48 hours after THAT speech… how many marks out of 10?

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1:54Yeah, go out and go to a WH Smith or a Waitrose or a good local independent news agent and get yourself a copy and see. Start with 500 and carry on. But we are very proud and grateful to all of our subscribers who are the people that make all of this possible. So I mean that most sincerely, folks. Thank you for getting us this far. And onwards to the next 500. Yes, in honour of the... I think it was because of the 500 issue, frankly. He gave a great speech, didn't he? Mr. Burnham, the well-known prime minister, pretty much knocked it out of the park. And actually, I've been thinking, Matt, and I was glad we've had a couple of days to digest it.

2:34Yes, yes. Because there's so much in it. And it was so I totally reject this idea that it was just vibes. It really wasn't. It was full of it was packed with it was also manifesto, really packed with content. So I was rather glad that we've had a little while to think about it. Me too, because I think, well, one thing to say, I listened to it, but I didn't see it. All right, right. Which makes a massive difference, more than I appreciate it, especially on the emotion side. So I was kind of less conscious of the obvious kind of tearing up and stuff. But I have to say it was a lot and it was more than I was expecting.

3:18me too yeah especially you know let's not forget this is a guy who's what is it 10 weeks into the job um the the accusation against Andy Burnham was that you know he doesn't have a plan um well he does he's put to shame um a great litany of prime ministers who've had much more opportunity to to prepare he came in with um you know and quite an astonishing array of very consequential really consequential yeah yeah and you know these things all individually deserve scrutiny which we will definitely give and criticism where it's where it's uh where it's appropriate but i wanted to say um and i don't know what you think matt i wanted to say that to me it felt and i wrote this in the new world it felt like it felt like finally for the first time since Cameron's kind of reprehensible decision to go for this Brexit referendum.

4:25Finally we had a Prime Minister who felt like he was up to the task of taking Britain to a place, a destination. Yeah. That made sense, it was coherent, it was value-driven, it was whether you agree with it or not, it was certainly coherent in this is the mess we're in and this is where we're going to go and it felt like for the first time you know as i as i said to you matt you know if this guy has got one key performance indicator one kpi as they call it in corporate land the kpi is to provide voters in 2029 or sooner a viable alternative to faragist populism and yeah in in if that's his big mission i think he knocked it out the park yeah and actually i think almost he's he he's offering more than that which is i think there's a very uh coherent and um kinetic and um passionate really vision of what britain should be like which i think has been germinating within him for for decades and and he looked to me like a guy who was kind of suddenly like it was like a coiled spring who'd suddenly been released to say what he'd been thinking and it was it was it was absolutely mesmerizing in that respect i mean it was as you say it was consequential it was substantial it was an important moment i i completely agree and i i think look there's so much common ground on this i think we're going to agree on almost everything and what we disagree will be at the margins although it's the margins that where elections are won or lost so you have to kind of take them into account but i mean it look it was obviously radically better than starmer that's almost seems sort of trite to say that but i was interested today that um in her interview with the spectator kemi baden not prep getting ready for her conference you know paid him quite a compliment by saying well there's now a battle of ideas which is absolutely correct you know and um that's good because um you know that's exactly what you want which is you don't want a technocratic person standing there saying vote labor you want someone on the front foot full of feeling full of ideas saying no you know you don't have to go for nigel farage and you don't have to go for the tories you know you go for this this is this is a this is a future facing package of ideas and policies and strategies because it wasn't just sort of most conference speeches are a combination of jokes um fairly vacuous single sense you know verbless sentences and rhetoric with a few retail politics things thrown in this was much more than that you know the bulk of the speech really was was not so much specific policy but launching a series of quite long-term strategic you know proposals that lead in radical and in some cases quite perilous directions but you know you can't you know we can't have it both ways you know we can't criticize Starmer for two years for being cautious and technocratic and then the minute Burnham comes in and and is bold say or watch out some so I think you know that's really important I think there were some specific aspects of the framing which were tremendous.

7:57I thought the running line about taking back control, the way he appropriated that from the right was really good and actually correct, which is, look, I understand why he wanted to take back control, but the opposite has happened. So that was really good. He took back control of the phrase take back control. Yeah, and that's not nothing because that's one of the few memorable phrases of the last 10 years or so of politics. So I thought that was that was very significant. And people that will cut through, I think. And obviously, his passion on social care, which we've known about since he was health secretary, and he launched a package which died with the last Labour government in 2010.

8:41But, you know, he's been trying to get social care done since 2009. And it's been given a kind of poignant edge by the fact that his father, Roy, just died. You know, so there's that. Lots of stuff on Europe, lots of stuff on housing, big proposals on the electoral method. You know, just it was spilling over with content. I mean, I suppose, you know, the reason I think in this conversation, it's useful for me to be probably more of a devil's advocate than I actually am is because I am the political rough sleeper, to use a phrase he used himself. And so I'm not of the left in origin, but I'm very much devoted to the service of defeating reform at the next election, as you know.

