Muslims who reform don't like, take comfort in the fact that they're getting 25-30 % of the vote, that they're not the majority of the vote.
4:49Yeah, but I think if you look at the polls and if you look at the expectations that they were trying to create, I'm not quite sure that they've hit the mark. Look, I'm not getting away from the fact it is a much, much better result for them, certainly than the Tories, certainly than Labour and probably the Greens as well, because the Greens, I think, are underperforming against what their expectations are.
5:13Rory Stewart:Just quickly on expectations. There was some very odd reporting over the weekend that Nigel Farage was not doing your famous Ken Baker trick of setting expectations very low. In fact, he was doing the opposite. He was doing something that you almost never see in local elections. He was going around saying, this is going to be an amazing win. This is going to be a great bonanza win, which of course gives people at the Conservatives the opportunity to stay in Harlow, for example, where there were 11 seats up and where reform seemed to be talking about getting seven or eight. The Tories have got a clean suite.
5:44Yeah. And so local elections are always a mixed picture. You always kind of, there's a sort of battle for the narrative and overnight reform won that battle without a doubt. But I think there's something very interesting as well about if you look at, because the story of the election coverage insofar as there's been that much coverage has really been all the way through, this is like a big opinion poll on Keir Starmer, we'll come on to that. But then the other the two parts of the story have been reform doing very, very well and high expectations, and Zach Polanski doing the same. And I think there's been something interesting.
6:17I think the last few days of the campaign, some of what you call the, well, certainly Zach Polanski's had a pretty bad last few days. Nigel Farage has had a bad last few days. The difference, I think, is that the relentlessness of the attacks on Zach Polanski appear to have had an impact, whereas I'm not sure that the attacks on Farage have.
6:38Rory Stewart:And remind us the two. So with Polanski, I noticed there was a front page article in the Times saying that he'd not paid council tax on a canal boat that he'd been living on. There was something fake on his CV about being an ambassador for the Red Cross. Okay. And then there was the rerunning of all the other stuff and he was getting a bit kind of, you know, he wasn't getting, he wasn't getting, and he of course says this is all the right wing media against him, blah, blah, blah. But I think with Farage, though, there's two things, which I think Labour have got to really, really understand the importance of this.
7:09This£5 million donation wasn't getting much coverage, but it was getting through to the public.
7:15Rory Stewart:And this is Chris Harbourn, based in Thailand. Yeah, crypto billionaire who's given tens of millions already or over£10 million already to the party, gave this£5 million donation, which Farage claims is for his lifetime security. and what that so the worry for labor is that even when there are what we you and i would say and most people would say genuine scandals attached to farage partly because the media doesn't really drive them because most of the right-wing media want farage to do well they they're sort of priced in and it's a bit like trump he can get away with more than conventional politicians the second thing also related to harbour is that farage and the reform party now have a lot of money i can't remember whether we ever did front page wraparounds on evening newspapers but yesterday if you got on the tube in london now i don't think reform would do very well in london but it was just a way of signaling how much you know they've got the cash they've got in the bank.
8:17A wraparound of the Evening Standard, front page and back page together, was an advert for reform and a full page inside. That's a lot of money.
8:26Rory Stewart:I'd be interested also, I don't know whether anybody's polled reform voters, what the range of opinion is about Farage taking£5 million personal donation. Somebody's pointing out to me when I said, why did you take it as a personal donation rather than a speaking fee or something? Apparently the answer is income tax. If Chris Harbourn had decided to pay him five million pounds to give a speech, he'd have to pay income tax. Gifts. Gifts, there's no tax on it, so it's worth twice as much to him. Look, I don't believe the story stacks up, but the point is, and then today he was asked about it, and he said, oh, we can talk about that another time.
9:00Rory Stewart:But he'd need to earn, effectively, ten million pounds to end up with five million pounds in his bank account the way that he has now, which is sort of money well beyond a kind of partner in a fancy law firm or any of this kind of stuff, well, well beyond. So he's putting himself not into the category of, I want to be financially secure and live a middle class lifestyle. He's trying to put himself into the category of, I suppose, the top 0.01 % of the British population. Well, when we did the miniseries with Liam Byrne about populism, one of the points he made is that these right wing populists have got to, you know, they're really, really attracted to using politics to get very, very wealthy.
9:40so with Orban we've seen it with Trump we've seen with Trump's family now but I so I think but from Labour's perspective see I think there are maybe this is a good pivot into into Labour and we can come on to Keir Starmer his own position in a minute but if you think about it the lot of the problems that the Labour government's got itself into are from decisions that were made that didn't seem to reflect what people thought they were electing so for example we We talked about it hundreds of times on the podcast, the winter fuel payment. But effective government has to be about seeing in advance the sort of changes that actually might be to the benefit of the country.
10:18And if you can benefit the country in a certain way, then longer term, you get a benefit to your party seeking re-election after a parliamentary term. Now, I would argue, and I argued with some of the people at the Labour Party about this at the time, you and I both felt in opposition. They should be acknowledging that our politics and therefore our democracy itself is facing serious, profound threats. I would argue that one of the reasons why Nigel Farage does as well as he does is because he's been allowed to create a TV channel, a bit like Fox News did for Trump in America, GB News, which pumps out propaganda day after day after day.
10:59Yesterday, if you turned on the BBC, we've talked about Ofcom on the podcast. if you turn on the BBC yesterday the BBC rightly said obviously on election day we're not allowed to talk about politics okay well don't be surprised therefore if anybody who's interested in politics turns you off and goes to their phone and finds the whole bloody world's talking about politics and it's being flooded with advertising and if you've got the money so if this money the money that they've now got most people are not following politics through newspapers or through the radio or through the television lots of them maybe through podcasts but actually an awful lot they're doing it through that and the election times if you've got money you bombard them yeah
11:40Rory Stewart:so you're pointing to something which is uh about structure so there are different ways to think about populism one of them is about the underlying drivers of people voting for the far right and the far left which is anger about immigration anger about cost of living anger about what's happening to local communities. But another way to think about it is in terms of the structures of social media, electoral systems, and campaign finance. So if you were a man that we both admire a lot, Premier of South Australia, Peter Malinowskis, you would say, look, if you're bold and serious about this, let's take two of these things.
