Andy Burnham builds a plane mid-flight as Starmer checks out

0:00A decade on from the seismic EU referendum, the question remains, what has the leave result truly meant for the UK? Host Ben Taylor, the editor of the Sunday Times, will be joined by guest speakers on June the 29th in London to examine what we've learned since leaving the European Union. Has the dust finally settled or is it still difficult to see how Brexit has reshaped the nation? For tickets, go to thetimes.com forward slash events. That's thetimes.com forward slash events.

0:32I swear by almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles. We at Reform demand a general election. Where is the Prime Minister? He wants to go on a farewell tour, while the new member for Makerfield is asking for a summer holiday to work out what he thinks. Welcome to The State of It, the political podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times. I'm Stephen Swinford, the political editor of The Times. I'm Patrick McGuire, chief political commentator of The Times. And I'm Lara Spirit, deputy political editor of The Sunday Times. And look, we come to you at an extraordinary moment again in British politics.

1:15Andy Burnham is effectively trying to build a government and a cabinet in three and a half weeks. He is trying to build the plane mid-flight. It is an unprecedented task and it's very, very challenging. And we're going to give you some scoops and insights into that. We're going to talk about why the transition of power, as brief as it may be, is likely to be actually pretty fraught. And tempers are already kind of flaring over from what we're picking up. And then lastly, we are going to be talking about the economy, which is what matters. Who is Andy Burnham's pick for Chancellor? What is his plan for the economy?

1:49Where do we go from there? And then at the very end of the podcast, we're going to give you a scoop on something completely different on Nigel Farage and the money behind Nigel Farage. We have quite a big story on that coming up. But look, without further ado, let's start with my terrible metaphor. Andy Burnham is effectively trying to build a plane mid-flight. I see your plane being built mid-flight, Stephen. Let me raise you a Wigan-appropriate metaphor. Or, of course, Andy Burnham, just to remind listeners, there is no such place as Makerfield. It is the outer suburbs of Wigan. And who lived in Wigan on West Wallaby Street?

2:24It was a small-time inventor called Wallace and his dog called Gromit. And what did Wallace and Gromit try and do, or rather Gromit try and do in the wrong trousers? As Feathers McGraw was behind him, pursuing him, trying to kill him. He was building the model railway as he hurtled along it. And that is what Andy Burnham is doing, is being pursued by his critics in the Labour Party, the bond markets, a growing sense of expectation from Labour MPs, among dozens of whom I stood on the House of Commons terrace last night, including ministers I was led to believe didn't even drink. A minister I hadn't seen in ages bought me a pint and I said, you're never here.

3:03And they just paused and said, it's the right time to do it. So those people are feathers McGraw and Andy Burnham is grommet trying to build the train as it hurtles towards oblivion. What was it like on the terrace last night just to take listeners into that? Because we heard that there was certainly some pretty euphoric Burnham supporters having a fair few drinks. Well, at one point I was stood by the door and somebody brought out three bottles of champagne in ice. and Anneliese Midgley was on the terrace, Andy Burnham's great ally, but they weren't going to Anneliese Midgley or any of Burnham's allies.

3:36They were actually going to a Tory, which may tell you its own story about how they feel about Andy Burnham. But anyway, it was, I hadn't known a night on the terrace like that since Brexit, really. Because you'll remember those big Brexit nights, Steve. The votes went on for ages and the mood was so tense and wound up and people just stood on the terrace all night. People would win famous victories Votes were won, votes were lost, but everybody seemed to be there. But last night, it was just so that the Parliamentary Labour Party, en masse, from about five o 'clock, just trickling onto the terrace.

4:11Everybody doing the same thing, walking onto the terrace, sort of craning their neck. It's sort of, is he here? Is he here? Is Lou here? Is Annalise here? Oh, and a push. Is that Sally Jameson? Who's his other? Oh, is that David Baines? Should I speak to David Baines for the first time in my life? Like that was the vibe and everybody was clearly waiting for the same thing. I'm not entirely sure they got an Andy Burnham visit to strangers actually. He was in the smoking room at the House of Commons pressing the flesh. But it was, I imagine there's going to be a lot of nights like that. Because as we know, Andy Burnham likes a beer.