9:32And I worry always about all parties because they tend to this is not Labour specific. The Tories are just as bad. They tend to swing from panic to overconfidence. Right. And I get nervous. This is just me. I get nervous around messianism. and too much e-wop dancing and ve day celebrations so if i come across in what follows as a bit of a debbie downer it's not because i don't wish him well it's quite the opposite that's all i know listen i think you're 100 right and i know um uh perhaps i i don't i don't know what you thought this conversation was going to turn out like but perhaps you've i mean i was i was let me say it this i was gushing about the speech itself yes but but i am absolutely of no uh doubt that yeah this is the point where the work really starts yeah and i think that's the key distinction i was just so i think i i was just so relieved i mean you know i am of the left broadly and i was just so relieved to hear somebody articulating a clear alternative and and i felt an attractive alternative to Farage.

10:50And, you know, again, you know, if there was one person who should have been worried in this country after that speech, it's Nigel Farage. So massive tick for Andy Burnham there. But you're right. I mean, you know, Janine Ganesh wrote a piece in the FT following the speech, which I thought was, you know, I looked to him for, you know, a cynical, more measured view than perhaps the one I'm carrying around in my head. And he said, well, you know, Burnham doesn't even pretend to be interested in growth and this is going to be central to everything he's he's planning to deliver that it's actually you know a quite regressive set of policies a quite regressive place he comes from and and i don't agree with that actually i i i don't either but this is the argument that's going to to spill over now and rightly so but yeah but it's a very you're right there's a very important distinction to be made which is it would be i think you have to be churlish to deny that that was a you know people have said it's the greatest speech since the gettysburg address i don't know about that but you know sort of no i mean you know i i heard some i heard a couple of podcasts i would go further and say the sermon of the mount on the mount pericles to the athenians yeah um no but you know there's a lot of like the use of the word lifetime you know like it's a great one of my lifetime um but that's fine you know that instant reactions and all that but it remains the case that it was it certainly was one of the most memorable speeches i've ever seen at a party conference um and i think there was an electricity about it because as we said last week you know only a year ago he was on the fringes of the conference watching his um leadership prospects apparently die you know skulking away from the conference's Starmer gave what was turned out to be his last conference speeches leader and everyone was saying that's the end for Burnham and here he is just knocking it out the park and yeah and as you say I there's absolutely no doubt that um well you can already tell actually that Farage is not sure of he's giving a speech I think today uh in around Doncaster um so we'll see what he says but um he wasn't sure at all of what to go on um you know should he go on the triple lock should he go on on Europe it threw him and that's good you know we anything that throws Nigel Farage off balance and boy there's been plenty of that recently is good I think can I just make the point about vibes though because I know you know they're easily dismissed but they're not unimportant oh no no no they're not and um they're essential it's funny actually I heard um Andrew Neil who isn't a natural Labour supporter I don't think by by any means but you know and you know we've had our ups and downs with Andrew Neil over the years but you know he gives a a very insightful take on the world and he zoned in and he was talking about the moment where he Burnham turned his very emotional passage about his father into something very concrete.

14:02He turned it into a defense of the Union and he culminates, you know, almost a raging defense of the Union because this is the Britain, the United Kingdom that his father believed in and that he had inherited and wanted to make sure remained intact and ended up with this quite graceful, elegant and powerful phrase around solidarity not separation you know yeah but the point that really struck me was Andrew Neil was himself getting I think quite emotional as he was talking about this so I think it's people will dismiss Burnham's passion and emotion and the vibe around him but it's very important that people feel a connection and if you can connect people like Andrew Neil to your cause you're doing well i think well i thought that um yeah and i don't i i mean what worries what has always worried me about the use of the word vibes and when kamala harris was going to be president do you remember that yes um the brat summer was it was it that long it was sort of a little bit yeah uh and apparently green the color green was going to get her into office a particular kind of vibrant green wasn't it yes i mean specific pantone shade you know an old trick but a good one um no i thought that i mean that moment in particular i mean yeah very interesting that andrew selected that and he's right i thought what that moment showed as well is that i think this line about burnham being a softy and just being about pleasing everyone is wrong because i thought what you saw in that moment and it wasn't an he wasn't exploiting his father's memory but you saw that burnham is two things he's a very emotional person he's very instinctive that's why i said to you i think i mentioned he's more mackinroy than borg right he's he's yeah he plays out of his instinct rather than metronomically but part of his instinct is you know he combines passion with ruthlessness so in that moment and it wasn't he wasn't i really am says he wasn't exploiting his father's memory what he was doing was you know he used as he say he goes from his father's memory he's visibly and obviously authentically very moved as he wouldn't be um and very vulnerable and then he throws john swinney under the bus yes yes amazing no no no i respect right because extreme vulnerability when everyone is in the room is going and indeed watching is going is he going to lose it has the uh teleprompt stopped what's going on is this a Theresa May coughing moment right yeah yeah not a bit he says and John Swinney said you're going to be the last prime minister of the United Kingdom and I say to you and I thought yeah yeah well whatever happens now and who knows what's going to happen now we are this is a real player okay we've got someone in number 10 who can play the big strokes and has a I think he is very strong i don't buy this he's just eyelashes he's just tick tock you know that's all wrong yeah yeah just a vibe lord i mean he is a vibe lord but but he's that's not all he is at all you don't you don't go from being mayor of greater manchester to killing the last prime minister giving a performance like that all in the space of about 10 minutes without being pretty tasty with a shift do you really that's right that's right no 100 100 and you know the public if you look at the polls, there's definitely been a there is a bounce of sorts, definite bounce and long way to go, a long way to go.

