The Benaissance and Future of Labour

Hello and welcome to page ninety four. Do not adjust your set. This is a special one off podcast because of the big news this week Andy is away because he's preparing to run for the Manchester Meralty On a platform known as Hunter Murrism. More details on that as we get it. But for now, Britain has a new Prime Minister in waiting, Andy Burnham, who won a resounding victory in the Mayfield by election and has caused Kir Starmer to resign. I am joined as ever by Adam McQueen in his off and guest star, Mat Mull, to talk over the big events of the week. Ian, I want to start with you. watched Kist Ama's resignation speech On a scale one to ten, how moved were you? Well, I was very moved because it was Monday morning and we got to press Monday afternoon. Not only did he time it in time for private ey pressing he actually timed it in the middle of the privatey editorial meeting. So there was a pause as we all went and watched it on our telev and then sort of reunited tearfully to say, right, what the hell are we going to do now? We're recording one day in advance of it landing on newstands. Did he get the cover He did get the cover, but only in the picture of a gilded coach coming into London with a headline, Andy Burnham travels to London. It was a coronation joke which we were We were lucky to get and then Underneath it, it said Britain sheds a tear Surely tear But it was an incredible thing because I'm still scarred by the day in twenty seventeen that we went to press on a Monday And Thesa May chose nine o'clock the next morning, the Tuesday, before we were even out on the newsstands to call a general election. So for one thing I will pay tribute to Sakir for that one. Yes, his Inadvertent humor will always win. He actually said Without the slightest pause, he said, I've spoken to the king and I thought, well, Andy. And I couldn't help myself. We had a long list of a thing that he's achieved And he just wanted to say, thenen why are you going? It didn't make any sense to me. I thought the best thing that he said was when he went, I've spoken to the Parliamentary partarty about whether or not they want me to lead them into the next election. And was I've accepted their answer with good grace. All more hundred of them spoke with one voice. So he said in his speech, The hard work of change was with a singular purpose Not power for power's sake, but to change Britain for the better. So the hard work of change was with a purpose which was change sort of tells you everything about the past two years, really. this lack of there's no there there ally speaking It was a noun soup, but I in a way, I think it maybe it was the best speech he's ever given. Not at least it was blessedly short. It had three main points, right? Basically you've all told me to sod off and I am in fact soding off I would ideally like there to be a contest, not a coronation.s like he won't get that one. And the other thing he both did a sort of forward jab at Andy Burnham by saying he sort of essentially was opening nominations for this long period. Yeah. But also there was a backwards jab as well at I was the one who transformed the Labour Party. was it eectorally financially and morally morally bankrupt Given that so much of his rhetoric during his time in office has been about putting party like behind country country first, it was a very labourory can I change the Labour partarty and now maybe Labour will go on and win a second election. But that was the bit he was good at. That's the strange thing about. He was a very good leader of the opposition, and he did sort out the policy, which was in a terrible state And then he sort of got into power and didn't seem to know what he wanted to do with it. I mean, it's part of the general feeling that I know a lot of the electorate do seem to have. The political class currently has become addicted to campaigning rather than governing, and that's sort of been part of his downful. Can we have a moment to say the one unifying thing that swept through the countryays as everyone watched that statement, which was annoyance with Pumably Steve Bray playing the Oe to Joy in the background, Yeah. I mean, Adam, my sense, you've got the feelings about this. Well, I had two feelings about it. One was just shut up, just pull his plug out. for God' sake enough. we get it. I know it's the tenth anniversary and everything. But the otherth one was quite a banger isn't it? joy Re reallyally good as anthons go. Right Yeah. It's up there with Zado the Priest, defeinitely. But that's a very footbally now. I think if people would have thought that was a sort of world cup reference they played Zado theriest, don't you I think Cr Camions was made on the priest, but maybe that's just the second. at you. I've had it sung at my wedding. Oh. And so the class hierarchies of the podcast team are revealed. Enough handle chat. It is handle, right? Yeah, o good. I had it sung when playing George III in the Madness off, but there we go. Oh Br. Eortlessly. An advance on that? Literally none whatsoever. Mybringing was cultural. I had it played the first time I rode to Hounds? No Okay let me get back to how annoying Steve Bray is Yes. It's sort of our irony, right The right to do that is probably protected by some human rights legislation of the kind in which Kistar is in favor very strongly and the right to kind of peaceful protest. But I did I had exactly the same visceral reaction as you, which is, I'd actually like to hear, you know I felt like a teacher, I'd like to hear what akist Arm is saying thank you. It's not a peaceful protest when you're ratting out to joy at several deci. What is it protesting? The conflic bit' mean too. This is the last time Kia is going to get to command attention and maybe it was difficult before