4:48And Keir Starmer was not really one to ever drink in strangers. Actually, one of the few times I remember Keir Starmer being in strangers was after one of the party gate votes. He went down and bought a massive round for everyone. And that was texted to me by one of his advisors because it was such an unprecedented and never to be repeated event. Not only is Keir in Strangers, he's getting around it, but the mood in the Labour Party is, and you saw this with the big picture of Andy Burnham yesterday, it is, OK, this is the guy. Power has evaporated from number 10 as it currently exists. Notice me, notice me.

5:19Laura, let's just start with the obvious place. that from what we were told, Andy Burnham did not expect the potential to be in power so soon. So he was planning to get into power in September for Labour conference. That's what they were all talking about, a kind of longish coronation that would give you proper time to prepare for government. Instead, this kind of small act of revenge from Keir Starmer, the whole contest could be wrapped up by July the 17th, just two days before the World Cup final. So he has got this incredibly small amount of time to actually put together his plans. And talking to people in Burnham's camp yesterday, some of them were pretty daunted by the prospects because quite simply, they've been fighting a by-election.

5:59They're not ready. Yeah, I mean, I think they are daunted, but I do think they are pretty happy with the timetable. I think initially they might have thought perhaps Summer would give them time to think through things, but actually their first reaction yesterday was one of elation. I think they feel that sense of actually a lot of these big decisions will belong to them now over the coming weeks. And that probably is quite a good thing, given that they are important and they will set the direction for a Burnham government. So I think it is daunting, obviously. And now there's a lot of work to do over the next two weeks.

6:25But they've got a pretty choreographed plan for it, more or less, I think. I mean, just the sense of Burnham needs to meet a lot of these new MPs that he hasn't met before. The 2024 intake. The 2024 intake. He is not going to be sat in front of people who will be hoping for big jobs from him at the risk of promising them to him. I mean, not that he actually would do that at all, but just that sense of he's got a new intake of people he needs to talk to. Others in his team will be doing work in terms of figuring out exactly who they need to talk to in Westminster now that he's arrived. And through weeks doesn't sound like a massively long time, but actually on the domestic front, he did flesh out quite a lot of what he wanted to do during the campaign.

6:59And he did articulate that to voters in Makerfield. And his team would say that actually a lot of that is more fleshed out than some journalists give them credit for. I think there are big questions, particularly on foreign policy, for example, about just how quickly they can come to views on certain topics. I think there's more or less a fair amount of consensus us on quite a bit of that in the Labour Party, so it shouldn't be too controversial. But there's certainly quite a lot of work to be done over the next two weeks. You are right. Yeah, I mean, there is tons of stuff to get through, I would have thought, not least the economy, right?

7:26So he's got a big economy speech early next week. But we still don't have the answer to the fundamental, probably the most important question of his premiership, who is his chancellor? Now, what we are told is that there are three names in the running. They are Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, West Streeting, the former Health Secretary, some claims a deal was done. These claims are denied by all sides in exchange for his support. And lastly, Shabana Vermeer, the Home Secretary, who has made clear that she doesn't want it. She wants to stay as Home Secretary. But nonetheless, Andy Burnham thinks she could do a really good job there.

7:57So those are the three names in the running. Patrick, can I thrust on you? Who do you think is going to get it? Well, it was interesting, wasn't it? When Wes Streeting put out his statement of support for Andy Burnham yesterday, there was a big chunking there about the economy. And it was a reminder that he spent the past two or three weeks saying hey listen I know you think I'm a Labour student's progress Blairite type but I'm proper left wing and I'm really into capital gains tax and more taxes on wealth and all of that sort of stuff so you can read that and actually think is that Wes Streeting making a pitch not to be the right wing ballast in Andy Burnham's off great offices of state but saying I can actually really get on board with you know the new spirit of Manchesterism and public control, etc, etc.

