The Rest Is Politics - 531. Starmer on the Brink: What Next?

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

As Starmer’s cabinet begin turning against him, how long can he cling on to power? By challenging Starmer without a clear plan for what comes next, are Labour MPs unleashing a chaos they cannot control? As Wales and Scotland shift dramatically towards Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National Party, and Reform UK – are we witnessing the end of both Labour and the Conservatives as national parties? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. __________ Go deeper into the world of The Rest Is Politics by signing up for our free newsletter HERE, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis and weekend reads from Alastair and Rory. Join The Rest Is Politics Plus. Start your free trial at therestispolitics.com to unlock exclusive bonus content – including Rory and Alastair’s miniseries – plus ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, exclusive newsletters, discounted book prices, and a private chatroom on Discord. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. Stop overpaying for energy. Switch at fuseenergy.com/politics and get a free TRIP+ subscription.Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It's risk-free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee ✅ __________ Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [e-mail] __________ Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Vasco Andrade Assistant Producer: Daisy Alston-Horne Producer: Evan Green Exec Producer: Chris Sawyer General Manager: Tom Whiter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This episode is brought you by Fuse Energy. Fuse has introduced the tracker tariff designed to give customers what matters most from their energy supplier, savings clarity and a bit more control. And it guarantees that your rates stay below the off-gem price gap, which saves you up to £200. pounds. And the tariff updates automatically every quarter. Energy prices don't move in straight lines. Global events and market pressures you can't predict and certainly can't control still find their way onto your bill. And if you're on the wrong tariff, you can be stuck with higher rates after the

pressure has ended. With fuse energies track a tariff, that changes. If prices fall, your rate adjusts at the next quarterly update. And it's automatic. No switching, no trying to second against the market, you're protected while prices are high and ready to benefit when they fall. Switch to fuse energies track a tariff at fuseenergy.com slash politics and use code politics to get a free trip plus subscription. Visit fuseenergy.com for full terms and conditions. Welcome to the rest is politics with me, Alastair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. So this is a traditional emergency podcast driven by the fact that politics in general is getting more and more unstable. So people are hearing more and more of these. And the story today

is Kierstama's leadership now seems to be under probably its most serious challenge that we've seem to date. Looks as though something like ATMPs now privately or in public have come out asking for him to suggest when he's going to step down. There's a cabinet meeting happening as we speak. And of course, to remind people, the immediate trigger for this was the local elections, which was on some measurements, I think the worst Labour showing ever in local elections lost well over 1,200 seats, particularly catastrophic in places like Wales where Labour went off the edge of a cliff. But that's the sort of framing. But I want to begin, Alist, by going to you and just give me a sense of your feeling about it, how you feel emotionally or in any way about what's going on. Well, I think we sometimes argue about whether things are genuinely an emergency where we do these inadvertently.

podcast, but this is without doubt a crisis for Kier Stahma as Prime Minister and for the government. And I think for the Labour Party, my big fear is that it has the potential to become genuinely existential to go the way even of a party like the French socialist unless the leadership gets a grip. And by leadership, I don't just mean Kirstama, I mean all of them. what has really driven me to despair in recent days has been the extent to which so many of these ministers and MPs behave like commentators, not politicians. And look, you've detected in recent weeks, Roy,

you've been saying that it's obvious, Kirstehm is not up to it, he's got to go, Labor's got to find somebody who might beat Nigel Farage. And you've noticed, and so of our listeners and viewers, that I've been much more hesitant because I think what the Tories found and why they are currently in something of an existential crisis, is that always assuming that the next one along is somehow going to be better than the last one,

doesn't necessarily work out, as you might imagine. And if you're looking at this from a strategic point of view, what was reform slogan in the local elections? Vote reform, get Stama out. And if I was Keir Stahmer now, or sitting down with the cabinet, I would be saying it is never very sensible to gift your opponent a massive strategic gain, which this would be. and whoever takes over, if that's what's happening in the coming weeks and months,

do not underestimate the pressure immediately to hold a general election or what would be dire political circumstances. So it's why I've been saying that just sit tight and just hold on for a bit and see where this ends. And above all, understand that meltdown is not a strategy. So it's entirely possible to think as you do and as I do and as many people do that this government has been a disappointment, that Keer-Starm has made mistakes, that he lacked vision, charisma,

political and personal skills, but also think that he shouldn't head off into the sunset tomorrow when let's remember he's meant to be setting out the next legislative program. It's perfectly possible to think that his speech yesterday was built up to such ridiculous heights of expectation that I'm not sure even a combination of Cicero and Martin Luther King would have met it and to say he didn't meet it and yet to think this is not the time. So my final

point before going back to you, Roy, and I'll come on in a minute to say what I think he could and should say. We've had five Tory prime ministers since the Brexit referendum, which was less than a decade ago. David Cameron was the last to serve a full term. We're really saying now there should be a sixth to go and one who won a landslide victory less than two years ago. And I think my big worry for the country is this just suggests a politics that is unsurious. And if we're not careful, a country that frankly, it becomes impossible to govern. So that's kind of, that's what I feel. That's kind of what I feel. I feel that this is a frenzy that is creating a crisis. It's a crisis in which the people who are driving it don't, it seems to me, have a plan. They don't have a plan for what follows.

So we're basically in the something will turn up. Yeah. So, of course, what it reminds me a little bit of is the movements against Theresa May. And in particular, when she did very badly in the 2017 election and that that eventually triggered a move towards Boris Johnson, she concluded in the end that she couldn't lead to the party into the next election. She concluded that she couldn't really, I mean, it was worse for her. And maybe this is where the analogy breaks down. She couldn't get legislation through the House of Commons. She couldn't get her Brexit deal done. So she announced that she would step down and there would be, I think, a two-month period

or three-month period where other people would come forward. And then we had this huge race, which ultimately ended up, I think, five and then two of us going against Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson won. And the debate then was between people like me saying, look, he's going to be a terrible prime minister and other people saying, yeah, but he's very popular. and he's going to be able to win. And it felt in 2019, November, when he went into that election.

So that's your story that almost certainly the person that comes in will feel tempted to trigger an immediate election in the way that Boris Johnson did. And that's probably because they want to portray themselves as a new blood. And the longer they're in, the more the worried they'll get dragged down. So he triggers the election and he does well. He does very, very well, given the Tory's been in for a long time, turns around the Tory's chances and comes back in. So that, I guess, is the most optimistic scenario.