Thatite Bick? Yes, no, it is I mean on plus that at least it wasn't Yacety Sacks, which would have provid provided a ous backdrop to the tears. Okay fin We have his list of achievements though. Okay because my other feeling, apart from pleasure at the timing, sadness at the going was just If any other prrime Minister his current crop of good news to boast about. He'd still be in K is going, o, well, yes, the boats, they really are, they are down. Net migration figures are down. fififty percent cut since last year. I mean, yeah, which reflects two things, doesn't it? It reflects the Ukrainian scheme and the Hong Kong scheme working with through and the kind of what's so called Boris wave Boris Johns the government just lost control of visa allocation, likeike they lost control of everything else. But yes, that is something to boast about I think they may have at some point built a house someomewhere in the country. Inflation iss not looking that bad. I mean, there are things that other desperate governments would have boasted about and survived. I was watching him thinking and you're going. My other last thought is just thought But why did you have to go in such a classic stararite way, having told everyone you weren't going to There was briefings about you fighting on. Oh God, it's the last you turned. You resigned He went out as he lived you turning and you down it straight. Yeah. I think you're right. And the other thing I felt when I was writing this up yesterday was the fact that Liz trust tild to her dying day will say that you know it's not her fault. everyveryone was against her, know the mini budget failed for other reasons. But I do think there is also the fact that and this is useful when we're discussing Andy Burnham as we will later, lots of the things that happened to Kistara were genuinely out of his control. So sickness and disability numbers have been persistently high since COVID. know that is something that he inherited He didn't start the war in Iran. He didn't start the war in Ukraine, both of which caused energy price and inflation He didn't start COVID as far as we know. so, you know, he has been, you know, he has dealt with Trump in the White House just an enormous Time suck of energy, presumably, sorting all of that out pretty rum hand But Matt Before we get too carried away fo remembering him What do you think his biggest mistake in office was Sorry? Having the entire country hate him, I think was probably quite a big mistake I Wh why so much? Why much more than, you know comparably leaders with worse track records. So I mean I'm going to base this on a lot of the filth I have to marinade in by looking at the internet for my job. But if you look at X as a fairly representative swathhe of the antiist. I really did not think when you said filth, I thought you were going to say he lost the milfort. The furry vote is very important, Helen, and we'll talk about that in subsequent episode I think partly because he and this is again no fault of k his armors, by dint of his profession, by dint of his previous role as director of public prorosecutions, he embodies a particular type of establishment politics is anathema to a certain sway, the voter now and has been since day ten years ago that we're not going to talk about. so there's partly that. I think partly there is something fundamentally uncharismatic about him as a man, which feels unfair and maybe cruel to say, but it's also basically true, right? Never got a sense that he enjoyed the job or really even wanted to be in the job. It just sort of felt like it had sort of fallen into him of middle management figure and he didn't know what he wanted to do with it and didn't get any Joy out of it either. The political class in this country have over the course of the past decade, potentially longer, but let's fix it a decade, become very, very, very bad telling the electorate Things aren't going to be nice. We have lost the ability to hear as a populace, I think, the news that things are not going to be good and there is nothing that we can do about it because there are some very good reasons outside of our control. It's a very hard position for any politician be in. when you also add in the lack of charisma, the fundamental mistrust of his background, etcetera. Yeah There was for me, a defining moment in the byelection when Count Binface, who is the very brilliant John Harvey, was asked what his key manifesto point was, and he turned You know, they' beenin to the camera and he promised the electorate, he said, I'm going to lower your taxes and raise everyone else's. And I think that is what the electorate wants to hear. So yeah, I mean the austerity of the twenty ten ss protected homeowners who saw the house prices rise and protected pensioners thanks to the triple lock. So George Osbourne had got a constituency of people who he was telling them we're really cutting back ot notot on you. And I don't think Stahmer ever achieved that. We should say we were quite tough, if you remember when he just got in, saying why are you so miserable? Maybe we should have been easier on him that he was trying to make the case that everything was screwed. Y. The problem as I see it is that they came in saying we're not going to raise national insurance, income tax and VAT. and therefore they realized very quickly they needed some money and went for smaller tax rises that annoyed more people violally and individually like the inheritance tax on fararm. Which again, from a media relations point of view is design and I appreciate it, it's very important to stress this. The failure of Kir Starmer's Premiership is not about Cs. It's about politics. CMs is a very small part of it. But from a media relations point of view, a load of very, very small things, they will stack up and they feel worse