Final Reflections on Progressive Alliances

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Now in their twentieth year they're on average 11 minutes away. So help is never far. If only they could make finding a good driving song simpler. No No . Oh, definitely not. We buy any car. Selling made simple. To sell your car today, enter your reg number now at weebuyanycar.com Hello, and welcome to not another one, the podcast with me, Steve Richards, Miranda Green, Ian Martin, Tim Montgomery. Thank you very much for joining us. And in this podcast, we are going to pose uh what seems like a huge question . Is it over for the two bigger parties in this precise context? If the opinion polls are anywhere near right about what 's going to happen in the May elections. The parties that will be one way or another s celebrating will be Reform , the Greens, the SNP, Clyde Cymru . Possibly a few gains here and there for the Lib Dems, who knows. But it will be a bad night for Labour and the Conservatives, both the bigger parties suffering at the same time ? Are we entering a new political landscape that will change everything in British politics? Or is this fleeting? Let me put this to all of you as a cautionary counter. The truth is, I don't want to get everyone to switch off right away. The truth is no one knows the answer to the question. In a way, that's one of the great compelling fascination with politics that no one quite knows where things are heading. But here's a cautionary counter, and then you can all say I'm right or wrong. That this is an unpopular midterm government, as many midterm governments are. And voters now have a range of options to express that protest and they do so with the Conservatives having been slaughtered relatively recently in a general election. So rather than turning everything on its head, it would be unsurprising at this particular junction if vot ers didn't use the opportunity to register against those two parties with this plethora of choices of alternatives. Normally it would be a good time for the Lib Dems midterm, but now we're all these other parties. And it could be fleeting. And by the time of the general election, both those bigger parties reassert themselves. Or is it your sense that this is a trans formed political landscape that is more or less permanent as far as anything is permanent in politics. Um Ian Um Thanks for that. Almost impossible question to answer, Steve. I mean I I regular listeners will know um you know know my traditionalist view on this, that I've always been uh you know, I I've always taken the view that I think we're quite lucky actually in our old parties, by which I mean certainly the major two uh and don't want to offend the Lib Dems, but sort of two and a half in terms of in terms of scale. And I th I I think think they'd be happy with that right now, Ian. Two and two and a quarter, two and a half. Two and a half. Um I'm not I'm not actually sure and the way things are going, I'm not actually sure that the two and a half really adds up to even one sort of whole political force. That's how bad things are. I've always taken the view that they are that what works about them is that they are broad coalitions and that helps to keep extremist uh extremists out and that by necessity they have been you know Labour has always Labour in the last seventy, eighty years has been a broad coalition with middle class uh middle class voters and the trade union movement. The Tories have been a kind of broad coalition as well, and that's clearly breaking down. Now I I think and also there's a also it it gives you potentially or generally tends to give you str onger or more stable government is the theory. But I think you know not another one is about about us listening and challenging our prior assumptions and I've listened a lot to Tim, when Tim was saying that he thinks that this is a transformative moment, you know, maybe a year ago, year and a half ago, I was pretty skeptical and thought that this is kind of mid-term blip. I'm less and less convinced by that, partly just because of public attitudes and the way in which people seem to have completely lost faith in the old uh in the old systems. My worry about it, which I'm sure we'll get on to discussing, is that we it doesn't decisively kind of break and reset but, that it end that it leaves us with effectively three parties or four parties that can poll about twenty percent high teens or low twenties and uh you know plus the Lialber Democrats and then the question is what what dispensation do you get at a general election? It then produces very, very strange uh very strange results. So I'm I'm I'm veering more towards Tim's view of it , Steve, um uh but kind of hoping hoping that I'm wrong in terms of the long term um political future of the country. Tim you've said many times on this podcast, and you have been part of it, that reform in a way represents an existenti al threat to the conservatives. For new listeners who uh you know don't know, Tim founded Conservative Hope and is now uh a prominent r uh reform uh member. Um but so let me ask you something else, Tip. Do you sense that the Greens pose an equivalent threat to Labour that you argue reform does to the Conservatives? Um yes, I probably do. I think I don't think Zach Pulansky will survive and have the political um endurance that Nigel Farage has. I don't think he's in the same league as a as a politician. Um but you know I think my answer to your question, Steve, uh the specific one you just asked and the the general one you posed um at the last at the start of this podcast is basically the same. Is you know we can be very parochial in in