And maybe in that story, it's an Andy Burnham figure who isn't in Parliament, who's a mayor, like Boris Johnson was a mayor, coming to that. Where does that comparison work and where doesn't it work for where Labor is now? Two places where I think it doesn't work. The first is that, as you say, Boris Johnson was popular with certain large sections of the party, some sections of the country, and hugely with the media. What we're seeing here, I think, is, and I'm not going to do the blame the media thing because it's pointless. But I think it's fair to say, and I think people, this has been a comment that a lot of people who have been making is that Kirstambler has never really had a fair ride. Now, I'm not going to pretend, and nor would he, that he's kind of, you know, a combination. I mentioned, you know, Cicero and Martin Luther King.

He's not the best prime minister that we've ever had. he's not the best Labour leader we've ever had. He's not the most political of people. He has not necessarily been clear about what he's trying to do with the country. So the first thing to say is I don't believe that a successor will come in and somehow have a honeymoon. I think the successor will come in and the line will be immediately run. You don't have a mandate. And so you can see it already.

I saw both Farage and Genrik over the weekend saying, we need a general election now. That's where the guy still sitting there as they were posting on a very, very large majority. And then the reason why I say that I think there's an element of headless trickery going on with this is because there's nothing wrong with Andy Burnham thinking, Labor's not doing very well, I could maybe do better. There's nothing wrong with West Streeting thinking the same. There's nothing wrong with Ed Miliband thinking this isn't going well and we need to somehow make a change. but I think none of them, it seems to me, are thinking through the possibility that they don't end up in a way that, I mean, even I would have said Boris Johnson is probably going to be more popular than Theresa May. He was obviously a better campaigner.

Well, what struck me as we were walking in this morning is that Boris Johnson's great advantage is that he was going to be running against Jeremy Corbyn. And in fact, one of the arguments I was trying to make running for leadership is that even if you elected me, or Jeremy Hunt, we should have been able to beat Jeremy Corbyn. In this case, the leader is going to be running not against Jeremy Corbyn, but against Nigel Farage. And I guess that's going to also affect the kind of person they try to select. Over you? Yeah. Now, I was going on to make the point that whoever comes in, part of the thinking,

assuming Kirstama goes, and look, it's very difficult for him now, because I always felt that this leadership has spill, as the Australians call it, or an election, was likely to happen as much by accident as by design. Because I'm not sure that anybody does have a design. It could be that Catherine West, the former Foreign Office Minister, Labor MP, there's an extraordinary picture that somebody reminded us of today that when Kirstama was first elected, he posed a picture of himself on the back benches

with two other newly elected MPs, West Street and Catherine West. So I think that is a picture that could become quite historic if this thing unfolds in the way that maybe Catherine West wants to do. But she wasn't, I don't think, doing this on behalf of somebody. She might have been. But she was basically just saying, look, I'm not very happy with Kyrs Tharmer. It's not going well enough. We've got to get somebody else.

That then opens the door to people saying, yeah, well, I agree with that. And what was extraordinary to me yesterday was these endless stream of people just posting on social media saying, oh, you know, we lost so many great counsellors. We've got to get rid of the leader. You've got to think these things through. It's entirely possible that this process will do further damage to the Labour Party. And that's why I make the point about existentialism. And your point about Jeremy Corbyn, let me make another point about Jeremy Corbyn.

The psychodrama that happened in the Labour Party around Jeremy Corbyn happened when we were in opposition. The Labour Party was in opposition. The Labour Party is now in government facing incredible economic, strategic, political, military, security challenges. And look, I could be completely wrong about this, but I think if I were, and it's very, very hard to do this, because in the end we're talking about a proud guy who's sort of, you know, dragged himself up through life, become the DPP, becomes leader in the party, becomes prime minister. And essentially he's being told by all and sundry, you're not up to it. And he probably knows in his heart that even the ones who aren't saying that to his face around that cabinet table just now,

I probably think it. Okay. So I think there's the only way I can see right now, because this thing, I'd have to result in a spill, as the Aussies call it, in which case we're then in straight into a leadership election. Sorry, what's the spill? What's the spill? The spill is when you take out the leader. Okay. By the way, there was a period where the Australians were doing it,

a bit like this kind of pace. You know, primeness is not lasting very long at all, a leader's not lasting very long at all. But let's say there's a spill, and then, you know, there's a leadership election. Okay, and we can talk a little bit about where that might lead. Sometimes it works, I guess, it's all I'm trying to put in.

I mean, I guess Major coming in behind Thatcher, he managed to win. the election. Boris Johnson coming in between behind Theresa May, managed to win the election. So it's not always a disaster to change your leader. No, it's not. And you've been saying, and I get your point,

I totally get it. You've been making the analogy between Kirstama and Joe Biden. If the party has decided he's not going to fight the next election, get a successor, get a person in place, and let's see how that goes. But here's where that analogy doesn't work. Whether Joe Biden announced he was stepping down or not, he was going to stay a full term.

what we're talking about here is literally if Shabana Mahmood goes in and says in front of the cabinet today, what is reported that she said to his face and if Ed Miliband does the same, that is a very big loss of authority. So he either has to face that down and they then have to say, okay, well, I can't serve in this cabinet. And we have a kind of Michael Heseltine moment where Michael Heseltine famously walked out the cabinet and said, I can no longer serve in this cabinet. Or he faces them down. I think possibly by suggesting, look, I get it.

You don't think I'm up to it. A lot of you don't think I'm up to it. I would merely remind you that we do have a majority. We do have a program. And the reason why we did so badly is in part because we're not delivering that program fast enough, and I accept all that. Equally, I accept you don't think I'm the guy to lead us into the next election.

And I hear that. I hear that. But in the meantime, for heaven's sake, let's not all run around like a bunch of headless chickens today. let's not run about headless chickens over the next few days so that by the weekend, the story of this country at a time when we're facing so many challenges

is yet another kind of political beauty contest, which may lead to somebody better. It may. And so in a sense, you lean into the idea that you're not necessarily going to be there for the 10 years that you were talking about at the weekend. But you don't say it explicitly. You don't say it explicitly,

and you're asking the party just to calm down for now. In that little speech you gave, one of the points is that it's not possible for people to leave the cabinet this morning and brief out that Stama said he was going to step down. What he's basically saying is, I hear you, I understand you're concerned, but this is not the way to do it and let's push on. And that will be read by people in the room as though he's probably going to step down before the next election, but he's not going to do so immediately. What does that I mean, he could do in six months or 12 months time, but he hasn't said so. So there can't be headlines saying he's going.