12:21Rory Stewart:Let's take social media and let's take campaign financing. And let's say we're going to fix the structure. And actually, if you're going to be Australian, you go further. You'd go for an Australian electoral system. You'd go for compulsory voting. All of this makes it less likely for extreme parties to come out of nowhere, take donations from people who are living overseas, exploit the social media landscape. And so let's have a level playing field. And I think the safest level playing field is to stop all these bloody parties taking money. That's what I like about Malinowskis's approach, right?
12:55Rory Stewart:Stop Labour taking it from the unions, stop the Tories taking it from business, and stop reform taking 5 million or 15 million or whatever the whole thing that's up to. Instead of which, because the decision was taken not really to get into that, they're getting into it belatedly through the Rycroft review that we talked about a few weeks ago, where there'll be limits put on donations and also limits from overseas. But because they haven't set that out early on if they were to do that now yeah it just looks like they're sore losers exactly in the middle of what people is being described as terrible results and they were suddenly to do that so i think that's why you've always got to set this inside a kind of a bigger picture where you where you're delivering things over time so i think now so kind of you know what happens now for labor i mean around around the country today a lot of Labour councillors who are losing their seats are going to feel really pissed off.
13:50A lot of MPs who are looking at the councillors who are pissed off and have lost their seats are going to think, well, if they're losing their seats in this scale, I could do the same. That is good. And I think I said the other day, it's always worse when it happens, no matter how much you anticipate it. It's always worse. So today we'll be feeling really, really bad for a lot of people.
14:08Rory Stewart:And if you're a Labour MP, you'll be getting very, very angry texts and messages from very loyal party members who've been campaigning for you for years out on the doorsteps in all weather with the leaflets you've been going to the Labour Party events with them and they've all lost their council seats yeah and they're gonna be pissed off and they will be blaming Keir Starmer probably a lot of them will a lot of them will and and of course now I think the whole Keir Starmer thing most of them will I think probably I've said it's not not to be mean but I mean my experience when Tories local councillors lost their seats they blame David Cameron or Theresa May or whoever that leader was.
14:42And that's partly because there is such focus on the Prime Minister and the party leaders in our politics. Same as some people will be saying that, you know, Kemi Badeknoff, the Tories is a very mixed picture. It's not a great local election. They're meant to be the main opposition party, but nobody's really talking about them because they've not done that well. So leaders inevitably get blamed. So then that is inevitably giving rise to the question about whether Keir Starmer stays or goes. and you know and this is this is this is really really difficult because i think all the different there is if you look at results as bad as this you're bound to say well look if everybody's saying it's about kia's dharma gotta make a change and just sorry just just for listeners
15:24Rory Stewart:who aren't completely following the micro details one of the big things here is there are just so many more labor seats up than was true last time so the narrative a year ago was uh you know chris the rise and rise of reform. So last year was the moment where reform really seemed to break through and it took the mayoralty in a couple of places and it took six councils and it was a huge explosion. But Labour only lost something like 400 seats last time around because there weren't that many seats up. This time, Labour almost certainly will lose well over 1 ,000 seats because there are over 2 ,000 of these Labour seats up for grabs.
16:03Rory Stewart:So just in, I mean, forget about percentages in absolute numbers, this is going to feel like an unbelievable hammering for the Labour government. And then you add to that, that we were saying shortly after Starmer was elected, that Labour looked like it was in with a good chance in Scotland. It's definitely not going to win in Scotland. Anasawa is not going to be the first minister in Scotland. So put all of that together, people are going to be thinking, hmm. And just to underline that, Anasawa, who called for Keir Starmer to resign, thinking that was the way for him to get a kind of break between the damage that he felt UK Labour were doing to Scottish Labour, it might have helped him a bit, I don't know.
16:46Whereas in Wales, it seems like for some time now, they've just kind of given up on imagining any chance of winning. So my point about what now happens to Keir Starmer, sometimes what might seem obvious doesn't always happen and i think in this context there's various reasons for this so the first is that there's no doubt there there is a sense within a lot of the people you talk to including people who really criticize kia starmer who will say god you know one of the tories one of the reasons the tories got absolutely shafted is because they kept changing the prime minister so a lot of them will be thinking including by the way the people who you think that they might be in with the shout will be thinking do we make it better or worse and then they'll be thinking do we make it better or worse to do it now i'll be honest most of the people you talk to inside the labor party mps ministers etc sort of say well nobody really thinks keir's going to be there at the election okay now i'm not sure keir starmer thinks that No.
17:46Because I think that he can't be enjoying this. He'll be hating today. But you didn't see a guy who was going out, sort of setting out a plan for departure today.
17:59Rory Stewart:This is why I said to you a couple of days ago. You think he's Joe Biden? Yeah, he's rapidly becoming Joe Biden because he's basically in a bunker with his wife saying it's all going to be fine. Oh, you can't do the Lady Macbeth. You can't do that. It's just totally unfair. We can go into the next election. We'll win. It's going to be lovely care. Everybody's always underestimated you. I think she's saying that. Everyone's always read Tom Baldwin's books. Everyone's always underestimated you. And now, you know, you're going to prove them wrong and you're going to win at the next election. And just give them time to really understand the real Keir.
18:26Rory Stewart:Yeah. And nobody buys this. So the problem. Can I just interject on Victoria Starmer's defense? I'm not sure she says that at all. Very good. Okay. Let's work better. So somebody around him must be saying that. There'll be flatterers around him saying, Keir, come on. You know, you're much better than these other people. You've got to stay because, you know, for the country. and for the party. I mean, obviously, you know, Angela Rayner or West Streeting is going to be a disaster. So we need you. We need you to hold the party together. But working backwards, if he cannot run at the next election, it seems to me that your only hope really is to get rid of him and hope that someone else does a better job.
19:10As Mark Carney said in Davos, hope is not a strategy.
