TRIGGERnometry - "Reform is Screwed"- Dan Hodges

Starting point is 00:00:01 What is your assessment of reform? They're screwed. The polls are overestimating reformed support. There is absolutely no way, in my view, it can get from where it is now to actually being potentially a party of government. There is now a clear perception within reform that Nigel Farage is coming to the end of his leadership. So you think he will leave soon? I do, yes.

Starting point is 00:00:21 The sanctions on Israeli settlement, his defence of welfare, he's part of a broader strategy of shoring up his left flank. and that with the split on the right, that will be enough to win him a majority. I am pretty certain that what Andy Burnham is currently doing is preparing for a snap general election at some point next year. The British government wants to force YouTube to downrank independent content like ours and replace it with approved messaging from the mainstream media. The only way you can fight back and continue to enjoy our content is to make sure you're subscribed. Like this video and comment below to have your say on what the government is doing.

Starting point is 00:01:06 Dan Hodges, welcome to Shriganometry. Thank you. Before we get into the conversation, tell us a little bit about your background and your story and how have you come to be sitting here today with us. Yeah, well, I used to work for the Labour Party. I mean, I used to, to be honest, used to work for my mother and she was a Labour MP, so worked for her for five years

Starting point is 00:01:26 in the right after the 97 election. then I went off, did the sort of the PR consultancy circuit for a bit, and then somehow, I'm not entirely sure how, stumbled into journalism and political commentary, which is how I ended up here. Yeah, and you're one of the people I see in the media being very upbeat and positive about Andy Burnham, which is why it'd be interesting for us to chat with you. You're frowning a bit. Is that an unfair? Yeah, no, no, no. I mean, I think it's being upbeat. I mean, I think last time we spoke, I think was before he became Prime Minister, wasn't he? I think Kirstar announced it. He was very clear that he was about to be. And we had you on with Julie Hartley. We had the discussion. And obviously, at the time, there were already predictions of imminent sort of doom and gloom and disaster for Andy Burnham. And I just sort of posed a little bit of a corrective saying I wasn't entirely sure that in the short term,

Starting point is 00:02:26 his premiership was going to collapse quite as precipitously as maybe Julia thought of the time. And that's basically, that's basically sort of my analysis. I mean, I was saying before, one of the things in relation to Andy Burnham is the first prime minister, who I know, who I kind of knew him properly before he became prime minister, which, as I said, make, and we used to work together at the House of Commons. And as I said, that has the benefit of making me feel very old and also a great underachiever. So there is a, you know, and I've been completely honest about it. As a result of that, I quite like him. I hope he does well.

Starting point is 00:03:04 So what's he like then? He's broadly what you see, actually. There's not, you know, there's no sort of great sort of hidden side to Andy. I mean, a lot of people I know are sort of talking about, oh, you know, the sort of the northern, I'm from up north, sort of schick is starting to great. It's not a schick. he it's who he actually who he actually is he really is a northern who bangs on about being that that is the type he is a really is he really is from up north and that very much shapes his

Starting point is 00:03:37 shapes his political his political outlook he's he's he's amy bull he's someone you can have a chat with but also and i think this is one of the misconceptions there's been a bit about him there's and i think we touched on that at the time there was this whole narrative oh wait till he comes into westminster he's going to find out um being prime minister he's going to to be very different from being mayor of Manchester but the point was as I said you know we worked together for best part of five years he's been in politics basically all his life and he's a very very political creature so this idea is some sort of baby in the woods who'd come into Westminster and go oh my god what's going on here I that wasn't I never expected that to be to be the outcome

Starting point is 00:04:17 and at the moment it's not in my view turning out to be the reality although as I think I also said before the reality is whatever you think of Andy Burnham, his skills, whatever, the political fundamentals are no different to him than they were for Keir Stama. And that's going to be the problem. Well, this is the interesting bit because you talk to people, well, France and I were talking about this over lunch, right? It's like you talk to people, you go, you quite like it. You quite like Burnham.

Starting point is 00:04:45 Yeah, yeah, yeah, quite. Why'd you like him? Because it seems like a nice guy. It seems like a nice guy to me. Genuinely, it seems like a perfectly nice guy. He seems to me like a bit of a people pleaser, to be honest. It seems like he's keen to promise everything to everyone. There's a headline today.

Starting point is 00:05:00 I think you were showing me. What was it? Him saying national defense can't take precedence over a... No, national security can't take precedence over social security, which is fundamentally trade off denialism, as I call it, which is you pretend everything is possible all at once, which it isn't. But the interesting thing is you talk about his agenda. What is his agenda?

Starting point is 00:05:22 What is his vision? What is, what is, what does Andy Burnham believe about the direction the country should go in? Well, I think there are, I think there are two things. I mean, just picking up on what you said about the sort of the denialism, it's a slightly more sophisticated position than that because, and, and I've got to be honest, I'm in a very much in a minority view at the moment. I am pretty certain that what, what Andy Burnham is currently doing is preparing for a snap general election at some point, some point.

Starting point is 00:05:52 next year and so everything that he is doing at the moment is basically starting to align with that and maximize his opportunity to successfully call that election of which although you know and i you know the the terminology that he used in prime minister's questions yesterday was a very bad blunder and obviously gave kemi bad not the opportunity to immediately pounce on him and and and and his other political critics to pouts on him there is a strategy behind what he was he was saying, which was, and we saw it also with the statements that was made earlier in the week about the sanctions on Israeli settlements, it's part of a broader strategy that his defence of welfare is part of a broader strategy of shoring up his left flank as we approach

Starting point is 00:06:43 the election. Because his calculation, the calculation within Downing Street is if he can shore up his left flank, If he can pull enough votes away from the Greens, if he can pull enough votes away from what I would call the sort of radical Islamist splinter parties, if he can pull away some soft lib Dems, if he can mobilize the anti-reform coalition, which is forming in the country,

Starting point is 00:07:14 then he could probably get to around about 31, 32% in the opinion polls. And that with the split on the right, that will be enough to win him a majority that will last him for a subsequent five years and give him a mandate to start to address some of the broader issues that he's identified. So what he's doing needs to be seen within that context. In terms of him setting out, I mean, he's kind of sort of setting out his stall a little bit. So obviously we had a statement about ending, you know, eradicating rough sleeping, which will obviously not be done, you know, with it over the short.

Starting point is 00:07:50 short-term, if at all. He's identified the issue, obviously, of social care, which is very much a priority for him. And as I said, obviously, he keeps identifying more broadly, a broader sort of distribution of wealth, to what it's simplistically from the south to the north and to the regions. But those sort of, if you like, big ticket items are going to be, if you like, the second stage, as he sees, in the Burn and Premiership. And what we're seeing at the moment is him basically preparing the groundwork to, as I say, calling an election next year and securing a personal mandate and a workable majority. So just to sort of I'm hearing you correctly, what you think we're seeing is the reason

Starting point is 00:08:33 he's not, you know, giving you the full manifesto on all the details and everything he's going to do is he's actually, that's not the job right now. The job right now is to, like you say, see off the greens, basically and the far left, get them into the fold, call an election with announce a few popular policy, you know, the cap bus fares and all this stuff. Yeah, the sort of the low... Throw a few sweets to the masses, call in election, win, and at that point you start to actually implement whatever your...

Starting point is 00:09:04 I mean, the other thing is, I mean, I've been slightly over-generous in interpretation. The other thing is he hasn't got strategy worked out yet. I mean, that's, now that's a product of a number of things, product of the fact that in in the run-up to his, him sort of succeeding Keer-Starma, a lot of his effort and obviously his focus was on, and of those around him, was on the mechanics that enabled him to enter Downing Street, you know, get rid of Keir-Stama and downing street in the first place. And if you remember the prevailing narrative sort of at the start of this year was kind of Andy, I mean, I remember, you know, debating this and people saying this, You know, Andy Byrne doesn't have a path. You know, Andy Burden doesn't really have a path to Downing Street, Keir Stama's going to be here for the next couple of years.

