Political stock picks and conclusion

Too much focus on personality and not enough on policy. That's Tony Blair's verdict on where Labor is going wrong. Welcome to Political Fix from the Financial Times with me, Lucy Fisher. Coming up, is Blair deliver ing home truths or is he out of touch? We'll be delving into his Magnum opus five and a half thousand-word essay. Thus, could the far-right restore Britain, led by Rupert Lowe, threaten the future of reform UK? Here to discuss it all are our chief political commentator Robert Shrimsley. Hi Robert. Hi Lucy. Political correspondent Anna Gross. Hi Anna. Hi Lucy. And Inside Politics Columnist Stephen Bush. Hi Stephen. Hi Lucy Well it was threatening to be a deathly quiet half term week of parliamentary recess, and as you can hear, I'm just getting over a cold. Uh so I was expecting it to be dull. So firstly , thank you to Tony Blair for sparking a very lively debate about the future of the Labour Party and the country. It's a hefty piece spanning quite a few themes: the AI revolution, the fast-changing global So I think for me there are a couple of points that really jumped out. The first is, I think, a really important one I strongly agree with, which is that he said both the Labour Party and British politics in general need to approach what we're trying to do from the basis of what is the policy, what is the program that you want to bring forward, what is your analysis of the country and what is it you need to fix, rather than who will have the most cut-through on social media or who's the best communicator, though those things do matter. And I thought it was quite useful for him to be making this point at the moment as Labour Party goes into what may even not be a contest. I was struck by the emphasis, the heavy emphasis he placed on the the vital importance of economic growth as being the central issue for the country. The one thing I felt at the end of it, though, was that as an agenda for the Labour Party, it was a great essay for Kemi Badanock. Actually, everything he was saying would be much more easily adopted by the Conservatives than by the lay party, which doesn't want to hear a lot of this. Um Stephen, that's right, isn't it? I mean uh he picked out uh West Streeting and Andy Burnham , the two front runners to succeed Kiss Darmer, all veiled criticism. He tried to soften that criticism by referring to them by name and praising them, although I noticed the tenses. I think he said something like West Streeting is uh an excellent political figure and Andy Burnham was an excellent member of my uh cabinet. He was a splendid valet, I remember him but he picked up on uh Burnham's lashing out at the neoli beral order of the past forty years and and calling that a rehash far left critique. And on Wes Streeting, he uh singled out uh the streeting proposal for equalising capital gains tax with income tax for special criticism as well as Streeting's proposal to join the EU . Well they've not taken this lying down, have they? No. I mean they've actually both fired backwards remarkably similar critiques going, okay, there's this huge missing hole in your thesis, Tony, about inequality. Essentially I mean, I think the biggest central division between Tony Blair and his former party, including of course West Streeting, who is seen as a blurite , is he essentially saying, look, guys, our central problem in this country is growth and business sentiment. You've got to deal with that first, and that allows you to worry about the social justice stuff. Anna, um Andy Burnham has uh responded with his own uh essay uh fifteen hundred words versus uh five and a half thousand words by Blair, talking about the need for far greater state intervention. So, in some senses, I think it's helped um Andy Burnham better define uh what his programme for government would be. Yeah, I mean this is the argument he's been trying to make over the past few weeks, which is there are some examples of where I have introduced more public control in Manchester, for example the, bus services, and this is something I'd like to spread out. He mentioned in his rebuttal asylum accommodation that he'd like to use break clauses, not outsource it anymore and bring it more in-house, and he'd like to to see that more. broadly And I think you're right that the kind of allergic response to this intervention has been quite beneficial or could be quite beneficial for for both Burnham and Streeting. Because I think there are a lot of people who will have read Blair's intervention or you know extracts from it and feel that it was it was remarkably unreflective on his own legacy and the impact that the negative impact in some w places that's had on labor. I mean, for example, he was saying that the UK should have uh agreed with the US to to allow its bases to be used in in the attack on Iran and made no mention of the kind of impact that his intervention in Iraq has had on the Labour Party. I mean, I've been struck by how many people I've spoken to who have kind of shifted their support to the Greens or in and indeed reform in the past few weeks and months, who cite the Iraq War as being the thing that kind of turned them