19:13Rory Stewart:Well, it's your only option because the reality is that they may be disasters. Angela Rayner may be a disaster, West Streeting may be a disaster, Al Kahn's could be a disaster, Peter Kyle could be a disaster, who knows. But give them a shot. Let them run at it and hopefully have a process that is a bit better than the process that produced Kamala Harris. A bit more of a kind of brutal primary process that really brings out who these people are. Let's just see them. Let's just see who's got the talent and who sounds more like Prime Minister, I think give him a chance. Because what Mark Carney's proved is that if you actually can dominate the stage and communicate, you can take over a pretty horrible situation.
19:55Rory Stewart:Canada is not objectively in a good situation. The Canadian economy is under huge pressure. He was inheriting a very difficult legacy. He's turned it around. So you could do it. And the one person who obviously isn't going to be able to do it, this is my Biden analogy, is Starmer. Starmer can't do it. But look, I completely understand why you're saying that. But even as you describe that process, you say, give them a shot. Give them a shot. So that means you're asking, you're asking Keir Starmer, Keir, do you mind hanging around being a prime minister for a bit while we sort of all fight it out?
20:32At which point the country starts to think, well, hold on a minute, are you not a government or are you just another leadership election? How does that process even happen. So this is my point, but you have, in the end, you have to live in the real world. So all these policies, all these ministers who are briefing, I said this to him and others have said this to him and I think this. In the end, this stuff only happens if he makes a decision to go or he gets forced out. And I don't see, at the moment, rightly or wrongly, I don't see either of those things happening. But what's your definition of strategy again?
21:07You've got a vision. My scientific strategy is the big argument by which you reach an objective that you've set and set out and understood.
Read the full transcript
21:14Rory Stewart:Okay. Seems to me that the objective that needs to be set out and understood is to do a hell of a good job governing Britain for the next three years. Correct. And second objective is to win the next election. Correct. Okay. I think if you take those two objectives, Keir Starmer is not the answer to governing Britain brilliantly with conviction over the next three years and he's not the answer to winning the next election. And once you've seen that big strategic picture, the conclusion is obvious. Okay. Well, you say the conclusion is obvious. It might be obvious in terms of the decision that the Labour government and the Labour Party has to make, but the outcome of that decision is not obvious.
21:52And that's why I still think it's important to hold back from thinking that, because this is what the Tories did, get rid of something that's not working because nothing can be worse than this. That's not a strategic approach.
22:07Rory Stewart:Well, let's look at the Tories a little bit more sympathetically. I mean, my guess is hanging on to Theresa May probably wouldn't have worked. They brought in Boris Johnson. I mean, I happen to think, you know, obviously, terrible human being, terrible prime minister. He won an election. He won an election against all the odds. You know, when I was running against Boris, the basic story was winning that 2019 election would be very, very difficult. He managed it. Again, they couldn't leave Boris in. It was the right move to get rid of him. Partygate, scandals, the incompetence around Covid, check him out.
22:40Rory Stewart:Nor could they leave Liz Truss in for goodness sake. So they had to move. Now, it didn't work for them, because unfortunately, Rishi Sunak got many, many talents, but he wasn't a great communicating, strategic, big thinking prime minister. um but the other option which i call the biden option which is to be so aware of all the risks and the difficulties involved in getting rid of the leader that you stick with someone who clearly cannot be your long-term leader can't be the answer yeah so let's just stick with the toys there let's just imagine who a labor character might be excuse me that fits that journey that you just describe um so david cameron's the prime minister yeah and theresa may comes in yeah here's that was the prime minister yeah let's just say yeah that there's they suddenly decide there's gonna be an election let's say angela rayner comes in yeah okay um i'm not campaigning angela rayner to theresa may other than the fact that she comes in yeah um i'm all i can already think of all sorts of things that can go wrong quite quickly the tax thing sure not resolved sure um the the the the has she got the vision has she got the talent sure we don't know sure let's say she comes in doesn't last sure okay sure and then people say well we've got to get andy burnham in now yeah okay now and andy burnham here's a question for here's an issue for you the the manchester's results that are coming in suggest that the greens might actually win in Manchester, having already won that by-election.
24:17In Angela, a Thameside council, which is Angela Rayner's part of the world, Labour is getting absolutely whacked. So people are making assumptions about things that could happen. Now, so what I'm saying is the only possible means of getting to what you're saying, I think, is if Keir Starmer actually looks deep into the soul and says, maybe I was good for that, but I'm not as good for this. And for some reason, and the public have taken against me. And I've got to miss, you and I both talked about this, that there is, I think I told you at football much recently when the crowd started singing Keir Starmer's a wanker, sort of apropos of absolutely nothing.
24:55There was nothing political going on in the crowd. That's bad. And every, you know, It's just a football match.
25:01Rory Stewart:You didn't tell us this actually. No, they don't know. It was Fulham against Burnley. It was going through a dull phase and suddenly it wasn't thousands, but a few hundred. All right. Keir Starmer's a wanker. It happened at the darts the other night. So what that says, yeah, what that says is that it's become a thing to, quote, hate Keir Starmer. It's one of the reasons why the front page, back page advert that Reform did, what was their slogan for these elections? Vote Reform, get Starmer out. So it's all a negative thing against him. Now, I think whoever is prime minister at the moment in our current culture and climate where things aren't great, they're going to get that.
25:35so yeah i'd so i'm i'm not minimizing either the disastrousness of this result or the fact that there is a real doubt about keir starmer but i think it's particularly in government it's such a big thing as the tories found to say let's get rid of the prime minister and it underlines the idea that you just care you're all caring about yourself and not about us okay look i'm i course
25:59Rory Stewart:you're right. And it's all very well. I'm sitting here in this strange, beautiful studio, I noticed with three of your books and only one of mine behind me here. Well, that's because I've written 21. Yeah, that's right. It's a percentage point, isn't it? So you're completely right. It will feel brutal. And you're totally right that the two main reasons this doesn't happen is people are very worried about who these alternative candidates are. Are they going to be any good? which is what I would call the issue around Gretchen Wittner or the issue around Kamala Harris. And the second thing, which is the boss himself doesn't want to go, which is why I call the Joe Biden problem.
26:38Rory Stewart:Biden doesn't want to go.