17:45And perhaps this is a good juncture to to conclude with the back patting and take a quick break and come back and then get into what might be problematic about what's coming in the next few years. Okay. See you in a minute. to their listeners.

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19:37Welcome back, dear listeners. This is the Two Mats podcast brought to you by the subscribers of the New World magazine. Our 500th edition is on the street, so well done us, well done subscribers. Go and get a copy if you haven't got one already, see what all the fuss is about. Now, tickets are still available. A few tickets down in the stalls are still available for Alastair Campbell and Michelle Hussain, but not that many. So pretty confident we'll sell out of this. So go to cadoganhall.com and snap up your tickets for Alastair Campbell and Michelle Hussain talking about Alastair's new book, Percivilliance, which is a guaranteed bestseller.

20:15So get them now. That's on October the 22nd. Matt, okay, so should we, yeah, Let's talk about what's sticky. Where do you want to start? Europe? Well, let's, I mean, not least because the New World used to be the New European and remain, you know, a title that is, you know, rightly very concerned about the consequences of Brexit and what to do about it. The emphasis on Europe was much greater than I expected or had hoped for. So and I thought, again, you know, how far we've travelled from the dismal make Brexit work slogan with which this Labour government came into power in 2024. You know, this this was at minimum genuinely opening up a conversation.

21:04Can't be a bad thing. You know, it's already been welcomed explicitly by Lunderland and Emmanuel Macron. so that's great um and so where do we go from here well my perennial bugbear and this isn't him this is uh other this is sort of some of the other sort of uh politicians and and media instantly using the word rejoin makes me worried we mustn't relitigate 2016 i think he was pretty clear that's not what he's talking about but it's just a you know sort of early psa about be careful um he says in the speech um there's a summit in brussels on the 20th of november he'll use that opportunity to lay out to the country and presumably to his fellow heads of government um you know what i believe the different options are for britain's long-term relationship uh with our european partners and he goes on and he says i will see if we can find consensus around which one will give us clarity about our position now he knows because i think one thing i i really believe about burnham is that oftentimes when i've said but does he think this i he does i'm sure he does you know he knows all this right so that he will find it difficult enough to get consensus in his party on this right you know of his party about um 230 labor mps represent seats that voted leave right including Miliband, Yvette Cooper, John Healy, Pat McFadden, Lisa Nandy, Bridget Phillips and Angela Rayner and Stephen Kinnock so that that will that alone makes it a a challenge before you've even got to the rest of the country and before you've even got to the rest of Europe.

22:54The second issue is one that I think a lot of people don't quite understand but it's incredibly important which is the in politics there's and it's become very vivid in in the sort of social media populist age there's a there's what they call a difference between a consequence decision and an identity decision so on the one hand you can feel very passionately or strongly that the the rational you can feel rational outcome regret brexit didn't work right which i think the majority of people most polls show feel but you can simultaneously in a double think way who knows how many but you can feel resentful of elite attempts to overturn your decision and i think that if we talk about andy burnham's emotions which we should we should also talk about the public's emotions because the problem about brexit was that we can throw as many polls and as many graphs and as many figures as we like at this but it was a decision governed by emotion and those demons and those emotions can be reactivated not an argument for not trying but i all i mean is before you enter battle be aware that even if there's a poll on sunday which says 65 percent of people agree with andy burnham that we should go back into you or whatever right which there is by the way yeah but yeah of course but but my point is yeah no i understand that doesn't mean that that at the at the moment of choice which there will be it it delivers the outcome you want you have to go through this in a very the pipeline this is incredibly hard it's not just it's not just and we've said this a million times on the pod it's not just can you please replaster that wall and get rid of brexit it's everything has to be did you have to deal with the world as you find it and we do live in a brexit post-brexit era and so the journey back into the heart of europe in some shape or form has to be modeled around that rather than just turning the clock back to the day before the referendum in 2016 but again i think he probably totally agree i think he probably knows that you know i'm not i'm not sure i'm sure he does and i think you know the way he laid it out i mean he knows explicitly what's at risk because there was a strange sort of sentence within all of these big promises about improving things which you know you would expect he was doing in the spirit of this is what britain wants so yes there will be a favorable action he did he said a strange sentence about you know it's time someone ripped the plaster off yes and yeah but maybe even if there's a personal cost to it there's a sort of christ-like kind of yeah i offer myself for sacrifice yeah but the the political calculus is absolutely fraught because you've got on one hand um ed davy saying well we should just crack on and join the single markets and the customs union immediately and start to generate the economic growth that that will deliver and that will form the basis of our argument to the country about why joining the European Union, or as Ed David would say, rejoining the European Union, is a no-brainer.