against Labour, particularly in the Red War. And I think he's created an opportunity for both leadership hopefuls and potentially others to kind of uh create a clear delineating line from someone who is broadly quite unpopular within the Labour Party. One of the things that's that's missing from both Tony Blair's peace and Andy Blo resodpon'ses is the importance of Tony Blair's most important strategic decision, which was to be prime minister when the country had money. Because actually so much of his success, so much of what he was able to do was due to the fact that he had money to spend . He's able to pursue what we call neoliberal economics, thetroeconomics, with money to leaven it through measures that improved social justice, that that you know took children out of poverty, that created short start centres, introduced the minimum wage. It was all possible because the economy was doing well and the public finances were in a good position. And that was crucial. And the point is when you look at what Andy Burnham is saying in response, you can agree or disagree on whether it'd be a good idea to renationalise public utilities or spend a lot more on public housing or or his bus network. You can take a view on that. But the point is, if you haven't got money, you can't do anything. Even his bus network success is based on sub astantial amount of money given to Manchester by central government. And it's all very well to talk about the things you can do with the utilities and with social housing, but if you don't have any money, it is just talk. So we're talking about an attitude. And I think that that's what's missing in a way from both their conversations is well what do you do to get the money to do these things? And that's where Blair I think has a stronger argument, which is you just go hell for leather for growth, because then you can do the other stuff you want to do. Yes. I mean he was quite clear, Stephen, wasn't he, in his criticism of Starmer and Reeves agenda in saying that they have presented headwinds rather than tailwinds to business and the private sector with the employment rights reform s, with the higher taxes. I do think to Robert's point about not accepting the fiscal reality of the UK, he's certainly in an international context tried to deliver some home truths about the UK's declining power and place in the world when that includes the global economy. Yeah, ultimately what a Tony Blair speech gives you that I think no other active politician does is that big picture? We should be here, they're there, here's why this party thinks that, here's where the trends are. With inevitably in a Blair speech, I would say a hefty dose of self-delusion about the US-UK relationship, because he had obviously sacrificed so much politically in terms of his standing, in terms of British lives. He kind of has to believe in the idea that the US UK relations. Yeah, so it's fine. It hasn't been irrevocably changed by what happened in the last US election. I think it is helpful for the Labour Party, then it has triggered a little bit of a a serious conversation about the position they're in. Like why are they in a mess? Because Keir Star mer oversaw a brain dead opposition and is an intellectually incurious Prime Minister, which means that they can't they don't really have the capacity to have the kind of, oh, things aren't working, you know, how can we change them in the way that, say, Margaret Thatcher in eighty one did abandon monetarism and was able to be intellectually flexible. So I think the potential upside for labor is and it's this moment where they can start to talk very seriously about where they are going. I guess the problem is is thus far everything they've said has kind of skated around that as Robert says, where are you getting the money for any of this stuff. But both Andy Burnham and West Streeting have essentially said, I agree with the tax pledges. I'm not gonna change the fiscal rules. It's like, well, okay, at that point, unless you're willing to say, okay, actually it was a mistake to use all of our fiscal firepower on the NHS . Let's have some some fairly brutal budgets for the NHS and fix the rest of the state, which I mean you can make a policy argument for that, but doesn't feel like that's where either of those two politicians are. And if you're not willing to do that kind of thing, what are you actually offering that's different from Starmerism , other than just being, you know, more charismatic or with a different accent? Robert, the essay was light on policy prescriptions in any detail, but it was striking uh again without any detail that that Blair really picked out welfare as a nettle that needs to be grasped. Um not very easy for anyone coming in to replace Kirst Armer to do. Well, it doesn't have to be as difficult as Labour chooses to make it. It's obviously true that nobody becomes a Labour MP in order to cut welfare. So it is problematic. But when I look back at the shambles of the welfare reform effort that he has starmed himself into. It didn't fail, I don't think, because people rejected the entire principle of what he was trying to do. It failed because people felt it was being