26:42Rory Stewart:Historically also, let's add to that, that Labour has historically been much less good at getting rid of leaders than the Conservatives. for goodness sake, you mentioned to hold on to Jeremy Corbyn for years. So I can see all that. And equally, I think if you weren't as close to it as you obviously are and you were really stepping back, if I was to ask some nerdy large language model, these are the facts, what should happen? I think the conclusion is obvious. In a sense, a scenario where Starmer tries to cling on for another three years, he doesn't know how to communicate. It doesn't matter how many speech coaches he's got, how many new speech writers he's got, he doesn't know how to communicate.
27:32Rory Stewart:Secondly, he's really struggling to generate a stable team in number 10. I mean, he's losing them like you can't believe. I don't know the number of chiefs of staff he's had, heads of press he's had, let alone the number of permanent secretaries in the civil service the guy burns through. He heads the Foreign Office. He's not got any loyalty in the civil service. I mean, I got a joke from a friend today saying, oh yeah, we see it. Yeah, local elections goes wrong. Keir Starmer's taking full responsibility, civil service drawing lots on which one of them is going to have to resign, right? And what has he actually done in policy terms?
28:08Rory Stewart:He's not really managed to work out what the message was before the elections, the problem of being a vast strategy. He didn't come in saying, here's my big, bold message, and I'm going to tell the voters before, I'm going to tell my MPs before, I'm going to tell the MPs after. I've always said that is the big weakness about the whole thing. The lack of a compelling narrative, the fact that, and I think these results in London and some of the ones that we're seeing in Manchester, I've always felt that the strategy is basically focused on what they call hero voters, and they basically mean people who voted reform.
28:39reform, I've always felt was a mistake because I think Labour is at risk of losing far more support to the left. At the moment, they're losing both to the right and to the left because of that lack of a story that brings them together.
28:50Rory Stewart:Let me speak as a Labour-friendly right-winger. There were obviously two narratives that they could pursue. I think you're less Labour-friendly than you were and less right-wing than you were as well. Yeah, probably. I actually think that one of their problems is that when they think about the right-left divide, they're fixated with reform and green. Actually, I think there are a lot of Lib Dem Tory voters who could be potential Labour voters, right? So there are a lot of the people that we go to talk to when we go to business events and talk about geopolitics who actually were very excited by Labour before the election, thought the Tories, particularly under Liz Trust, had blown their credibility on the economy.
29:30Rory Stewart:Here was the Chancellor coming in saying, I care about growth, I care about deregulation, I'm going to keep taxes low, I'm going to be sensible in borrowing. So there was a story, the grownups are taken over, we're serious, we're pragmatic, we're going to run a serious economy, we're going to get under control. That unfortunately, I'm afraid, was very damaged by the fact that instead of accepting when they saw the financial problems that they would come up with a pragmatic fiscal policy, they thought they'd do something cute, putting up employers' national insurance while claiming they wouldn't put up tax.
30:03Rory Stewart:That made a lot of people sad. And they haven't felt business-friendly, deregulation-friendly. I know people like Peter Kyle really want to do it, and I want to hear more from him. I really want to see him saying, here are the big supply-side reforms. Here are the big deregulation. This is how we're business-friendly. This is how we're entrepreneurial. Or with the Lib Dem voter, let's see the kind of values. Let's see the position more clearly on Trump, on geopolitics, on Europe. You've talked a lot about the fact that there was a huge opportunity to get us all back by saying, let's be radical about Europe.
30:38Rory Stewart:Let's rejoin Europe. Let's say Trump and security threats and Ukraine and all this has changed the whole world. This is a big direction to go. But if your narrative is only, I'm going to cut one to a few last and I'll put it up again. I'll cut down farmers and herders and knock it up again. I'm going to hit, It's just, who the hell are you appealing to? Who are you exciting? Just on the point about Europe and Brexit, the other thing has been really interesting about the results so far, and this may sound obvious, but seats where, wards where there is a high leave vote historically have gone very, very strongly to reform.
31:18Okay. In wards where there was a very, very remain, high remain vote, Farage has got no chance. Absolutely no chance. And that's why I think some of those people who voted leave can be won back by a strategy that improves the economy, improves their public services, and also calls out Farage's role in making every single one of them poorer. They've just never done that.
31:45Rory Stewart:So one classic example, which I think confirms this point that Labour's missed a whole trick and the center ground is what's happened with Westminster Council. So I voted Kensington, Chelsea yesterday, Ponce Street Church going to polling station. These are voters who delivered Labour MP. Westminster Council was lost in 2022. And broadly speaking, if you go into that polling station, you would have felt that you were going back to 1980s. It was a very, very nice, quiet, respectable, conservative lady. I don't quite want to call her blue rinse standing there politely with the speech paper. Did you vote for that party?
32:22Rory Stewart:I don't tell you who I voted for. Why not? No, I don't want to tell you who I voted for. Partly because I'm going to ruin your whole podcast if I start revealing the fact that I actually tend to move my vote around more than you'd like to hear. More than I do. I moved it once. It's spelled from the party. But what I would say is that that kind of middle of the road remain voting pro-business Tory who went over to Labour in the general election will have been tempted to come back towards the Tories, even if they feel political hands. And certainly will not be excited by Labour. And not going to vote reform.
32:58No. And they're never going to vote Green. Right. See, this is the other thing which I think, the other element of all of this since the election, let's go back to the election. You mentioned the Ming Vars. They come in, they make a few mistakes. They do a few good things, gets drowned out by all sorts of other stuff. But what they've never done really is project to the country a sense of optimism, a sense of we can get through this, we can do it. They say it, but it's like that point I made about that Steve Parrish, the Crystal Palace chairman, congratulations on getting to the final of the European thing, is the thing that he says every time they come on television they look like they've just lost a football match, that they should have won.
33:41there's got to be big messaging and big policy that excites people and makes them think the country's going somewhere you can't just manage you can't just manage crisis Keir Starmer I think has done pretty well on some of the international stuff although I still wouldn't underestimate how much Gaza first steps these big big moments and yet back to the point about Farage gets away with it Farage completely cocked up in relation to the the start of the Iran war by wanting to get into bed with Trump, but he sort of, he gets away with it. Listen, we had some lots of feedback, but one interesting one, which I think - Oh yeah, yeah.