than one big hit You say it's not about Cs, but I remember thinking when he first brought in the farming inheritance tax. If this had been pitched as we're going to get Dyson that might have been popular. if you say, somehow, oh it's going to hit all farmers, then it becomes very unpopular. And so there is a CO's issue, isn't there? There is a COMs element to it and it will be really interesting to see whether in akist Ama's probable departing honors list He said previously he wasn't going to have a resignation on usber number ten this morning were I believe, a little bit more ambivalent about the possibility of whether or not that's going to happen. To be fair it's a bit Jo Biden parting everyone on the way out. It's like yellowo, vote me again. So I look forward to seeing Mir Morgan McSwweeneney in the aftermath of all the. I also do think there's a name that has to come up here, which is you should not be named, which is Mandelson which I just think was the most enormous and avoidable screwer I mean, it was really, really sort of why appoint someone that so many people dislike so intensely to a job you don't need to appoint anyone to? You had a perfectly good ambassador who got on really, really well with Trump anyway. Why put that bomb in there and wait for it to explode? It' like with Boris Johnson, everyone forgets the one he resigned over actually was Chris Pincher, because party gate became the defining thing of him and the way he had to go. and I think it was amongst a Dlamatary partarty I think with Kiss Armour, Mandelon was exactly the same thing. I think from that drip, drip, drip of more and more bits of evidence coming out and paperwork and text messages, I think that was what was inevitably going to do for many. You're right. It's the scandal that validates the critique that people already sort of intuitively felt to be true. And in Boris Johnson's case it was, you don't pay attention to this. know You don't have the same morality as everybody else, right? You just don't think you should play by the rules of little people, which both Chris Pincher and Partyate represented. And I think you're right. In the case of Starmrit was you decide things with a little cabal, you don't really trust people, include them in your decisions, and you're supposed to be missed a process, but you bend the rules when you want to. And I really felt that Sue Grey was a harbincher of that, which was when he was leader of the opposition You know She went from being the neutral civil servant investigating Partygate to his chief of staff in charge of preparing for government. qu. I mean all the relevant authorities signed off on at the end, but, you know, the Tories complained about it. and I think you know, not unreasonably so But you know, and then she was dumped on from a great height saying she hasn't done any preparation for government But it's okay because Andy Burnham has about three and a half hours to prect the government. So we're not going to repeat that mistake this time. I had to drop a joke from the last issue, which I thought was slightly poor taste, which was the man who pushed Oan under the bus all those years ago finally being caught out. and it was starbour that poor old Toureay was the one Well, as we wrap the section up, we're going to take a chance to be nice ays everybody ready, Brace yourself. I know it doesn't come naturally. Can we, in the interest of balance, name one good thing to come out of the Starma era Adam, wouldould you like to go first I think you would have you would say Ukraine generally and sticking by Ukraine, but I'd also say particularly that moment after President Zelensky was horribly bullied in the Oval Office by JD Vanceon and President Trump. And there was a very, very good bit of sort of soft diplomacy after that, where he was brought immediately over to London, I think on the way back before he'd'd even gone home And there was an embrace in Downing Street from Kiss Armor and then he was sent around to have tea with the King, do you remember? And I just thought at that point that's you know there's some class in that. So that bit impressed me. Okay Ian. I would agree with that. I mean, I quite like the idea of him being foreign secretary, but I don't suppose that's going to happen immediately. That bit was okay. And I quite like his response to the riots on two occasions He proved that When he was DPP, he had learnnt how to do this. We had the he banged people up, The sentences were long, in they went. And that's a bit bit of a toory response. Itorm pop he did it. It proved that he was capable of doing things. The overall failure is I think one of nerve, it's not saying We're busted, but I will do the best I can in the circumstances. It's not saying why on earth would I pointint Mantelson? It's not taking any of the bolder decisions. H minute, you you're about to be mean about last long. No you. And in conclusion, I. Matt. I mean, this is a little bit of still a negative one, about harking back to right the beginning of his pre mininisterial career if you will cast your minds back to the scandal about all the freebies that you were getting remember free. its also mean. Yeah yeah, but the thing is you you looked snapping. I mean, you know what, the duds were beautiful. But no, I think it was a good thing because it once again shone the spotlight on donations to political figures and the possible benefits they can know. And when we were talking about this earlier, Adam Adam very basingly said the Starma walked so Farraage could run. And you know whilst obviously the five billion crypto donation story would have been one anyway, you do think that possibly there is you say five billion do, That is a story.'s interest, Yes. Just be very clear. it was one level of magnitude less than I'm going to give him credit