Listen, whatever comes out of today, I suspect they're going to be very, very bad headlines. And it's, look, I think this is unlikely, but it's not impossible that those who've been, you know, saying the things in private that they've been saying and who want him to go sooner or later, it's not impossible that several of them might say that to his face. I wrote a piece in the newsletter at the weekend, partly inspired by our conversation, with you saying it's obvious, you know, he's got to go. And me saying, well, it might be obvious he's not great, but that's not the same thing. You've got to think through where this ends.

And I refer to lots of people who are saying to me, as a friend of ours who said to me, your problem analysis is your fatal flaw is your loyalty. And then the person to who, you know, and then others and members of my family saying, if this was the chores, you'd be saying, get rid of them now. And that may, both of those things may be true. So I am probably thinking this through from a long, longer-term Labour Party perspective. I think if he did that, he'd still get headlines, you'd probably still get people coming out saying he's agreed he's going to go. But then

who's going to do the King's Speech debate this week? Are you seriously saying that because we had terrible results, and I accept they're terrible, and I accept that that's partly about me, that we go into a King's speech with a legislative programme with you constantly WhatsApping journalists to say, you know, we've got him on the run or whatever. It's just not grown up politics. And that's why I think what I call the leadership should have sat down over the weekend and been a bit calmer about all this. Can you help me with the briefing journalists?

Because in the coverage we got this morning, there were stories saying Shabana Mahmood and Yvette Cooper wanted him to step down. And Ed Miliband is playing a key kingmaker role. Presumably, if you were sitting in number 10, you would strongly suspect that Shibana Mahmoud and Yvette Cooper are either briefing that out themselves or they're getting their spats to brief that story out. The journalists don't usually make that stuff up,

and you might begin to believe discipline is slightly collapsing around the cabinet table. You would. And look, I think that this is what happens when a frenzy becomes a crisis. In a frenzy, the best thing that people can do is just to say, right, okay, this is a frenzy. People are really pissed off. People are really very, very excitable. let's just see whether we can't calm things down.

Now, I completely understand why cabinet ministers, if they genuinely have reached the view that Kier-Stama can't go on, then they have a role to play. And I did say in the piece I wrote in the newsletter, the best way to do this is you should always say these things to people's face. You shouldn't just go around briefing the press, trying to find a stalking horse. Now, I don't look.

The honest answer is I don't know. I did know that there was a delegation of cabinet ministers went to see Kirstarmer yesterday. and I know that Yvette was one of them. I know Shabana was one of them. I think John Hili was another one. I think David Lammy was another one. And I think they were going to kind of as much to sound his view

and sound his opinion as much as give them. And it seems to me it doesn't surprise anybody because Shabana Mahmood is a pretty tough character. I would imagine that she has said that to Keir Stama's face and then somebody has briefed that out. Now, for example, the Ed Miliband point, Ed Miliband went to see Keir Starmor's face, a few weeks ago, two or three weeks ago, and said, look, I think you really need to set out a timetable.

And again, did it to his face, which is, I think, the best way to go about this. Ed Miliband insists that he did not brief that out. Now, I don't know who did. So it might be that that was somebody who actually thought he was doing Kirstarmer a favor by saying Ed Miliband's trying to get rid of him, smoke Ed Miliband out. I don't know. My point is that this is what happens when you get into this madness. I'll give you another one.

If Ed Cooper, one of her special advisors is Damien McBride. Damien McBride, during the Gordon Brown era, was a special advisor to Gordon Brown, and got a reputation, he wrote an entire book about it, got a reputation for being quite good at the political dirty tricks. So I had a member of the cabinet yesterday who is, I think, in the, something has to go, but I'm not quite sure what. And so until we know, let's just kind of saying what I'm saying, really,

who said, you know, I detect Damon McBride. hand in this? I don't know. I don't know. My point is that when you get into this frenzy mode... Sorry, just also interrupt for a second. I'm also a bit surprised about some of these names who are leaking to the press. I mean, again, obviously, I'm very rooted in my own experience, but when Theresa May was in trouble, the consistent things that came out of the cabinet meetings, always briefed in the newspaper, was that Liz Truss had spoken out courageously and Gavin Williamson had spoken out courageously in the cabinet meetings, right? In other words, broadly speaking in Theresa May's cabinet, it was Liz Truss and Gavin Williamson leaking.

And the rest of us were not going to the press. You weren't seeing any other of the kind of leading figures appearing in the press. It's a bit odd if the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Deputy Prime is saying, it's a sort of slightly different feeling. It's not just people like Liz and Gavin, who everyone sort of slightly raised their eyebrows and thought, come on these are ridiculous self-promoting figures. It's becoming a sort of much broader story of people like, I would have thought, I don't understand,

but I thought the point about Yvette Cooper and people, was they were meant to be relatively solid, straightforward, not trying to be primers themselves, or have I got that all wrong? I think you might have that role. Okay. I love that. All the Labour MPs listing are going to giggle,

and none of the audience are going to understand what you're talking about. But what you seem to be implying is that Yvette Cooper may have more ambition than I think. She might. She might. I mean, you know, she's been the Home Secretary. She's been the Foreign Secretary. And she might. I don't know. One of the things that will happen,

here's the other thing, unexpected consequences. People are talking about Andy Burnham. Don't rule out the idea that if there's a kind of open contest, a movement starts that says, basically, we have to have a woman. That's happened before. And so I just think this is the thing that's now got a momentum. There's no doubt.

for example, there's a, I think it's the Telegraph, somebody just sent me, six cabinet of ministers expected to tell Keir Stahler to quit. Now, that is in, a paper like the telegraph is in their interest for that to be the case. But as you say, I'm not sure they're just entirely make it up. And it lists them as Shabana Mahmoo, John Healy, Ed Miliband, Leas of Nandee, Yvette Cooper, and West Streeting saying that Sekeer should set out a timetable for his resignation. Maybe we should do a quick instant poll of our listeners. How many of her, of Miata van Bully, Minister for Devolution, Faith and Communities. She has become the first minister to resign.