Starting point is 00:09:57 So that was a big focus of what he's, of his attention. Second thing was just the practicalities of the transition time table. He and his team thought they would have up until just the beginning of Labor Party conference, at which point Keir Stama would step down, and they would have the preceding months to sort of put a strategy in place. obviously they didn't have that opportunity, so they're kind of making stuff up on the hoof, which is, again, why they're sort of going for the lower hanging through in terms of policy development. But the other thing is, as I say, he is facing the same strategic political

Starting point is 00:10:34 dilemmas that his predecessor and other prime ministers have faced, which is how do you actually solve the intractor problems? How do you solve the problem in the small boats? How do you deal with the fact that Britain is basically a country that is broke, how do you deal with the threat of Putin, how do you deal with the big strategic issues? And the reality is Andy Burnham's no closer to answering those questions than anyone else. And the really worrying thing for me, Dan, is this,

Starting point is 00:11:04 is you spoke about being broke. I think it's genuinely worse than that. I think we're on a financial precipice. I don't think either political party has done anything really to address it. I mean, just look at the facts. 2.9 trillion in debt, 100% debt to GDP ratio. A currency that's lost around about 40% in value since 2020. We have doubled the debt that we had in 2008.

Starting point is 00:11:30 Double the debt after the financial crisis. Wages haven't gone up in real time. And I'm looking at him. I'm going, how are you going to change? How are you going to turn this round? And then he goes, he hasn't ruled out tax crisis. And there's me thinking, well, we're even more screwed than we were before. Yeah, apart from that, everything's fine.

Starting point is 00:11:51 But yeah, no, I mean, that's exactly right. And I think, you know, anybody who thinks Andy Burnham is just suddenly going to go, you know, click his fingers and then magically solve all of these problems is deluding themselves. I mean, I think, you know, I talked about the big strategic problems that he's facing, the country is facing. the reality is these are at the moment seemingly intractable problems for reason because nobody did actually come up with a come up with a you know of any political persuasion has managed to come up with a with a with a solution to them I mean the one thing I would say as well though you know Andy Burnham is he's operating with the same constraints that his predecessors operated with within which is he has to try and

Starting point is 00:12:42 find a solution to these political problems, but also doing a way that is politically viable. In other words, he has to find a way of reducing the deficit while protecting public services, whilst reducing the tax burden, while stimulating growth, whilst reassuring the bond markets. Now, if any of us has got answers on the postcard, please, if there's an easy solution to doing that. You can't do that. No, and also, I mean, but also it's a slightly sort of more serious point, and also, and this is the other thing, against the backdrop of a sort of a political debate in which obviously populism and the idea that there were really, really simple, easy solutions, if only our politicians have had the courage or wherewithal to just do the very, you know, pull the very obvious levers against a backdrop in which that sort of that, that, that, that sort of political philosophy has gained, for the reasons we're all aware of, has gained significant sort of political traction and a degree of currency.

Starting point is 00:13:52 So you put all those things together. And as I said, you'll say, I'm being positive and optimistic about Andy Burnham, on a sort of narrow level, yes. But as I say, at the moment, you know, I'm not entirely sure how any politician has it can find an easy solution to those issues. Well, this is a problem. And I think the answer to the question lies in the words easy solution, which is there's no easy solution. And unfortunately in life, there are a lot of solutions which aren't easy. For instance, if you've got cancer, the solution is chemotherapy.

Starting point is 00:14:28 I don't think there is anybody on this planet who would think that chemo is an easy medicine to take. And I think this country is at a position where it needs some kind of intervention. because the way I see it and the people that I talk to, friends of ours who are in economics or in finance, they have made it pretty clear that we are heading towards a financial precipice. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. The thing I would maybe slightly change the characterization is you're talking about, you know, there need to be hard choices and I don't disagree with that. But for a politician, be it Andy Burnham and any other.

Starting point is 00:15:08 politician. It's not simply a case of saying, right, there is a very hard choice you have to take, take it, because the reality is, and again, this is against the backdrop of the growth of populism, but will be the case even without that. As a politician, you can't take a hard choice unless you get the endorsement of the electorate to take that choice. So let's take a, let's take an issue such as, for example, the triple lot. You speak to a senior politician. You speak to a senior politician, of any political party, privately they will tell you triple lock is unsustainable. But they will equally tell you. Just explain for people that triple lock.

Starting point is 00:15:48 Well, you tell me, I mean, what, where is it. My understanding of the triple lock, basically, pensions are always going up. Yeah, basically, simplistically, it's a commitment that the pensions will be guaranteed. I think it's a hangover from, I think it was George Osborne, wasn't it? Was it George Osborne or first introduce it, or was it Gordon Brown? and I can't remember it's been around so long. But you speak to any of them and they say it's not sustainable. It's not financially sustainable.

Starting point is 00:16:15 But they equally say, if I stand up and say that, I'm not going to get elected. So what do you want me to do? And therein lies the dilemma. What do you do? I mean, so many problems that are laid at the door of modern politicians, they haven't had the courage to deal with it or whatever. It's not that they haven't got the courage, that they don't identify the problem. In terms of all they don't want to do them,

Starting point is 00:16:42 is they don't think they'll get a political, a political mandate to do it. And if you're not going to get a political mandate to do it, if you're not going to get the approval of the electorate, by adopting a policy, you may be brave, but you know your political opponents are immediately going to jump up and say, ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, or we're not doing that. And the people, don't worry, we'll protect, you know, pensioners will protect your triple lot,

Starting point is 00:17:03 and we know how pensioners, pensioners vote as a proportion of the overall electorate, what do you do? I mean, look at the, look at the, I mean, as I said, Andy Burnham has has identified and put the whole issue of social care back, back on the political agenda, because it is something he cares about. I remember, where are we now? When was, so it's the 2017 election, so almost a decade ago, there was a common, there was again, there was a settled political consensus that social care and the social care crisis finally had to be dealt. And if wasn't dealt with, we were facing catastrophe. Theresa May went into that election, an election where it was widely perceived she would

Starting point is 00:17:46 win, she would wipe Jeremy Corbyn out, she took the decision, right, I may lose a few seats on the back of this policy, but I think I need to grasp the nettle, I need to be brave, I need to say, right, we're going to introduce, I'm going to get to grips with the issue of social care, Labor turnaround accused. of introducing a death tax, her support collapses with the result we all know. So, you know, when we're talking about it, there's a difference between a hard decision and what is a politically impossible position. That's the problem facing Andy Burnman and all other politicians at the moment. If you only read one side of the news, you're not informed, you're being curated. That's why I use

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Starting point is 00:19:57 in the description of this episode. get 40% of their vantage plan, the same one that we use, and stop being managed by the media. And look, it's a great point, but eventually, Dan, you either get treatment or you die to go back to the cancer metaphor. And at this point, financially, I don't think people in this country understand where we are. Because we're about to go broke. And when that happens, it's going to make these interventions look like the proverbial walk in the park. Yeah. But I mean, I think whatever intervention we could, I mean, look, I was having this conversation the other day. I mean, we can all have an argument about, you know, how we go into this space. But one of the things I find incredible is, the issue of COVID and lockdown seems to have been erased by some erased from the national consciousness. It's like, I don't know if you've seen the film Men in Black where it goes at the end like that. That's almost been done in relation to COVID. So I remember at the time, having discussed. We had a situation where the British economy was essentially nationalised for 12 to 18 months, just everything. We had a package of financial intervention that mirrored the sort of financial intervention that, you know, took the country through the Second World War and defeated Hitler.

Starting point is 00:21:17 And it was, but it was very clear that the amount of money, you know, that the vast amounts that were being spent on supporting the, the economy in the country at the time would have to be paid back. And that's true. But no one's talking about that. So in terms of what you're saying, the reality is you don't actually need to convince any senior politician in this country about what you're saying. Andy Burnham, John Healy, they know the state of the public finances. So does Kemi Badnock and her team. So actually does Nigel Farage and Robert Jenric.

Starting point is 00:22:01 The point is, are the British people currently prepared to vote for a political party that says, I am going to take the radical surgery you're talking about, yeah, you do need surgery, and at some point you will have to get surgery. But if your strategy is to run up to use your analogy, run up to the sort of the cancer specialist who's performing that surgery, punch them in the face half a dozen times to say, treat me, treat me, is that going to work? That's the situation that the politicians are looking at the moment. They're looking at saying, you know, Andy Burnham's sitting there thinking, well, okay, what if I do? Say, I'm going to cut welfare by $20 billion and spend on it for, spend on it, you know, building drones to center Ukraine.