for driving antiemitism out of the Labour Party and also really purging what I'd see as a kind of crank tendency of the kind of people who do Facebook posts about false flags. He set that as a moral mission. He said onene of the things that he didn't rese when he was saying that during his campaign for Leader in twenty twenty one that he thought that Corbyn had messed up on that, and he really followed that through. too the extent of expelling Corbyn from the partarty, which is an extraordinary thing to do to your immediate predecessor, was incredibly popular within the party. And he did it efficiently and he did it quickly as well. I mean, that was essentially what Neil Kinnch's job was over sort of ten years in during the Labour Party, was getting rid of milit the trots and the tankies and all that kind of element. they came back in and were purged to use the phrase very, very quickly and effectively by starma. So there we go. Starma Good on Ukraine, good on Iran, snappy dresser. So that's our raoundom of k ar praise you're not going get more comprehensive than that Adam, before we move on to the sunlit uplands of Burnamism, I wanted to spend a minute just talking about the Makerfield bialection. a couple of days out from it now A couple of things st out to me, let's talk about restore first. So this is Rupert Lowe's hard right, far right party, anti immigrant partarty. They given that they only existed for how many It's a Yeah.' they've kind of been bubbling around in a year now based on Rut Low having a tiff. with Ner Farge and So so many have before him. Exactly. But none of them have managed to get parled the tiff into a party that took six point eight percent, putting them third in that violationion.mitiately some of the other parties really ramp paper candidates didn't campaign Were you surprised by that? Do you think that's had enough attention? In a way, I was relieved by that result because I think the worst possible result for Andy Burnham would have been if the combined reform and restore vote had been above what he got. And it was comprehensibly that It was thirteen points below that combined vote becauseory wasak a win. Farage didn't get to say, Oh well, we would have got it if wasn't for these upstars coming in on even further right win. It was a very, very definitive victory for Andy Burnham U'm Yeah, I mean, it's not great. Now had a look at the statistics on this. six point eight percent seems like an enormous amount. We would obviously prefer there not to be that many people voting for a sort of outrightly racist party. But I was looking at Mgafield in twenty ten, which is kind of height of the BNP under Nick Griffin being up there. seven point four percent at that point. so if anything, that kind of element has gone down a bit. And certainly some of the big kind of scares of the So the nineteen nineties, I mean there's not directly comparable to these council elections but there was one in nineteen ninety three where a BMP councillor got in Millwall in the East End with thirty three point nine percent of the vote Again, in Barking, which famously Barking in Dagghenham council in two thousand six before the big fight back led by Margaret Hodgge, whichest Streeting was also very involved in, seventeen point two percent there and that made them the official opposition on that council. So again Not directly comparable parties, not directly comparable situations. but we have been in situations like this before where the extreme right, as opposed to just the right wing, come in and take a substantial proportion of the vote. But it's not to say it isn't concerning. I was really interested in it for another reason, which is you had a plausible reform victory in that seat, at least on paper, as you say, it turns out Burnham won very convincingly but that there were six point eight percent of the electorates who didn't care about getting a reform candidate in. They wanted so strongly to register their protest about the direction they feel the country is going that they were prepared to do that at the expense of getting a right wing anti immigration candidate against somebody who was seen as being R relatively now the soft left left of the Labour Party. That's quite we want to burn things down more than Nigel Farage who sells himself as Mrter Burn things down Drain the swwamp. Well, I think this is where itakes it really does make it Nigel Farage's problem. That was very obvious in one of his many petulant videos he' put out recently, but one direct offers has he said, what more do you want from me? know I am the right winger. You have to vote for one in the field That one. Yeah ye Um, I think in a lot of ways, the worst thing that could possibly ever have happened to Nigel Fst was getting elected to Parliament on his eighth attempt because that and the various scandals that have blown up around him, we keep coming back to the five million pound donation, which he is still to this day saying he was under no obligation to declare and he could have spent it on anything he wanted to, and it's none of anyone else's business That and all of the outside jobs that he now has to put in the Register of interestnterest, so we're aware of just how much time he's spending on everything else and how much money he's raaking in from crypto and cameo and all of these kind of dodgy side side gigs that he's doing. All of these things serve to make him look like an establishment politician in the eyes of people who have decided, as you were saying, Matt, that's the ongoing narrative at the moment is we don't like establishment politicians anymore interesting because My view is always what a terrific spiv he is. Yes. He's quite clearly a man who's trying to sell you nylons and so hello lady, I've got some of this up my sleeve. And suddenly your