Because if you're calling publicly for the Prime Minister to resign, you have to resign yourself. You can't support his government. This is how, in the end, Boris Johnson came down. Interesting, Roy, we've just done an instant poll of the people who are listening. Is it time for Stama to go? Yes, 48%, no 52%. I saw a couple of things yesterday that really interesting me.

or maybe this morning. Ian Dale, Tory supporting commentator, bright guy, broadcaster, and he's been very, very, very critical of Kirstama. And he was basically saying he thought the way that this was being done against Kirstama at the moment was just outrageous. And I think there will be quite a strand of that

in the public. And the second one was David Badell, who we interviewed on leading a while back. and David Badele who wrote the book, Jews Don't Count, he got very angry during the Corbyn period over anti-Semitism. And he admitted on this interview that he voted Labor in the local elections. And he said he thinks that what's happening now is just a sign of a country that's losing the plot. He says it's like a football manager now.

You get a new football manager. And if they don't win five of the first six games, you know, they're calling for the hen. And it's not just going over there. We hate them. We hate them. him. And he was saying, you know, he says he probably cares someone probably doesn't want his pity, but he feels sorry for him. So I think this too, is back to my main point. You can think the guy is not as good as you wanted him to be, but it doesn't mean that just by dint of him

going to quote an old song, things are going to get better. They might get worse. I think you're absolutely right. There is misery if you try to get rid of him. And there's a risk that you produce somebody who's no better. But if like me you believe it's a certainty that Kiyosama can't win the next election, a certainty. I mean, the guy's net popularity rating is hovering around minus 50. That means like 25% of people approve of him, 75% disapprove. You really have no alternative other than to take that risk.

I mean, if you're on a, you know, it slightly sounds as though the Titanic's going down and you're saying, yeah, but I'm not sure whether the life raft is going to work. Sure, the life raft may not work, but the Titanic's going down. So I'm concluding listening to you that at best all you can be saying is it's a question of timing and method. You can't possibly be saying that this guy can lead you into the next election. So is what you're saying, please don't do it now before the King's speech? And if so, when is the ideal time to do it? I think there is a question of time and also looking.

logistics, as it were. You see, I think this spectacle that we're now seeing, and if you're, if you're sitting there thinking, well, I could be the next prime minister, you're probably not worrying too much about that, but they should be worrying about that. So I think it would be far better if they could, and maybe it's impossible in the modern immediate age. I don't know, because we had a, we had a similar thing going on with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. But I think we managed it in a different way. Now, there are still some people who say to me, well, you managed it very, very badly because you should never have conspired with the idea of getting Gordon in after Tony. And that's a view that people hold. But what we did was we basically, the thing went on,

we carried on governing the country, Tony Blair carried on being prime minister, Gordon Brown carried on being on being chancellor. But we reached a point where we kind of, it was just sort of, it was, it wasn't that the writing was in the wall. It was just that it was obvious that is what most people thought was the right thing to do. Go with the flow. Now, to expect Kier Stama to do that today, after the sort of last couple of days that he's had, I think he's pretty tough.

I think far better that those, you know, we used to talk in the Tory party about the men in grey suits used to go and say, you know, here's a glass of Scotch leader, let's just have a little drink. And by the way, by the time the scotch is empty, you resign. I think that an approach that said, listen, there's a consensus developing. Kier can't lead us into the next election, but we mustn't either humiliate him or overlook the success, the role that he played in the success of getting laid back into power, or destabilise

the country, or destabilise the markets, or give the sense that we're a complete shambles. And is there any time when it's ever going to feel? like the right time. I mean, I guess the problem is if you know you've got to get rid of him, you've got to get a new prime minister in place to lead you into the next election, almost any time you try to do it, there will be some reason why this isn't quite the right time, why this is going to look like omni shambles. And Stama, who clearly still seems to think he's going to be prime minister for the next 10 years, is going to play that card every time, isn't he? Possibly, possibly. But I think, look, there is such a thing as political gravity.

And if he reaches a point of thinking, this is the way Boris Johnson died in a way, is that Boris Johnson, he knew that all these ministers were going to throw in the towel on it. And he thought he could fight it for a bit, but then gravity took over. But I think in a way, I guess what I'm saying is that Keir Stalmer to sort of, you know, see which way the wind is blowing, lean into that, but then try to work out what is the best way to save his own reputation as best he can? to at least have a sense of there's a program that he's trying to take through and have time to take it on,

but indicate what the words would be, that's the matter for wordsmiths, but indicate that at some point there has to be some kind of process that leads to a change. And I think that the public would kind of get that. Can I say, by the way, right, I do think that what we've seen in the last 48 hours is the consequence,

and this is where I will be critical of Kirst, Stama is the consequence of strategic errors over time. So, for example, what he said on Europe yesterday and Nigel Farage's role in Brexit, to my mind, he should have been saying for a very long time. He didn't say enough yesterday about some of the bigger political and constitutional issues that you and I have taught a lot about. And also, one of the things you've heard again and again and again from MPs is that he doesn't really, backbenchers in particular, is he doesn't really take them seriously, he doesn't listen to their views, etc, etc, etc.

That's part of politics. And so you reap the consequences of that, no doubt about that. I'm sure there are people yesterday who were calling for him to go who probably part of their motivation was, well, you know, the guy's never spoke to me. I don't really know anything about him.

He just keeps sending us in to vote for things. Then, you know, a few weeks later we have to change them. I get all that. I get all that. But I think that this is where leadership comes to the fore, not just his leadership, but all of them. You know, I hope there are people in that cabinet room now, as we're having doing this life. I hope there's some of them, at least, are trying to see round a few corners and get to the bigger picture. I mean, just look what's happened since the local elections.

Of course it was a terrible result for Labour in England, in Scotland and in Wales. seismic, terrible. But the other thing that's happened is there has been next to no scrutiny at all of these reform councillors who were having to resign for racism and the guy who said that let's fill the potholes by melting down Nigerians and Richard Tice couldn't even bring himself to condemn it and we still don't know about Nigel Farage's millions and all the rest of it. So once you're feeding a frenzy, as opposed to trying to step back and work out strategically how you get through this mess, you're playing your enemy's game. Well, let's take one of our breaks and then we'll come back and maybe look, step back for a little bit and look at

the kind of bigger structural conclusions that we've taken out of the local lectures and what kind of leadership Labor needs or Britain needs. This episode is brought you by Lloyd's Business and commercial banking. We hear a lot of talking politics about stability, as Gordon Brown used to call it. But I think that word means different things to different people. To me, it does mean new labor. For me, I might be tempted to say Theresa May, but it doesn't matter whether you're a business, small business owner or a government. Stability is never about avoiding change. It's about being prepared for change and embracing it with confidence. The latest change, of course, affects a lot of people listening, is Making Tax Digital, which is reshaping how income tax is reported.