26:14And then you've got what I think is Andy Burnham's strategy, which is to say, we need to have a conversation. Let's just absolutely put the flag in the ground and say, this hasn't worked, right? So something's got to happen. Exactly. But in the meantime, we're not talking about Europe in isolation. We're talking about it as being a component in the jigsaw of problems that this country has got to somehow find the missing pieces and put it all back together again and that involves social care, it involves neats, it involves the voting system so people feel more enfranchised and so there's a whole collection of things that have got to fit together and to your point about pipelaying they've got to be sequenced with absolute precision engineered precision so that at no point can farage step into the middle of it all and start shouting about betrayal yes exactly and get a reception you know that was he will say betrayal it's the second bit that's crucial it's like in a sense it's it's probably and you know i don't want to go back in time but it's probably a little bit like morgan mcsweeney's broad thesis which is, you know, we've got to fix people's lives before they'll even start hearing you, hearing the argument for the reconciling with Europe.

27:40I don't think there's a contradiction again, because I think that making Britain ready for a new role in Europe is a good story. Totally. You know, I like that story. And I think the public will, too. I think the other thing which he must surely be conscious of even though he was in Manchester for a lot of it but he wasn't on Mars people act as if he'd been sort of they do slightly act he was in Manchester then as if they don't have internet and the television and the radio it's slightly condescending to say the least but if he was in Manchester then he wouldn't know you know you are aware there's a place called the Hebrides which is also part of the UK anyway it just makes me laugh when people say that it's so revealing of you know the London centricity of it all yeah but but you know during the the the horrendous parliament where all this was being decided you know it takes up any decision about Britain's position in Europe takes up so much bandwidth and so i think that having embarked on this he may well have to prune the rosebush a little bit on some of the other things he suggested he might do this week because to get to any new formal relationship with europe legislate for it do the treaty whatever it takes right the amount of uh i mean the energy and heat and let's hope some light that will be released by that will be cosmic in scale he has broad shoulders I think he can do it but I am reminded of that terrible night in I think it was 2019 when there was the series of indicative votes on the various options and they all they all fell apart now he'll know about that because they have bush telegraph in Manchester I'm told but um you know it it is it it's kind of exciting I mean I Look, for all the reservations I'm saying, I'd rather we were here than where we were a week ago.

29:49Well, let me ask you a question. Because one of the things that he's, a point he's laboured actually, is this idea of trying to find consensus. Yeah. And Ed Davey was on Radio 4 this morning. You know, and I think he's got a fair beef, you know, to say, well, hold on. you know, we've been at the forefront of aggressively pushing towards Europe. And actually, Andy Burnham hasn't tried to find consensus. What he's just done is lay out a load of obvious opportunities, you know, and obvious, and where is the reach for consensus? And I was listening to that thinking, well, this whole idea of consensus is, you know, it's a physical impossibility, really, because of the way the system is.

30:37But is there an incident, knowing that, Matt, is there, my question to you is, do you think there is a sort of a deceit at the heart of what Andy Burnham's saying about consensus? 100 % I think that what but a good deceit which is he part of his style uh and again it's a good style which is the the new politics that he's um trying to incarnate is about the kind of politics that mayors do of necessity have to sort of practice which is built on consensus building you know different community leaders different bits of your region you know walking around literally talking to people and transporting that to Westminster is galvanizing because it's so odd to hear a prime minister use the word consensus but it turns your head now you know he's been in politics you know he's not in spite of what Trump said a great businessman right you know he's been in politics all his life he knows he knows this is a dialectical game Europe it is there isn't going to be a consensus there's going to be a victory one way or the other there is and i you know i hope and i have you know reasonable optimism that the right side will win but it is a battle and so i think you're right i think that the the plea for consensus is is also and you know he does this on social care is in order to make those that don't want to participate look a little bit shabby yes so he'll be saying look you know i'm trying to get the nation back into a better relationship with europe and you just you lot just spend your you know which is empirically and manifestly in a bad space and you lot are so obsessed and fetishizing the the 2016 result and stuck in the past that you won't even talk to me about it now that's not a bad message yeah the other the other thing that i think is worth scrutinizing a little bit and where i felt he was he's shaky on is Britain's broader place in the world.