it in Britain, but look around Europe in particular. Um you know you we see sort of forces, parties to the left of sort of social democracy, Labour almost everywhere, as we do with you know populist parties on the right. We traditionally, because of the first past the post system, those th you know th I think those movements, those beliefs have always existed um in the UK, but people aren't gonna vote for what they completely believe in when that the force that represents those beliefs can't win an election. But when you see the Labour Party so you know down on the mat, when you see the party that you know is closest to your values the Greens win the Manchester by election. When you see them ahead in the opinion polls of of Labour over a sustained period. If the Greens can you know do very well in Mayor's local elections, begin to sort of see serious representation in lots of local communities. You know, it's no longer um true for you know someone who actually does believe in the Green sort of party's agenda, you know, it's no longer the case that it's a wasted vote. Suddenly it becomes a credible vote. And politics in a way is always downstream of culture. I think politics is catching up with culture and the split nature of you know voting uh polls now suggest to both reform voters and green voters, why shouldn't they now vote for what they believe in rather than the compromise? Because they might win. Do you sense, Miranda, that what we wake up to after the May elections will define the build-up to the general election in the way that Tim suggests. In other words, um it it it is as close to permanent a change as you can have in politics. It won't be fleeting. And that by the time of the next election, people who want reform or who want the Greens won't make tactical voting to stop someone. They will just vote for the party they want because polls suggest they are in as good a chance as the other parties, or in some cases better. Well, so I so I hate to be a pain in the neck, okay, but I think it's probably a bit of both because I think the psychology of voting in a local set of local elections is so different to a general election and the task before any individual voter and the electorate as a sort of wisdom of crowds ent ity is completely different. The question being set you is different on the day in the polling booth, isn't it? So I think that uh Tim is right that this is a sort of a phenomenon across the West. We've talked so much on this podcast about the phenomenon of fragmentation of the electorate to the left and to the right, and I think that that is very very real and I think the disruption the sort of disrupting fact of reform on the right and the greens on the left is not going to go away. I think that's now a feature of our politics, that' spslinteringing. But hav said that, what are people actually voting on on May the 7th? Apart from anything else, in Scotland and in Wales they are voting for a government, uh, which is a much more, as it were, sort of first order question. And so in a way I think that what happens to Labour in Scotland and Wales is more s is more serious if it gives the SNP a third decade in power and if Labour are kicked out of power for the first time in the devolved government of Wales, particularly if Plyde kicked um is the is the largest party, which is entirely possible, although the vote the new voting system and new arrangements in Wales do complicate matters hugely. But I think in in terms of the English local elections, I think it's gonna be it it might be a sort of trial run for sort of for fragmentation and how the campaigns will play out in the general election. But I don't necessarily buy the idea that it's going to tell us what's going to happen. And also, for example, if you look you know, look look back at what the results were like in the 2019 European elections. Do you remember? The Conservatives were down to I think the Conservatives were down to single figures, weren't they, in terms of vote share in twenty nineteen. You know, Joe Swinton her her lead her very sort of extreme anti-Brexit leadership of the Lib Dems sh saw them insanely high having a sort of equivalent of the current green surge. And of course none of those patterns actually get carried over into a general election because when you're a voter going into the booth on general election day, you are fundamentally choosing who you want to be Prime Minister. And I think then the dynamic will be much more this kind of left bloc versus right bloc psychology. So I do you know what I mean? So I think I think there will be so many fascinating things that we can chew over about the set of results we'll get from the May seventh elections. But I just don't buy that it's gonna tell us who's gonna be Prime Minister or how people are gonna d behave. I mean the It's a different thing. It's a different thing. The European elections of twenty nineteen are a real warning for extrapolating too much. Um because at the end of that very year the Tories won a landslide, Jo Swinson had lost her seat, and etcetera. Um so it was completely turned on its head within months and it w it wasn't turned on its head. What happened um was that people then were voting either for Romaine or for Brexit and finally um the Tories um showed that they were going to deliver Brexit. The most important decision that Boris Johnson took when he became Prime Minister, and uh everyone in the Westminster village hated it because it was so unconventional, was to throw twenty one was it, MPs out of the party who weren't backing Brexit. And you know, there was Jeremy Corbyn, obviously he was a faction in that election. But the