view is, oh no, for most people, he's just Bang in the middle of the estlishment I think Oh right. think No, I think it was that, but I think that appealed to a lot of people because he felt like he was the outsider and he was coming in and giving a bloody nose. I mean, all those speeches used to give him when he was an MEP where he was incredibly rude to various sort of Belgian figures and which then clipped up. it was very early on, we'll talk about this in a bit for YouTube and for social media. That was his kind of appeal he was this upstart coming in. and he hasn't got there Rupert Lowe has stolen not only a significant proportion of the people voting for him, but his clothes as well, effectively that he is now coming in. Again, this is extraordinary how he's done this, because Rupert Lowe is your classic kind of red trousered kind of country. T. But he really has taken the whole stick and turned it into someone who is not only further to the right, but more feels like more of an anti establishment outsider. And Farage has got to find a way of polling that.'s got probably unless there is a snap General election cour, which I think is probably very unlikely. He's got another three or four years to get through this as that man in Westminster who has somehow still got to convince us all that he is an outsider. You're right though, there was a sense that he was a kind of English folk loric character who could be played by David Jason, right? Yeah It could have been Dellboy. Yeah. He could have been Pa Larkin. Yeah, George Cell. Keeping things off the books a bit, but you know, wheelad dealer Gzer kind of stuff. And being in Parliament has diminished that slightly because he it's toned down some of his wheelad dealerishness. And he's not very good in Parliament. No he's never there Well he also that could help. But they sort of pick on the other boys pick on him a bit in far. I thought the Lib Dems had a very effective ad post Brexit ten years on, which was the headline about, you know, I got the five million as a reward for Brexit. And it said something like Nigel F' had a really good ten years financially, have you Which is the same thing that the Democrats are trying to run in the midimms against Donald Trump, which is the Trump family has had a really great Trump presidency. have you. And in both cases, you contrast the personal wealth and cash inness of the ruling person versus the fact that normal people's living standards have been really crunched. Let's talk money. sense of digital campaigning.. So Politico influence had a really interesting story about the fact that Basically the reform campaign just pulled money out of digital platforms in the last couple of weeks, they just really weren't spending a lot of money at all. So I mean there's a couple of things. So firstly, yes, reform spent significantly less than labour who outspent everybody as you can imagine, because they have a lot of vested interest in winning that seat. But reform have got a lot of cash on hand Reform have got a lot of cash on hand, but it's also worth remembering that they they spent a genuinely huge amount of money in the run up to the local elections council elections. It's also worth remembering that you there is the cap on local election spend or no by election spend, sorry, is one hundred eighty K. Like it's not a lot and that's everything and that includes advertising. So like that right by the Atlantic for American readers. And I was just like, these are I'm going to mention some sums of money which you are just going to find insultingly He spent five hundred pounds pushing Robert Kenyan's ade on Facebook. So for comparison, there was a special election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court last year that Elon Musk got involved in. Elon Musk put in twenty million. oververall people put in ninety million. And I was like, meanwhile, we're going, o they. They only spent two hundred fifty pounds on Facebook. He be rather proud. the bit when Andy Burnham had to receipt like hear the count between Count Binface and a guy who dressed as a fox. Yeah It was stupid. I mean, Count Binface told me personally It good thing I chose the letter B because it meant the camera would be on me and Berer. It's very good. If't account trash canan, it'd have been improg So yeah, so was it just that they decided they'd spent their money in the locals where they did really well? And then presumably they realized that they weren't winning it? There's a few things. I mean I think their internal polling would have told them that win the seat, so there's no point committing the cash. Secondly, they had a candidate who had become toxic as a result of social media posts and his fundamentally appalling Performances in a variety of broadcast situations, he didn't do himself any favourors, that didn't help. And then the Farage brand, which is obviously what you would be using traditionally for this as well, has also suffered somethingite suffered five million hits. It turns outpt sh. although I think what is interesting and what's important to look at is that restore spent a lot of money Restored we're almost up there with the Labour Party. We're talking they spent about thirty grand in the last month or so, which is, you know, it's only about ' twenty shy of what labour spent. And I think the other thing that's worth bearing in mind about the way in which all this works now is that firstly you don't have to spend a lot of money for digital advertising to be incredibly effective. There's a reason these companies make a lot of money, it's because the ads are really good and they work. and you can reach targeted people with five hundred pounds, et ccetera. But the other thing is that because this is all done by AI now, basically the way you do ads these days if you