34:15Rory Stewart:And I've actually got some polling in our WhatsApp group coming in here. All right. So coming in our polling - Who would best replace Keir Starmer? Yeah. So Andy Burnham, 72%. Angela Rayner, 16%. West Street, 11%. Remember, this is the people who happen to be watching our podcast. Who's most likely to win a general election? Nigel Farage, 66%, Keir Starmer 21%, Zach Polanski 8%, Kemi Badenock 5%. Those are the current leaders. Who is the biggest winner of this local election two minutes ago? Reform 88%, Green 12%. Look, this is not a national polling. This is people who are interacting with us live, but it's interesting.
34:55Rory Stewart:So just to sum that up, they basically think regardless of what you and me say, reforms done very well and that and that uh and that uh it feels like uh the next uh prime minister is likely to be nigel frosh but these results don't say that they don't say that they say that he's they say that he's leading in a a multi-party system five-party system six-party system five six party system which is not yet getting used to the fact that we no longer have the two parties we we have we no longer have the dominant two parties in a system that's still designed for it i still i think on this what you will see i could be completely wrong and we've always got to be mindful of you know not sort of wishful thinking or thinking that what you said would happen then happens but i if i'm genuinely thinking about this from a reform perspective i think there is the case to be made that this is about high watermark apart from the one exception I'll say to that is they are now going to be so well-funded in terms of campaigning, and that does make a difference.
36:02I'll let you bet now Nigel Farage is not Prime Minister.
36:05Rory Stewart:Very good. Very good. Okay. Only if you tell me how you voted. No, I'm not going to tell you how I voted. Kemi Baden-Ox got a problem. I mean, she's going to be happy that she's done quite well in some of these local elections. But the question of how she positions herself against Farage, I'm still mesmerized by. For example, today, she wasted time in the middle of the local election attacking my friend David Gork, who just got a knighthood. Now, David Gork is very much a conservative from the old center of the Conservative Party. He was Lord Chancellor, Justice Secretary under Theresa May. He got a knighthood for doing that review.
36:48Rory Stewart:Yeah, a review into the criminal justice system as an independent guy. And he is somebody who I think most mainstream, I'm toxic with some Tory MPs. David Gawke shouldn't be. He was one of the most decent, serious public servants we ever had. And for her to be giving out interviews saying she's spitting mad that he got a knighthood, that's not a good sign because she too should be trying to re-win the centre ground. Yeah. Well, you know my views about the honest system. Anyway, so, but I, no, I thought, let's just think about the, can we be spitting them out with anyone getting a title? Regardless of who they are.
37:26I used to be spitting them out, I'm more indifferent, but I can't get too excited.
37:30Rory Stewart:Is it not okay with the football manager getting an eye out, is it? Not that bothered. No, no, no. Not that bothered, no. But I think, I think the Tories, I listened to, I saw James Cleverley on the television. and he was doing a kind of a modernized version of the ones that ones yeah yeah westminster thing but i think i think it is important that the reason why these people are watching us and listening to us are saying this all says faraj is the next prime minister because that's what you would take out of the way this debate is being held today it's a long long time to go i think let's just take the£5 million thing, the donation.
38:06I think if that had emerged in week one of a four-week general election campaign, by the end of that campaign, it would have done real damage to Farage, real damage.
38:18Rory Stewart:Absolutely. And I also think as somebody going into the polling booth thinking this through, I think the way that many people will vote in a general election if the question is, is Nigel Farage going to be prime minister? Or Zach Polanski? It's going to be our Zach Polanski. It's going to be very different to what you're doing in a local election where you may be trying to kick the two main parties. But if somebody actually asks you, do you want Nigel Farage to be prime minister? I'd be interested in what the polling is. I reckon that will be considerably below what the reform vote is. And I think you mentioned Boris Johnson there.
38:51I think what Farage has done, helped by the other parties making the mistakes that they made, I think he has kind of reconstituted in a certain way the coalition that Johnson put together.
39:05Rory Stewart:Well, that's why it's no accident that you get a lot of the Johnson people going over to him. Danny Kruger was Boris Johnson's chief of staff, effectively, he's gone over to Farage. And you can see a lot of Boris's messages seem to be very much on a Farage line. Oh, Nadine Doris, who was a great Boris Johnson fan, also gone over to Farage. So, yeah, Nigel Farage is the sort of Boris Johnson party and he's appealing to the same sentiment, which is the kind of, you know, he's a bluff, straightforward guy who I can trust and he's going to be able to make the radical moves. And of course, what it turned out with Boris is that it wasn't true.
39:44Rory Stewart:Boris Johnson did not make radical moves. He wasn't pro-business. He didn't deliver on any of his promises on immigration. In fact, he did the reverse. It's pretty weird. having got an anti-immigration run, he brought in about a million people. So people need to understand that the idea that someone is a good media performer and can be quite funny is not the same as them being a sort of radical reforming prime minister who's going to improve the country. Well, let me say that is exactly what would happen if Nigel Farage ever did become prime minister. I mean, let's just understand. I mean, this is a guy, you talk about the immigration thing.
40:15One of the reasons, and the current government gets the blame because they're in charge, and I understand that. But one of the reasons why immigration is soared, as you say, is because of Brexit. And one of the reasons why the economy has been screwed up is because of Brexit. I find it utterly insane that anybody would think that the architects of Brexit should be even considered to be put in Downing Street, and yet there he is.
40:39Rory Stewart:And yet their moves are so interesting. So I've been watching Dominic Cummings, right? And obviously Dominic Cummings has been having a bit of a go at two of us, I criticise you for the Iraq war, criticise me for backing Kamala Harris. He doesn't own Brexit at all. He doesn't own Boris Johnson at all. Nor does Farage. Brexit, Boris Johnson, forget that. All the disasters that happened during the time when he was in charge, doesn't matter. What he's now talking about is basically Muslim rape gangs is what he wants to talk about. And it's very, very interesting. You'll see it with Farage. Shift the conversation on to trying to appeal to something completely and not take responsibility for what they did when they were in office.