the the Europe I know what you mean, the European elections won't overturn. The Tory party responded to them. The Tory Party understood that it was facing an existential crisis if it didn't deliver on the most important referendum that happened in the post war period. Well that raises a very interesting question, Tim, because you're absolutely right. The the the whole Johnson leadership campaign uh absolutely specified that that the Tories were facing an existential crisis which they had to respond to and he did by uh getting uh a a form of Brexit through uh to well the the the general election became as you say a verdict on his let's get Brexit done. Which we're but that it was Unite the right, right? Because it was Unite the Right because of Brexit the Brexit Party standing down in those crucial seats. Yeah, and there will there be a semile I mean. It was like endless, you know. People wanted it done, even if they didn't support it at that time, people like my mum. And I I I think there's a dang there's a danger in thinking that the um the fracturing then is in any way equivalent to the fracturing now. I think a very different episodes and the reuniting the there was an obvious thing that the Tory party needed to do to reunite the political spectrum and that was to get Brexit done. There's no equivalent there's no equivalent. there Th'eres no's n equivalent now. And and that's why the fracturing won't go it'll ease and there'll be the tactical voting I think um Rand was hinting at. I think the tactical voting will be huge in a general election in a way it probably won't be uh in May. Um but what we do know, unless the polls are completely wrong, we can't predict what the move will be by the general election. We know it's going to look terrible for Labour and the Conservatives in the immediate aftermath of these elections. So we're going to take a short break and then we'll explore how those two big parties, the Conservatives, that have dominated uh power in Britain and Labour that happen to be in power now. How do they respond? But let's take a short break first . Right, this is Pete and Abby from the Therapy Crouch. We're currently sponsored by Tui. Now, Pete and I never disagree about where to go on holiday, right? Really? Quiet Pete. 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Better your score, better your story welcome back to not another one where we are fully aware by the way we're not being pathetically parochial we are fully aware of the international crisis but we've explored many of its themes in recent pop podcasts. So we're looking ahead to the May elections, uh, which are gonna be fascinating, whatever else is happening, because if the polls are right, we're going to see this fracturing of the party support in extraordinary ways, and a slaughter for Labour and for the Conservatives. Ian in the immediate aftermath, how do you think Labour should respond and will respond , including the issue of whether there should be a challenge to Keir Star mer ? Well I think it if if if this polling which was reported by the Sunday Times this weekend, if that is correct and you always have to be you know taught as a taught as a journalist to be skeptical of reports about internal polling because well you don't actually really get to see the data sets and it's it it you know it's it's second or third hand. Um but still it's vet even if it's just expectation management, it doesn't seem to be. It it does seem to be the case that Labour is expecting to be completely marmalised by the Greens even in London, or particularly in London, that that Labour is facing some kind of wipeout in pretty much every seat that it's standing in. If that is the case, I think you know, losing that badly in London plus then uh losing as badly as seems likely in in in Scotland and certainly in W ales, we've said for a long time in this podcast that we think that the effect of that, the psychological effect of waking up to that and that being the news story dominating the following days , will be uh you know w will be enormous for Labour. However, however, the difficulty that those who want to replace the Prime Minister have, and and also in the let's not forget it's in the middle of a of a war is that the uh you know the alternatives I mean it se it seems conversations I have with Labor people that I r uh run into, it seems to be that Angela Rayner thinks that she's the front runner. Now you look at this global economic uh crisis, which I don't think people have really woken up to the full effects of what of what is coming. I know Tim and I disagree a bit on the economic effects, but I think it is this is just about to bite. The idea that this is the moment to switch to Angela Reina , um, I don't think is necessarily credible. And it is pro is is in a way is the best defence that Keir Starmer has. So you can easily foresee a situation in which in which the results are dire, absolutely dire for Labour , but the the alternative, a damaging lead leadership race in which Angela Rayner is the favourite, is that a b a broad body of opinion in the Labour Party decides that that's not a sensible thing to do. There are counters against that which is just and this is what really worries me about what's happening in Labour at the moment. You look at the choices that Labour has to make on really difficult choices on energy because of because of the shortages coming, plus the need to spend more on defen ce, those are things which Green voters who Labour will need to try and win back, um are are are gonna take a very, you know, almost kind of radical left view on to there's a danger that Starmer say it stays but policies