A disaster for the Green Party

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1:55week hasn't he he has well um i just checked before i came online and um he is according to the bookies he's gonna lose big time um to labour's uh sagal abduwali i mean uh you know starman the bookies tour of 11 500 majority so it was always a stretch but as you imply matt that polanski's had quite the week um and i'm centered around this this row about this zionism is racism Yeah, which became the dominant factor at a conference, which in a way should have been all about how do the Greens respond to Burnham? Because, you know, one of the things that had been circulating around the Greens since Burnham's very well received speech last week was has he basically shot our fox?

2:47You know, Polanski was meant to be the populist, the charismatic one, in contrast to Starmer. And now all the attention is on Burnham. That was meant to be the big issue. But it became totally dominated by this motion declaring Zionism to be racist, which, as we've been discussing most of the week. And as you pointed out, Matt, the great piece on the New World site by David Ronovich, sort of explaining some of the historic background to this. Well, let me let me say let me hold my hands up and say I am going to express some ignorance here. I hadn't quite appreciated the historical background to that precise phrase.

3:31and vis-a-vis the United Nations passing a resolution saying Zionism is racism, which was overturned in 1991. And the kind of political background and the groupings of it was for and against that. But as you say, you know, that is quite some time ago, what, 52 years ago, the United Nations passing what seems to be, you know, quite an extreme position on this word side. Well, I suppose as the in-house scientist, I was aware of some of that. And it is a long, I mean, it goes back to then, really. And it's been around ever since. It's not a new charge. I have to say for a party that was, you know, was on, it seemed on the verge of breaking through into the mainstream to adopt such a position is just on a political level before we drill down into the rights and wrongs of it.

4:31you know, suboptimal, because it really does, you know, it binds you to a kind of position with a lot of historical baggage. And also, and I think this perhaps hasn't been surfaced as much as it should have been, it puts you on the wrong side of the definition of antisemitism, which is now universally regarded as the gold standard, which is the IHRA, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition. And one of its definitions of anti-Semitism is denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor.

5:12So immediately the Greens have put themselves on the wrong side of that. And the reason that's callow and idiotic, quite apart from being intrinsically wrong, is that Labour has just been through a long and agonising process of going through that. And the question of whether being anti-Zionist, calling Zionism a racist project was in itself racist. So you can see the problem the Greens have. I think that you know, it was a very foolish thing for them to do. And I think it'll produce many well-deserved problems for them. Well, yes, but there's a, there's a, it's more than just happenstance that they happen to be.

5:58Oh, no, no, no. Because, because the very people who have initiated this resolution within the Green Party have jumped from Corbyn's Labour Party to your party. And now they're into the Green Party. And there are so many elements to discuss. I mean, on a practical level, how does a party where you have an open door to membership and you get a surge of new members coming in and it's one member per vote, how does a party like that protect itself from extremism like this or the hijacking of what the Green Party is meant to be about? I mean, you know, you've nailed the problem of party politics and democracy.

6:42Historically, I mean, it's it's it's it's the problem, isn't it? I mean, one has to sort of put it in context. Four of the sitting Green MPs as of today have said they were against it. Adrian Ramsey, Carla Denia, Elie Chans and Sean Berry. Hannah Spencer so far hasn't disclosed either way. So we don't know. You know, more than a dozen Labour MPs have referred the Greens to Sussex Police and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. There is a pushback. There was a pushback from quite high up in the government too. So I'm glad that people are disowning it. And you're absolutely right, Matt, that there's been a sort of travelling circus of people who've gone from the Corbyn Labour Party to your party and have now settled in the Polanski iteration of the Green Party, what he calls eco-populism.

7:35um i'm glad people are disowning it but i i do think one has to take its measure in the sense that i think there has been a significant shift within a significant part of the left worldwide on all this and it's a problem and um i don't have a glib answer to it at all but i mean yesterday was the third anniversary of october the 7th yes and you know there were protests there were two demonstrations in London there was one in Edinburgh um there was one outside um the board of deputies in Camden where there were five arrests you know on the third anniversary of October the 7th and I think you know we were talking the other day about how there are great historic shifts and and Alec Ryrie's book about the age of Hitler and how attitudes are changing to the war and Hitler and I think that there is a shift going on um that which is on not all people on left at all by any means but which is to make the original sin of the west not the holocaust but the nakba you know the displacement of Palestinians in the formation of Israel and I I think that is a real and quite well supported position.

8:52And I think that we are seeing that problem now manifested in what happened in the Greens on Sunday. But I don't think it's a marginal position, actually. I think that it spreads in various forms across the piece. Indeed, you can see its counterparts on the right. You know, there are many on the right who believe that entirely. And I think we're nowhere near dealing with it. But when you say it's not marginal, I mean, it feels, I mean, it can be marginal and extremely threatening and extremely consequential at the same time. But I do think it feels marginal. When you talk about people on the left, I mean...