use meta platforms. picking the targeting of people, not drawing up the ads themselves I mean, frankly, you can literally just chuck a website at it And and tell it, make me a bunch of ads that reflect this website and it'll do that for you, and it'll pup them out and it'll do the targeting for you, et cetera. Which means the idea of locally mandated spending and things that specifically from you can run all your ads through the national campaign. If the eye decides that it's going to show them to people in Makerfield, You need to be less targeted than you used to be because the AI will naturally deliver the content to places where it is performing best, which are likely to be places where elections taking place, forple. And you've made this point that this is just a way round for very rich people to spend as much money as they like and say no, the electoral rules do not apply. Well, I mean, my favorite one currently is the other shadow media ecosystem that exists around this. And the other reason that reform maybe think they have spent quite as big on advertising generally is because so much of the organic stuff is done for them Th'plain. Firstly, there's the entire right wing media ecosystem on X, which is fundamentally a place now where the only views where you'll ever get any traction are ones that broadly align with those of you. know Musk has put it on onat scale. There is an algorithmic scale and he is holding it down. So you get a lot of free stuff from that. Obviously, as we all know, over the course of the past fifteen years, we've learned that the outrage economy does very well on social media for a variety of different reasons And then there's the other thing now, which is obviously the new wave of we used to call them citizens and journalists, but they now have a new name for themselves. They call themselves auditors. Are you aware of this happen come across this? No as soon as people really start getting those bloody meta sunglasses constantly, that we're all life as we know, is over people filming you all the time. We have so much to look forward to coming in by. But basically Briefly speaking, this is a type of content production that gained prominence and popularity Coming off the back of Charlie Kirk and his turning point organization in the US, where Kirk was made himself famous by going to campuses and debating people on issues of cultural war flashpoints. Right So the classic thing is you go to say a Gaza protest and you say something like, know, how do you define sexually? And they go I'm going and they go, How do you think that would go on in Gaza? And they go like, because I haven't really thought it. and it's an amazing gotcha clip. rack up the views, everybody goes home for you know, tea and money from TikTok. Exactly that. And so you know, the same playbook is being run here. So you have a bunch of right wing people going doing very similar stunts. If you look at A lot of the footage that was captured around the I was going to say protest, but we can call them riots, can't we? in Southampton and As long as we're not Beverly Turner, who seem quite incapable of spotting a riot, who told Matt Stadlin that there were no riots. So yes, if you look at the footage from Southampton and Belfast, there are an awful lot of people there Who are filming this because they're doing it for content. They're not necessarily filming arrest, they're filming interviews with people who have strong feelings about immigration. And this content, again, goes far and wide and a lot of people make money from it. And I think my favorite bit of this was Tommy Robinson, Stehen Yaxley, then and egging on some of this from Moscow. sort of slightly tipping the ham. he was with Elon El Because everyone knows everyone. But you in the week when our prime mininister, who is still Prime mininister, is revealed to have been attacked byy Russia by Russia. Yeah, I know. absolute extraordinary. And there's an incident in the channel of a Russian warship. And yet there's a vast group of patriotic people online saying hurrah for Tommy Robinson and his views on Russia. We share a lot of important Christian values with Russia, I think you'll find it at the argument therean delved into that. However you' annti femist, anti LGBT Exactly. Can I just read you out G great? You mentioned Nijah Freud. He was curiously absent from this campaign We had a great number crunch in the magazine that's currently on shelves Press conferences Nighter Farge held January to April this year, I w to guess . twentyw. very good. Very good, alarmingly good I love him. Press conferences held in the seven weeks after it was revealed he took five million pounds from Christopher Harbon. twow. So he's really dropped down the frequency of the press conferences. And I think as the media around this week shows, he's not really managed to live with a kind of glazily sort of shrugging off the five million pounds. Hestead he's going for what I would refer to as a kind of classic Jeremy Corbn tetchiness level back when he's just hungry that someone's raised this. It' a defining moment in the taxi when I was obviously talking about Nigel Farage. And he said, well, he got a hard time on Julia Hartley Brewer And I thought well likely. It's over then And a hard time for Nick Ferrari as well. So people who would normally normally think would be r suable.. He's got Bev to make him fall back on. She would definitely give him give him an e go. I think it's really interesting that the press conference thing is that it's come back to what you were saying about parties being permanently on campaign mode Because that effectively, I mean, that was a thing that reform and for us took from the Tump laber, was't it? It's basically Th aren't press conferences. Th were kind of like rallies and there were firews