8:45If Andy Burnham wants to go big, though, if he's thinking, OK, I want to signal a serious substantive change with Keir Starmer's government on the economy and the state and be bolder, rather than say, actually, Starmerism and Starmer's government are pretty straight up and down centre-left. All it needs is a change of emphasis, a slightly cooler prime minister, and I can be Britain's Pedro Sanchez, right, with the existing policy platform. But if he wants to actually substantially change things, he will want a need to make Ed Miliband the chancellor. And the other argument for Ed Miliband, of course, is, okay, some bond traders have a view on Ed, a certain view on Ed Miliband, but this is a government that's going to need to hit the ground running it's going to need to achieve things quickly when you look across the waterfront of Keir Starmer's government who really knows the treasury as an institution who has been there who can really get a grip of the treasury and there are two ministers with the requisite experience and economic grounding You know, people say one is Yvette Cooper, one is Ed Miliband.

10:00But to put this in an objective way, people would have very different views about those ministers' capacity to get things done quickly. Ed Miliband has shown that he can pick an agenda by the scruff of the neck and drive it through. Yvette Cooper in her domestic briefs has not necessarily had that reputation for frenetic activity and ruthless delivery. So there does seem to be a groundswell behind it may as well be Ed, but it depends on who you speak to in Burnham's inner circle. And I think what's telling at the moment is it's clearly a race. We are getting pitches from Ed Miliband's allies who are trying to sell why he would be a great transformative chancellor.

10:40We are getting rivals who are saying the guy is not pro-business, who would undermine confidence in the markets. And it's all quite ugly actually behind the scenes. But because genuinely I think Andy Burnham at this point in time, at this moment has not made his mind up. Now, that may change quite quickly, but it means that we wouldn't be getting these pitches if the issue was settled. Yeah, I mean, the fact that Siobhan Mahmood is still in the race, so to speak, and has spoken about still being in the race, I think is in itself remarkable. It's fascinating. We know that she wants to remain as Home Secretary and despite a lobbying campaign by some of Burnham's senior advisors has made that clear, essentially.

11:14I mean, speaking to some people this morning, I think there is a real hope that Mahmood might well have a more open mind about this, that she hasn't completely ruled it out. But the fact that they are still hoping, against hope really, but hoping that that might be the case, I think does speak to the fact that there is, as you say, still some real indecision at the very top about what will happen in this particular perspective. I think you're right to mention that there is basically quite a big lobbying campaign happening at the moment. And actually, I spoke to Paul Johnson, formerly of the IFS, yesterday on Times Radio about this question, which was essentially, will Ed Miliband rattle the bond markets?

11:46To which the answer is, what the bond markets need is a clear plan and a sense that somebody is going to deliver on that plan and they're not going to chop and change. And actually it's possible that Ed Miliband does something like that and would be palatable, to which those in Burnham Circle who are completely, resolutely opposed to Ed Miliband would just firmly disagree and would say it's not just about the bond markets here. It's about a wider set of economic questions with regard to what Andy Burnham does, particularly questions like net zero, and a kind of broader point about cabinet stability and a sense that you need somebody in that job who is going to be fairly uncontroversial and who they feel will not be looked upon as being on resignation watch if Andy Burnham wants to change direction.

12:23I think, by the way, that particular last criticism or worry does apply to West Streeting as well because he has clear over leadership ambitions, which, of course, he's extinguished in this particular moment. I think there is a fear of having somebody in number 10 who does, I mean, that letter was, I think, quite hilarious, actually, that line that Patrick mentions where it says small differences. I mean, I'm old enough to remember the speech on progressive capitalism that was basically... That was last week. Yeah, it was a few days ago that in parts was a bit of a disavowal of some of those tenets of Burnhamism.