done very badly, because they felt it was being driven by the Treasury overly, which it was, and because it was possible to look at the specific specific measures and say, well, come on, that doesn't sound fair, you know. But when they look at the kind of people who are going to be on the wrong side of the line to qualify for Pip, you know, i i i i if they c I think it was if they couldn't, you know, pull their own trousers up, y you were still okay. Well I mean when you say that, just when you just say it out loud, you think, where's the brain that says that's not a good idea. So it's very possible to look at this and say they can't do it. But it's also possible to say, if you do this properly, perhaps you can. If you couch it in the right way, if you approach it in the right way, if you make the right kind of arguments of what you're trying to do, you probably can pull Labour MPs towards if it seems fair. The problem, I think, is more that actually it probably has upfront costs rather than savings at the start. And they don't have time to do that. But I mean if you look at one of the other interesting things that happened this week, which was the Alan Milburn report on so called NEETs, the young people who aren't in education or training or employment, it was this really detailed examination of the problem. And again, one of the features that came to me rather like the Blair essay was just this breath of fresh air of somebody actually attempting to go back to first principle and say, what is the issue here? What are we trying to solve? How bad a problem is it? And then I'll come up with some policy prescri ptions. I think the way he laid that out laid the ground for saying the benefit system doesn't work for these people. We have to make it operate differently. And maybe there's a bit more maybe it's a bit stricter as well. So I do think welfare reform is doable if you do it the right way. And that's where I think a new leader could make a difference. Because they can come in and say, we have got to fix welfare, but not how we did it before. Moving on to um another theme Blair talked about, which is the UK's relationship with the EU, perhaps surprising to some people, he didn't advocate rejoining and made clear that while he there needs to be a deeper, more structured relationship with the bloc, that that needs to be negotiated from a place of strength. Again, it's not easy to see how you get to that starting line, is it? When the Blair Blairites were in opposition before they won in ninety seven, one of their gurus, Philip Gould, wrote a very important book that everyone took took as their sort of Bible for a long time. And one of his key phrases was learning to concede and move on. That you had to concede where you'd lost the country or lost the political argument and move on. And I think what that's sort of what Blair's doing on the EU. He's saying, look, we lost this argument and there's no magic wand here. You say, I know we're streeting and standing up and saying we must rejoin, but that's not a magic wand. It doesn't work simply like that. You have to think about what you want to do, how you're going to do it, what advantage you can take. And the position of strength also into part of it I think for Blair very is very much the AI issue, which is obviously a huge thing for him, and he sees the EU as an obstacle to AI rather than enabling it. So I think that that's part of it. But I think it also tied into his position on America. What he's really defending is the American relationship. And what he's really saying is Britain is not in a place to ditch America and it's foolish to start talking like that. So I thought those two parts did work together and as a sort of a a dose of cold water to the lay party says, look, you know, no one loved your being in the EU more than I did, but let's be real about how we approach this. One of the takeaways I think from reading his essay was just how much he seems to be influenced by the people he's speaking to now. So as you rightly said, AI was just and the need to focus on AI and invest in it and deregulate was so central to it. But he's he's constantly surrounding himself with tech companies. Doesn't one of them fund uh his institute yeah yeah yeah the the Larry Ellison Institute and similarly, you know, he's he's hobnobbing with people in the American government. He's been on the the Gaza Board of Peace. So these are the people who are massively influencing his thinking, much more so than people who really understand the kind of political , I think, and social dynamics in the UK right now. And it's a really difficult one on the AI point because at the one level, I mean if you if you talk to him as well as just you can you could talk to any about AI think, oh my God, I'm I'm actually in the presence of of a sort AI Mooney here. You know, you've complet ely gone over, crossed over on this. But on the other hand, when you read the stuff and you somebody say , but I'm not sure you're completely wrong either. You know, it is gonna be an astonishing revolutionary change. And governments aren't really thinking about it enough. So so he's both crossed over, but he may not be