Lloyd's is there to support making tax digital for income tax with a free HMRC-recognised accounting tool built into your online banking, giving you an easier way to manage your income, expenses, and stay compliant without all the stress. Change is perpetual, but Lloyd's has helped navigate change for over 250 years. So when the rules shift, you can bank on Lloyd's to help keep your business on the front foot. Search Lloyd's business accounts to find out more. Welcome back to the Restless Politics Emergency Podcast. So just to step back for a second, I've been trying to look at the data. And for a slightly geeky moment, here is a sort of weird chart that I drew up here,

which you can see for people who are watching as the people listening. And what you'll see is lots of different colours. And I'm covering the Senate and I'm covering the Scottish Parliament. And I'm covering 2011, 2016, 2021, 2026. and the story is absolutely astonishing. So, broadly speaking, in the Scottish Parliament, Labour's on about 31% in 2011, and then in 2016, 21, 2026, it stays hovering around 20%.

It's not a big change in Scotland. The Tories, on the other hand, 2016, 2021, are sort of neck and neck with Labour, the ways these, incidentally, for the super geeks, the way these percentages are calculated, depends on whether you're looking at the constituency or regional percentages. But stay at about 20%,

and then drop sort of halve down to 11% in the last election. And again, in Scotland, I'm just sticking on Scotland for a moment, reform essentially went from 1% in 2011, not applicable in 2021, to 15.8% in 20206. I mean, so it's a story in which,

forget about the SMP, who stayed steady and then dropped a bit in the last election. Labor, speaking, has stayed constant for the last 10 years. The Tories have dropped off, have halved, and reform has jumped out of nowhere. Now, let's just jump to Wales. In Wales, Labour was at 42% in 2011, 34.7% in 2016, 36% in 2021, and has dropped now to 11%. They've lost two-thirds of their vote in just five years. The Tories again, 25%, 21%, 26% dropped down to 10% in 2026. In other words, we've gone from a situation where when I was in politics and politics,

2011, Labor and Tories in Wales together had 67% of the vote to a situation where now in Wales they have barely 20% of the vote between the two. And there's been an explosion of reform, much bigger than in Scotland, up to 29.3%. and plied, of course, going from 20% to 35.4. So just two things I wanted you to help me on. Why do you think the labour collapse has been much more dramatic in Wales than in Scotland? And why has the reform explosion gone up nearly doubled the amount in Wales than it is in Scotland? What's difference between Wales and Scotland for labour and reform? So there's John Swinney, First Minister of Scotland. The SMP win the election clearly.

when you take out the did not vote because they had around about 50% turnout, one in eight people voted for the SNP. And I think reform were coming from a lower base. But I think the other thing, the other thing, if I was Keir-star, I'm sitting in the cabinet right now,

and by the way, he's told him he's not resigning, so heaven knows where that's going to lead. He said there hasn't been a leadership contest triggered and he's going to carry on, and so should we all. So let's see where that leads. I think the slight different in Wales is that if you go back to the general election, there was a lot of tactical voting

because the driving motivation, when you say what does the country want, none of us can speak for the country, but the general vibe was we want to get rid of the Tories, okay? And so people worked out, what's the best way to do that? That's why Labor got their landslide. They didn't get their landslide because of their landslide

because of their just, you know, because of Kirstama's charisma or because of the program of change. They got their landslide largely because of the Tories. Okay. I think what's happened in Wales is that there's been a lot of tactical voting going in all sorts of different directions. They didn't, they wanted Labour out as a country. Labor's been in power for so long, literally the longest period of single parties. A hundred years they've dominated. Over 100 years. I mean, it's incredible. That's why it was so historic. So implied the Welsh National Party had become in a way less nationalist in its rhetoric and policy may,

within the SMP in Scotland. And so they became a vehicle for that protest without people feeling it was necessarily going to lead to independence for Wales. So then what happened is I think the country worked out, Labour are not going to win, it's going to be between Plyde and Reform. I think quite a lot of people will have switched from Labour and the other parties that didn't come in the top two to saying I'm going to vote for the Welsh National Party. Now, I also think that Wales maybe has more of the, don't forget that, you know, Wales was more brexity than Scotland, don't forget as well, Wales does have, you know, if you visit Wales, there's all sorts of communities that feel very much like those communities in England that

constantly say they've been left behind. So I think it was that. And back to the point about leadership and charisma, the Welsh, the plied leader is a very, he's a very charismatic, good communicator. But reform in Wales now up to nearly 30% of the vote. I mean, this is, you know, if you were seeing this, if the, you know, if you were reporting back, I think you were in Germany at the moment, if you started reporting back on some election and some lander where the AFD was on nearly 30% of the vote, that would be a big national trigger. I mean, this is, well, Rory, it's funny, funny you should say that. I'm right in the north, looking out over the Baltic Sea. if we took the car down south a bit,

would be into Saxon and Halt. Right, yeah. Where the AFD are currently hovering around 40%. And there was an opinion poll at the weekend here in Germany where for the first time the AFD were ahead of the CDU and the CSU union. And you're right, that does feel quite a big deal. Just while I'm in Germany, Roy, you're showing me your graphs, which have obviously required a lot more work than mine.

There's one here. So Merz Berlipaets Werthe Zinken of Macron-Niveau. Merz's popularity rating is sinking to the Macron level. Now here's, I'm not pretending this is great news for Kierstaver. This has got the popularity ratings

of the E3 leaders. Friedrich Merz has 22% of people say that they're satisfied with his leadership. Macron 23, Kierstahma 24. Now what has his... Well, there we are. You see no reason to step down at all. Only a net popularity of minus 50.

The guy's fine. What's he complaining about him? The point I was going to make, and this is another point we made to these MPs, is government is bloody hard at the moment. It's always hard, but I do think it's harder than ever at the moment. And it's harder if you're in the face of very effective populist campaigners, which is what Nigel Farage is. So I was looking at this. I think you're completely right. It is terrible.