pulled to the left. I haven't really answered the question because we don't we don't know but my my sort of central assumption working assumption would be that immediately afterwards this is a crisis and Angela Rain is not the answer to it. But let's see. I have uh I mean we won't get into the whole debate again on uh uh net zero. But I mean uh people I speak to in Labour , whether it remains Keir Starmer or somebody else or whatever part of the Labour Party will remain that agenda. Partly becausecause well no, because they actually events of recent weeks have reinforced the need for energy security. And while uh you know uh you Tim and you you you would have opposed the industrial revolution. I mean these things are happening. And and and uh and in a way events of recent weeks have have reinforced that and of course is shared by Lib Dems, SNP, the Greens and a significant part You're being very provocative, Stephen. I won't respond now, but let it be aware that you it this is wrong what the opportunity arises, we'll devote the full full podcast exploring it. It was a day last week when ninety percent of energy was provided by renewables in Britain. It's very c can I just res can I just respond? Can I just respond to s to some other things that were said about the election since that's our theme for today? So I Ian, you were you were talking about that very interesting Steve Swinford piece over the weekend about Labour's internal polling on just how bad it's going to look, particularly in London, where you know if the Greens sweep the board in Hackney and all the rest of it. And there was an absolutely extraordinary quote then in The Guardian yesterday, which somebody's been out on the doorstep sent me and it says one Starmer Ally said it would be impossible to spin the results this time. There's no point us doing expectations management as the results are going to be terrible anyway. So it's actually quite interesting because if they want this out if the leadership want this outcome that Ian's outlined, which is yes, it's been appalling, look at the international situation, you want to change leader now, are you mad? Then in a sense they've got to almost sort of lie down on the floor and say, okay, this looks like an electoral catastrophe, but is that the most important thing right now? Which is very strange, don't you think? Because it's really a leadership saying to a political party, we're being slaughtered, we might be exterminated from our sort of extreme flank, in this case, the left, which is the kind of Corbynite left now becoming the Green Party. But but but don't take that too seriously because we're in power, you've got more important things to think about. And I just don't know whether that's going to work. I I totally hear what Ian says and I too hear a lot of people saying that. But will it feel like that inside Labour ranks, you know, as they watch the results unfold um on that Friday. Yeah. Sometimes you just get uh sometimes these things are unstoppable, aren't they, in politics? There's just a sort of flow of moment um after a you know after a after a dramatic event. As happened to Theresa May after the European elections when the Tories went down to nine percent. Yeah. And you can play out these games sort of rationally about uh almost kinda game theory version of how the competing forces will respond and then you just get the intensity of the media moment and then people start to uh people start to respond accordingly. The one thing I'll just say Steve Steve is that I just on the on the energy question, I don't I mean you you've just you've just said we're not going to talk about it and then mapped out the net z pro net zero view without an opportunity for for anyone to for anyone to respond. I would just simply say no one is denying what happened last week, which is one day, where over ninety percent uh was was generated as you described. But go back to January the eighth, where the numbers are reversed. And that's the reality. It's I mean we seem to be having this conversation in Britain detached from even a sort of basic conversation about the weather. This is the this is the problem, is that it is intermittent and inconsistent. Renewables, fantastic, and fantastic when it works like that, but it doesn't work like that all the time. So the question is, what do you use as your as your core, as your base as your as the base of your energy, the base of your energy system ? And then the question is, well, the what people are arguing for in terms of the North Sea, they're certainly not saying that the North Sea is a declining basin, but if you use it, it doesn't or you use more of it. It doesn't mean necessarily the price falls, though some say that it will do, but you do get the tax revenue. It is an export which is good for the balance of payments and it does give you jobs. So I j I think we are Steve we're gonna have to agree to disagree. I think we're moving into a phase on this crisis. It's a bit like the the weak to say that we shouldn't in the words of um um you know um uh the the words of the former guy from BP whose name escapes me who worked for John Brown, you you know we have we have to basically use what we have. And I I think that's where the crisis is is is is leading us. But we disagree. Yeah, okay. Steve, can I the answer can I as as the question was put to me, the answer to your broader p point is the backup will be nuclear power when this is fully realised. And of course North Sea is being as cultivated now as it was when the Conservatives left office. And if there were to be more it would uh play no part in addressing this uh crisis. But could I can we get just get back to the elections though, Steve? 