wrong. Yes. I think what I did find interesting about it is that you have um this five thousand word piece by the architect New Labor in which financial services are mentioned not once, right? And what was the actual engine of everything New Labor was able to do was financial services. But that's where he's partially right, I think, about the EU, right? Which isn't we are not going to be able to rejoin until there is a cross party consensus on rejoining, right? No one would look at a country where Nigel Farage is ahead in the polls and go, ah yeah, great accession candidate there, definitely that's worth it. What are our areas of comparative advantages, whether we're in or outside the block, financial services, life sciences, and yes, as because a result of those strengths, AI. Those are all things where as a result of us leaving the EU, the EU has become more inclined to regulate against them. And so are comparative advantage becomes going, oh, let's do things like the Edinburgh reforms. Oh, let's be more open to AI startups than the EU are, which does increase the costs and the pain point of rejoining. However, where he then I think moves to selling a fantasy is is then ultimately all of the comparative advantages we have outside of the block, we are going to have to take a painful haircut on them as and when the politics realigns in favour of rejoin ing. There's just no way around that. But I think then he was. That let's not spend the next 10 years arguing about this. And I think even people like him, who've been very pro-uh-EU in the past, might feel the same way. Yeah, I think I just think you know the fact that basically every time someone wants to try and ship something, goods wise , there's sort of a thousand tiny Brexits. But they'll accept free movements? And also the the EU is for good and for ill also changing in ways that I think will make it yeah . Let us imagine for a moment and in a year's time national rally wins the French presidential election. Will the various forces on the British right really continue to be as opposed to membership of a block where a central player of it is off their politics. Right? Yeah, when you if you have a situation where you imagine, you know, Bardella , Maloney, various, I mean obviously it's a highly alarming picture for most listeners to this podcast, I imagine. But I think the politics of EU membership will shift, continue to shift quite quickly because geography is geography. But up until the point where that happens, our comparative advantages will continue to pull us away. I mean reading Blair's speech, I was r reminded of Theresa May's speech before the referendum where one of the things she warned about correctly was, Look, if we leave, the single market and services will never complete, the EU will become more inimical to our interests, not less, and we will be worse off. Yeah, we and they will be worse off. And she was right then, and a decade later, Tony Blair has given the kind of sequel to that which you go like, Yeah, as a result of this, we are both worse off. But it has been bad for Britain and bad for the EU that the Anglo Dutch axis of guys, maybe it's a good idea to try and be competitive occasionally, has been weakened by Brexit. That does create friction should we seek Come on, Anna Robert, I've got to hear uh some pushback against that view. I don't exactly push back against it because I do th I feel Blair is slightly wrong, Blair is wrong. Um is that I think actually what will make Britain rejoin the EU is weakness, not strength. Yeah. Because actually the stronger we are, the better our economy is doing, the less argument there is for rejoining. We're doing fine. Why would you bother? What takes Britain back in, in my opinion, and and this was in my view one of the reasons for voting against leaving in the first place, one of the strongest ones, is that we will only go back in if the country looks and goes, We're screwed, guys. You know, and the European Union's doing quite well. We need to be back in that. You know, rather like the reasons we joined it the first time around is that actually we suddenly think we have no other economic play. I think we'll have to go we'd have to go through several horrible cycles, quite possibly a sort of Farageist type government, growing economic weakness and a level of sort of despair that says, look, this is the only play. So in one sense, even though I re regret us leaving the European Union, I'm not sure I think what the country has to go through in order to be ready to rejoin is something one wants to experience. I agree that I think it will be many, many years before we get there. So to sort of like very seriously considering that possibility 'cause I think it looks as though the next general election is quite likely to have rejoining the EU as quite a central pillar of it if either Streeting or Burnham are the Labour leader. And I think that at that point reform has so far, Nigel Farage has been surprisingly quiet on anything to do with Brexit because he doesn't see it as particularly advantageous to him electorally. But I think by the time it came to an election, if that was if that was pivotal, he