9:33Well, I didn't say not all on the left. No, no, no. But in fact, I'd go much further and say the vast majority of people on the left, I think, would be horrified by this kind of resolution. The vast majority. Yeah. But you see, part of the problem is that Jerry Adams once said, and I think he was absolutely right, that the hard edge of a movement doesn't need everyone to support it. It just needs sufficient, what do you call, majority tolerance. So I think back to the marches. And, you know, as you know, I strongly supported the right of the marches to happen. but nonetheless when the marchers said globalize the intifada yeah or from the religion to the sea what did they think what did we think they meant yeah well we knew what they well i well the answer to that specifically is either they didn't know what they were talking about which is which is significant yes i heard a lot of that yeah yeah no but that that is true there's a lot of kids it's a bit easy though isn't it well well sort of but it acquits them so quickly you know they were saying when they said it is it is a fact that a lot of people were swept up with what they perceived and a lot of younger people were swept up with what they perceived to be an outrageous affront to palestinian i get that i get but i still think you should be responsible for the words you use yeah okay well okay well hold on a second let me finish the sentence i agree they should be and they should be educated about what those words mean but when you've got cohorts of large cohorts of people who are there for the protest and they're chanting things that they don't really understand okay it says you but okay well it's a fact that i mean we've seen lots of lots of interviews with people interviewing kids are saying which river which sea and they don't know they've got no idea what they're talking about they don't know the deep history of it they don't they are they are emotionally charged by what they've seen happening in gaza yeah now but i i mean listen i am not excusing i think it's a principle of charity carried quite a long way that but okay do you though do you i mean yes somebody says if somebody's just out there waving a placard because that's what kids do i in the same way as i have i i wouldn't acquit any of the people marching with danny tomo of of of ignorance of what they're doing because a lot of them stupid and maybe maybe they are i think if you go into the public space and say something you should be acquitted you should be held responsible for its full meaning and i felt there was a lot of but the full meaning is attributed to you're attributing what the full meaning is to them you yes i am and that's why you don't know because it's a it's a phrase that people have chanted for decades you don't actually know it's in their minds when they're saying yes impact matters as much as intent as we've learned over the years and so says the law but yeah go on Well, OK, but I mean, if you if you go down that route, then you're you're undermining the whole principle that racism is defined by the victim rather than the perpetrator.

12:33But anyway, then you would have Palestine action supporters locked up then, wouldn't you? No, because I think that how do you how do you square that? Well, I don't think they should be locked up. But what they are being held responsible. What does holding them responsible mean? No, no, no. I mean, holding them responsible in the court of public opinion. All I was objecting to, to be very clear, I did say that I totally supported their right to protest. And I don't actually think that saying globalised into Fardar or from the river to the sea should be of any consequence to the law. Right. But what does holding them to the consequences?

13:07What I mean is that people asking them what, you know, asking select kids what they understand by it and then saying, I don't know. And then saying and then the implication being, oh, bless, they don't know. No, no, no. That's not that's not what I was saying at all. At all. In fact, I mean, in fact, no, in fact, what I said, Matt, was that they were uneducated and stupid for doing that. And they needed to be educated. But what that's my but that's but again, historically, how movements happen is by a vanguard of highly idealized ideologized people bringing along people who don't necessarily fully understand the ins and outs of it, but are driven by emotion.

13:47All I'm saying is now, you know, right. And now we are all reaping the greens, at least are reaping the rewards of understanding what all this means. And I think that, you know, since October the 7th, there has been, you know, this has been sitting on the table. This has been sitting. It's Chekhov's gun, this, which is, you know, it has been there, which is a very strong element of all this has been actually about Israel's right to exist. And, you know, there has been, yes, but the genocide. Yes, but Netanyahu. Yes, but Smotrich and Ben McAvir. Quite rightly so. I understand all that horrible things happening in Gaza.

14:29But that does sound a bit dismissive. Let me just say. No, no, no. A little dismissive when you frame it. Well, no, because the discourse has been so dominated by that. The reason I framed it as I did about replacing the Shoah with the Nakbar is because I do think that there is a vanguard on the left that has a huge amount of influence with, if you wish, kids who don't fully understand the implications. that has been trying to really change the way that we understand the politics of the Middle East and international morality to recast what is happening in and has happened ever since the formation of Israel as a colonist project.