12:56The bond markets, not the bond villains. Exactly. And so I think there will just be some fears, both because there is a belief among some that it's not small differences. It is in some particular regards quite major differences, perhaps, or could become so. And because there is a sense that this is somebody who does want to be a Labour leader, who would be capable of destabilising a Burnham premiership if things went awry. that that is also a path laced with some political risk as well so it's really not an easy decision and I think at the heart of it it speaks to obviously a big unanswered question which is what is the economic policy and direction of this Burnham premiership if we already knew the answer to that question we wouldn't be placing just so much totemic weight as we are on this answer of who's going to be his chancellor.

13:36I want to come on to that in one minute there are two other people I want to talk about because actually when you look at the kind of people Andy Burnham is bringing in it's going to be quite a lot of tall poppies one of those is Lord O 'Neill So Jim O 'Neill, who's a former Goldman Sachs banker and a former Treasury minister. And the other is a guy called Andy Haldane, who's a former chief economist at the Bank of England. Both have advocated scrapping the triple lock. Lord O 'Neill, I think this week. He told the Sunday Times that he was trying to get Burnham to scrap the triple lock. He was very open about the fact that's what he wanted to do.

14:06We should say Burnham committed in a very recent interview with the Eye to keeping the triple lock. I mean, that doesn't necessarily rule anything out completely. But I think it is so interesting, like you're saying, that there are people who are pushing him to do that. And at the weekend, he wandered into the fiscal rules at the weekend, Lord O 'Neill, talking about possibly loosening the fiscal rules. So, but either way, it looks like he may end up being the chief economic advisor. So you could have a world in which you've got some very strong personalities in there, Lord O 'Neill, Ed Miliband.

14:31It could look and feel different. Keir Starmer wanted to be a very dominant prime minister. He did not particularly like or give much heed to tall poppies. Whereas I suspect Andy Burnham might do things differently. Everyone who knows Andy Burnham and likes Andy Burnham say his great skill is managing relationships. And when he's managing these relationships between these hugely dominant individuals, how does he square Lou Haig and Wes and Shabana and Jim O 'Neill and Andy Haldane? In a really fascinating film Sam Coates did for Sky on Manchesterism last week, Jim O 'Neill very bluntly said, if Andy Burnham doesn't demonstrate profound economic change, serious economic change, proper, his words, economic change in six months, he'll be on his knees.

15:20So if Jim O 'Neill is going into number 10 and those are the stakes, it does sort of make you think maybe they just will appoint Ed Miliband as chancellor with a brief term, move fast and break things, basically. So we should think about what that looks like. So whatever way you look at it, my view is that tax rises are coming. So we get to the autumn. There are real issues with the public finances still. Obviously, Iran has blown a huge hole in them. There is defence to fund. And as you said, Lara, earlier, actually, just look at what Andy Burnham has been talking about on the campaign trail.

15:53He's been talking very openly about changes to council tax, about a land tax. He's clearly in the market for taxes on wealth and trying to basically do less on income. But he's going to have to go big, right? And we know the things he's talked about. Nationalisation or public control of utilities, some kind of 10-year investment plan. We'll have to see how it shapes up. But it is difficult because he has decided that he's going to stick to the fiscal rules. And if you stick to these fiscal rules, well, that just ties you. As you know, he previously was critical of the very same fiscal rules that he is now endorsing.

16:28But the one thing he's definitely doing next week is endorsing those fiscal rules and then some. And that is a problem. There is limited room for manoeuvre. Yeah. And well, which pushes you. Let's not start another round of speculation on this podcast. But, you know, you can very easily see how they're, you know, people are categorically ruling out early elections now. But with the fiscal rules as they are and his commitment to them, you can sort of see how we end up getting pushed into Andy's 10 points up in the polls. Andy needs his own mandate. I'm going to put some bold and radical stuff in the manifesto, et cetera, et cetera.