would. I think he would come in hard , he would make it something he aggressively fought against. And I think it would reopen a lot of old wounds that are only just healing now and in the British psyche. And I think a lot of people will say we don't want to reopen, irrespective of the economic arguments, which I think a lot of people have are one are one around to, I think a lot of people not want to reopen those wounds again. Anna, one of Blair's points, um, and it's become axiomatic, is that Labour can't win from the left, whether it's Michael Foote, Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn twice, you know, Labour has won three times under him, Tony Blair, and in twenty twenty-four, Starmer with a much more sort of centrist proposition. And as Robert said, he talks about this idea of trying to put forward an agenda for the radical centre again, maybe easier said than done. But I just wonder with the Greens gaining popularity, is that still the case? Do you think that the Labour could win from the left or uh uh the prospect of a left wing coalition that involved the Greens and Lib Dems could be electorally successful? Well I think this is a th that that is actually a key example of where he's Blair was very backwards looking or kind of stuck in the past . As we've discussed many times on this podcast before, electoral dynamics have changed massively. And now that there is an insurgent party on the right and the left. And I think the conservatives could, you know, a former conservative leader could say the conservatives have only ever won from the centre ground in recent history. That I think that that that is not necessarily the case anymore. And I think same for Labour. And I think the other thing, you know, he he he he kind of sniffed and laughed in his piece at the idea that Labour should be trying to win back green voters and imply that they should be focusing quite heavily on those that are being tempted to the right. But, you know, after local elections, political analysts have been quite united in saying, yes, there is a threat from the right for Labour, but the bigger threat, even in sort of Labour's old heartlands like the Red Wall, is the loss of voters to the left. So that should be something the party focuses heavily on, because that that split is allowing reform and allowing the right to kind of prosper. In a sense, one of Tony Blair's tragedies, as it were, is that he had to be leader of the Labour Party because he was sort of not quite Labour. He was a social Democrat, he was a Liberal, and he wanted to reunite the left, bring the Liberal Democrats into this. And I think what he's sort of saying, without quite saying it, because there is still an element of tribalism in Tennyblair, is that actually what the country needs is a sort of Macronish party that somehow pulls together the good parts of the Labour Party, the good parts of the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, and you munge them all together in one new political force of radical centrism, which goes forward with incredible confidence. And the key point I think you make is you have to have confidence in what you are doing. And if you look at Polansk and if you look at Far age, they present and if you look overseas at Trump, they present to the voters, I am not going to let anything get in the way of what I think is right. And that you have to have that attitude, allied sort of centrist sensibilities. And that part of the problem is that you've got three parties competing for some sort of centrist position and there's not enough room for them anymore because you've got Farage and you've got the Greens. I think in his dream scenario is that new party that he thought about whether he should form in the depths of Corbynism. And I think that's what he really means by a radical centre. But he's not going to do it, is he? Yeah. I think so to slightly defend the kind of discredited centuries approach to winning elections, right? So I think where Tony Blair is still correct is that you have to first and foremost have a plan that you think will have paid policy dividends by the end of your ter your term coming up for renewal. And the sort of the debate about oh, do you want to be left wing, do you want to be right wing is I think a way that parties sort of self soothe, right? You know, it's like Kemi Badenok saying, Oh every day I've moved the party to the right and it's like, yeah. And every day you've become more irrelevant. So you know, like well done. Uh and Ditto, the Labour Party kind of self-soothing by going, oh, we need to put Labour values at its heart. It's like, great, you know, Labour values and five pounds will buy you a cup of coffee. Well we've talked about the centre. Uh let's uh swivel to look at the far right and restore Britain, the party launched by Rupert Lowe, and with the backing of the delight ful cheerleaders Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson, we've noted before in the pod that in national polls, opinion polls, they seem to be running at around three to four percent. But the first and so far only poll done in the maker field by election by Cervation suggests they're on seven. Now