15:11Right now, calling Israel a colonist project is daft because there have been Jews living there for 3000 years. So that's stupid. Right. There are loads of ways you can criticise Israel. What's going on in the West Bank, for example, is one of them. Totally. Right. But my point is, I can see that the way this this since that resolution was passed on Sunday, I totally agree with you. A lot of people on the left, on the centre left, have said that's not right. All I'm saying is understand that this has been going on in various forms since the seventh. OK, that's all. I'm just saying this didn't come out of nowhere.

15:52Yeah, no, no, no. I totally, totally agree. And in fact, I think actually the most convincing argument I've read on this recently is is again the Aranovic one where he's saying, you know, this has been going on forever. And what is the bloody point? Israel's not going anywhere. It's been established for 80 years. We've got to deal with it. But the consequences of what the Green Party has done this week, last week, no doubt is alienating to Jews in this country. No doubt about it. Whatever they say about the equivocations of, you know, you can carry on going to synagogue. Well, thank you very much.

16:29you know well yeah and and but i mean that's very nice to know but i mean you know as i've i've constantly pointed out in my writing on this you know the jews are way ahead of that i mean a load of them a lot of british jews i know personally i've spoken to and quite old jews who've lived here a long time are now planning to make alia to israel because they no longer could consider this to be a safe country i mean the first incidence of anti-semitism after the great surge of anti-semitism after october the 7th happened just after midday on october the 7th right in outside of london synagogue and the spike in anti-semitic incidents all over the world and in the uk since october the 7th has been dramatic including this year it's up 21 26 percent so the The Jews don't need, you know, they were way ahead of the Green Party.

17:26They know where they're welcome. Yeah. How do they, the friends that you've spoken to, how do they square, well, I mean, maybe they're supportive of, but how do they square what the Israeli government is doing right now with wanting to go to Israel then? Well, a lot of them, most of them actually are appalled, particularly by what's going on in the West Bank. Well, why would they want to go to Israel then? I think you've just answered your own question, which is that at least there they'll have a vote. You know, they can throw out the Netanyahu government if they want to as a voter. And to answer your question, because things are so bad now.

18:06And, you know, no matter what they say, there are brief periods after Eaton Park was one, after the Bondi Beach Massacre was another, when the ambulances were set on fire. There are brief periods when there's a kind of surge of we must do something about anti-Semitism. But essentially, on the attacks go and on the low level of aggression goes and they don't feel safe anymore. And the Jewish people alone in all of this are the only ones who are victims of racism who are then asked to sort out the racism themselves. yeah yeah right we you know when but when black people are subject to racism we don't tell them to sort out the racism well no well okay let me push back slightly on that i do agree generally but i think muslims are asked to sort out uh islamism and i don't and i think that's a very let me push back on that which is that you know the crude fact is that there are so you know the muslim community in this country is much more numerous than the jewish community and therefore it has some political weight Jews numerically have very little and that's the other point that wasn't that wasn't your point your point was well all right all right but I mean you can so Jews alone are asked to okay and then racism but I think Muslims too yes I mean you can you can say that Muslims are told to get their house in order and that's ridiculous right I'll grant you that but um all I was doing was answering your question as to why would Jews want to go to Israel and the reason is because they feel so unwelcome here and you can't you can't deny them that feeling you know that's what they don't know I do honestly mate I mean we we you know my sympathies are on on the different sides of the fence than yours in that sort of broad regard that I feel I do yeah the weight of oppression in in Gaza and the West Bank is is crippling But I watched that vote unfold at the Green Party conference with absolute horror.

20:15Horror at what it would mean to Jews living in this country, but also on a kind of more cynical level, just horror at the way a party that is ostensibly there to champion environmental and green issues could get so sidetracked by a small group of people and, to your point, sweep up with them enough members to make it a majority position within a party. That's called the bloody Green Party, not the anti-Zionist party. But that's because we have built up a permission structure for it. I mean, as much as there are... What do you mean by that? I mean, as much as there are intermittent statements of support for the Jewish community, and there are, There is a broader culture, I think, and you may disagree, which has decided that Israel is a prior state, that Jews, although anti-Semitism is a form of racism, to take the Diane Abbott point, it's not the same as racism against blacks, that Jews do have some sort of dual loyalty.

21:24this is often a point made in public or otherwise and more to the point that really October the 7th has been airbrushed from history I mean you know there is a whole cohort of artists and media supporters and lacrimose photographers who have mainlined on the plight of Gaza since October 7th and I understand that because it's been horrible horrific but you know the the the level of understanding and support for Jews over anti-semitism and Israel more generally over October 7th has been very minimal and really the calendar now in 2023 in the history books goes October the 6th October the 8th and I I'm well hold on does it well I think yes I do I mean And you made an excellent point, which I totally agreed, and about Radio 4's Today programme, where they went on more about the 80th anniversary of Woman's Hour than they did about the third anniversary of October 7th.