16:59We can see how you end up there quite quickly. They are working on something for the next few weeks to answer the so-called mandate question. I think they are really keenly aware of this. I mean, they can't not be. They don't want an early election. Given that Nigel Farage has obviously immediately and in the most unsurprising way imaginable said that there should be an election. and that will be something that you hear plenty of. The moment they try and do something bold, obviously they will be posed with the question of what the mandate to do that is. So, I mean, clearly that is a kind of circle they need to square.

17:25I don't think they're massively worried about that at the moment, but I think they're definitely planning to do something on that in the next couple of weeks. Right, we are going to head for the interval. And after the interval, we are going to come back and we're going to talk about the transition, which is supposed to be an orderly transition, but it already feels anything but. We're one day in. So we'll give you some scoops on that. And then we'll also talk about our scoop on Nigel Farage, which is coming which is all about his money and the crypto billionaire that is funding reform uk so back after the interval welcome back to the state of it we wanted to start by talking about the transition to andy burnham's premiership so this tiny three and a half week window and patrick you i want you to take us there's a number 10 garden event i think it's a number 10 garden yeah yeah and kia starmer had some very kind words to say about his plans for this this period so take listeners inside that party.

18:13Well, I had the good fortune, after I was on the terrace, I went to, across the river and went to a pub in Waterloo last night. I do more than drink, but, you know, it was all in service of this podcast and the great newspaper for which we work. And I had a drink with a couple of people who'd been at that do, and I was speaking to other people who'd been at that do. Kieslamer had supporters, people who worked for him, ministerial allies, MPs, in the garden at number 10. He gave a speech. Victoria Starmer gave a very well-received speech as well. But Keir Starmer's speech, and it was a classic of the genre, Keir Starmer gives the speech of his life in private and everyone's sort of like, Keir, come on, where was this guy, you know, six months ago?

18:56But one thing he said that struck people, you know, he was talking about how difficult it had been to change the Labour Party, kicking out anti-Semax, et cetera, et cetera. But a really striking thing he said was, you know, he'd be doing everything he could to support the transition, to support Andy Burnham's government, and that he wanted his team to do the same thing. And he spoke at some length about how precious Labour governments were. You know, they don't come along very often. Let's not wreck it. And there wasn't much rancor in the speech or any rancor at all. So the message was very much, I'm the adult in the room.

19:29This hasn't ended how I would have liked it to end, but the stakes are so high here. Guys, we've got it all pulled together around Andy Burnham. Unfortunately, that is already coming up against some challenges. So if we look at this transition period, what I am told is the whole thing has been designed so the Prime Minister can go to the NATO summit on July the 7th, that he can unveil in advance of that the defence investment plan, which is his big 10-year plan for investment in defence, that effectively was one of the final straws that broke Campbell's back and ended his premiership when John Healy, the defence secretary, resigned.

20:04for whatever reason he wants to go with that as his legacy he wants to announce that and unveil it and then the nominations open on july the 9th so you can see it's been very deliberately done and the issue is that actually this is a huge political moment this is a 10-year investment plan that is about the future of warfare modern warfare how we will fight wars how we will defend ourselves and obviously there was a massive row over the funding like john healy said this isn't enough funding, I'm off. And then everything kind of fell around the prime minister after that. So Burnham allies are pointing to the fact that this is, you know, pretty outrageous.

20:42This surely has to be a decision that is taken by the man who will actually be sitting in number 10. And that for Keir Starmer to take that decision and try to own it, well, I was talking to Lord Case, the former cabinet secretary earlier on, and he was saying, it's just meaningless. People will look at it and they won't have any authority. No one at NATO will believe it. They'll all ask Andy do you agree with that so that is already a causing quite a significant bit of blood blood and like I say we are in day one of transition yeah and I mean I think there will have been some around Starmer who would have assumed possibly that they were doing something of a favour for Andy Burnham in taking a number of invidious decisions on defence spending that perhaps he might not want to do and kind of answer a question for him before he arrived but obviously that's not how they see it given that some of those tough decisions are actually not the ones that those around Burnham would make and they'll want their own authority to be able to do it and they'll probably want to start from square one and looking at that afresh.