Starting point is 00:22:50 Is that really going to get the support of the people I need to vote for me at the next election? He's not even doing that, Dan. He's talking, he hasn't ruled out tax increases. And we've already got millionaires leaving this country. Don't point of me, man. But I am neither a millionaire not leaving this country. But that is objectively a disaster. We've already got a gaping hole in the public finances.

Starting point is 00:23:17 And you're not even not your, but he's not even prepared to do even the most simple. But again, we're talking about, I mean, I think this is a classic example you're talking about, you know, people leave, you know, wealthy people leaving the country. I think we've got a bigger, we've got a bigger problem than wealthy people leaving the country. We've got a really big problem at the moment trying to get wealthy people into the country. Right. Yeah. Well, it's the same problem. Well, it's not really. I mean, the reality, I mean, people maybe leaving for a variety of reasons of which you would argue sort of tax rates and tax crime. Tax crime. Tax crime, productivity, employment laws.

Starting point is 00:23:55 variety of, variety of issues, but equally, are there are a lot of, there are still a lot of wealthy people who want to get into the country but can't get into the country because of where the, where the immigration debate is at the moment. So there's that issue. The other issue in relation to tax, we, you know, Andy Burnham is in a situation where, and John Healer in a situation where they obviously need to deal with the financial deficit, the huge debt mountain, but also have to stimulate the economy. Now, as we know, before them, there was a prime minister who thought she had a very simple solution to this, which was to simultaneously cut taxes and stimulate the economy. And it ended up in a disaster. Similarly, it comes back

Starting point is 00:24:48 to the issue I'm talking about, which is you need whatever policy. the see agenda, you pursue, you need public consent. You are not simply going to get public consent for absolutely slashing Britain's public services, because at the moment, a significant amount of the public discontent, you will both hear this all the time. I hear it is things don't work. You know, you call the police, the police don't come. You call for an ambulance, an ambulance doesn't come. You get on a train, it doesn't work, it breaks down. So this, you know, and I keep hearing, And, you know, from people on the right, you know, the state's too big, the state's too big, we've got to shrink the state.

Starting point is 00:25:26 But the public don't want the state shrunk in that way. They don't want fewer police officers. They don't want fewer ambulances, doctors, nurses, teachers. Similarly, I hear from people on the right, you know, we need to, you know, we need to stimulate the market. Go out and speak to people about what they think about whether or not the water companies should be in public or private ownership. Ask them about what they think about whether the energy companies.

Starting point is 00:25:49 should be in public-private ownership. So, again, what you regard as the solutions and what I may regard as some of the solutions are not necessarily what, not just a majority of the British people think, but sufficient number of the British people think to enable any political party to actually get into government

Starting point is 00:26:08 to implement those solutions in the first place. Well, right, and this is, you've made the point that whenever Francis and I are arguing back and forth about this. People like to blame politicians. I'm sorry. I blame the people. we get the politicians that we elect.

Starting point is 00:26:23 And if you believe that the solution to a massive debt problem is to have a bigger state and for the state to do more, that costs money. By the way, I'm not someone who wants to slash everything and have zero government. I don't think that's true at all. You actually need a lot of state capacity and certain things to do anything. And government borrowing to invest in productive things at certain points can stimulate the economy. and is important, but when you're already at the debt levels that we're at, that's going to be a challenge. And I mean, your point is also right. I mean, look at Stama. Stama tried to cut welfare. He tried. And he was labor bag benches that stopped. It wasn't anyone else.

Starting point is 00:27:06 So I completely agree with you. I mean, I think the public... Let me just finish this point about the metaphor, because I think the cancer metaphor that France has started was exactly right. I think the patient is in denial. And that's why we are. where we are. The patient thinks he has no cancer. The patient thinks we're, you know, we're ticking along okay. Yeah, look, I've got a bit of a pain back here and, you know, every morning I get up and I don't quite have the energy, but I haven't got cancer. I'm just, yeah, you know, it's, I'm aging. What's a little blood in the urine between friends? Yeah, no, absolutely. That's what's going on. Absolutely. But also to extend the analogy,

Starting point is 00:27:40 you may be absolutely right, but if the, if the patient doesn't give, doesn't give them concern to the surgery, there's nothing the surgeon can do about it. What, what I was going to say is, I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as, you know, blame the electric, because this is part of the problem. I can entirely understand where the electric are coming from. I mean, we had a degree of relative prosperity throughout the bulk of the 1990s. But for the quarter of a century that's followed, things have got progressively harder and harder in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons. for a lot of people, in particular, a group of the electorate that I would simply call working people who have been at best ignored by, best ignored and patronised by

Starting point is 00:28:32 politicians of all persuasions or treated with outright contempt. And at every stage throughout that, we had a global, economic downturn, I think one of the Gulf Wars, we had a global crash. Then we had a banking crisis. We obviously then had COVID and we're trying to recover from that. The various crisis, crises that have occurred are myriad. But there is one consistent thing, which is at the end of these crises, the people who have been asked to pay the most, and bear the worst, the highest burden, in my view, have then been the people who have been least able to afford it. I would take issue with you about the issue of, you know, oh my God,

Starting point is 00:29:29 it's outrageous that Labour are talking about raising taxes. If we are going to have a situation which I think we both agree on, that the country is going to, again, to use a simplistic analogy, heighten its belts. I think it's absolutely imperative that some of the richest people in society are asked to pay a little bit more in the same way that throughout the court of century I was talking about, working people in this country have been asked to pay a little bit more. You know, we saw this during the period of austerity. Broadly speaking, the wealthiest were broadly insulated from that austerity and working people, working people weren't. Well, the wealthy insulated because they have wealth.

Starting point is 00:30:12 Exactly. But they're not insulated by the government. They insulated by the fact that they have money. Well, no, they were insulated by you. Let me give me an example. At precisely the point when the country was being told we had to experience austerity, the government of the day, George Osborne, David Cameron, decided to cut the top rate of tax from 50% of what we find percent.

Starting point is 00:30:33 Or what's that not doing? That's not insulating the wealthiest at the same time as working people. were in various other forms of taxation and the erosion of their public services were being, were shouldering very significant. Yeah, I mean, look, the 20, the day we were going back into ancient history for many people, but the Lib Dems, one of the benefits of having the Lib Dems in the coalition is they forced the raising of the tax-free threshold. And so people at the bottom, and I was one of those people at the bottom at the time,

Starting point is 00:31:06 so I remember, well, got a big leg up. But the broader point I was going to make is, I mean, the top 10% of people in this country pay, I think, something like 60% of all income and capital gains tax. So this narrative about how wealthy people or people, it's not even wealthy people, it's people who are earning more than others are protected or insulated. No, they pay a hell of a lot. No, but, yeah, I see this argument used a lot, and I get the point. But the reality is, firstly, you have to, in my view, look at what people are paying in proportionate terms, not just in relation to their actual income, but the actual experience of their lives. So if somebody who, say somebody in a working class community,

Starting point is 00:32:00 let's use an example, their child, because of the various things, their child, can't afford to get a house at their own or whatever. It means their child has to move in. They have to continue to support their child, et cetera, et cetera. That has a direct and significant impact on their lives. If a wealthy person has to sell one of their private jets, so they only now have three private jets. It's just being silly now.

Starting point is 00:32:30 Well, no, I'm not. No, but this is the thing. So you want to bring in a private jet tax? No, no, I'm not, because that's not what we're arguing. I'm not making it. I'm not making a specific policy point. I'm making a broader point. I'm contesting the argument.

Starting point is 00:32:41 But this is a... Oh, everybody across the board has been facing a... During the years of austerity, everyone across the board has been facing the same burden. And even the argument you put forward, which is wealthy people, what wealthy people pay as an overall proportion of the tax take from the stay, it's not about that. It's about the direct impact

Starting point is 00:33:07 of a period of austerity, of economic hardship, of social hardship, and the reality is the wealthiest, as you conceded, you said, because they're wealthy,

Starting point is 00:33:19 have been insulated from that. By their own financial success. Sometimes because of their own financial success, success, and other times because of wealth that they've been able to inherit. Yeah, But the point is, regardless of how or why, we can have a debate about whether every wealthy person in this country is wealthy because of their great entrepreneurship and innovation.