'Cause I I just ask all of you this. Yeah. Um the answer to will Dharma survive, none of us know for sure, but you're right to raise are any of the candidates ready? I think that's a big question. You're also right to point out that uh the psychological blow of slaughter could just propel things. So who none of us know. But could I actually ask, did any of you think um the Tor ies were right to regularly get rid of their prime ministers? Uh in other words, are you of a view that it hardly ever works and is therefore an act of self-destructive dis a diversionary thing that just leads to more trouble? Or do you see circumstances where uh I mean we we talked a lot about John Major coming in for Thatcher, but that was very close to the next general election. This is a long way out. I mean do did did did Ian and uh Tib did you write columns saying Johnson should go, Theresa May should go. I mean were you of that kind of instinct that getting rid of a prime minister is a solution to a governing party in electoral crisis? I mean yes yes I did, both on the May point and and on the Johnson point. On the Johnson I mean for quite different reasons really. I mean I had thought I'd I just thought I just thought the the the John the Johnson the you know the Johnson failure on the party stuff, which some people think is is is irrelevant I just thought what the country had been through uh when it emerged that when it emerged that he had essentially conducted himself he'd been so casual in in his his uh approach to this. And there is just no no previous prime minister in our lifetime I could think of that people in number ten would have behaved like that during a crisis once they were asking they were asking the country to forgo all of these pleasures and were then taking a casual approach to themselves. On May on May, I was never really a you know brief I thought May would win, but I just I'm I think she overplayed her hand. She tried to prove a non-existent Brex it credentials and uh got us into a terrible mess on the negotiating front. Um so yes, I d yes I did. I mean both those columns on columns are on um are on are on record. But um I mean the difficulty we have is bro is broader than broader than that for the old parties, which is that in nineteen ninety you had you know there was a war there was this was in the middle of a war, and the Tory party still removed a three-time election winner. But the difference is that you had Michael Hazeltine in the wings, you had potentially John Maple, people didn't spot him, most people didn't spot him, and you had Douglas Hurd as a kind of backup. So you had this amazing strength and depth that you could remove a sitting prime minister and then have some other pretty impressive options. I mean the the the options that Labor has are are are far more far more limited which is I suspect what will you know is is is is something the Prime Minister will be able to exploit. Um well one of the big things I've noticed since uh I've joined reform is how much time we in the c when I was in the consent party was spent talking about the leadership. But whatever you think about Nigel Farage, he's the undisputed leader of reform. And the amount of energy therefore that the party has I think twenty, maybe even more, a quarter of the conversation, the the sort of the the commentary's focus in the Conservative Party was about leadership. It's incredibly draining and diverting. Whereas reform could focus on how best to sell Nigel Farage and what we what we believe in. And I think once the Conservative Party decided to get rid of Margaret Thatcher, even though there's obvious case for it, if you could get rid of her a three times election winner, you could get rid of anyone. And the Conservative Party has had a Messiah complex ever since, and there are definitely short term advantages in getting rid of a leader. Um getting rid of Thatcher meant that the Tories won in ninety-two, probably stretched the electroelastic too far as a result and got a defeat in ninety-seven as a result. They wouldn't have, we've already discussed it, wouldn't have won in um twenty nineteen if they hadn't dumped May. So there's definitely a short term advantage in it, but the long term sort of reshaping that it produces in the concern in the in in the party that makes it lose track of probably the underlying fundament als. It's a real dilemma because the consequences of ousting a prime minister are huge, even if they bring short-term advantages. But you know the people who make the decisions, particularly if the parliament if it's in the Tory case the parliamentary party, their interests, which are short term, aren't necessarily in sync with the long term interests of the you know, the stakeholders in the in the party who who who want conservatism in the long run for the country. Yeah. Mirandra, do you sense that removing a Prime Minister uh is potentially part of a solution for Labour in Well I think it has to be part of the solution before the next election. I mean I d I can't see anybody who thinks it's a good idea to to fight a general election with Starmer still, you know , helming, as the Americans so charmingly say, uh, whatever this mission is supposed to be that we really don't understand. But I think in the short term, the international crisis might well save him, as previously discussed, and also all of those rational arguments that Ian laid out quite convincingly. But I still do think there is a huge problem with a prime minister who can't communicate and doesn't seem to know what he's in the job for. And you know, at a certain point , almost anybody who