But I wonder how many listeners. can guess how Trump compares to those figures. So broadly speaking, as you say, those people are about 20 approve and about 70 disapproves. So they're mostly on negative 50. Can we do a little poll? And we'll come back to it in three, four minutes of people trying to guess. Maybe this technology doesn't work.

But I'd love to get, without cheating and looking up on Google, what do you think Trump's net popularity rating is compared to Starvation? And just a point of fact, do you trust all of our listeners and viewers not? to look it up. Not to choose. I'd be interesting. Listen, before we come back to the question on Trump and how he compares,

Nigel Farage came out and wrote an op-ed in the Times, trying to frame what he thinks is happening in British politics. He says that he thinks voters believe that Labor is London-centric, run by human rights lawyers, that it's trying to betray the Brexit vote, that people feel they're being taxed to death, that welfare spending's out of control, that there's mass migration is destabilizing communities,

and there's a lot of anti-social behavior. So that's his kind of big analysis of where he thinks voters are. And I guess to some extent, you know, he's, sorry, not to some extent, to a great extent, he's feeling vindicated. You know, he thought he was going to do very well, and he did very, very well.

So he's obviously got some sort of sense of what people think. Before we get into whether voters are right and what solution is, does that broadly track with your sense, Liam Burns' sense, of what quite a loss of the reform voters are feeling? I think a lot of them think that the country's not in grey shape and the two main parties have taken turns, where the Tories for a long time, we've now had Labor for a couple of years. And I do think it's grossly unfair that Labor takes so much heat for what is a terrible legacy, but put that to one side for that. So they think we've given both the main

parties the first shot to it, and it hasn't worked, let's try something completely different. And I do think the thing about antisocial behaviour is important. I think that a lot of the points that they make are perfectly valid in terms of what people feel. The question then, though, in a grown-up, sensible political debate is okay, and what's the alternative? And that's where I think that we've allowed a combination of the main parties and the media have allowed Farage and Reform to become effectively opposition campaigners without any responsibility to be serious about what they would do in government. And that has to change. So that's why, and OK, he makes the point that Labour want to quote, undo the Brexit vote. I wish it was so.

I actually, I actually think that what Kirstarmer said yesterday in that speech, Europe was when to be one of the big things. And he talked about us back at the heart of Europe. But then they were all briefing that doesn't mean changing the red lines on the single market or the customs union. So what does it mean? So it reminds me a little bit of the Gaza situation. You have a, you have a situation where Pat McFadden goes along at the weekend to a rally for all the political parties to express their support for the Jews, for the Jewish community after the attacks of, in Golders Green. Pat McFadden gets booed. Richard Tice, the leader of reform, literally comes from a studio where he's refused to condemn the guy who said Nigerians should be

melted down to fill the pot holes, and he gets cheered by the audience. So what that says, back to my point, when you're in government, you're the guys, you're the people are going to take the heat. And it's not pleasant. And I'm going to tell you, if Nigel Farage did become Prime Minister, he'd be facing a lot of this very, very quickly from a lot of people. Okay, pause for a second, just because I asked the audience. So there's been a lot of different guesses. Some of them not. But whereas Stama Macrona met is basically about just over 20% of people approve, as you've pointed out, Trump, about 37% of people approve. And whereas with them 70% disapprove, in Trump's case, it's about 60%. So he's on a, if they're on about minus 50, he's on about minus 25,

which is, which is bad for him. But one of the big differences is that 85% of, and this may be a way back into of the Stama question. 85% of Republican voters still approve of Trump, whereas in the case of Labor voters, case of Labor voters, only about 40% of Labor voters approve of Stama, 42% do not. So one of the big problems that Stama's facing is he's not just losing the country.

He seems to be losing the Labour Party. And the reason, I guess my segue is this. We've talked about Farage, we've talked about that popularity. If we agreed that Stama isn't going to go, into the next election. And the question is not any more if but when. And you've made a strong argument for why it shouldn't be today. But let's say we're going to be going to be going forward in a six months time. The big question, I assume, is who's going to be able to

come up with policies that meet the kind of complaints that Farage is putting forward? And do those policies exist? And this is why I was also interested in the newspapers over the weekend because broadly speaking, there seem to be three answers to that question. What are the policies that a government needs? And this will be a question for Andy Burnham or West Streeting or or Anthony. One answer put forward by this guy, Josh, who was from Labor Together, was effectively deliverology. The way we're going to get it, going to beat Farage, is we're going to fix the potholes. We're going to get the poo out of the rivers. We're going to drive down the cost of living and we're going to deliver good public services to number one.

So running things better. Number two was big vision. So Britain back, you know, single market, customs union, referendum on Europe. So big exciting ideas. And number three was, I guess, pro-business supply-side reform. So if you read the Times op-ed, it will be, you know, reduce taxes, reduce energy bills, cut employment, red tape, reduce welfare, increase defence spending. Does that track with your sense of the three, roughly speaking,

the three possible lines that you could take into an election? Either we're better at getting things down, or we've got a big idea around something like Europe, or thirdly, we're going for a much more kind of pro-business growth agenda. Well, I think you have to do all three. In terms of a strategy, you probably have to focus on one or two. But I think the other thing that we're missing in this in relation to why Nigel Farage and Zach Polanski

have been, you know, getting the sort of attention that they have is that they're both about, they both are about a kind of vibe. And I thought it was interesting yesterday. So one of the things that people say about here, Sam, is he can't do the sort of hopeful, optimistic vibe. So yesterday talked a lot about hope and optimism, but didn't necessarily convey and communicate it. So I think it does have to be, assuming it's not going to be Kirstama, it's got to be somebody who can inject that sense of hope and optimism, and then the policy has to match that. I guess what we're seeing with Trump, and by the way, Trump,

although, can I just make a couple of points on Trump. The first is he's got the lowest ratings of any president for a long, long time. And the second is, the big difference is there. There is no alternative apart from the Democrats. So, whereas what you've got if you're Labor and Tory, you've now got alternatives. You've got people saying, well, I was Labor by now I'm reform. I was Labor, but now I'm Green. I was Labor, but now I'm Lib Dem. So I think that is a big, big difference. I don't think Trump's ratings are any more to shout out about than Macron versus Tharma. It underlines my point. It's bloody hard to be in government right now. But I think in terms of the reason why I would go longer, this may be impossible, but I would go

longer. I would combine the points that you're making. I would combine the points that you're making about Joe Biden, if the party decides he can't go, and the point that I made earlier about Mark Carney, that, you know, sometimes it's better to go late rather than early. Because the other thing that of all the names that are currently in the frame, the only one really who can, I think, credibly say, change is probably Andy Burnham. Presumably somebody like Al-Karns, who isn't in the cabinet might also be able to go with a change thing. For sure. And it may be that that's the other reason why you need a bit of time. Are there other people who could emerge? Can I come in on that? Because that's another thing I don't quite understand.