going off and the bus was in the hall and all this kind of thing. And then suddenly there are a lot less clear on is actual press conferences where sort of difficult questions might get asked about topics you're a bit embarrassed about and might have to answer. There's a genuine sense Possibly for the first time actually, and I'm trying to think back over the course of the past decade or longer that I've had to be aware of that man's existence, but possibly the first time it feels like he's been wounded. Yeah. which I don't remember from previous from previous rounds of this. I'' be more generous and say it's a sense of guilt No, I don't think that's true. still I mean they are still, we should say, this is in the shadow of them still being very much at the top of Paul Pool's national. So to go back to the restore point very briefly, which Adam was talking about earlier, I want to make this point very, very strongly because I still don't think anybody's really looking at this So Tommy Robinson, sorry Stephen Yaxley Leon. Over the weekend in the wake of a whole bunch of posts about the Grooming gangs and Rupert Lowe's inquiry into it and the results thereof, he posted something over the weekend which featured an image of Men who looked like they were of South Asian origin, all basically hanging from nooses with the caption Pakistani rope gangs. And that has now reached obviously millions of millions of people. Now Tommy Robinson and Stehen Eie Lennon, has a verified accX account. That is monetizable content. He is going to get paid for that. This feels like something that there should it should be within the gift of legislation to perhaps address We know this is Elon Musk's devotion to freedom of speech because he just sued a European broadcaster for saying something about him, which I thought you know the ironyometer would absolutely break. You're in charge of X, which contains the most disgusting untruths and inflammatory remarks about everyone.et somethinghing about yourself, N not acceptable. Yeah. Just like meta', shutting up Sarah Wyn Williams because of her book about Facebook, know, Well, we're a free speech platform. We can't be held responsible for anything, but we have very strong opinions about other people So finally The Andy Burnham I say Reich, that's not somethingative. Can we call it the Bennaissance? The Bennaissance is about to go. M. What are you most excited about in the Bernaissance? I'm excited about his eyelashes But you know what he once was called the Minister for Mascara by the Daily Mail? Honestly own question time appearance and he had to clarify that he does not, in fact wear Ie makeup. What I'm most looking forward to is everyone realising that he's just another blare right Wh's bll out A Brown out, which is kind of impressive. And for a while it wassbife. F corbonite for. But I don't see the problem here. He covers all the bases. Well I agree with you. that's my you unite the party? In hatred against him like Kirst Stlmer did. That's my worry is that Kirst Stalmer also thought he was above labour factionism As he put it. But what you call labour factionism is often different ideological tendencies, right? And you have an approach to seeing the world. I'm not confident at the moment that I know which Andy Burnham we're going to get. Well, this is the argument at the moment. they're saying someone should stand against him and it shouldn't be a coronation. But they're not I mean West Streeting dropped almost immediately didn't he said he wasn't going to stand. Andrew Rayna seems to have exited the field anyway, so we assume she's going to get off forered some major job in a Burnham cabinet So far, we've got Al Carmes, who's making it very clear that he is the hard man of labour who keeps putting out these videos. notot just the jogging is now compulsory if you' a political candidate, you have to be videoed jogging. he's videoing himself whilst jogging and talking to camera, just to prove he's not even out of breath. And didid you see the one with the?' joging fast enough then Did you see the woman at the farm there? He goes into a fire station and starts doing chin ups competing with a farm and it's like, we get it, love, you really butch. It's okay. Do youre in the army. Did he go down the pole? No, no doesn't go they don't.t. Sure.t you do the fire station is canan I go down the poll? Come on out. Even he isn't going to do I'm going down the poll. just before an election. the poll, maybe that would be. But he seems to be very much positioning himself as a candidate. The problem I have with Alhan is I feel like I' lived through this before with Dan Jarvis. If you remember, they were like, he's a soldier. Do you know He he probably kills people with this thumbs. It does feel like every political cycle needs one hard man who has said proudly, I will take a bullet for my country. I miss Steve Baker, the hard manactly. So he'll be doing videoing himself having a fight with Al Khan soon. I won't be able to resist What is the rationale We need a debate in the Labour partarty. Have you not noticed They're quite good at it. The debate largely is should I be leader or should you? But you they're doing that bit. That's the thing, I wouldntind if it were a debate between the Labour right, the kind of where Streeting and is ease with privatisation or Shabana Mahouood and her ease with quite draconian immigration restrictions versus the soft left or versus the hard left. But at the moment we're just going to have an argument that has no real substance to it as far as I can see. Do you think he's seing it all up, So Shabama is clear going to stay at home Secretary I think he will shuffle. I mean he seems be playing it quite well in that he's dangling a lot of the Chancellorship in front of quite a few people, as it seems at