32:41And I don't think this is fully formed, this thought about this. No, it's not. And we discussed it last week about the kind of implausibility of Britain being this kind of global honest broker and all of this stuff. And also of being an AI superpower. And the prospect of this G20 defining the progress of AI. I mean, come on. The G20 is not the bloody answer. So by the time we're in the G20, things will have moved on a whole world away. Well, by then, the G20 may well be run by chat GPT anyway. You're just a bunch of robots around the table. Yeah, disagreeing with each other. We cannot go any further.

33:21EU, EU 2000. Donald Trump is right. We must be liberated. You know, I think that's kind of fanciful. But, you know, maybe in mitigation, if what he's trying to do again, And this is something we've called for. So how can we say, you know, shut up? You know, what he's trying to do is is paint a picture of a Britain that means something and is important and has a concrete future in a world that's changing fast. Yes. And I think that if you look at his behaviour in the very short period since he became prime minister, you know, he's gone to Kiev and said, I stand with Ukraine. he's gone and seen Trump and you know agonized through the the first public appearance with the madman right which is always an experience you don't forget the hurry I imagine so he's done those two the main two big bits um but I think again to your point about you know making Britain ready before doing the other stuff Starmer was too quickly seduced by the undoubtedly narcotic appeal for heads of government of the foreign tour right which is when you go abroad and just deal with the opposite numbers it's very good fun because you don't have people shouting at you at pmqs you don't have the well you do have the press but you know you're suddenly dealing with the global oligarchy emily starmer's famous remark that he preferred to be at davos than westminster told you everything you need to know everything and i you know i think burnham's line is yeah i understand you know g7 un permanent security council all the rest of it nato but my main task is to improve housing and social care and how the fuck we get growth going with the relationship with europe and and all that so i think you know his emphasis upon the domestic is is perfectly consistent with having a sensible role for britain on the global stage the interesting thing to your point is is whether the global stage as it shows every sign of continuing to be continues to be so volatile and so distracting that it's very hard for him you know it is it is clear is it not that the iranian fiasco is going to continue to be a very very serious problem economically definitely and you know so today thursday he's you know and everyone will be thinking about this and quite rightly so cut the AT on on energy bills great but you know will he be able to do that again in in light of what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz who knows so uh but I don't I don't reprimand him too much for especially in his first conference speech as leader emphasizing Britain's role in at home rather than you know going on about no no totally Absolutely.

36:16And I said, and you said as well, you know, all that foreign stuff, relatively speaking, that's the easy stuff. It's no wonder, you know, as you say, it's easy to stand next to Vladimir Zelensky and say he stands shoulder to shoulder with you, and you feel great about yourself, but that doesn't help anybody in the northeast of England who is raging about their communities falling to bits, you know. So that's where Burnham feels more aligned with what's actually going on. Yeah. And he's also I think, you know, one thing we've established in his very, very quick ascent to becoming a very, very plausible prime minister is he's a quick study.

36:58Yes. I don't really have much concern about will he be able to handle the pressure of the foreign conference chamber? I think he'll be just fine. it's funny it's um i just mentioned his his delivery his speech his his rhetoric it take i mean we obviously we're he's well if i would say he's a woolly back because he's kind of like not from the middle of liverpool but he's a scouter i love these fine distinctions this is very good but i can i can hear him becoming more clipped as he delivers his speech and there's a definite um there's i don't know what it adds up to but there's a definite determination to be statesman like and that was one of my concerns when he came in was was he always going to be your mate andy you know and was it yes was it always going to be and i definitely think he he is prime ministerial you know he does he looks the real part there's no without a doubt and i I think he showed that you can.

38:04There's a lot to like about him, you know, that the because he didn't wear a tie. And, you know, he didn't do that thing of veering towards receive pronunciation, which some prime ministers do. He spoke in his voice and he spoke not only in his accent, but his voice, you know, and he sounded like the head of the government. He really did. So and I think that back to your vibes matter point, you know, that that counts for something because, you know, we've had a string, you know, we had under the Tories. I mean, trust was sort of I don't know where I really don't know what's trusted of engineer bioengineered somewhere.

38:43It's very hard to know. Well, in a Chinese lab outside Wuhan. Right, but, you know, we had Cameron and we had May and we had, you know, Johnson and Sunak. And they were all basically Oxbridge posh school. Actually, I don't think May was posh school, but their affect, let's say, was Oxbridge posh school. Right. Yeah. And actually, Burnham is Oxbridge. But you know what I'm saying? I know exactly what you're saying. You know, he was himself. He was like, this is where I came from. You know, it's great to have a conference, my first conference as leader in the city where I was born, in spite of his, wherever he's not being properly livid puddling.