it's a small sample size, so it comes with a warning uh attached. But Robert, this has got me thinking, you know, are we underplaying uh Restores popularity or potential grip nationally? Well, we might be. I mean, I think what's telling more than that serv ation poll, which as you say had very small numbers and by election polls are really shaky at the best time. Is I'm very struck by the level of reports I keep hearing back from people. A focus group um f pollsters like Luke Trill saying people are volunteering Restore in the answers. Very unusual for a minor party. They're volunteering as one they like. Anecdotal reports coming back from Makerfield as people from other parties saying, no, actually, it's really there. They're people are talking about Restore . And so there is something going on. The problem has been, if you're not following them very closely, this is a party that appears to live almost entirely upon Twitter. You know, if you're on Twitter, you see them all the time, or X you see them all the time. Rupert Lowe does so much work on tweets that party leader does so much work on it that he actually makes money from his tweets. Um and if you're not on it, you don't notice them at all. But actually it's only a small part of the game. They've got a big presence on Twitter. He's got one point two million followers on Facebook. He is, by the way, former reform MP who was thrown out by Nigel Farage, possibly for looking like he might eclipse him in the love of Elon Musk. Um He's got big followers on Facebook. He's getting promoted heavily by American right-wing organizations, bloggers, podcasters, and also the crowd of I mean, how come I'll put this? The crowd of people who might once have flocked to the BNP, who have looked at Farage and find him uncomfortably nuanced, um, are rather taken with Rupert Lowe, who, you know, whereas Farage had to be sort of dragged nervously towards agreeing to policy on deportations, Rupert Lowe cheerily said, Oh, we'll send millions of them home. So there is something going on. He is a pulling in people. And the question is, where does it go? Because you know, if we stick back to the British National Party, in twenty ten, uh there were seventy seats where they got more than five percent of the vote. If Restor could get f more than five percent of the vote in seventy seats, likely the seats that reform was also targeting, they could deny Farage a loss of seats. They could easily deny him victory in the maker field by election. And so there is an issue for reform and Farage there. Do I think he can overtake him and supersede him? I don't. But I do think it's potentially quite a big problem for Farage if Rupert Lowe is breaking out from his digital realm and there are signs that he might be. Anna c can I ask you um about the online presence of uh Lowe and restore, because one thing I thought was interesting that Blair picked up on in his essay is that some of the people with the best sense of politics today might be those outside the wider political milieu. And I do worry about myself and political journalists generally that we're only aware of what our own algorithms serve us. And and I don't get a lot of restore Britain. Uh funnily enough, I don't sort of follow, you know. You'd really like it. Um and and therefore sort of tracking uh what's going on, I have been surprised, like Robert, to hear a few people say to me recently that their children had said to them that Rupert Lowell Restore Britain is going to save A bit about that. Yeah, I'm I'm surprised to hear you say you don't get their content. I think it must be the algorithms that I follow. I I am literally bombarded by restore content and restore uh supporters. Uh on Twitter, I should say. The partly because um th there seems to be a sort of love affair between Rupert Lowe and and Elon Musk at the moment. Elon Musk has come out in saying, you know, he he backs Rupert Lowe and and restores kind of the future of Britain. Also anything that he repost s part of the algorithmic bias of Twitter gets absolutely enormous traction. So one of the things that that our colleague Rachel identified was that he has 11 posts that have uh at least 10 million views. That's just since he he officially launched Restore in February. By contrast, Farage, who we think of as the kind of m incredible social media operator has none in that in that period. So p on Twitter at least, he's massively outflanking Farage. And it is interesting when I've gone and done reporting recently, particularly ahead of the local elections, there are quite a few people who show me like they're like oh you know have you seen this video have you seen this tweet and they're they're m massively sucking up this kind of content it's often the main or one of the main sources of information for them. And I was actually speaking to just before we came on this pod, I was speaking to a senior figure in the party who is who's been in Makerfield and they were saying that they're they're really quite concerned. Their estimate is that they'll get 10% of the vote. Um obvious I mean that it's not scientific, but but based on the data that they're gathering there. And um, you