is remotely sensible is gonna look preferable to the Labour Party, I think. And and I also just to go back to this earlier point, I think the psychology of losing Scotland, Wales, London is gonna be horrific for them, actually. So um no it's n this is not to say that any of the rivals for the leadership seem to have a convincing convincing set of answers, okay. Um and and and as we've said on this podcast many times before, John Major did actually sort of rec ast the surviving Tory government in a quite different way to get the electorate back on board and to go through that um, you know, his term as as as prime minister. And then to give, you know, the in incoming Blair government a very good economic legacy and all the rest of it. So and he had a good cabinet. So I I think it I think it it they have to they have to dump Starmer at some point because I just think he's he does not have the right character and the right set of skills to be uh a leader on the domestic programme. But I do think the international situation is helping him. But I don't think we've discussed enough, by the way , what it's going to look like for the Tory party after the May seventh elections because, you know, as we've found in this conversation it's so easy to concentrate on one what does this mean for you know a sitting Prime Minister when his party gets a drubbing? But actually I think what's going to happen on the right, if the c if the Tory party has a really bad night as well, is going to be as interesting, but will become a second order story to to Labour's crisis. But actually , if you look at what's happening on the map, certainly you know in Scotland the Tory party is not going to do well at all. And that's partly about reform reform in Scotland. And then across the English local elections you've got areas like Suffolk, Sussex, Hampshire, Surrey, Oxfordshire where this thing that happened every yeah. Absolutely but they can be devastated in their backyards. Exactly, but Essex is much more of a prospect for from the right for reform and I heard Nigel Farage talking about all his mates who live in Essex that he used to work with in the city. But all those other counties that I've listed are actually places where the Lib Dems are expecting to make more to make more gains. So you're actually going to get the same phenomenon as the 2024 general election, which is the Tory vote being eaten from both sides, and the Lib Dems are confident of making net gains, even though they're defending hundreds of seats this time. Well they're not going to get really confused by the Greens, then Morald. Isn't the Greens potentially the the reigning on the Lib Dem parade? It's not the same people and it's not in the same areas. So so you you have to look at the map and you have to look at what happened in twenty twenty four and realise the Lib Dem strategies to do more of what they did in twenty twenty four. And that is those those the that's those voters who maybe once were Tories and are kind of distressed at the current Tory cabinet chasing the reform vote and are very open to voting Lib Dem. So it what I'm saying is that it's g it this supposedena rissance for Camie Badenock is going to look potentially quite strange after May the seventh as well. And then that that that question of who's who's who's who's who's actually the representative of the right in the UK is now going to look uh potentially a lot clearer and a lot more disastrous for the Tories. Okay, well look we'll explore the implications of all of this um uh in the short term beyond removing leaders and so on, uh after a short break . Selling your car can be super simple. If you choose we buy any car instead of selling privately. We buy any car can get it sorted in under an hour, so no weekends watching randoms inspect your car to not even buy it. If only they could make finding where you park simpler. Was it floor two or three. I swear are parked here . Where is it? We buy any car. Selling made simple. To get a quote in 30 seconds, enter your reg number now at weebyanycar.com There once was a woman who lived in a shoe. A size too snug, but what could she do? But that's not where her story ends. Thanks to a little help from her experience friends, she got her score into much better shape and relocated to a box fresh new place with room to grow and a mortgage to suit. Now she lives in a spacious four-bedroom cowboy booth. Better your experience credit score to help get mortgage ready. Experience. Better your score. Better your story. Okay, welcome back to not another one. We left on a cliff edge, which is the familiar conundrum facing Kemi Babenock in terms of where she pitches . We have explored the fact that Kirstama now faces actually a very similar conundrum of uh losing votes to the Greens far more than losing to reform, uh which was a preoccupation of Morgan McSweeney. Um so what should as we're posing the questions, is this it for the old the old two big parties , what should they do in terms of messaging and policy development? As we were we ended on the fur the second part with Kemi Baden ok, Ian I think uh in my view it's a conundrum she cannot solve. But what would you do if you were leader of the Tory party , facing Lib Dems in certain areas, reform in others, um and indeed in Scotland and Wales a uh wipe out from all kinds of different areas. What what do you do to pitch a message in that electoral context? Look, I mean they're they're in a they're in a world of trouble, aren't they, in terms of in in terms of this stuff? But I'm not sure there is not sure there is much they can do really. It is uh and all all the Tories have to do or c or can do is you have