Starting point is 00:33:49 There are many examples of that. There are other examples of people who are wealthy because they're basically dodgy as whatever. Yeah, absolutely. But taking it back to the broader argument, it doesn't really matter what we can have the debate about how they created their wealth. The reality is if you turn around now, you were talking about hard choices. If you turn around now and say to the electorate, as the politicians have to do, we're going to make hard choices now, some really hard choices.

Starting point is 00:34:26 We're going to have to cut back on public spending. You are going to, you are really going to have to tighten your belts. Oh, but by the way, I'm really sorry. You know that guy who's a billionaire. We'd love to try and get him to tighten his belt, but we can't because if he does, he's going to go and live in Montenegro. So sorry, folks. I'm sorry, the British people aren't going to put up with that anymore.

Starting point is 00:34:49 That's the political reality. Okay, well, then the British people should know that what they're going to get as a consequence of that as a fiscal crisis when external lenders who are giving us the money we're currently spending. go and tell them. Go and tell them. I'm doing it right now. I'm doing it.

Starting point is 00:35:06 But I don't know how many of them are listening to you. I'm doing it right now. These are people who have heard this every time for the last... And they don't care. And that's why they're going to get the fiscal crisis. They didn't. It's not that they didn't care. They did care.

Starting point is 00:35:17 They understood. And they said, fine. Okay, let's give it a go. And they did tighten their belts. They did tighten their balance on what happened. Well, austerity cut spending by like 1%. He didn't do anything to reduce our debt or even our deficit, which has kept growing.

Starting point is 00:35:31 My point is... Can I just say on that point? Again, if you go out and you say to the British... But, you know, you say to the British people over the last quarter of a century, everything, everything's been fine. That's not remotely what I'm saying. No, let me tell you what I would... But let me make the different argument, because you're doing this caricature thing of people

Starting point is 00:35:50 with private jets. No, no, I'm not. No, sorry. No, I get... That's literally what you said. No, no, no, no. Word for word, private jets. No, I...

Starting point is 00:35:57 Someone has to sell their second private jets. No, it's not... But you were talking about the top rate of... tax that's people earning like 60 grand a year no it's not a caricature i'm using that as an example of the reality got it and you accept it you know you accept it yourself it's a reality no no no no no no no no you said they are insulated you said they are insulated by their own success yes and exxed they're more but that's what money is for that's why we all want to make as much money as we can because it gives us the ability to protect ourselves and our families from the vicissitudes of life.

Starting point is 00:36:35 That's why we all want... Yes, but what a wealthy person would regard as one of the hardships of life is very, very different from what a working class person. That's why we all want to make more money because it protects us against those things. Yeah, but lots of very hardworking people can't make that money for reasons other other than there. I'm not criticizing people for making more or less money. What I'm saying is you're using the example of private jets, but what we're actually talking about when you talk about the top rate of taxes, people earning 60 grand a year.

Starting point is 00:37:05 There's a plumber. My plumber, I talked to, Mern's about, he was complaining to me about the top rate of tax, right? Working people, as you put it, are often the hardworking ones who start a small business or whatever are the ones that are paying this, and they're the ones that are being told they need to pay their fair share when they already are, as we talked about, they already pay 40 to 45% of their income in tax, whereas someone further down the economic ladder is paying 10 or 15 or zero, right?

Starting point is 00:37:36 So why is that fair? Yeah, but we can, well, look, we're getting into a slightly narrow debate, but we can have a debate about what the top rate of tax should be, at what point it would come in, what a, someone who is generally, generally rich would be. But the fundamental principle, to go back to my point, is working people have been asked to pay more to the extent it directly impacts their livelihoods, their day-to-day lives, in a way that you've conceded wealthy people who have been insulated from. And what I'm saying is, if we are going to have a solution to this issue, if we are going to have this dramatic surgery, if we are going to have to take the tough choices, then with all the implications of that, then some of the people who are going to need to be impacted by those tough choices.

Starting point is 00:38:28 Yeah, we've got to chase out the rich people. I'm going to need to be, not just because I'm, and I'm not just saying that because I'm some crazy mad socialist. No, no, that's what people want. I get it. But not just, but because coming back to the argument, you have to do any of this, the practical realities in democracy, you have to build a public consensus. I get it. And if you say the British people again, you're going to have to pay the guy with two or three private jets.

Starting point is 00:38:55 It's not me saying it. None of us plan our lives around insurance. We plan around whatever life actually throws at us. We had our second child this year, which quickly reorders your priorities. Let me tell you. Nobody sent a warning. That's exactly the type of situation where you'd want to use

Starting point is 00:39:10 policy genius. They're not an insurance company, they're a marketplace. PolicyGenius is a free service that compares life insurance quotes from America's top insurers side by side. Their licensed team handles the paperwork. No guesswork, just clarity on coverage, price and terms backed by thousands of five-star reviews on Google and trust pilot. With Policy Genius, you can find 20-year life insurance policy starting at just $276 a year for $1 million in coverage. Head to PolicyGenius.com slash trig to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com slash trig. It's not me saying it. I want as much, look, we just had the Dimitar Chalacka,

Starting point is 00:39:53 I think his surname is a former policeman in the Met talking about the impact of the cuts. And that really had its impact, including on crime and London today, which we're all dealing with. So I don't want public services to be cut. What I'm saying is the reality, what Francis is saying is the reality of where we are is we can't afford the lifestyle that we have at the moment. It doesn't mean it's fair that we can't afford it. It doesn't mean that it's right or moral or whatever. It just is what it is. But can I just say, I mean, I think, you know, this is perfectly illustrate the point.

Starting point is 00:40:25 The reality is we are both right. You are saying we can't carry on. We are going to have to cut. You are absolutely right. No, no, I'm not saying, hold on. I'm not saying we're going to have to cut. This is the different argument that I want to make, which is the only way out of this actually is to get growth in the economy, actually, ultimately, in the long run.

Starting point is 00:40:44 We're going to have to get the economy actually growing. It hasn't been growing. Yeah, but we are also going to have to reduce public spending. There are certainly, there's an... I mean, even I admit we're going to have to reduce public spending, so I'm sure you would contest that. What I'm saying is a lot of people like to present us cutting lots of stuff as the solution. It's not the solution.

Starting point is 00:41:05 It's a necessary... No, it's not a long-term solution. Absolutely. I would agree with that. What we have to do is get the economy growing. So when I talk about tax on business, for example, or tax on business and entrepreneurs and wealth creators and job creators, right, you can say, you know, we've got to make sure that people with the private jets don't have as many private jets.

Starting point is 00:41:27 But if they leave, like the founder of Revolut, or if they leave like this guy's just left, or other people, if they're not here to create the jobs, it doesn't matter what's morally right or wrong. We're not going to have the jobs. We're not going to have the growth. If you tax business, we know this running a small business for trigonometry, right? Yeah, I know.

Starting point is 00:41:43 We would employ more people than we employ today if the rules were not what they are. I don't disagree with that. But the broader point I'm making is I think you're absolutely right about that. But the reality is you were talking before about the need for radical surgery. Now, whatever policy solution that is, I think you're absolutely right about that. But I'm equally right when I say it doesn't matter what form of surgery you want. you will not be able to have that surgery without the consent of the patient. I agree.

Starting point is 00:42:13 And to do that, that is very difficult against a backdrop of an electorate that has quarter of a century of a proper, real, meaningful. But that's what people mean by courage from politicians, though, isn't it? What they mean is... But that's the point. Yeah, but that's the easy thing. It's very easy to say, we need courage from politicians. But I was about to explain what... Yes, sorry, go. It's for somebody to stand up and have this decision.

Starting point is 00:42:39 that we're having, but in the political space, and say, we are going broke. We're going broke. And if we don't do this now, three years from now, or two years from now, or six months from now, or five years from now, we don't know. But we are going to have a situation where the government that you elected us is no longer going to be the people in charge. It's going to be the people who lend us the money, and they're going to come in, and they're going to force us to cut public services by 30%.