21:33So it is really hard because this is one of the main things that the last few weeks notwithstanding and John Healy's departure also notwithstanding, Salma thinks is one of his strengths still. I mean, he will still think that this defence investment plan will be one of his key signature achievements, even if it comes at the end of a really torrid few months of negotiations that's meant his frayed relations with key cabinet colleagues, that he's had to force through a number of really unpalatable cuts at the beginning to capital spending for all of these departments. So it is really, really hard to see how this doesn't just actually further embarrass Starmer at the very end of his premiership now.

22:05All the logic suggests it should be a decision taken by Burnham. But there is another problem with this timetable. It's obviously a very tight timetable, but this July the 9th thing delays the actual nomination. And that means that access talks at the moment, they're trying to work around this, but they cannot take place until July the 9th. Now, what are access talks? Access talks are where whoever is the next prime minister talks to the civil service about their plans for government. And if you're Andy Burnham, who's effectively concocting his plans or drawing up his plans for government with a tiny team of advisers, it's a really important moment.

22:39Keir Starmer had months of them. Not that he did him much good, but he had months of them. You know, Rishi Sunak had quite a long run in. Liz Truss had a long run in. And it's where the civil service says, well, this is how you could execute what you wish to do. So Antonia Romeo would be a key figure in it. And those talks are supposed to take place. At the moment, they cannot take place until July the 9th. That would be a week, or just one day over, a week before Andy Burnham walked into number 10. And that just seems insane to me. So I am sure, I don't doubt this has to be resolved because time is of the essence here.

23:14And surely you want the many thousands of civil servants in this country to be devoting themselves to trying to make the next government work. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because, I mean, I wrote the weekend that Darren Jones had arrived in the make field constituency with Louise Haig last week. They'd had talks in which Darren Jones had reassured Louise Haig that actually there was being work done to streamline a track to make sure that basically work on the budget would continue. Yeah. That that wouldn't fall off the cliff at all. And that is because Jones and others have all been basically warned by officials that the summer of 2022 was so jarring.

23:50That was, of course, when there was a long running conservative leadership contest that work just basically ground to a whole and that it was really important that that didn't happen. So I think even though there isn't this kind of official, these access talks happening, clearly this is something that Burnham's team are aware of, this problem. And there are some like Darren Jones, who I'm sure we'll talk about as a sort of, you know, possible maybe, maybe leadership contender. I mean, he'd like to be, but it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. But I do wonder why.

24:14Every time I've asked Darren Jones's people for a response on that, jokes have come in response. So I'm not entirely sure they're the ones feeding this. But my bemusement on that is that it hasn't been shot. I mean, there are jokes. That's fine. But there's no denial. They're leaning in. They're briefing that dozens of people could support him. And I cannot find these people at the moment. We've tried to speak to as many of them as we can. But I guess what it does reflect is a very serious concern under Starmer allies that an Ed Miliband chancellorship could pull the party to the left and pose real problems.

24:42And it again speaks to an unhappy and unsettled Labour Party. I think that is fairer. Yeah, unhappy and unsettled. But, you know, those officials you were talking about, Laura, should be so lucky because as I was saying a little while ago, I was on the terrace last night. Loads of ministers were out there. And one of them actually said to me, I was a bit like, you know, a bit early for you to be having a nice cold pint on this lovely sunny terrace. And something they said pretty explicitly was, well, yeah. Yeah, but we're all in the sort of what's the point space because Andy might come along and say, actually, my priorities in your brief are entirely different.