22:30And I think that's absolutely true. But, and you are right, it wasn't, I mean, take the anniversary of 9-11, which came with, you know, special editions, which we were saying, you know, huge fanfare. and the much more recent anniversary of that shocking attack on October the 7th was, you know, was marginal, relatively speaking. Muted is the best word, yeah, muted. Is that not a reflection, though, of what has happened since and the sense that Netanyahu's government has, it's them that have corroded the outrage against Hamas by their actions in response to it? I think that I would frame it slightly differently.

23:20Of course I would. I think, and I've said that I've written this, I think Yaya Sinwar, the late leader of Hamas, was a strategist of genius because he knew that he understood Western opinion, having been in prison in Israel for long enough and he'd studied, very clever man, he'd studied the opinion not only of Israelis but of the West generally. And what he understood was that what became October the 7th would be seen by many in the West, not as a catastrophe, but as an opportunity to totally reframe the way things were seen. He was right, because two things were the case. The first was that any Israeli government ever was going to respond very, very strongly to October the 7th.

24:08Now, of course, you know, I think we are all accepting that Netanyahu's response was very heavy handed. Whether it's a genocide is up to the International Court of Justice. I will personally admit that I know you think it is. But, you know, I just say I don't think I actually don't think the semantics of it matter. I think the fact that, you know, up to 100 ,000 people have been killed and the whole place has been laid waste is much more. I don't use the word genocide. Yes, I think that's a very that's that's absolutely right. However. Any response was going to be condemned. That was the point, because six hours after the the the the attacks began on October the 7th, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign phoned the cops to book its first rally.

24:59the genocide charge was first brought up at the UN on October the 12th a full 15 days before the full IDF retaliation began whatever had happened and this is not to acquit Netanyahu and co of what happened but whatever happened this was going to be the response which is here we go colonial state apartheid state chickens coming home to roost right you know and the reason I'm so confident of that and i then i'll shut up is that it is amazing is it not that up to 2025 if you look at the un general assembly the 10 years before has passed nine resolutions against iran 10 against north korea 12 against syria 29 against russia none against china and 173 against israel Yeah.

25:50OK, so that's the context in which to go back to Sinwar. I think it was an intervention of demonic brilliance, because even if even if Netanyahu had stopped after three weeks, everyone would have said how awful. Now, that's no excuse for him going on. And by the way, unlike in most parts of the Middle East, there's an election October the 27th in Israel. Yes. That's another reason why Jews want to go back there. Yeah. OK. I mean, I think it's worth I just wanted to say to the listeners, the Aranovic piece is brilliant in the historical framing of what's going on. Also, the salient point, which is why we're talking about it this week, is the abject stupidity and the crisis now that Zach Polanski faces within the Greens, which I'd like to come back to, which is, you know, we don't know how he's going to get on tonight.

26:47As you say, he's likely going to lose. But then he comes back home to a party that has been overtaken by these entrists, I believe. and uh well people who joined yeah yeah but yeah but i mean i'm using that as a specific term of of let's join the greens to lay the foundations for an anti-zionist political movement in case your party can't get together maybe that's where the juice is for sure yeah yes yes absolutely well of course they they so i mean that's why that's why i that's why i'm sure that's why i recoil from the interest label because of course it's true in the sense that they they're all recent members but my whole point in all of this has been actually one of um sort of you know i'm obviously totally on the the opposite side of them but i have a degree of um of loathing respect for it because i think they know the way the wind is moving and not in not in terms of the labor i'm not talking here about centrists or you know um the the the steady center of of the center left but in terms of the next generation and in terms of the future of of of you know there's a lot of this in america too they're right you know the the axis is shifting and it was shifting before netanyahu this is i'm sure netanyahu is accelerated but it isn't just netanyahu produced you know israel is now the pariah nation and it was heading that way already and there is political capital to be had.

28:19They may not win the by-election and it may cause the Green Party, which is frail as all populist movements have suddenly surged are as reformists. But I don't think it's politically stupid, actually. You don't? Well, I mean, we'll see. I mean, I think it is. I think this is where we differ. I'm more confident in the backlash against this. I think people of the left They're appalled by what has happened. And I think it does make the Greens look marginal and extreme. And it's almost impossible for me to reconcile the party. You know, we had Caroline Lucas on the podcast. Yes, no, I was thinking that.

29:01One of our first podcasts. She was our very first guest. Right, so she was our first guest. Oh, absolutely. It seems utterly bizarre that within that, what is that, Matt, three years, that we've gone from... It was June or July 2023, I looked it up. Right, so a little over three years. Yeah, no it is. We've gone, and this again speaks to a theme which is recurrent on this podcast about the velocity of change. Yeah, no, 100%, I totally agree with you. But we've gone from a party that felt kind of, it felt extreme in a great way because it was the only one really shouting... With energy, yeah. With energy about the central, you would think, matter of the Green Party to a party that now feels extreme for all the wrong reasons.