Starting point is 00:43:06 If you don't want that, we have to do this. this now. That's what people mean by courage, isn't it? Yeah, no, absolutely. And obviously, I think we would, you know, the easiest model, the model people would point to would be would obviously be Margaret Thatcher and the way she transformed

Starting point is 00:43:23 the political consensus. But, I mean, she had the advantage, which maybe is an advantage that Andy Burnham might have, which she obviously had a completely fractured and divided opposition that, and obviously also what turned out to be the get out of jail free card of the popular boost

Starting point is 00:43:38 that she got from the Falklands War that gave her the political space. And if it hadn't been for the Falklands War, you know, British would have been very different. And our perception to Margaret Thatcher would have been very, would have been very, very different. But to again, take the conversation right back to the beginning, that's kind of what I'm saying in relation to Andy Burnham. That's kind of what Andy Burnham's strategy is. Andy Burnham knows he can't turn around tomorrow as someone who's come in without a mandate and say, I'm going to introduce this radical surgery.

Starting point is 00:44:08 I'm going to do all these things, none of which you actually voted for when you voted Labor. I'm going to do all these things. I know it's hard, but tough, and I'm showing you, I'm going to be very brave. And by the way, I've got two and a half a spot just under three years to introduce it. His strategy is, as I said, going back to the original point, that's exactly the strategy is pursuing. Okay, do this, do not the easy stuff, but the slightly more popular stuff, deal with the politics, win a majority, give myself five years, myself a working majority and then I'll start to take the tough decisions. Now that's the thinking and I think in terms of our analysis of Andy Burnham and his government, it's only

Starting point is 00:44:50 when he gets that personal mandate that we will, and all majority, he may not get one at all, you know, events could aspire against him. But the reality is in terms of knowing what Andy Burnham is and what he would be like as a prime minister, I think that's the only point we'll get a, we'll get a sort of a proper and genuine assessment. It's a fair point. I mean, the other issue that people consistently talking about and are very, very frustrated about, and understandably so, is levels of immigration into this country, which is one issue, and illegal immigration on the other. And it really upsets people. And quite rightly so, because they look at people coming to this country illegally,

Starting point is 00:45:30 and they think to themselves, well, this has been happening now for years. Why has nothing been done to stop it? And by the way, it's not a labour problem, the Conservatives did it as well. And people feel that they are in a country which is becoming ever more lawless. And I have sympathy with that point of view. Yeah, but now, obviously, we're moving into,

Starting point is 00:45:52 you know, this is a good example of the nature of the debate. I mean, firstly, you're absolutely right. Politicians of all persuasions have failed to get to grips with the issue. I would divide this into two stages. There was a significant period during the 90s. I'd say broadly during the 90s, turn of the new millennium, where there was an arrogant,

Starting point is 00:46:20 it goes back to what I was saying about the view of politicians to what I broadly called working people. There was an arrogant presumption that there was a consensus that immigration was none of the good. I mean, literally you've been one of the, you know, you've both been, sort of pioneering, if you like, in terms of your analysis of this problem. And I've held my hand up and said, and I was one of those people.

Starting point is 00:46:42 Now, I would say in the defence of people like me, it's because I grew up in the 70s and 80s where there was very, very significant racism and a very still prevailing backlash against migrant communities that was toxic. And we were trying to push back on that. But it is quite clear that in our desire to do that, you know, the road to hell be a public good intentions, we completely lost contact with where the British people were, and as I say, working people were in relation to that.

Starting point is 00:47:15 So that's the reality. But I think more recently, because again, it comes back to this idea of easy solutions, the simple political reality is Rishi Sunak knew just how top. the immigration issue issue was. People like Pretty Patel, not somebody I think who you would call, you know, a sort of particularly liberal shrinking violence issues, all so new. People across the political spectrum knew, but they were faced in their eyes with a trade-off, which was, yeah, we can curtail immigration, but that will have a direct economic impact. And, you know, this idea, again, this lazy characterization, oh, well, they're all just cowards and traitors and whatever.

Starting point is 00:48:09 It wasn't that. They made a, they made a political calculation. And I think, obviously, you know, it's quite clear, certainly in political terms, they made the wrong calculation. But I think there is another issue. And it's, I think it's interesting that we've gone from the broader, you know, the broader discussion about sort of politics in general to the immigration issue, which again comes back to what you were talking about. There are going to be a lot of hard decisions that need to be taken. And one of the problems we've got with the current debate is immigration is seen as the magic bullet. So if you speak to anybody in the right, you know, how are you going to pay for this?

Starting point is 00:48:45 How are you going to pay for that? So if you look at, and we might come on to reform specifically, but you look at any policy announcement from reform, for example, every single policy announcement in every single policy area is run through the prism of immigration. This is how we would, this is how we would find the money for defence. We wouldn't be spending it on the migrants. This is how we'd find the money to properly fund welfare and give it to needy people. We won't be, we won't be giving any of it to the migrants.

Starting point is 00:49:13 And aside from the other issues, the nature of the immigration debate and a certain toxicity around the debate, I think this is one of the most dangerous elements. It is like I said, it is now seen as the new get out of jail free car. deal with immigration, all of our problems are solved. And that's just not the reality. And again, you know, I'm playing back to what you were playing to me. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Starting point is 00:49:44 Again, there is a lot of discontent about immigration. And a significant part of it is the reality of people's lives, but also a significant part of it is they are constantly being told this is the magic wand. We deal with immigration, all your problems are solved. And as we all know, that's not the reality. Well, look, there are certainly people saying that, particularly online, where it seems to be that, you know,

Starting point is 00:50:10 we'll get rid of everybody who's got a melanin level over this amount, and we're going to be living in an Enid Blight and Wonderland, which is palpably false, and we all know that. But you have to have a lot of empathy for the electorate, who's effectively since about the last 15, maybe even more years have voted time and time and time again that they wanted immigration lowered. What was a Brexit vote if not about immigration? And consistently, they were gaslit.

Starting point is 00:50:43 Let's be honest, Dan, they were gaslit. They were told that immigration was going to come down. Not only did it not come down, it was raised. No, but I would say it was worse than that. I mean, you said they were gaslit. I mean, there was a point before that, before they were gaslit. That was at a second stage in the process when they were being told, don't worry, were going to get immigration down. Before that, they were being told if you may not raise the

Starting point is 00:51:00 issue. You're a racist. You're a bigger. You're a big and a racist. And, you know, and like I said, all those of us to, you know, at the time I was on the liberal left, have to hold our hands up for that. And, you know, we were all, you know, we were all part of that. But the point is, you're absolutely right about, you know, that is not where we are with the debate now. I don't know a senior politician in this country who, if you sit down and speak privately, would not say, we've got a real problem with immigration. It's a genuine problem. People are, obviously, we appreciate people are very concerned about it

Starting point is 00:51:39 and they're right to be very concerned about it. Now, maybe some agree, you know, a couple of, maybe Zach Pallanski might say that. Maybe Ed Davy may argue a little bit, but I'm not sure he would. But I don't know of any senior politician. The issue in terms of immigration is it's like everything else.

Starting point is 00:51:55 There is not an easy solution to this problem. What about illegal? immigration because mass immigration I was going to come on to that I was specifically going to come on to that there is a there is a solution to mass migration but then there is a cost and as I said you know we see it there is a problem with getting rich people into the country but let's just look at the issue of of illegal immigration the Tories obviously were aware the Tories party that traditionally has been very very hard line on immigration

Starting point is 00:52:27 forget Labor from this for the moment Tories understood, firstly that there was a problem. Secondly, their identification of the problem aligned themselves with their base and their natural support. And they particularly understood there was a major problem with small boats. If they didn't solve it, they would be kicked out of office. So in all of the areas, both historical, philosophical, narrow political interest, the previous Tory government understood they had to do something to get to grip with small boats. And they failed.