Basically, all the reporting you get, say it's Andrew Rayner, West Streeting or Andy Burnham, and there's a competition to journalist to come up with the neatest ways of expressing this trilemma. But that isn't how the Tory leadership elections work. So, when I was going up in 2019, I think there were 14 candidates. And even as we came towards the end, it was, actually all these people have been interviewed on the podcast. It was me, Sajad Javid, Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, and actually, sorry, somebody who happened, we haven't interviewed is Boris Johnson. So what's the difference between, is there something different between where the Labour Party is or how the Labour Party's system works that one's the same? And before that five, there were people like Matt Hancock, Dominic Raab, Nadim Sahawi,

Kip Malt House, throwing that name since, yeah. The answer is they didn't need 81 nominations. This system was brought in to make it less straightforward to challenge and to spill out of the leader. It may be, it may be that somebody needs to emerge with a new persona, with a new set of ideas. To me, the ideas bit is the thing that I think is just not strong enough at the moment, both in the government and in any of the people that are, of course, I said recently, I said to you last week that it's harder if you're in the government to put out a new set of

ideas that is different to what the government is doing, clearly. And look, I think Andy Burnham's got a lot of strengths, but you just don't know. This is, I've seen this so many times. You've seen it with the Tory party. the people that they elect as their leader, the reason why you need a really rigorous process to sort of sort of sort them out is because it's bloody hard

and you've got to be shown to being tested and you're metal to be tested. But I think doing that while you're in government doesn't help the government, put it that way. This is where I thought the Democrats made a mistake in the states. I thought that rather than being crowned, and I can see, you know, of course, well, see both sides.

But I thought rather than being crowned, it would have been good for Kamala Harris to go through a genuine competition against Gavin Yosam and Gretchen, Wichner, and the rest of them. Because it seems to me that unless you go through that primary process, unless you have a chance to compete and show yourself, it's very difficult to know how you're going to do

in that election campaign. And actually, I sort of felt the Tories in some ways would have done even better if they'd allowed even four candidates to go in front of the general public, as opposed to just the final two. So people can get a sense of how they cope on national television, how they cope in big speeches, how they lay out their visions. I'm a bit worried with your point about the needing 81 nominations,

that you end up with slightly stiff establishment figures, and you don't really provide a chance for the Zora and Mamdani's to come in, which may be what you need. in this age. I mean, if this system basically means that you're forced to choose between West Streeting and Angela Rainer, maybe that isn't

really the ideal, because the other point about your system is Andy Byrne is not even allowed to run, is he, if he's not an MP? Yeah. Yeah. Correct. Correct. No, I mean, but the only people who can change the system, the rules are the leadership and the national executive. Just one point, probably

before we go to the close, Ed Conway of Sky, you've produced your graph. Let me just show you this graph that Ed Ken Conway has just put out. Oh, that's a fine graph. Can you see what that is? Have a guess on it. With soaring upwards. I can't see what it is, but I can see it's soaring upwards. Is it oil price?

No? No, it's the UK 10-year bond yields shooting up to 5% amid speculation about the fate of the Prime Minister. Here's the chart of the past three trading days. And this is the issue that we had last time when the markets were getting spooked by the idea of him moving racial reefs.

And Paul Johnson, ex-institur of fiscal studies, now running some Oxford College, that's where everybody ends up, but it's where you'll end up one day, don't worry. But he, and he was basically, I saw something he said that this is what people underestimate about, you know, the, this, this,

that makes us all poorer. Just on that one. I mean, it's actually, I've discovered that that has happened quite a lot during leadership transitions. It's not completely unheard of. And often, you know, if we go back over the last 60, 70 years of British political history, that often happens when the markets get scared about change.

And absolutely it can go back. But I think what you're, the other thing that this is what a leadership election will expose to deep public view is, is that there are fundamental divisions about what the Labour Party is and what it stands for. I saw Clive Lewis have a lot of time for Clive Lewis but he was basically saying if West Streeting becomes leader the Labour Party is finished you have other people saying

if West Streeting doesn't become leader the Labour Party is finished you have people who will say that this is all being... Then you have people like me saying the Labour Party may be finished anyway I mean that's the other possibility that what we're failing to read in these polls is that the Conservative Party and the Labour Party

as we know them may actually be over that we may be entering a period of five-party politics, that we may be saying, I mean, I know you're saying, you don't think Nigel Farage would be a prime minister, but I, of course, fear that that may be a bit of wishful thinking. It's a bit like me saying, I don't think Trump's going to be president.

I think that Kamala Harris is going to win. It may be that structurally, one of the problems is there isn't a policy solution to Farage. I mean, if we think about those things that Farage was talking about in the op-ed, a lot of them are not really policy, their perception. So it will be people being very, very wound up around crime, despite the fact that crime may not actually be rising. People, because of social media, that they're sort of, you know, for example, let's take the first statement, that the Labour Party is run by London-centric human rights lawyers.

Well, there's one, isn't that? Right. I mean, it's a ridiculous description of the Labour Party, the Labour Cabinet, the Labour MPs. they're not London-centric human rights rights. The fact that the public's got that in their head is a lie. So we're going into an election where maybe Farage, Trump, Boris Johnson, these people are not really winning on policy at all. And if you think that the route in is to get some very clever economists around a table and come up with some fantastic tweak on the way in which you do energy policy or taxation reform, you're maybe missing the fact. that these elections are increasingly about charisma, message, social media and nonsense. Which is a very depressing thought, but I think it's true. I think it's true right now.

And that's why I think you have to do, in a way, you have to do both. You know, another thing I've been very, very critical of. And we saw again yesterday when, I mean, Kirstan did his speech. And I thought, okay, there's quite a lot to chew over. I wish it had been longer. I wish there's been a bit of this and a bit of that, in my view. And then he goes straight into the bloody Q&A with the same journalist, spend all day saying how crappy is.