29:46And now, so some nuts and bolts. Zach Polanski is up for election. They're elected every two years leaders of the Green Party. And they've got a very weird kind of co-leader structure if someone wants to stand for co-leader and they have two deputy leaders. But you've got this guy, Mothin Ali, who's the current deputy leader or one of the deputy leaders who is very online, in line with the Zionism is racism movement. And, you know, it is almost certain, I think, that in six months or 12 months, whenever the next Polanski leadership election comes up, is that Polanski is usurped as a busted flush and replaced by what will be this anti-Zionist faction, and that will be the Green Party.

30:40Yeah. I mean, that just seems utterly, utterly madness and totally regressive. Yes, I agree. And obviously, I mean, I agree with every single word you said. And Mothin Ali, just to note, did lots of social media posting after october the 7th hailing it as an act of resistance so you know where he comes from um but but i i suppose part of it just moving away from the whole sort of um the division over october the 7th specifically um is that one of the reasons that i'm cautious about the use of the word extremist these days even though it's still very useful is not because it doesn't mean anything but because i suppose i'm reproaching myself actually because i i'm badly burnt by using precisely that to say oh you know you can't they'll never be a big you know do you know what i mean it's that i'm i'm very cautious nowadays in in this hyper volatile hyper uh you know digital era of taking comfort in that word as using it as a word that can be easily dismissed as a group well you can put in a box somewhere i you know look i'm 58 i grew up in the in the age when enoch powell yes was sort of the firewall right any respectable politician that went near that was kind of outside the mainstream right now frankly as i think we've said many times on the podcast you know enoch powell now compared to the sweller bravermans and robert jenryx of this world and god knows rupert lowe seems like a one nation tory right um and so i get nervous around the they're just extremist trope because you know that's really what gave us brexit and maga and reform which was don't worry guys they're nutters right Listen, I totally agree.

32:43And the one word you've used there, which I didn't use, is just, I'm not saying they're just extremists. No, no, no, you didn't. They are dangerous extremists. You are very, very, you know, I mean, you, I'm sure, historically, were probably more worried about UKIP and Brexit and reform than I was in the sense that I was, I was until the very last week, at least, you know, I did think they'll be fine, you know, they'll be fine. Well, look, I mean, the thing that sickens me, and I mean that, you know, it gives me a very bad feeling physically, is the idea that the Green Party now has more in common with Rupert Lowe than it does with Andy Burnham's Labour Party.

33:35Yes. At face value. And listen, there may be lots of Green Party listeners listening to this podcast, tearing their hair out, saying that is not who we are. And you're misrepresenting us. But that's great. You've got to make that case, folks. 100%. You've got to take that party back and make it a party that is, you know, the eco-populism. Well, let's lean into the eco bit, please, because we need that more than ever before. 100 % I mean because I don't think I mean you know the the I mean what one thing to say in all this is that you know again I don't want to be too breathless about Burnham but I think that you know David David Rondrich is right in the sense that it it the greens that you know they what they say about this only matters in in terms of the sort of what we're talking about which are quite broad themes i mean the fact of the matter is that labor are back in the game now in a big way and i don't think there's any real prospect of whatever happens in the next general election labor needing the green party for a coalition for example right you know which which which pre-burnham you know you were thinking god are they going to need a rainbow coalition you know and that was a that was a different space so that's good and you know uh labor government has made it absolutely clear this you know we're having nothing to do with this um and you know they've i'm glad to see they've they've they've managed to keep the jerusalem consulate open yes you know so props to ed milliband on that i mean that's that's good um so so the the the geopolitical picture is not altered by this i mean that's that's really worth back but to your point I would love to I mean, one of the most worrying trends of the last few years has been the sort of rowing back on the green agenda.

35:29Now, you know, again, with Miliband in there, I think Burnham's feet will be kept to the fire. But it's also it was also good to have a party outside with significant support saying, yeah, but do you mean net zero? Do you mean net zero? And if all their bandwidth is taken up by Israel is, you know, Zionism is racism, there's no one holding them to account on greenery, which is in every sense the word catastrophic. And by the way, the Tories and reform on climate change are so much nowhere. I mean, it's horrifying. Right, stop there, because that's a very good segue into our next part of our conversation, which is because it's not just the Greens.

36:15The Tories had their big moment in the sun. They did. Yesterday. Well, kind of. Kemi Badenoch, who, here's a little trend to listen out for. Just as, do you remember Jeremy Hunt was the victim of mispronunciation quite frequently? Yeah, that was different then. I've noticed people saying on radio now, Kemi Badenock, I mean Badenock. I mean, Kemi Badenock. No, Badenock. And it's very interesting because she insists on being Badenock. She does. She can tell us how to pronounce her name. That's entirely her option. Yeah, and if we don't, we'll get very wrong. Some people like to be putting out Badenock instead.