25:21We might not have jobs. We might be doing very different jobs. So the summer of 22, admittedly, it's a shorter period now, but it's repeating itself. So if Andy Burnham has like 300 nominations on day two, do we really think the NEC is just going to sit there twiddling its thumbs for a while? I mean, Andy Burnham might say, we've got to respect the process. like you know could this could all come to head much much more quickly so you could just have a few days or a day of access talks and then he's in yeah yeah yeah quite something um look so look now for something completely different um we'll just move on to nigel frage and i wanted to talk about a man that listeners may or may not have heard about he is one of the most influential people in british politics although he doesn't technically live here so he's a guy called Christopher Harbourn.

26:05He is a reform donor and he has given the biggest donation in political history from one individual,£9 million to Nigel Farage of Reform UK. He's given£12 million in total. He believes in Nigel Farage and is willing to back him to the hilt. And he's also the source of this£5 million gift that Nigel Farage didn't declare that was really controversial. So Labour is obviously aware of this. These are game-changing amounts of money for British politics. This is real money that is going to reform UK. No one can match it. It's on a level that we've never seen before. And they are preparing to change the law.

26:39He was based in Thailand and the new law will effectively bar him from making donations as a British national living in Thailand. So the scoop that we have for you is a very simple one. We are told that as of about two months ago, he is now in the UK. He is a resident in the UK. Presumably he'll pay his taxes in the UK, but he's a resident in the UK. And that will allow him to continue donating to reform UK. And that really matters for what comes next, because the other parties, like I say, are struggling to match the kind of sums that we are seeing from these cryptocurrency billionaires. And it will also reopen inevitably.

27:14It also shows Farage is doubling down, because there's all sorts of controversy around Harbourn, both on that secret donation that we didn't know anything about, the private one, which was still not clear what that money was for. But more importantly, the role of cryptocurrency money in British politics. And Fraser Nelson has written a lot about this for us in The Times, but it's a really controversial issue. And it's quite clear what people in the cryptocurrency world want. They want less regulation of cryptocurrency and they want more kind of recognition for it. And Farage is on the record in saying that he would like that and has stood on the stage at several cryptocurrency events and actually said that.

27:48So what it means is that this money is going to keep coming in, Like, so talking to senior people in Reform UK, they are talking about raising£100 million ahead of the next election. We've seen a small amount of that so far. So a huge, huge war chest. And obviously, as disappointed as they might have been with the make-a-feel by-election, that money will make a difference. It pays for leaflets. It pays for ground operation. It pays for press officers. So it is quite a big moment, this guy on shoring, I think, for British politics. Yeah, I was told last week, I was doing a bit of a stock take on the make field result with some of Nigel Farage's aides and very close allies and running through what next for reform.

28:35And one of them told me, you know, Christopher Harbour and stuff obviously has been questions following Nigel Farage for some time. And people are saying, oh, is Nigel Farage no longer doing press conferences because he hates being asked about this and he's rattled? And the response came, no, Nigel genuinely doesn't care. I expressed a little bit less delicately than that. He doesn't care. And it was really striking. This morning he went on the BBC, did a BBC interview, where he said, nobody cares, right? That is the gamble Nigel Farage is taking, that really when push comes to shove, this is the sort of story we talk about on a podcast, but people in the pubs of Insert Provincial Town here wouldn't be talking about it.

29:12You know, I think people do talk about it, but it is interesting that, as you say, doubling down. And why wouldn't you, if you and Nigel Farage, because this is the business model that allows you to do this new kind of campaign in politics. And in politics, just money matters. There's an obvious point. But I think for context, the Tories raised something like 14 million quid for the whole of last year. So Christopher Harbourn is already close to single-handedly going above that. So if you are in the very competitive attention economy of British politics right now, where there's a five-way split vying for votes, money does matter.

29:44So yeah, if he is now going to give more money and is relocating to the UK, that is significant. So look, we'll bring the podcast to a close for today, but look, we'll be back next week, possibly sooner, who knows, because things are moving apace in Westminster and we may well need another emergency podcast before the weekend. I'd like to send my heartfelt thanks on behalf of Steve, Laura and myself to Harry Kitson, Ewan Daughtry and Molly Guinness.