39:22I need to look into this. But it really worked. You know, it kind of it felt without being hammy about it or, you know, it just felt I felt. Yeah. Right. Good. I believe you. But what about, I mean, I think it was an enormously consequential, consequential is the word I'd use, you know, whether it's the best speech or not. No, absolutely. There weren't those memorable lines like the lady's not for turning or, you know, Kinnock talking about taxi drivers scuttling around with redundancy notices and stuff. It didn't have that memorability. But it was consequential. My God, was it consequential. And perhaps one of the most consequential things he sort of threw out and then moved on from relatively quickly was reform of the electoral system.

40:12Yes, I think we might be serious about that. If he's serious, if he's serious about that, that is an earthquake waiting to happen. It is. I mean, look, I think anyone who listens to the podcast knows that it's not my favourite. um uh so let me steal man it i mean his best argument is that and it is a good point is that um what do you how do you explain the possibility of a government getting into power on 30 of the vote yeah labor got a big majority with 33.7 yeah in 2024 that is a good point you know multi-party democracy that's the strongest argument thereafter i i don't get it i think it's not a priority um people when they're asked say oh yeah sounds good but when you ask them to list their priorities about one to two percent mention it um you know we we know how this movie ends um how does it end well we saw we Blair gave it a really good try you know Jenkins and I used to go and see Jenkins in his flat when he was doing this you know and Jenkins had a commission like the commission that's going to be called now saw everyone talk to everyone came up with a an idea that seemed to please everyone and it went nowhere and then as part of the uh terms of the 2010 coalition there was a uh a referendum on AV which is a very limited form of electoral reform admittedly And it was 67 percent against.

41:50And I just don't say the other. And there are two other problems before I shut the fuck up. The the big problem, I think, is is twofold. I think centre left people traditionally like electoral reform because they feel emotionally rather than empirically that it will lead to an entrenched centre left coalition. And it's just not true. I mean, it's no accident that until he started getting he isn't getting any more 30 percent in the polls or near about. Farage was a big fan of electoral reform. And if you crunch the numbers from 2024 under the different systems, the Electoral Reform Society did this after the 2024 election with a big poll of 8000 people.

42:36so they could sort of get a sense. If the 2024 election had been done under any of the various electoral reform systems, reform would have got a shed load of seats, you know, up to 100. And because they had a big share of the votes. So there's that. So don't be careful what you wish for. Okay. Part two, and this is, in a sense, worries me more, is where does electoral reform actually go? everyone says it's fair it's fair it's fair it's fair all right but where does it actually lead we're talking consequentially it always leads to endless mobile coalitions it leads to precisely the kind of elite horse trading that drives people up the wall i mean that was the problem between 2010 and 2015 although it was not under unusual it wasn't under pr it was under very unusual on the first past the post system the lib dems had to be kept happy if you look at the examples what often happens is that the small parties who may not be nice parties have a veto and so what you end up with is the electorate going hang on this isn't getting anything done now my worry about all of this is that it's done in good faith let's say it happens but you actually end up with governments that can't do the big lift things he wants to do on things like europe housing social care and i i I know that I can already hear listeners hurling bits of breeze block at their own phones.

44:08Don't do that, folks. But I actually I'm genuinely worried. This is the only bit of the speech that had me thinking, oh, no, no, no, mate, don't do this. So I know he feels passionately. I know he feels passionately about it. So it's fair enough, you know, to play the other side of the argument. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So I heard Michael Gove on the radio talking about. exactly about you know what what you've just outlined which is you know governments love to point at other people who are blocking them from doing things you know and they love to say oh our coalition partners have said we can't do this or europe has said we can't do this and they love that and i don't i one i don't think that's true i i um i don't really i don't think politicians love blaming other people for stopping them doing things they want they really want to do i think Isn't that the history of Europe?

44:58Well, sort of, but if you really want to do something, then you build everything around forming that coalition that will enable that. But put that to one side. Gove ended his argument by saying, you know, all this will do is erode trust in politics. And I laughed out loud. I don't know about that. Are you joking? That's not my point. I know it's not your point. nobody trusts politics right now and so this is where i think the other side of the argument has some validity which is that if the reality right now so much has changed in terms of the the way that uh politics has fragmented in the last 20 years and we do now have five maybe six parties that claim to having a a meaningful constituency of people and if your if your thesis which is my thesis that resentment percolates up through people feeling underrepresented yeah by and this is what led to the resentment that led to the brexit vote right if that's part of the political environment that creates these these bad tensions then maybe it's not such a a bad alternative to say well we'll have a system in the future where you you are more represented Yes, where Farage does get more seats, but at least then he can't play this bloody isolated victim card.