36:55Anyway, listen, we're going to take a very quick break and come back to talk about Kemi Badenock. Badenock.

37:25We'll see you next time.

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39:00conference yesterday gave a very long very long speech i thought too long too long i'll tell you how long it was i switched it off halfway through because i was that's too long then i was a little tired of the what i thought were the worst slogans ever like i'm not going to be written off and stuff like this and then came back and was astonished that she was still going on but i have caught up since and well i mean look let's um let's be generous um if if her job is to keep the tory party alive then she seems to be doing that um she seems to you know when she came into power she or opposite leader of the opposition she she was a ropey performer i think she was she's definitely not a ropey performer now she's definitely found her feet um and she has given the Tories a lease of life I think and a sort of raison d 'etre which was absent before.

39:59I think that's right. And we've now got I don't know what you think but I think we do it's weird that we you know only six months ago we were talking about how fragmented and blended and homogenized everybody was becoming and it was just a matter of degrees. We've now got a position where it feels a bit more like the two-party system back again. Kind of but I actually think that um her i mean let's let's wind back a bit i think you you're right i actually it was it wasn't that great a speech right it wasn't and and um compared to burnham's it was you know beta minus to be honest yeah yeah it wasn't in the same it wasn't in the same league um and and but what i think it was was the recognition of reality which is she needs to get a grip on her party where are they they've only got 118 seats they're nowhere um labor has a working majority of 166 seats to defend at the next election whatever you know whatever happens in the polls they are still the tories trailing labor and reform yeah um and her best asset by far was keir starmer by far and he's gone and they know and i this is based on a certain amount of conversation they know burnham's a different proposition they know and that even if he delays it close to the absolute limit which is august 2029 she's not going to improve so much and get so much into the political bloodstream that everyone looks at her and thinks no she'd be a better prime minister than burnham that they're they're in their most honest but they're self aware enough to know that's not the case so what what can she do what what actually is left to her to do she can do what michael howard did in 2005 which was actually at the time wasn't that much he went from 165 seats to 198 not a great improvement in seats but he brought the party together and made it ready saved it from extinction and made it ready for david cameron and by the way they didn't get majority back until 2015 so it's a long haul and her i think that she it isn't two party politics well it is but it's her versus reform she didn't she practically didn't say anything about labor of any substance she didn't go at him on social care she didn't have an answer to um any of his big picture you know uh discussion of europe and and and um or proportional representation or whatever you know all these big issues that he that he raised it's she what she knows is she's got reform on the ground police investigating them electoral commission investigating them parliamentary standards commissioner investigating them prospect of a second by-election in clacton it isn't going to get better so what she did yesterday i think was she finally and absolutely irreversibly came out against the big unite the right strategy whose main proponents, Suala Braverman and Robert Jenrick, have now gone to reform.

43:01So she turns that into an advantage and starts saying, look, you know, reform voters, these are awful people, they deserve better, come back to us. And she's really rude about the reform defectors, and rightly so. She says, a very clever phrase, I thought, in an otherwise not very striking speech, was called an export move by the Tories. You know, in one of the interviews, she said she didn't want drama queens in the Tories and and then there was there was one good passage actually you know and it was really the only kind of powerful passage which was about how she hated she didn't name her but the Swell of Braverman people of colour can't be English line yeah right you know that's what I want to get I want to get into that yeah so let's go let's come back to that but um and I think that was the strongest section where she was basically she was setting up her firewall the german brandmauer saying look you know this is where we don't agree with these guys and so she's got what she's saying is look i get that you you voters have all been excited by the reform energy and excitement with what we always come back to but you know they're they're weird they're extreme and they're corrupt and and what she offered is was almost parodically retro i mean I don't know about you, Matt, but I felt like I was in the 1980s.

44:19I mean, this is the key point to me. I find it and I think it's actually very clever, Matt, that she and I think it's Andy Burnham who's opened this door for her. Where suddenly back at the centre of British politics is Margaret Bloody Thatcher. Right. Unbelievable. And both the main parties are now evolving and revolving around what Thatcher means to them. And I think it's Burnham that opened that door talking about everything's gone wrong since the 80s. And cleverly, Baden-Ock has seized on it and said, nah, we want more Thatcher, thank you. Yeah, yeah. And that will be received really well with people of a certain age.