It's like, you know, have a much more aggressive, I don't mean by aggressive sort of going around beating them up. Yesterday was the 16th anniversary of my fight with Adam Bolton. Somebody reminded me on social media. I don't mean that.

I mean... And 16 years later, you still haven't made it up, really, have you? Yeah, we kind of have. We can be in the same room. We can be in the same room. Totally well. I've made it up. I don't know if he's made it up.

I'm fine with it. But so I think that there's something about the way that the government deals with the media that makes his problems worse, not better. And so, and again, the media landscape's not going to change. It's going to get worse. Social media's not going to change. It's going to get worse. So you definitely need all those things that you were saying.

But the other point about Farage, you're absolutely right. He's got a vibe. He's got a style. Some people like it. Let's not get. overblown about what they did last week. Somebody's posted, well, but we should dig it out. Somebody's posted this map yesterday,

where reformer are actually in control of councils. It's a very, very, very small patch of turquoise, okay? So I think we've got to be a bit careful. And also, I could be wrong, and you're right, it probably is partly wishful thinking. As things stand today, amid this chaos, amid this mess, submit the Tory party doing as badly as it did as well, if I were to be had a gun to my head, who's going to win the next general election, on the current trajectory, I might point to

get to Nigel Farage. Equally, I can see lots of ways that he can be brought down. It's just that the things you need to do that are not being done. Now, these people trying to kick here starmer out, they will say, well, let's get a better leader. And that might be the right approach. It might well be. but don't just say anyone will do because at the moment

these MPs busily going around from studio to studio WhatsApp group to WhatsApp group their baseline is anyone will do and the public can begin to think after a while they will start thinking is going to start really as bad as that guy you know I think we've just got to be very

very careful about this talking of one of the contenders Rory Vicki Spratt who's done this brilliant series on Gen Z she and I've done an interview with Dada Angela Radha about Gen Z. I think it's going out sometime this week. We should also, by the way, Roy, I posted yesterday,

our current leading into you. Do you remember I was a bit reluctant for your friend Will McCaskill, the philosopher? Yeah. But actually, amid this chaos yesterday, it was very nice to hear a soothing, calm, Scottish accent. He was basically saying,

It's not impossible that AI will head the world, but he was saying it's such a calm, soothing manner. The Angela Rainer interview, by the way, is already up, so people can see that as well as see Wilma Castle, as well as see you and I talking now. So come on, Roy, cut to the chase. Do you think here Starma will be Prime Minister by the end of the day? Yeah, I think he'll definitely be Prime Minister by the end of the day.

I think he's going to Joe Biden it. I just think that I just think the problem is we're so clearly now into the when is he going to go, not if he's going to go. And my fear is that the problem for the Labour Party is you've got a Prime Minister who for reasons of, you know, sometimes reasons of ego, sometimes good reasons, doesn't want to step down. Many loyalists who hate labour and fighting and just wish people would shut up. A loss of anxiety about who the next candidate can be, but I still don't leave. my fundamental thing is, yes, getting into the lifeboat is risky, but staying on the Titanic is worse still. The Titanic went down with no possible way back up, okay?

There is, and the Titanic was on its way to New York, okay? Labor in this context is on its way to a general relation, the date of which is sometime on. By the way, Rory, let's close with this. You were asking, how does this stuff happen? that you find out what's being said, well, how are you? I've just had a WhatsApp message from somebody which says, this tells you all you need to know.

The Prime Minister told a meeting at the Cabinet. As I said yesterday, I take responsibility for these election results. I take responsibility of delivering the change we promised. The past 48 hours have been destabilising that has real economic cost for our country and our families. The Labour Party has a process for challenging the leader. That has not been triggered.

The country expects us to get on with governing. That is what I'm doing and what we must do as a cabinet. By the time that meeting ends, I suspect I will have similar messages telling me who said what about it afterwards and whether anybody had the guts to say to his face, well, I'm sorry, mate, but I'm not taking it. Well, Alison, thank you for that. That was really, really interesting. I think we'll close there. Thank you everybody who joined in. There's been some amazing stuff in the commentary, and we're really grateful for it. You know, somebody saying, I wish I would stop claiming Labor won a landslide in what world is 33.7% of the popular vote of landslide. That's a very good point. That's a very, very good point.

And no, let me jump in there. Let me jump in there because I made the point about one in eight in the SMP. I regularly make the point to Labour people, one in five people who could have voted voted Labor. When I talk about landslide, that is just a technical term. Okay. So they got a big majority caller, listener, viewer. Very good. Then there's somebody else saying I pay 50% tax.

That was a point that maybe we can develop on another occasion. But, you know, Stama's, sorry, Stama Farage is running on people saying they're paying too much tax and they're fed up with a welfare bill going up. But recent statistics suggest that 51% of people in Britain receive more in welfare benefits than they pay in tax. And that will be the overwhelming majority of Farage's voters. So again, I'm talking about sort of nonsense and portrayal that Farage is telling voters who are receiving much more in welfare benefits. they're paying in tax, that the problem is that welfare bill is too high and that their taxes are too high. Okay.

And then we got a lovely guy saying, I look like a Victorian ghost. I think that's probably true. I do have a bit of a megrine, which is why I was pleased that this was the show on which you have more to say than me. But we've had Derek. Why are you wearing your coat indoors? Is it cold? I don't know.

I've got to sort out the heating. Derek Patton for PM, pair of Muppets. demagoguery, not democracy. And finally, Kier has been a disastrous communicator, and he's no Captain Oates, sadly. Stama is Gorbachev, and it's 1991. Anyway, enough. There's so much more to return to, but Alistair, thank you for a very, very well-informed, serious thing.

And we take from you that you want the party to slow down, pull itself together, and if they're replacing Starmor not to do it in a destructive mania of horror. Yeah, and a frenzy can sometimes be endured. genuine crisis often can't. Rory, I've got to finish with this coin for Andrew Furlong. The Titanic sank because some idiot insisted on restarting the engines after it hit the iceberg. I don't know how that relates to what we're doing, but... Very good. Lovely. Thank you, Andrew. We'll go on that. Thank you, Andrew.

All right. See you all soon. Bye-bye, bye, bye, guys.