46:28You know, then the responsibility is on the coalitions of parties that you bring together to get stuff done. But listen, I'm saying that fully aware that in your scenario, government with power, with empowerment, can achieve a lot more than two or three parties stuck together in a fake coalition. You see, I don't think that if you asked people why they don't trust government, anything other than a tiny minority of them, vanishingly small, would say because of the voting system. They'd say because they haven't consulted this on immigration. They haven't done enough to raise the standard of living.

47:10They're not looking after housing. They're not looking after my kids. Right. And I don't think any of those things will be assisted by this. Quite the contrary, actually. Do you not think the conversation on immigration, for instance, which has been so central to our politics over the last 10 years, do you not think that if we had proportional representation with Nigel Farage, with the strength he's got right now, that that conversation around immigration would have moved a lot further forward in policy than it has done in just rhetoric to date? I don't know. But what I do know is that here's my other thesis, which is part of this, which is a bit more aggressive, which is I think that the the tectonic flaw in the speech potentially is that it posed as a broad church speech.

48:00Right. But it wasn't. It was for two groups of people. It was for people who had decided to get rid of Starmer, which is, I will admit, quite a big church. And it was for people who still hate Thatcher, who left office 36 years ago. OK, the lowest hanging of lowest hanging corpses. Right. I mean, fair enough. But it wasn't really a broad appeal speech. So social care has broad appeal. I'll grant you that. And maybe we can talk about social care when we're done with this. But it was what it was trying to do, I think, was unite the progressive coalition in a way that Starmer was really, really not doing at all.

48:43You know, and bits of the bits of the progressive coalition were flying off to the Lib Dems and the Greens. When he wants to win back the Greens and the Lib Dems, he thinks that's the way to victory. It's a very metropolitan graduate professional target for all the references he made to the working class. It's very artful. But what he's really trying to do is reconstruct, broadly speaking, the 40 percent of the vote that Corbyn got in 2017, but rely on the right to be fragmented. Yes. Whereas May in 2016 gets 42.3 percent and UKIP got only 1.8. We know that however bad things get for reform, they won't be that low.

49:23Right. So it's not a bad it's not a bad idea, but it is a punt because it it proposes a absolutely definitive once and for all test of what I've always regarded as the questionable proposition that there is a there is a hidden centre left coalition in this country that is the norm and is only concealed by the wicked press, the electoral system, inclement weather. wombles you know people with funny walks you know just it's everyone's fault the center of gravity and this is my point the center of gravity i think and this is very hard for labor the center of gravity in the world the free world at the moment is economically very progressive people want to spend money they want they want wealth taxes they're hoping wealth taxes come through the budget i am you know yeah yeah but it is pretty socially conservative okay and there was nothing zero in the speech for the latter bit there was all right and in fact we're just going to finish the references to the british right okay i know he meant the parties but that's not how it will have been taken it that was his deplorables moment right do you think so absolutely and when you put that on top of that incredibly stupid outburst by Jenny Riddell Carpenter the nature minister about war male black Labradors by your feet in a pub that doesn't exist sorry Jenny but that is a lot of people right and I'm not not not not not not not not saying let's go back to Morgan McSweeney the only thing that matters is the red wall you know island of strangers no you know but if you think you can win an election he didn't say anything on law and order he didn't say anything on community cohesion he didn't go near pluralism he didn't go near belonging he said i understand the anger about what is happening in the channel and then he turned to the camera and said thank you migrants now i want to say thank you migrants too but if if he's serious if he is if he is going to you know be a soldier about this and not yeah just a labor pleaser and it was at the labor conference so far you know i mean yeah but he was talking he was talking to the nation to the country right you know um the people that got thanked were care workers nhs staff and migrants right now you have to have a bigger group of people unless and maybe he is you're 100 confident that you're going to win on that progressive coalition and maybe he can but all i'm saying is it's a punt and a lot of people framed it as a one nation speech it wasn't no i agree it wasn't talking of lack of uh appeal to certain groups of people one um there wasn't that much about young people um no there was a lot about old people yeah there was a lot of there was social care and then obviously there was the triple lock but that was framed as we're going to it's still going be very generous but slightly less generous perhaps but anything you lose there will be looked you'll be looked out for with free social care although not accommodation these obviously will will open up and as um as janan ganesh made the point you know in in that part of the speech it was very much like you know it was all about retired people funding retired people you know it was all about the older demographic and i i struggle to remember really where the big the big throw out to younger people was housing maybe housing yeah well maybe but it wasn't everybody but you know it did seem to be uh there did seem to be a lot more work done on appealing to younger people especially given that 16 and 17 year olds are going to vote at the next super important i think he's got to make that clear i totally agree with that i think that he wanted to and i think he was right to he keeps using this phrase pull off the plaster and it's not a bad one i think he he thought uh i'm gonna have to do something on the triple lock so i might as well do it up front yeah and i thought that was good you know it was good you know yeah and then because it is his even more than electoral form it is his total passion social care he launches this we know louise casey's reporting next summer um and it is the case that 21 of us will die in a care home you know so it's not irrelevant um the current system is the more i look at it actually it is indefensible i mean it is essentially american you know you are presented at the end just because you've got dementia rather than cancer, essentially, with a one-time catastrophic bill.