45:00Of a certain kind. Yeah. And that's the point is that I think there's an election, potentially an election winning answer for Burnham in all that, right? Because, you know, the country, broadly speaking, does not want to go back to Thatcher. OK, that's just just pragmatically. That's a silly thing to say. But a certain section of it that she needs to make the Tory party survive does like all that. You know, when I say, you know, go on about tax cuts and inheritance tax, you know, and insulate the family home and a million quid. And I thought, you know, in what world is she living in? And I thought, ah, the world she's living in is a quite small section of the electorate who are kind of Tory land.

45:45You know, they're thatch lovers. They are the people who in Tory clubs do have a bloody big picture of thatch. It's the Daily Mail. Daily Mail's Middle England, you know. It is Middle England. But I actually think a lot of Middle Englanders have moved beyond that because they were so worried about their kids. And, you know, they are sort of a lot of them reform positive. But she's going for that sort of old school 1980s brought up. You know, it was defence spending. It was welfare reform. She talked about that head headmistress, Catherine Burblesing from Michaela as a badass teacher, you know, child care.

46:22I mean, who in their right mind makes a centrepiece of their conference, making sure that people who earn more than 100 grand get free child care. And the answer is a party that is terrified of extinction and is not going to operate a 650 seat strategy at the next election, but is going for the core base of its old school, quite old voters and just keep them locked in. you know what do you think what do you think would be uh a winning result for bedenock in in a 2029 election if that's where we end up i mean in turn i mean you know how many seats and and what i mean to stay as leader of the opposition i guess well i don't know about to stay as leader i think i think i think at least more than 200 but i think um for her to be remembered as a successful-ish leader in the way that Howard now is, not because he did well in and of himself, but because he paved the way.

47:23I would say anything in the high north of 175, that would be a good night for them. I mean, you know, the poll, they're not moving. They really aren't. I mean, this is all trying to stop the water from leaking from the ship. And, you know, the quadrant of politics where there is on the right where there is real juice is economic generosity with social conservatism and she's not there she's economically liberal and trying to steer the party away from reform extremism on social issues so it was it was very strikingly non-culture war you know that's right that was that was unusual now actually if you look at the content of what they're saying on immigration it's very tough i mean there's an ice style enforcement agency they're going to set out that she's talked about bringing back rwanda which seems insane to me but the point i'm making is about the speech itself it was a hand stretched out sort of through you said matt through the past yes to a very small but important demographic saying i am thatcher now it's not so weird and she left power 36 years ago thatcher well well crucially i am the black thatcher and she made a big point yeah yeah i mean the what the element of culture war where she did stumble in and actually i want to pick something up which i haven't seen picked up she talked about obviously i'm very interested as you know in football and i was my ears did prick up when she talked about john barnes and ian wright playing dregland and she said nobody what you I look back and think about those days.

49:02And by the way, she was three when John Barnes made his debut. Yeah, I somehow feel that was made up. Yeah, but I'll tell you what else was made up. When she said nobody cared about whether they were English or not. Let me tell you, it's so weird that she should have picked those two players to make that point. Because both John Barnes and Ian Wright have talked about the horrific racist abuse. Yeah, even I know that, you know. People throwing bananas at John Barnes. Oh, it was awful, yeah. And the yells of F off back home. And the N-word and awful. To both of them and the N-word. So quite bizarre that she said, you know, reformer taking us backwards and it was all fine in the 80s and 90s.

49:49Very strange point for a woman to make. Isn't it just amateur? I mean, it's just wrong. I thought it exposes her to the charge that she really wasn't cognizant of what Britain was like in the 80s and 90s. And if her big pitches let me kind of recreate that sense of Thatcherism, boosterism and all this business. Well, she's got to remember the bits of the 80s and 90s that were shit as well. That's 100%. And that's why, I mean, the whole thing, when you extract it from its very inside baseball, how to get a certain section of the right wing, right of centre vote back. To be honest, it felt to me like a complete fever dream, you know, because I thought, what?

50:41Every time I heard an announcement on today's programme or on the coverage from the conference, I thought, you can't be serious because to take the inheritance tax piece. I mean, we've been talking ever since the podcast started. The thing I want to think the through lines has been both you and I have said there's going to have to be some sort of wealth tax. Yes. And slowly but surely that is clearly coming about. Now, there's a whole argument about whether it would be better for that wealth tax to be, you know, through through your life rather than all at once at the end of your life. But there's no doubt that our relationship with our properties and our assets is going to have to change to fund the government that we're going to need in the 21st century.

51:22That's just it's not ideological. That's just kind of common sense. So I thought for her to go on. Yeah. You know, we're going to get rid of inheritance tax for the family home. Well, you know, the Daily Mail went crazy and, you know, whatever. But but actually, in terms of practical government, practical statesmanship, it's I mean, it's just literally insane. I mean, I think to be saying we're going to scrap inheritance tax, mansion tax, stamp duty. Yeah. And we're going to cut 36 billion off the welfare. Which he won't. All right, which is absolute pie in the sky. And there is definitely a conversation, and Andy Burnham's got to start coming out and Johnnie.