41:17Right, and the difference at the moment, I don't want to sit here and just sort of, you know, blame the media the whole time, but the truth is, as that Mark Gattis, the actor, said on the New Statesman podcast last week, you know, Keir Starmer gets covered like he's Vlad the Impaler and Nigel Farage gets covered like a cuddly celebrity. We do have a real problem with our media culture and our political media culture.
41:39Rory Stewart:There's a couple of... Yeah, I got one here. Go ahead and start then. Mark, who's listening. Thank you, Mark, for listening. Thank you, everybody who's joined us. Does Starmer really want his legacy to be the PM who ushered in one of the most far-right governments in UK history? Does he not have the self-awareness to see how he is a big part of the problem rightly or wrongly? Surely he has to understand the only chance Labour have is through starting fresh. So this is, again, the Biden critique, right? The problem with hanging on is you end up with Trump. The problem with hanging on is you're taking the risk of ending up with Farage.
42:10Yeah. Look, the answer to the first part of Mark's question, does Starmu want his legacy to be the PM of Russia than the most far-right government in history? No, he doesn't. Okay. But he will be thinking that that does not have to be his legacy if he gets his act together, if the government raises his game. And I accept their big Fs. And it may be, what these results may show, I don't know. It may be that the country has just decided not having him. That sometimes happens.
42:35Rory Stewart:Here's another question for you from Hester. Thank you, Tim, for sending it to us. Will Labour, Greens and even Tories wake up and start forming a pact against reform, calling them out for what they are, pointing out their failures, frauds, single policies, Trump supporting rhetoric, etc. This is what the Dutch parties did so well with Hertwilders. It's also what, to give him credit, the German Chancellor has done by refusing to make a pact with the AfD. So that's why I'm very disturbed to see Kemi Badenoch giving the impression that she's sort of leaving that out. It's also a version of what Magyar did in Hungary by persuading all the other parties to kind of unite as one.
43:16Our gremlins have also been polling on this as well. Should Labour form a pact with the Lib Dems? Yes, 62, no 38. Did you notice, by the way, that Ed Davey wasn't in your list that you read out? Is that because he got null point? That's a bit depressing, isn't it? I hope it wasn't like ABBA in Brighton back in the 70s when they got null point in the UK.
43:34Rory Stewart:Can we just pause on that for a second? Because we don't talk enough about the Lib Dems. And actually, there are substantial figures. I mean, you know, what have they got? 70-something seats in parliament. They've had some amazing results today, like total bypass in some places. Doing well in the local elections. So we talk about why Farage gets covered and why the Tories don't. What's the story about the Lib Dems? I mean, why, given that they have a historically huge representation in parliament, given that, you know, a lot of people in centre ground, Why have the Lib Dems not really cut through in the right way in the last year and a half?
44:08I guess because, I'm sorry to keep banging on about the media, I think we've got a trivial media. So they prefer, oh, Zach Polanski, didn't he once hypnotise a woman and say that he could make her boobs bitter? Let's keep going on about that. Is that right?
44:23Rory Stewart:Or is it that when they report Ed Davey, actually it's almost the reverse. It's that because of that, they're reporting Ed Davey because he's doing some weird thing, some stunt. I think the stunt thing has had its day. And was that not an error, that stunt thing? It might have been. For the long term, I mean, the short term, fine. But don't you think in the long term, it's what people remember him for, as doing jolly stunts? And how do you then tilt from that to being the moral voice against Donald Trump? It's quite tough, right? Because he has been very tough against Trump. Yeah, but it's not taken with the same gravitas.
44:58Rory Stewart:It's not like Hilary Benn or Gordon Brown suddenly starts talking about Donald Trump. Yeah. Because Gordon Brown's not to be found, you know. Gordon Brown is definitely not going to go down a slide into a swimming pool. Yeah. He's not going to do that. If he did, he'd definitely be wearing a suit and tie. I think if you're trying to present yourself - Yeah, possibly. Possibly. I also think that the Lib Dems have had the historic problem they have is that they are appealing to different constituencies in different parts of the country. I think they should have led the way much more volubly on Europe.
45:27That's what Polanski has tried to do. And by the way, the European thing is a risk. But the whole point about the Ming-Va strategy is that I think it bred in the Labour mindset. Well, that was really successful. So let's not take too many risks. I think politics now is not just about the need to do communication. It's the need to have big things to argue about and win the arguments against your opponents.
45:48Rory Stewart:Also, you can't be a cautious Ming-Vars, status quo, easy-as-you-go party today. Trump is basically exploding the world. AI is upturning all our economies on their head. Populism is on the rise. Your only hope to survive in a world in which volcanoes are going off and earthquakes are everywhere, is not to stand still and say, steady as you go, but start dancing around the lava.
46:27Just to cheer up any of our Lib Dem listeners, they did say, I think the council that I was thinking of, not a single councillor from another party was elected in Richmond upon Thames. There we are. That's all one party state.
46:42Rory Stewart:Yeah, no, Richmond's very one party state. Yeah. And they also, and three Green Councils got the boot and the Lib Dems have also gained Portsmouth and Stockport and they've held, they've held Eastleigh. The Gremlins are texting again. Bloody hell honestly, it never stopped, does it? In our Sunday read this weekend, Oh, it's for a plug. Here we go. We'll be covering the local elections in lots of details, lots of interviews with local councillors across the country. So yeah, Sunday read. Worth looking at our newsletter if you want more details, really detailed interviews with local councillors.
47:13Rory Stewart:So to receive it, sign up to our free newsletter through the link in the bio. But Mark's got a question. On the doorsteps, Labour canvassers reportedly encounter a visceral dislike of Keir Starmer. Do these reports concur with what you're hearing? If so, does this mean Keir's got a... It's interesting, visceral dislike. I mean, I find him like a sort of slightly disappointing kind of accountant, but not someone I get visceral dislike on. the hate thing is real and is that just part of our culture i we i said you and i discussed this a few weeks ago what do they hate him for i'll tell you i'll tell you why i've thought about this a lot and i went i was in a school recently and i sensed that some of them were in this kind of i really hate him sort of category and some of them and i said look you can say you're as you say you're disappointed he's not exciting he's not this and that but hatred is such a strong thing yeah i mean there are people in the world i hate yeah but not many of them yeah sure there aren't that many right but you know a lot of people clearly do hate him and that did come from the doorstep yeah a lot and this a young woman yeah she was probably about 17 voting for the first time and she said a lot of she said i've thought about this she said what you understand he when he stood to be leader he said he was one thing and then he came and he was something different and then when he stood to be prime minister he was one he was giving one sort of impression Then he came in and he gave in another.