know, while they don't think that it's likely they'll be a national force by the time of the next general election, there is a lot of concern that they'll split the vo vote in some really key seats that that the party decides to target. I do think it's it's interesting to look at the personality of Rupert Lowe himself. So, you know, before he became a reform MP, you know, I knew of him basically as the chairman of Southampton Football Club. He was a successful businessman and his vibe is successful businessman. He's not in public at least shouty. He's frequently understated in his tone, even if what he's saying is not at all understated. Whereas Nigel Farage is blokish, he comes across a bit like a grandee. And so there is a slightly reassuring aspect to his persona and presence when you're watching him. You don't feel like you're watching some maniac. You feel like you're watching someone serious and and weighty. And it's interesting when you see him not talking about immigration related issues. If you watch him on the public accounts committee, I think it is, you know, cross-questioning civil servants. It's it's ferociously good. He's very good at it. He's for ensic. And so there is something there with him that you can see how he can pull people in, especially when you factor in all the stuff he's saying on immigration and race and the importance of Christian values in Britain. It's you can see how that has the potential to chip away at the Farage vote significantly. It is truly insane, the Conservative Party, uh why he is on that select committee. Like there is literally no possibility if Nick Griffin had been elected in two thousand and five, and we should be very clear that the restore platform is to the right of the BNP position, there is no way that Michael Howe would have gone, Oh yeah, let's give one of our select committee positions to Nick Griffin. Uh and that I think is also part of the eroding of the cordon sanitaire in British politics. I think it is unquestionably fair to say that the cross party taboo on racism is much weaker now than it was in twenty ten. Um like we would not have in twenty ten a situation where the Shadow Justice Secretary had suggested that Islamic prayer in Trafalgar Square was an act of domination. You would not have a situation where a Labour cabinet minister on the day after the largest far-right march said it was a good day for free speech. I think that eroding of the kind of the taboo against that stuff is part and so it's kind of just what we'd expect. Further boosted, of course, by the fact that although Twitter is, I think, the least important of the platform s in terms of moving voter opinion. In terms of that role of uh political elites of condemning this stuff, because that's where large chunks of the political elite hang out, it normalizes what people think is behaviour they should and shouldn't challenge. I mean, a couple of weeks ago, I was at a wedding, someone asked me a question about the performance of the Labour government, and I said, well, yeah, I think it's been plainly a disaster. I said, particularly on race relations. And this Labour min ister was like,, well what do you think I should be doing? You know, saying racism is bad? And it's like, yes, yes. And the fact that you think it's, you know, the fact that you are incredulous at the idea that we would say racism is bad, when that's not something, you know, like David Cameron would never have like looked incredulously at someone gone, oh mate, what do you want me to condemn racism? He saw that as core to his job. So I think that is part of why they're doing so well. And it's as well as the hardline nativist policies. There's there's others that are clearly designed to sort of appeal to middle class Middle Britain, like end the hosepipe ban, you know, we shouldn't be told what to do in our gardens and end the fines for taking your children out of school during term time for an educational holiday. And also, but also some of it's clear, for example, he wants to ban you know hal al and kosher . But he wants to do it on animal rights grounds. You know it's not dumb. Anna um we were chatting earlier about the resources um Rostore would have to fight a ground war. Um one of the big questions is the uh nature of the backing that Musk or in fact some other very deep pocketed mag a adjacent uh tech billionaires or otherwise who believe in this sort of narrative of civilizational decline and sort of backed nativist policies on both sides of the Atlantic. What do the Labour government uh rule ch anges on donations from foreigners mean for the potential of some of that American tech, a libertarian or magro adjacent cash to funnel towards restore? There's been a lot of speculation about whether Elon Musk because Elon Musk has given his public backing whether he would be able to financially support restore the party. Under previous rules, it would have been possible for him to to to donate via a one of his UK subsidiaries. Now, because of changes to the laws that the Labour government is bringing in, first of all, those subsidiaries would have to have made enough profit in the past two years to be able to make that that