52:00Yes, yes, sure. And say, this is how the welfare payments, which are exorbitant, have to change and come back to a sense of reality. Well, that's a great battlefield, and Andy Burnham will win that if she's going to be that kind of weird about it and say things. But I think, you see, one of the things I think where she's not an amateur is that I think she knows that. Right. I think that one of the ways she's grown up is that you'll hear a lot in the next few years, however long it lasts till the election, about we can win this, we can win this, we can win this. But what Conservative leader, I mean, William Haig said that and he knew in private from the day he was elected leader.

52:41I'm not going to happen. One thing that is never going to happen is I'm not going to be Prime Minister. right they knew it and they all used to hang around talking about brilliant how brilliant blair was it was rather sweet actually they all loved blair because they knew he was a generational talent right yeah um and he very i mean to talk about speaking of the dead when there was the jeffrey archer scandal and he had to stand down as mayoral candidate yeah which came well the the one that's that one you know um he he just thought this is on me i've got to resign and it took seb Coe and a few others to say you can't resign mate you know you got to go through to the election but anyway she's going to say that she can win she knows she can't win so it's damage limitation for the Tories I think that you know one of the things that's really interesting is that Burnham Burnham someone up there does like Burnham in the sense that what's happened recently is I think in the last week we've seen the Green Party start to implode and the Tory party signal to the media in the world that it's kind of accepted it's not going to win and that its real battle is to beat the reform party which is in trouble to the right-wing vote you know if i was andy burnham i'd be thinking absolutely you know well you know i'm not going under any ladders am i tempting fate you know it's this has been i mean just empirically this has been a sensational conference season for Andy Burnham.

54:10That's absolutely true. Absolutely true. And also, in terms of sensational weeks, the fact that, and we can't let this pass on this podcast without noting it, the fact that this morning the French, was it the finance minister, saying Britain is welcome back any time. This is big, big stuff. Wheels are moving, folks. There's no two ways about it. And the cover of this week's magazine has got the headline Dare to Dream. And I definitely feel it's obviously a little bit more emotional than your average newspaper splash headline. Oh, it's good, though. I like that a lot. I do feel there is a mood where we can now dare to dream about things that only five years ago felt like a generation away, and I don't think they are that far away now.

55:00You know, it is fair. I mean, I'm still getting the measure of Burnham because even though I've known him a long time as you have, you know, quite how good he was, I didn't know. And I think obviously the proof is in the pudding and there's the budget coming up and the spending review. There's lots of big, big tests ahead. But to your point, Matt, what's interesting about the French finance minister thing and Macron has also been saying, yeah, come back, you know. And Burnham is today seeing poor old Frédéric Mertz. I mean, God, you know, I hope he gives him a big hug and says, you know, do you have a good pension plan?

55:38And, you know, we've got any boards you can join. Who's next? Who will I be speaking to? You know, I don't think you're rude, Friedrich, but who am I actually going to be speaking to really about, you know, getting a new relationship? But but what's interesting to your point is. How just a couple of paragraphs in a conference speech that captured the attention not only of the media, but the world's everyone was going, oh, who is this guy? has completely changed the whole question. We've gone from let's make Brexit work to what follows Brexit. Yeah, what's the point of it? Within a week. Yeah, yeah.

56:16Amazing. Good stuff, good stuff. Okay, well, there we are, folks. That's the state of British politics this week. It's not bad. It's better than it was. It's not bad. I mean, I'll take that. You think how long a haul we had with Starmer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's encouraging. It's encouraging. Let's be encouraged. Folks, if you want to follow the debates, the ideas, the culture, the society, the philosophy, the politics, the hope, it's all in the New World magazine. So subscribe, please. Go to thenewworld.co.uk forward slash two mats. There are a handful and I mean a handful. In fact, I think the stores are next to completely sold out.

56:57Is that right? Fantastic. There might be five or six tickets left for... Go for it, folks. And there's a few in the gallery. And the gallery seats are excellent, by the way, at Cadogan Hall. So we've got Alistair Campbell being grilled by the fantastic Michelle Hussain at Cadogan Hall on October the 22nd at 7.30. Go and get your tickets now while they are still there because they won't be by October the 21st. I'm positive of that. Send in your questions for next Sunday's Q &A. email in to twomats at tnepublishing.com that's the number two m-a-t-t-s at tnepublishing.com and it just remains to thank the third Matt Matt Withers for producing the show thanks Matt and in the meantime it's goodbye from me it's goodbye from him goodbye

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