48:42And if you're my age, you think they're all shit, but he's the guy in charge.
48:49Rory Stewart:Okay, so that's one story, which is that he's inconsistent. He says one thing, does another. And if you were to talk to the guys in the stands who were chanting, let's say you were talking, I don't know, let's say a 35-year-old guy in Burnley who told you they hated Keir Starmer, what might they say about why they hated him? Well, while I was speaking there, I just had a message, not from our team, but from And somebody else says, Burnley have lost all seats. Labour have lost all seats in Burnley. Just on your question about why were they saying that? I think for the, in the end, they're at a football match.
49:21Might have had a bit to drink. Yeah. But I think the mood around discussion of politics in a lot of working class areas is they're not doing anything for us.
49:32Rory Stewart:Tell us a bit about Burnley, though. Sorry, I keep pushing on. What sort of place is it? Where is it? Former mill town has got some industrial development, but it's struggled. Unemployment pretty high. Historically racial tension quite strong. Up in Lancashire. In East Lancashire, yeah. Transport links being talked about forever, never really improved. Okay, and was a Labour safe seat and then went to Lib Dems briefly, then back to Labour. And now? Well, currently a Labour MP. Yep, and in the local elections? Well, I don't know whether this is one of the – if they've lost every seat, I don't know whether this is one with just the third going or the whole council.
50:09So, but look, there's no doubt. And a way to reform is the implication. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the point is, in those parts of the country that have been historically working class labor, clearly reform has managed to present itself as the party that cares for the working class. Now, I would argue, till I'm blue in my face, that is not the case. That he does really care more about the crypto billionaires than he does about you. but while that is going on Labour and the other parties have to do a far far better job of saying yes I do understand your problems I'll tell you another thing which I was talking to a minister this morning and he was going to be doing media a bit later on and telling me what he's sort of thinking of saying what I've heard and and I said listen the problem with a lot of you is you the first five minutes that you're talking on television you're like commentators you tell us what the problems are.
51:02We know what the problems are. Your job is to sort them and to give hope and optimism that they're being sorted. So I think that sense of...
51:12Rory Stewart:Yeah, it's a bit like, sorry, I don't want to be boring, but I sometimes feel this, like if you get the plumber in and the plumber spends the first five minutes saying, oh, it's all very difficult and there's this, that, and the other, and this happening with the pipes, this, that. You actually want them to say, here I am. It's the solution, this is what I'm doing. I'm going to get on with doing it. Even better, actually, maybe they get on and do it that talking too much but you're and your point earlier about about growth again we're repeating ourselves here because i i felt right from the word go they said growth is the big thing yeah but here we are almost halfway through the parliament you know nearly two years and if you were to say to any of those people who voted reform in in burnley but more than that probably any small business person or any big business person right i'm going to put you on spot define for me the four key elements of Labour's growth strategy?
52:02I'm not sure what they are. Now, you mentioned, you know, Gordon not doing stunts, but I have to say back in, you know, when Tony and Gordon were around, we had some bad local elections, don't get me wrong, we did.
52:12Rory Stewart:But he could definitely tell you what the forward is. Gordon would definitely be able to tell you. Absolutely. Not even four points, 17 points probably. And what's more, you'd have heard it through the campaign as well. And you'd have known that's what it's about. So when you talk to Labour, if you talk to Reform, what was their message for the campaign? They're basically saying vote Reform gets Starmer out. This is a referendum on Keir Starmer. You said it to Labour. Okay, last time though, because imagine you're a Burnley voter who hates Keir Starmer and you're like 40 year old guy from East Lancashire.
52:48The guy's aged five years in two minutes. Okay.
52:50Rory Stewart:What would he say, unlike your 17-year-old at school? What might he say about why he hates skidstormer? Well, if I recall one conversation that I did actually have, he wasn't 40, he was a bit younger than that. But he, I mean, a lot of it, I'm afraid, was a lot of the mythology, which, of course, gets pumped out the whole time. He's posh. Well, he's not. He's a sir. Well, yeah, he is, but that's because he was the DPP. But I think the main thing, actually, he'd say is he doesn't really understand my life. Okay. And they're not, and I don't think that, and of course, this is exacerbated when all the overseas, there he's getting on a plane, he's going to Armenia.
53:29You and I would argue he needs to do all that foreign policy stuff. But if your life is not great, and you want somebody to blame, then blame the guy who told you he was going to change things and make your life better and actually spend his whole time on a plane. That's what he said. And weirdly,
53:46Rory Stewart:he wouldn't think of Farage or even Boris Johnson as being posh in the same way. I mean, it's kind of weird kind of thing. I mean, I had this recently actually two days ago. A very, very wealthy business person came up to me and said, of course, Rory, you're not going to like Nigel Farage because he's not enough for tough for you. He's not posh enough for you. And they'd obviously decided that Farage was a proper voice of the working class, this kind of public school educated, met a city trader, etc. So what is it about the way in which Farage and Johnson communicate that might make the man in Burnley feel, completely wrongly, but feel that he relates to the Maury's in the sun?
54:36i guess it is a sort of form of charisma it's like you know it's just the same you and i maybe never understood it but the truth is i used to see it when boris johnson walked into a room people oh wow it's boris johnson you know sort of excitement i think there's a little bit of that with farage not quite the same and i do think by the way i still do honestly believe farage has peaked yeah because i think he's started to make mistakes he's got away with it for now but I think he's going to really struggle one of the reasons why I think I'm not even convinced he'll be there at the next station because I think what's happening now you've got these other people who consider themselves as quite big beasts like Robert Jenrick well Richard Tice, Robert Jenrick Farage would say well I've done that strategically they always said I was a one man band I'm not a one man band but I think you've seen I saw a very interesting thing on social media the other day it was a guy who was dressed up in a union flag suit okay and he was going around interviewing people yeah asking them about reforms policies and pretending to be reformed candidate yeah so he was he was saying things like you know um so why are you voting for reform yeah yeah i'll wait for oh i like nigel uh well brexit was good or whatever and then the guy would articulate some of their policies or a version of them so he would say um well you know you're happy that we're going to be privatizing the health service and they go oh okay okay and you know by the way we're going to fight for the billionaires we think the billionaires are people you need to fight for and you'd get these guys who would like to say yeah yeah i agree with that i agree with that so i think it's the job given the media isn't going to do it it's the job of the other parties to make sure the public understand the reality of who these people are what they're offering and beat them and and i don't think it's that difficult i guess my final we should wrap in We don't want to go Joe Rogan and do three and a half hours.