Starting point is 00:52:57 Now, the prevailing narrative from their political opponents, Labor did this in opposition. Reform obviously continued to do that, was they were either completely, completely bumbling incompetence, or be they were traitorous cowards who secretly wanted to undermine Britain's way of life. Both of those are frankly just not true. I spoke regularly to senior people within the Rishi Sunat government and the governments proceeded. They spent every waking hour trying to cobble together some sort of solution. Eventually, obviously, they came up with the Rwanda plan, which, I mean, I was criticized for it at the time, which I actually defended and supported, and some iteration of the Randa plan, I think, is probably what is required.

Starting point is 00:53:49 But the reality is, again, for reasons we all know, the Rwanda plan, the Rwanda plan didn't work. So, but again, when you've got people like, I say, I think Priddy Patel was the person who sort of helped negotiate the plan, when you've got people like that, even Suella, I mean, you know, Suella Bravman blames everyone else, even when you got people like Suella Bravon, who was Home Secretary, who couldn't engineer through government.

Starting point is 00:54:17 She, again, now goes for the, they were all traitors. sort of line. When you've got people like that who can't find a solution, and I know these people and these people who were desperate to find it, and who are not all bumbling idiots, but are actually quite intelligent, serious, sensible people, that says to me, this is not the simple, this is not an easily solved, soluble problem. And again, it comes back to it. But again, as I was saying, at the moment do the British people want to hear that? At the moment, do the British people want to hear that? Or are they attracted to, you know, I don't know what the latest proposal is?

Starting point is 00:54:57 Let's send in the Navy and dump them on and invade France and dump them back on the beach. The people who watch this show have generally done more thinking about how governments operate the most. But there's a difference between understanding the problem and having actually built insulation against it. That's the world, Mikhail Thorup operates in. He's been living as an expat for over 25 years. more than 110 countries and calling nine of them home. He founded expat money nearly a decade ago to help others do the same. When he helped someone build an international plan B,

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Starting point is 00:56:02 how a foreign residency functions as genuine political insurance, which countries actually make sense depending on what you're trying to protect, and what it realistically costs. Go to expatmoney.com slash trigger or click the link in the description of this episode to download the report. There's no charge, no catch. That's expatmoney.com slash trigger. Why can't we do what Australia did, which is effectively turn the boat around, make sure it has enough fuel to get back to the coast? Because that was, because the reality is, if you look at it, there wasn't attempt at a turn back policy, but that was limited in success. What actually worked for the Australians was taking the asylum seekers and basically dump

Starting point is 00:56:48 pinnomer desert island off the coast of Australia. That was what actually had the maximum deterrent effect. So why can't we do that? Because we can't, firstly, we haven't got a handy island. You could put them in middle for it. Well, that's what we're doing at the moment. By all means. That's what we're doing at the moment.

Starting point is 00:57:08 Yeah, I mean. Oh, come on, man, there's enough, like, we can find somewhere to put asylum circuits. Well, no, we can't. And that's the problem. Come on. Okay, where? Rwanda for a start. Right? That's the thing.

Starting point is 00:57:19 We got a Rwanda, the government negotiated a Rwanda scheme. The scheme just wasn't, the government wasn't able to make it operational in the sort of number. How many people got returned via the Rwanda scheme? Yeah, but that's because everyone was screaming about how it's, you know, it's against their human rights and all this other nonsense, right? But I think if I was an ordinary person watching this conversation, I would be tearing my hair out because it's, Sort of like there's literally, there's nothing we can do about anything because it's just so complicated and whatever.

Starting point is 00:57:53 Me, in the meantime, you look over the United States, they've deported three million people in the last two years, I think, or under the Trump presidency. They've closed the border effectively. I know it's a different situation because it's a land border. But you can get things done if you have the political world to death. And what is where, what is Donald Trump's current approval rating and what? How are the Republicans? His current approval rating is low, but it's because of the right. It's not low. It's subterranean.

Starting point is 00:58:17 It's because of their run war. And his... It's because of their run war. And the rising gas prices. No, no, no. There are a wide variety of... wide variety of reasons why Donald Trump is unpopular. But one of the key reasons why Donald Trump is unpopular

Starting point is 00:58:35 is he has embraced a populist. There are easy solutions, form of governance. And he has said, there is... He has basically said, don't worry. I've got a simple solution to all this, which was superficially popular, and now what he's finding out is that model of governance doesn't work because the American people are withdrawing consent for his model of governance. You're talking about, I mean, there is also the other technical point, which is, you know,

Starting point is 00:59:04 in the United States, they share a land border with their main route to migration, so it's much easier to police. That's the practical reality. But I mean, are you contesting, I mean, are you putting forward the argument that there is actually an easy solution, just politicians have been too stupid or too, too woke to pursue it? No. Even though it was in that, even though it would have been in their direct, you know, narrow political interests, so to do. No, I think, I think that there's probably a kind of ideological consensus which puts the actually simple. I didn't say easy, but simple.

Starting point is 00:59:44 There's a big difference between simple and easy. which puts the simple solutions beyond their sort of ideological reach. I mean, when we had Soella on to talk about this, the thing she said, and I was like, well, why can't we leave the ECHR? And I was like, well, the consensus among my colleagues was that would put us in the same boat as Belarus. And so we would just become this nasty country. That's also actually why we've not been able to take action soon enough on legal migration. I didn't have collective agreement.

Starting point is 01:00:12 I didn't have the support of the Prime Minister. I apologize if I'm asking stupid questions. What is the rationale for your cabinet colleagues to not want to do this? I don't understand. Well, their argument is that it's far too radical. It would put us in the same category as Russia and Belarus, who have left the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, and it would be damaging to our international reputation.

Starting point is 01:00:43 We could replace the ECHR with our own Bill of Russia. Democrats democratically reflective of those people's views. I actually don't disagree with that. And I've said that I think the idea that it is beyond the wit of us to introduce our own, you know, our own constitutional protections. But whatever way you look at it, whatever constitutional protections you put in place. And I think, you know, in a separate context,

Starting point is 01:01:11 you know, in a separate context, people are running around at the moment worrying about, you know, civil liberties, what's, what these, this, you know, everyone's being locked up for whatever they, they tweet. So if you want to strip away all the sort of broader, sort of super governmental protections and just simply say, I'll just leave it up to the politicians, we can trust them. I'm not prepared to do that with any politician. So the idea, I would just strip away all the human rights. Now, I, I, I think, and replaced with a British. And we can, and we could do. But if you want to do that, one thing's for certain. If you're talking about putting in place and going back on however many centuries of British history

Starting point is 01:01:48 and putting in place a, putting in place a formally codified constitution, that is not something you're going to be able to do in a week. No, no, of course. You are looking at probably a, you know, a decades long process there. Yeah, I wasn't talking about full constitution, but if you had a British bill of rights that was specifically addressing the border situation.

Starting point is 01:02:12 Yeah, but if you're looking at, looking at drafting a bill of rights, which obviously is, you know, to all intents and purposes a codified constitution, that would be one of the most fundamental changes in British society in British history. That will take, that will have to be a serious exercise that will have to be done over a period of time. But this is like Nick Clegg saying 15 years ago, we can't build nuclear power stations because it takes 15 years. And now we're 15 later. No, it's much, much easy to build a nuclear power station that it is to put in place a constitution that replaces, as I say, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of years of British history and ensures that

Starting point is 01:02:47 we all have the appropriate protections of citizens that we require. Don't you think, Dan, let's just be honest here. I'm being completely honest throughout the whole thing. No, no, no, no, no. But there's something else, right? You put forward this idea of politicians, you know, not one to do it because they're too woke or whatever else, and I can't remember the other option. Isn't the reality

Starting point is 01:03:07 Too stupid? Isn't there's a third option here which is we don't have politicians with the required backbone to actually get these things done. And I'll tell you why because the moment there is the slightest pushback they capitulate.

Starting point is 01:03:23 And isn't good leadership actually taking the decisions facing down the party and going, look, this needs to happen, this needs to get done. And otherwise the consequences are simply too awful to contemplate, which is where we are as a country.