to is they have to sort of keep broadly and I disagree with Tim here, I d I d I don't think there is anything I don't think there's anything dramatic or a series of policy um speeches which are necessarily going to turn the corner. You just you just No, ages ago ages ago you did. You said that there there wasn't an ad there wasn't an agenda not cutting through. I don't think I don't think anything is I don't think anything at the moment with the mood that the public are in is going to make a short term difference. Medium term uh politics a lot can change. Uh reform hit reform Tim described the advantage that reform has, which is that it all is that so much of it rests on Farage . Very often the greatest strength in politics turns out to be the weakness. That means that if um Farage for whatever reason wasn't leader at some point in the next three three years that changes the changes the dynamic. So all that they can do is keep on on energy, on defence, on the economy, taxation, through an economic crisis, I think is keep trying to make the trying to make the case that they from the centre right perspective are a party that is kind of being honest and uh honest and realistic about the tough choices and trade offs facing the facing the country. That's where I think they're kind of you know the the the potential gap in the market of sort of twenty to twenty-five percent is if they can get cut through. But I don't think there's anything there's nothing magical, Steve, that they can do. There's no no no shadow cabinet initiative that's going to change the rules of the game. You just have to stay in the game and then be there if public sentiment changes, I think . Do you sense, Tim, that in the end there will be a realignment of the right. And even though it's very hard to see, and I'm sure you would argue impossible, for there to be any agreement between the Tories and reform and the build up to the election. At some point there will have to be some kind of coming together. Um I I don't know about that. What what I do know is um I don't think is I w I really agree with Ian on the fact that I don't think there's much the Conservative Party can do. Um I've admitted a couple of times on this podcast uh Kimmy Baidlot surprised me on the upside. I think she's the best leader that probably the Tories have now. Um I think a change of leader, back to your question about the advantage of it, Steve, would be a foolish decision. I think Conservatives' best hope is the reform mess up, which is not impossible, I'm afraid. I hope it doesn't happen, but not impossible. Um I think there won't be any serious negotiations about a deal or arrangement before the election, but I don't think it's impossible that the Conservatives will go easy on back in campaigning in seats in the North where reform are second place to Labour, but which is about those ninety seats. Um and and also through the other way round, um with reform in the South. Um but you you look back to where we started, if you look around the world, it's almost quite humbling for you know reform and I'll forge his advantages, but uh one nation party in Australia which is near as equivalent, basically got the same vote share as reform. Um same is true in Germany with ADS, with Front National in in France, Fox in Spain. Basically this is a global phenomenon. And bit you know the the that the the mid the centre right is going to survive, the populist right's going to survive, and they're gonna ha and probably two other left. These factors aren't gonna go away and they're gonna have to find some accommodation between each other. So in the but sorry, can I just raise a problem with that? So the pro the problem with I mean you're right, Tim, but A the people who who reform a Nigel Farage are equivalent to in other countries are not the sort of people who are going to be popular with a British electorate. That's for us that's number one. Well m any way being part being part of a movement across the West, which is the sort of movement that Donald Trump's national security strategy for the US said should be encouraged to prop up European civilization because without without without it, you know, the rest of us were sort of forgetting our Judeo-Christian values or whatever. That sort of stuff doesn't go down well in the UK. So I think they have to be quite careful with that. Well it's tr it's true though. It is tr it's true and there will there will be it will over the time. You believe it Tim, but it doesn't make it true. I mean it you know anyway. Well even if you know imagine it even if even if Europe wanted to fight the Iran war, it couldn't do it. Europe is a toothless tiger, it's been wrong on all the big issues, and at some point the electorate's gonna be they want to, they don't want to believe it at the moment. But Europe doesn't even have a basic military. You know, Europe is a is a continent in massive decline, and the parties that have done nothing about that, one of them is the Labour Party, it says it's good to say it doesn't. This is gonna catch up eventually around us. So you couldn't be you know, very complacent about it. I'm just trying to make a strategic point, which is that, you know, being y looking like the equivalent of Trump and Zia Yousuf keeps s keeps telling everyone that reform in power would be like a Trump second presidency. That's not that's not something that's going to appeal to the br to enough of the British electorate to actually gain power, right? So that means with a fa with our first past the post system, you have to find a way of accommodating on the right, which is quite difficult, right ? Because you know, in other European