56:30Rory Stewart:No, my final point then will be, let's hope there's a new Prime Minister soon, and let's hope they start doing stuff. Let's hope they demonstrate on growth, on immigration, on AI, on values, because probably the best way to defeat Faraj is not just being slicker with the communication, but actually improving people's lives. better 100 i mean look i've i i i i'm i can see why you think and why so many other people think it's clearly about the guy at the top has got to change i think the problems run deeper i think the whole cabinet has to step up they spend far too much time talking about themselves talking about their internal battles we haven't i mean it's maybe a bit uncomfortable because your friends will i mean i worry that it's actually pretty weak that cabinet it's not a front bench.
57:22Rory Stewart:And I'm not looking at Ernie Bevan and Nye Bevan and being like, whoa, these guys. I'm not looking at Wilson's cabinet. I'm afraid, we were pretty rude about a lot of the Tory cabinets, but person for person, I can name six or seven people out of Cameron's cabinet, May's cabinet, Johnson's cabinet, who are probably stronger performers than a lot of the Slater cabinet. Including yourself. Definitely, including myself. Definitely. No, I'm not going to deny that. My point is, I think that this thing doesn't help. I mean, every time I see a bloody journalist on television say, I've just had a WhatsApp from a member of the cabinet.
58:00What the fuck are you doing WhatsAppping? You know, get on with your job. so i but my point is i think that that underlines the point i made earlier unless you can see that there's a really good and obvious field you're going to do better it might be best for labor to wait it might be best um but you know we're clearly we're not we're going to agree and i disagree agreeably to be absolutely frank rory i sometimes disagree agreeably with myself yeah because i i think i think sometimes yeah it's obvious and i think hmm yeah i think through the possible consequences.
58:33Rory Stewart:Don't worry about it. So we haven't got the full Wales of Scotland results yet. Thank you all very much for listening. I'm pretty sure knowing my friend here that he will probably be putting out some more reporting and social media stuff as we get more results coming through. This time next week our interview with Angela Rayner which is part of the Gen Z members series. Yeah, which is really good. We're going to make it free for everyone. It's great that. We haven't often put out a series which isn't forwarded by you and me. But she'd done a pretty good job. I was talking to a friend who was playing in the car, and he was describing, you know, his wife interrupting him and saying, I disagree with that.
59:10Rory Stewart:And he was like, wait, wait, wait, they'll get to that. And sure enough. Well, he listened to it twice. Yeah, yeah. Excellent. Yeah, yeah. No, and I'll tell you, just on that, by the way, talking about Gen Z, so what's happening, Vicky Sprout has done this series, and then part of it, she and I sat down with Angela Rayner because she's done a lot of the sort of renter stuff and housing and what have you. but I actually too think that a Gen Z package and an understanding of this and maybe getting into the whole intergenerational inequality thing maybe when we talk about big bowl things maybe actually Labour coming on and saying look this triple lock thing's got to go we've got to actually spend less on older people apart from those who really need it boy dear Kemi Badenock if you're listening if you're trying to present yourself as the great economic realist triple lock's got to go from the Tory manifesto too so you know i and then have a proper argument where you can get out and say look is that polanski can't do any of this for you because he's not going to be prime minister so anyway yeah so vicky spratt excellent mini-series and reina looking forward to putting that out in the next few days um and there we go i can't pretend that it's been the most what's the opposite of depressing happiest discussion uh reform currently on 561 lib dems 337 tories 307 labor 292 380 seats lost green 106 and just for those of you who have been pointing out the slight irony that our gen z series requires paying we've got a student discount running 20 pounds for a year um so you can hear not just the gen z series but actually some mini series we're very proud of Alistair did some great stuff on Rupert Murdoch we did stuff together on JD Vance I've done an AI miniseries which is still ongoing which I really would love people to listen to so but mostly thank you very much thank you for listening and this is Rory signing off see you soon probably be back clearly soon I don't know there you go bye bye guys thanks again
1:01:08why did we really go to war with Iraq and did Saddam Hussein really have weapons of mass destruction. I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist. And I'm David McCloskey, author and former CIA analyst. We are the hosts of The Rest is Classified, and in our latest series, we are telling the true story
1:01:26Rory Stewart:of one of history's biggest intelligence failures, Iraq WMD. In 2003, the US and UK told the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but they were wrong. This wasn't a simple lie. it was something far more complicated, far more interesting, and far more dangerous. Spies who believed their sources, politicians who wanted the public to believe in the threat, and a dictator who couldn't prove he'd already destroyed the weapons. In this series, we go deep inside the CIA and MI6, go into the rooms where decisions were made, and look at the sources who fabricated the intelligence that took us to war.
1:02:09The Iraq war reshaped the Middle East and permanently weakened public trust in governments and intelligence agencies, and its consequences are still playing out today. Plus, in a Declassified Club exclusive, we are joined by three people who were at the heart of the decision to go to war. Former head of MI6, Richard Deerlove. Tony Blair's former communications director, Alistair Campbell.
1:02:31Rory Stewart:And former acting head of the CIA, Michael Morell. So get the full story by listening to The Rest is Classified and subscribing to The Declassified Club wherever you get your podcasts.
From the publisher
Will Keir Starmer survive presiding over seismic Labour losses in the local elections, and if he doesn’t who should replace him? Do historic Reform and Green wins for Farage and Polanski confirm the death of two-party politics in the UK? Did the Ed Davey’s Lib Dems and Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives actually perform better than expected?
Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more.
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