Starting point is 01:03:42 No, I mean, if you generally want to be honest, no. And to be honest, what you've done is you've just articulated what is a very, very cloud-pleasing trope, which is frequently peddled. The only solution is the politicians don't have backbone. I mean, if you want to say that, that's not true. I mean, our senior politicians, all of them, them have considerable backbone, which is why they are senior politicians. They put themselves forward in the public eye. They put themselves up for election. As we know in the current

Starting point is 01:04:13 environment, they do so at significant personal cost, indeed, genuine physical risk. So this sort of, oh, they're all just a bunch of cowards. You know, no. I mean, you said you want to be honest. Let's be honest about it. No, that's not. Well, why isn't it, though, I don't see any of them then going up and tackling the French about their part? to play in illegal immigration. Well, what do you want them to do to the French? Well, that's, we can't broadcast that, but let's keep it within the realms of the socially acceptable.

Starting point is 01:04:44 Well, saying to them that this situation is unsustainable, and we can't do this, and if you were not going to play your part, then there are, there are going to be consequences to pay. If you were a French politician and a British politician came to you and said, look, this is, look old chap this is a little bit off you know this is this is not a sustainable position for us you need to keep all those all those nasty illegal immigrants that we that we don't want these illegal immigrants that we think are coming over here taking our jobs and raping our women

Starting point is 01:05:20 you've got to stop you've got to deploy huge resources amongst your domestic security services up the entire french coast to prevent them leaving your country and coming to a house if the situation was reversed, what would our answer be? Who is the politician who would say, here is my policy, here is my policy agenda. My policy agenda is to kick all these Nazi illegal Americans in the UK and stopping them from leaving. Now we had this situation, I know where reform said

Starting point is 01:05:51 they've got this deal with, who is it? Barbella. Yeah, Baudela. And we already see this. I mean, I did think at the time, hang the second, if you're running on a populist program, I'm not entirely sure. Wait, so you're saying the French are doing this,

Starting point is 01:06:03 deliberately? Of course they're doing it deliberately. Well, that is, to me, if that is... You don't think they are? Of course I think they are. But I've never heard someone admit it publicly. So if we know they're doing this deliberately, that would necessitate a reaction from our government. And what do you think their reaction should be? I don't know. Nuclear weapons, as far as I'm concerned. If you want to nuke Paris, not Paris, Calais. I don't think that, as I say, I'm kidding. I don't think, I know. But what... Just, let me just, let me just, let me... Let's just, look, we talk about these things. This is why this country is so fucked,

Starting point is 01:06:38 because we say all these outrageous things as if they're normal. You're saying that France is deliberately sending tens of thousands of illegal immigrants into our country, or letting them in. I'm letting them in, yeah. Allowing them to pass through France and come into our country, facilitating what some people might call an invasion. Now, that's a very controversial word. I'm not saying it's an invasion.

Starting point is 01:06:58 Some people might call it that, whatever. in any other time in human history, if the country that was on your border was sending tens of thousands of men into your country without your consent, that would be Kazas Belai and the cause for war. Fine. So as I say, what is your practical solution? I don't know. You think we should go to war with France? Well, as a matter of general principle, yes. But I don't know, I'm not an expert in the different levers we have to influence. France. But I imagine if we really were prepared to take this issue seriously, there would be things that we could do. But we know, but this is the point. You know, we, as again a separate argument, we took a decision as a country to sort of walk away from some of those levers and to sort of, you know, proudly isolate ourselves from our former European partners when we decided to offer for Brexit. So a lot of the levers we had at our disposal have been removed. But as I said, the reality is, I've, you know, genuinely, I've said to you what, you know, again, I completely understand.

Starting point is 01:08:13 You've used very emotive language there, but I said, fine, but what is that your practical solution to this issue? And again, neither of you have actually been out of your practical solution. Well, that's because I don't have the expertise. And I'm not. But we might. No, but what I'm saying is lots of people who do have a great deal of expertise have looked at this. Have they threatened them with bans on important certain French goods, for example? And then the French would introduce reciprocal bans.

Starting point is 01:08:38 That's absolutely fine. It's not for the... Have we threatened? It's not for the workers. It's not for the workers that work in those industries. Have we threatened to turn the boats around and dump them on the French beaches back? Well, that's currently what reforming... But has our government threatened?

Starting point is 01:08:52 No, because... Well, that's what I would do. And I would escalate to the point where they started to take the seriously. But as the various sort of naval experts said at the time, when reform proposed this policy, that is not a practical, that is not a practical solution because we don't have the practical means to sort of pick them up and then deposit them. Well, what do we mean? We don't have boats. Well, no. I mean, firstly, no.

Starting point is 01:09:19 We don't have boats, as we saw in the situation with the war with Iran. It took it. How long did it take us? It took us best part of a month to set a single vessel. Yeah, but you're talking about a warship. I'm talking about small boats that can tow another small boat back to the French waterline. But as I said, you're then talking about invading French territory and assuming that the French won't react. Wait, so they're going to send tens of thousands of people into our country. And if we, if we tow a boat back to them, they're going to start shooting at us. That's what you're saying. And it's not an invasion. Well, it's not an invasion.

Starting point is 01:09:59 If they send tens of thousands of people here, you can't say it's an invasion. If we drop one of these people back in France, that's an invasion. Well, if you, if you evoke what it's being called, if you're talking about mobilizing, if you're talking about the government, you know, the French Navy are not landing on the shores of Dover. If what you're talking about is the Royal Navy landing, you're not actually on the... No, no, no. We tow the boat back to the...

Starting point is 01:10:28 Who tows the boat back? The Royal Navy. To the line from which the boat is effectively directed to go back to France. Right, and then the boat turns round. Then we tow it back. Yeah. And we just keep telling them back. Over and over until they stop coming.

Starting point is 01:10:43 But why will they stop coming? Because we keep towing them back and we're not allowing them into Britain. We're not giving them hotels to live in. We're not giving them camps to live in. We're not giving them phones, dental services, food, etc. But how do you physically... I'm sorry, how do you feel... physically turn the boat back.

Starting point is 01:10:57 Exactly the way the Australians did. And how did they do? I think when we had Tony Abba on, I don't remember all the details, but what he explained... My understanding... You give them unscuttable... What's the word? Basically, you give them rafts

Starting point is 01:11:11 so they can't scuttle, so the people's models can't sing them. My understanding was that the Australian system, which, as I said, wasn't seen as being essentially practical, was that they actually built big sort of lifeboats, dumped them in and sent back. But as I said,

Starting point is 01:11:33 they did do that. They did do that and they tried that. But what they found was that wasn't actually having a significant impact on the traffic because obviously that was an expensive and complex operation to build weird lifeboat systems and send them back. So what the, what, as I said, what the Australians eventually did was they found an offshoring solution.

Starting point is 01:11:59 If you want a practical solution to this, then the practical solution is an off, is, is, in my humble view, is an offshoring solution rather than the invasion of France, or these rather sort of complex naval operations given we don't really have a Navy in the moment. The problem is, Dan, and I'm telling you, as the average person who's going to be listening to this, the sound you're hearing is a urine boiling because they will look at problems within our country which have eminently pretty obvious solutions

Starting point is 01:12:40 and they're not being done. They're not being done. Sorry, so you've just made the great job. I was agreeing with you. You've just done exactly what I said. You just said, oh yeah, there are very obvious solutions. It's enforcing. We started, no, no, come on.

Starting point is 01:12:54 We started off this conversation with it with a degree of consensus that one of the problems we had was that there are lots of very, very difficult problems that are going to require very, very hard and difficult solutions. You've now, because we've got onto the subject of immigration, switched back into with respect, very lazy, oh, there are simple solutions to this and that's why people are boiling. You're right, people are boiling. people are boiling because they have identified a problem. They have asked their politicians to solve that problem and their politicians have failed to do so. That's why they're boiling. They are not going to be deboiled with respect by people going around

Starting point is 01:13:37 falsely telling them. There are easy solutions out there that are simply not being simple solutions that are out there that are simply not being implemented because their politicians don't have backbone. Because I think that the massive the illegal immigration thing. To me, that is eminently solvable.

Starting point is 01:13:56 I know, you keep repeating that. Yeah. Because... I think that's point is how are this... And look, I'll give you an example about... I'll give you an example. So, they did not want to address this for a long time. I wish I completely agree with. They did not want to address this.