a commensurate donation. That shouldn't be a huge problem because some of the subsidiaries make absolutely enormous amounts of profit in the UK. But the the other thing is that a beneficial uh the best beneficial owner of the company or one of its kind of key directors has to be a British. You can see a scenario potentially where Musk would change the ownership structure, but I think that's pretty far fetched. So I think it would be tricky for Musk or for anyone in the US administration who's interested in in Rupert Lowe and his ideas to make a financial donation directly to the party. That said, so one of the big things that Rupert Lowe's been fighting for, and I think that has garnered him quite a lot of support in the UK is around the grooming gang s and he said that he's going to bring public prosecutions against some of the organizations that aided and abetted those gangs and Elon Musk said publicly, I want to support those public prosecutions. So you can see that there are ways that Musk money and US money could be funneled towards supportive organizations without necessarily going directly to restore . Well, we've just got time left for political fix stock picks. Stephen, who are you buying or selling this week? I'm gonna buy Alan Milburn, uh, because I think the really impressive thing he's done with his review is really bring along almost all of the key players in civic society on the kind of welfare reform bit. Although the proposals are gonna come in the next bit, you can see where he's clearly ramping up some some very difficult things, some changes to how schools and FE colleges are assessed so that they aren't incentivized to have people sort of vanish off the rolls and then shop on someone else's uh uh line item. And I think, you know, then that job he's doing marshalling quite a disparate coalition around it , if they can fix our welfare system will be in large part because of the work he's done. So yeah, I'm buying Alan Milburn. Anna, how about you? I'm going to sell reform's home affairs spokesperson, Zia Youssef. This week there was quite an entertaining spat between Zia Youssef and the Treasury spokesperson, Robert Jenrick. Robert Jenrick had said on Sunday that that it wasn't reforms policy to deport migrants who are here legally but who are in social housing. And online Zia Yusuf came out and said, this is not reform policy, and in fact we, would deport those people. And first of all, I think that would be seen very, very badly by Nigel Farage, who doesn't like these things, these kind of disagreements coming being aired. But second of all, I think I was speaking to someone in reform who said that part of the reason that he thinks Zia Youssef did that is because he is seen as partly responsible for the rise of Rupert Lowe that we've been talking about. And because it was a spat that Zia Youssef had with Rupert Lowe that ultimately led to him being expelled from the party. So he's bears a lot of that responsibility both, I think, personally and within the kind of grassroots and some other figures in the party. And I think that's really coming to the fore at the moment. Robert, so I'm afraid it's really unoriginal, but I'm gonna buy Andy Burnham this week. I think that you know, when the Mike above field by election was called, we all looked at it and went, ooh, that's a bit tight. I mean, I I thought when it was called that he would probably win, but I recognised it was going to be, you know, hair's breadth and it was scary. I think f for the reasons we've been talking about with Restore, I think his prospects look suddenly an awful lot better because it looks like the anti him vote could split. So I'm gonna buy Andy Burnham. What about you? I'm gonna buy Torsten Bell, the Treasury Minister, because he really took the fight to Blair on X with a I've gonna uh slightly exaggerate uh s probably by saying uh twenty tweet thread um accusing Blair of having far too little engagement with the country as it is today. And also um on the substance too, arguing that Blair focused far too much on skills, far too little on infrastructure. And in essence, he's a former think tank chief of the Resolution Foundation. He's a former advisor to Ed Miliband, and he's really a political street fighter. So I think we're gonna continue to hear more from him in the months and years ahead . Well that's all we've got time for. Robert Anna Stephen. Thanks for joining. Thanks, Lucy. Thanks, Lucy . That's it for this episode of the FT's Political Fix. I've put links to subjects discussed in this episode in the show notes. Do check them out. They're articles we've made free for political fix listeners. There's also a link there to Stephen's award-winning Inside Politics newsletter. You'll get 30 days free. And don't forget to subscribe to the show. Please do leave a review or a star rating. It really helps spread the word via the algorithm. Political Fix was presented by me, Lucy Fisher, and produced by Percy Love . Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer. Original music and sound engineering by Breen Turner. Andrew Georgiardis and Petros Yompasis are the broadcast engineers. We'll meet again here next week .