the moment. And I think that is interesting. The R wing papers to have come back to your point have seem to regard the idea of Ed Millilibander asp. It's basically full communism now. When again, he' served under Brown, you know he's not the outskirts of British politics by any An he means at all. So that will be really interesting. I was personally convinced that Streeting's immediate no let me lay my coat of this puddle for you King was his kind ofob Traps That felt like an obviously sycophantic move designed to secure a position. But in the coverage, the thing I never understand is it was says Now these people are going to be offered top jobs They've already got top jobs, all of them. They've got all of job left is. I did wonder that about Angela Rayan. She has already been deputy Prime Minister once. No that is a non job to some extent. So maybe she's holding out for one of the great offices. But she was also housing and local communities, wasn't she? Where it did feel like she was one of the people who did actually have a kind of plan and was pushing ahead with things Maybe she's going to come back and you know complete that brief who. And there is a point to having Ed Milibander's chancell, is again he does has have an ideology, right? He has got a specific critique of what's wrong. It is quite hot today. And it is just saying. And there's never been aot here, but I knew I'd make that point for him. I did have that thought as I looked at the temperat this week, I thought we don't have to hear about those bloody climate change denies They've shut the them haven't they? Although I would say, I mean, of course, Makerfield wasn't the only by election last week, and we did have the one up in Aberdeen as well, whereere to give Kemmy Baynoock her Jew. Kemmy Nissance happened. Yes. It did indeed, didnn't it in one specific constituency. And a very specific constituency, isn't it?? It is It is an oil city Yeah. It absolutely is built on oil and the people there largely work in oil and would like to carry on working So drill baby drill, it's probably the one city in Britain may not be representative of the entire nation's feelings about net zero. but that is thegument that's really the argument ofents. He was red Eed when he was labour leader wasn't he? But now he'set zero Eed the ruinous drive to net zero as the mail is obliged to sort of auto correct you every time theyed Net zero. And we should also point out there was a by election also another one in Scotland that was held by the SMP. Despite their travails, Peter Merrill is probably being sentenced as we speak. He was sentenced this morning. was four years five years I think So clearly that's not really dented at the SMP and' going completely hold them below the waterline. The one thing I did want to say is did you don't miss opportunity to say Broti Fery. Co on. It's the one time he'll get it. Broti Fairy. No I still I had once said Kirkoldi inst said Kirkodi on the BBC and I've still wake up in a sweat thinking about Andrew Neil corrected me, which is not also something he you would of a Sunday morning. know will stay well away from those things. Anything that any of you are particularly looking forward to in the Benaissance Can I say I hope that he this is a very odd thing to say. I hope that he immediately puts up income tax, which sounds like the weirdest thing to say in the world. But I just think while you can. None of the sums currently, as they stand add up. I would just prefer them to go, sorry, this is going to hurt but it's going to hurt all of you and it's going to hurt people in the higher tax bandans more Let's just I need some money. You've got to pay me some money. If If he gets a honeymoon, which I'm not sure he will And again, we ran a piece this week demanding that he resign as Prime Minister even before he's got the job Because he's clearly not up to it. was a spoof, but that will appear quite soon. So he's got a very brief window. And as nearly everybody seems to keep suggesting, if in that brief window you put up tax, you might get away with it long term. That's all there is. I mean, there's another potential honeymoon indicator, which is I think the current reports are that he would Tain to attain supremacy on the seventeenth of july, which is two days before a potential Wor Cup final appeance for the England football team. And honestly, if England win theurnagine England win theorup thought's are going to be if we win the He decares a bank holiday. manann is in office forever. Yeah. Harry Kanain day isred and that's it. He has actually got the best opportunity that anyone has hand in a very long time to put up income tax at this point, which is to say he's doing it for defense. which what all of the other parties, even the LibDMs are arguing that we have to we lost to a cabinet minister and the blessed Al Khes that we've been talking about a couple of weeks ago because Kit Dahmmer didn't meet those defense targets that they wanted All the other parties are arguing for it It's a fairly unarguable one, isn't it? we got to put up income taxes stop being invaded by Russia. So you know both sort of politically and nationally, he's got the opportunity if that's what he wanted to do. Well, there we go. That's our advice to Andy Berham. If you're listening, Andy, he'll probably go really well, like all the other tax popular move. Yeah Eone, everyone loves more tax That's all for us for now, but if you want more private eye content, the new issue is now on shelves because we're doing this in the incorrect week. So you will be able to pick up a crisp fresh new copy of private eye or you can subscribe at private hyphen eye. co. uk. That's all for now. Remains to say thank you to Adam Ian and Matt, and to me really beP of this while Andy's away Hello Andy, and your son Langj