54:21You know, and it is pure Americana without insurance, you know. Without it. Well, that's the point. Even in America, you've got insurance. You've got insurance. You know, it is just, can I have your house, please? So I think that he's absolutely right. We have to do something about it. I mean, I think he can land this plane. it's um obviously complicated by the the the first sort of these things always come unglued a bit and and but i don't think he's like theresa men will just sort of walk it back i mean the the big row i think the first big row will be well hang on you said free at point of views but actually people are still going to have to pay bed and board yeah bed and board is uh from what i can work out about a grand minimum a month yeah but he's talking he's talking about literal care not not accommodation that's my point so what he's talking about it's not the same as the nhs because when you leave the nhs they don't say well i won't charge you for the doctor yeah but i will charge you for the bed yeah right now 12 grand a year for most people is a lot so that will involve equity really so i think they need to but i was pleased in terms of just his general thinking in the Telegraph piece he did today, and he was just talking about his current plan, but it opens the possibility of expanding it.

55:41He said, quote, it will be fully funded and not through borrowing. Now, I think the unspoken bit in all this, and we'll wait to see what John Healy says in his first budget on the 28th of October. Which is the big moment. That is the big moment. um yeah i i struggle to understand how any of this is going to work without big new taxes on wealth and capital yeah i just don't get it i'm sure they're coming and i so i can only hope you know um yeah and i think it was by the way um we saw what happened in the blair brown years when prime ministers steal their chancellor's budgets right so i think it was perfectly appropriate for him to leave all that to healy okay you know and also again to point that what a ruthless bastard he is you know he doesn't want to be the one announcing wealth taxes does he you know no i don't blame him you know no no look you're absolutely right look i i think it's possible let's let's end it let's end it with a reminder of the positive the big positive stroke which was that there is now you know as kemi badenock has herself described you know a battle of ideas and that is exactly where this country needs to be look you know we we we started this podcast what in 2023 i think in 1942 i think it feels like it was in the it was just after the war it was just after james ii returned to restore the stewart dynasty thank goodness um in a little room in the city uh happy days fine wigs um no but you know throughout that period we were sort of thinking oh my god you know we're surrounded by crazy tory prime ministers there seemed to be one every week and we were also thinking when starmer came in it's going to be great ah it's not going to be great right yeah well i don't think that this week right the the the debate we've just had is about different varieties of good.

57:48Yes, exactly right. I'll take that, you know, I'll take that with, I'll grab that. Right. Dear listeners, I hope you feel similarly re-infused, re-infused. Yeah, exactly. That's the word. There's no more. Yeah, there's so much, so much. I feel so glad for the podcast. There's so much to talk about coming up. And it's not his last speech. It's not like, you know, it wasn't his farewell speech. This was a guy 10 weeks in laying out big, broad strokes. And I thought he did it brilliantly well. So a really good week, I think, for Britain, generally speaking. Now, let's see what happens. No, definitely, definitely.

58:27Dear listeners, do subscribe to The New World. 500 editions in. And we're now thinking about, you know, as I said in a little piece I wrote. Do read it, thanks. The first 10 years from 2016 to 2026 have been so... Far pounding. Oh my God, you know, so unpredictably chaotic. But so, what a time to be alive. What will the next 10 years bring? You know, 2036, how will the world look? I cannot wait to get into the next 500 editions and work through all these ideas and arguments. So exciting. So subscribe and join us on the journey. um people who subscribe really appreciate what we do and love the magazine when it drops if they get it in print or they love it on online every day we try and do something really interesting every single day so come and join us help support our journalism it's really important to help we get results you know gb news haters michelle moan tries to sue us boris johnson tried to sue us um the day did by all the right people hated by all the right people folks so if you think that's valuable then help us do more of it go to the newworld.co.uk forward slash two mats number two m-a-t-t-s sign up and help us fight the good fight send in your emails and questions for sunday's q a to two mats at t-n-e publishing.com that's the number two m-a-t-t-s t-n-e publishing.com thank you as ever to the third matt matt with us for producing the show thanks matt and until Sunday.

1:00:06It's goodbye from me. It's goodbye from him. Goodbye.

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