democracies you have a proportional system, so you then have to make your arrangements after the electorate have spoken. But in Britain, because a first past the post, you have to work out how you play it before vote before polling day, which I think is what's beh partly behind Steve's question, but obviously Steve, I don't want to put words in your mouth. But you know, when you're facing first Happy to put them in mine. I didn't make the point about Trump as being Trump is a massive problem. I was talking about the strategic issue is that on climate, on regulation, on military, Europe is just way outside of where it needs to be. And you will phrase that as as Trump. And that's why I think you're finding the phone that's not actually what I was talking about. You were talking about the the Europe wide phenomenon of of a r a party that's to the right of the centre right. And I'm saying that the s sort of the the the fellow travellers in that space is is quite that's quite limiting in a British context. That's my point. That's my own point. Because you follow the policy trail, I don't think the schism is that deep. I mean I think Kemi Badenock is leading the Conservatives from uh the right. But let 's uh finally look at Labour. I hope Kirst Armer doesn't do what he did after the by election, which is to say there are these extremists on the left and the extremists on the right, and by implication I'm in the middle and you're worst reaction worst police worst most undignified reaction to a defeat in recent history. Yeah, it was it was a misreading of the moment and he needs to read this very uh carefully because of all the things that we have been talking about. I hope he also doesn't go on to do and say, right, you know, when we're worried about the Greens, we'll put up Ed Miliband, when we're worried about reform we'll put up Shibana Mahmoud. They have got to find a way of making their program seem coherent uh and uh full of purpose in a way that they haven't uh done so far rather than sort of pluck out um people for particular threats at any given time. It's all got to cohere or appear to cohere. Let's I want to end as we began by looking at the sort of fractured state of politics we'll obviously reflect on Scotland and Wales as well in in in uh in another podcast. But if this is the mood up until the general election it will be I'm very, very worried about our politics now. I'm having always been fairly sa a fairly sanguine traditionalist about how it um how not the centre but how the traditional parties win out in the end . As I described at the beginning, I'm now d deeply concerned when I see that scene of the Green rally on uh Trafalgar Square on you know, last w last weekend and where we're potentially headed for in terms of some kind of alliance that uh progressive alliance or coalition that that has to involve the Greens if this um if this goes really badly wrong in electoral terms. I just think that's so far away from where we need to be as a country in terms of the difficult choices we're gonna make on the economy and growth and um and defence. I mean one thing I just would flag in response to the very interesting discussion that Miranda and Tim were having is that I mean there are some signs on the continent of uh in continental Europe of uh shifts happening. I mean, the f the just look at what happened in the most recent um municipal elections in France where where um they didn't produce the results that people expected. I mean J Germany it's interesting looking at the AFD, the way that they've distanced themselves from from Trump. So there's in British terms, I agree with him is not there's not precise, you know, obvious there's not a it's not a very there's not a clear read across but three years is a lot three years is a you know is a is a hell of a hell of a long time. And one thing just Kemi um Bayner k was being um you know praised or kind of analysed. I mean as I've said before, I do think it is greatly to her credit that she fought back and that she was written off just six months ago, seven six, seven, eight months ago by people who said there would be a Tory leadership race. I think it's it is clear now that they're that And although it's a it it's being you know when you run into Tor ies there's generally generally an acceptance um or you know in a positive way of the idea that she's going to be the leader running through to the uh running through to the general election. So three years a long way to go. I know which is a f which is a pretty um pretty bla pretty bland analysis of it, but I think it's uh you know a hell of a lot of change. If Miranda's right in that there is in the end, when you step back from it all, a kind of left block and a right block. Aren't you worried that if you combine and and they'll all have representation at Westminster, the Labour Party, the Greens, the Lib Dems, the SNP , and who else who who knows who else? They are almost bound to have more seats than reform and the conservatives, and you suggest it would be quite hard to work with the conservatives anyway. Unless reform win an overall majority, which would be sens ational in terms of leaping from a few seats to an overall majority, it uh the progressives have more votes put crudely. don' Dont't don't we I'd say to you on that particularly and I could go through it in detail is you go to Lib Dems in the West Country and tell them to vote Labour or Green to keep the Tories out. The the the Lib Dem one of the interesting things about at the Lib Dems is you know but like the Church of England and also the the people in who support that party are very different often from the leadership. And um