Starting point is 01:14:16 Yeah. So the fact that they did not want to address it, for me, shows a complete lack of backbone, that they pretended this problem didn't exist. And invariably in life, when you pretend a problem doesn't exist, the problem will only get worse. Yeah, and as I, you know, I think I was completely open about, as I said, there are various stages in this debate. And at the beginning, not, again, it wasn't that the problem wasn't addressed because of a lack of backbone, the problem wasn't addressed because of the various politicians didn't want to get into a situation where they were being seen to be bigoted towards migrants in this country.

Starting point is 01:14:50 But that is, I'm sorry, Dan, that is a lack of backbone. If you're concerned when you get into politics, is people. Not wanting to be bigoted is a lack of back. False, not wanting. Caving to people's perception that is false instead of doing the right thing for your country, is a lack of backbone.

Starting point is 01:15:07 No, no, no, but the point is, as I said, in my view, the attempt not to help fuel bigotry is not something I would characterize as a lack of backbone. I think where you, and I've acknowledged this, but it is quite clear that there was a moment, you can talk around about Brexit, maybe even before Brexit, where politicians recognised actually,

Starting point is 01:15:36 firstly, there were genuine, you know, really genuine concerns by large numbers of people who couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be characterised as bigoted, even though some people on the liberal left still attempted to do so. And there was a recognition that this was a genuine problem that had to be addressed. So we can have a debate. If what you're saying is, look, if you're changing your argument and you're saying,

Starting point is 01:16:00 look, the lack of backbone was amongst politicians who failed to initially identify the problem. No, not that they failed to identify. They failed to be honest. That's the lack of backbone. Or fine, or failed to be honest about the problem. I wouldn't characterize it that. But fine, that's, that's a, that's a fair point. But that's very, very different from the other,

Starting point is 01:16:22 the argument that you're going forward now is, given, as I say, there's a context now that we all understand that all the politicians do recognize there's a problem, difference between that and saying, oh yeah, there's a very simple, in your words, there's a very simple solution, and they're not easy, they're not pushing this button marked simple solution to the small boat crisis

Starting point is 01:16:42 because they haven't got a backbone. If it was a simple solution, it would not require any backbone. They'd just press the button and they would reap the plaudits from a grateful electorate and ride off to their 200 strong majority. Let me try it a different way. We obviously have seen in the last few days, in the last couple of weeks, actually, this group in Portsmouth, I think. A group of men, I don't really know much.

Starting point is 01:17:10 I don't think anyone really knows much about them. We know a bit about them, but yeah. Well, maybe you can tell us about them in a second, but a group of men who are protesting against allowing illegal migrants who've just arrived from being driven into the country from the coast. And it's a few hundred, a few hundred people there. If over the course of the next week it went from a few hundred people to a thousand people to 10,000 people to 100,000 people to a million people,

Starting point is 01:17:42 Do you think the politicians might move closer towards a solution? No, because it doesn't solve any of the, solve any of the fundamentals. But the process you described won't happen because the vast majority of the British people, whilst they have the concerns that we've been talking about, I think we've been talking about, you know, boiling anger over this issue. You have to separate them and you have to separate their, legitimate concerns from the actions and activities and individuals that we've seen parading around in their sort of their sort of yeah it's not it's not a side that anyone particularly wants to see

Starting point is 01:18:21 i was it was a hypothetical from me making the point that i think uh i don't agree with you i think if you had a million people expressing outright solidarity with people who are preventing illegal migrants from being allowed into the country you will see from government that they find the solution pretty quickly what you're saying do you Do you genuinely believe that senior politicians such as Andy Berman, such as Shibhanem, Mahmood, such as Kemi Badnock, Chris Phil, do you genuinely think they do not understand the level of public concern there is about this, it seems? No, I don't think they don't understand the level of public concern, but I think politicians,

Starting point is 01:19:07 and we've seen this very clearly, work on a very short time window of. prioritization and they care about what's in the news this evening. Well, let me finish the point. You've asked the question, let me finish the point. So if they are pressured into ranking this issue higher than it already is on the daily basis, I don't think for Andy Burnham, the small boats are the number one priority right now. And he said to yourself, his number one priority is to get himself to a position where he can call an early election and get a working majority at that election.

Starting point is 01:19:39 To deal with fundamentally Caesar, which small boats is... No, you said he has to shore up his left flank, which is not people who care about the small boats. Let's be objective. In fact, many of those people are actually, you know, they think anyone who's concerned about small boats is a massive racist. So it's not on their priority list at the very top. They have other priorities. They have the cost of living, which is a massive issue in this country. And is also the public priority.

Starting point is 01:20:05 Right. Well, of course. Yeah, yeah. I agree. So they have that. They have their own electoral concerns, et cetera. My point about the hypothetical of a million people being out there preventing illegal immigrants from being allowed into the country is that would immediately push it further up the priority list. There's no question about that.

Starting point is 01:20:21 And he would push it to number one. And I suspect at that point, many of the reasonably sounding and, you know, sensible and mature objections you've been making would evaporate immediately because once something becomes a priority, people get, we've seen this in our own lives. And this is obviously a not a like-for-like comparison remotely. But there's so many times when we've sat around the table with our team and gone, we really need to do this X, Y, whatever thing. And we can't do it. We just can't do it. But then when we get to the point where we're like, it has to be done.

Starting point is 01:20:55 Everybody gets together and we find a solution of something. Okay. I mean, there's two things. Firstly, again, you're going back to your central thesis, which is there is a solution. You didn't say it was simple, but there is a solution. and all that is preventing the solution being found is a lack of political will. But on the specific point you made, you're also wrong.

Starting point is 01:21:17 First, on two levels. Firstly, you're not going to see a large number of people. There's a hypothetical. I'm not saying it's going to happen. It's a hypothetical. No, but there is an important point here because I just want to make a broader point because it's an issue I've been discussing a lot the last 24, 48 hours. And you can see it.

Starting point is 01:21:36 you can see on the right at the moment, particularly within reform, there is a fracture over how to deal with this protest, how to deal with these guys specifically. And reform started off with a very, in my view, correct position, but it was a very clear position. Nigel Farage said they were disgusting. Robert Generic said the police should do their worse on them. That was the line within reform. I did say this would happen. Within 24 hours, it changed because Restore came out and very clearly backed the guys in Balaclavas and Black,

Starting point is 01:22:14 and at that point, Restore, reform panicked and began to change their position. But for people on the right debating this and people who do seek to reflect and align themselves with public concern about this issue, to go back specifically if the right

Starting point is 01:22:38 does align themselves with guys who are going out in the streets with balaclavas with you know black gar parading around militaristically attacking police officers vandalising property causing major

Starting point is 01:22:56 disruption boxing lifeboat workers fine, but that will have the opposite effect to the one that you were talking about. That will not increase pressure on mainstream politicians to deal with this issue. What that will do is enable mainstream politicians to take these guys, the leader of this group is a man who was jailed for two years for attempting to kidnap someone at knife point in a row over £10,000 of drugs.

Starting point is 01:23:26 It will enable them to take them, take this group, and basically say, see, this is what these guys are really like, this is what people who align themselves with this debate are really like, and start to roll the debate back. And as I said, you know, I wasn't, you know, I generally meant it. It is very, very, I agree with a lot of what you've been saying on this and a big part of what I try to do, certainly when I'm writing in social media, is to try and get people on the left to understand, look,

Starting point is 01:24:01 this is a very serious issue. People have legitimate concerns. You have to address it. You have to take the lead in addressing it. You can't leave it, leave it to, you know, people on the right. And you certainly can't leave it to people in Balaclavas. The practical political reality that is, though, if the right tries to align themselves with these guys

Starting point is 01:24:21 and doesn't very, very clearly distance itself from these guys, then people on the left are going to be rubbing their hands. That's the practical political reality. Because my concern is, Dan, and I think why my frustration was showing, is because I think we're in a very precarious position, this country. It's in a very precarious position economically, but it's in a very precarious position culturally and societally. And the fact that you have these guys in Portsmouth and the fact that there seems to be gaining some traction and some sympathy from the general public is worrying because what it's saying is, Where's the evidence they're getting sympathy from those guys specifically are getting sympathy from the general. I was on the train coming, this is anecdotal, of course, I was on the train coming into London this morning.

Starting point is 01:25:11 A young guy came and sat opposite me, very respectable works in the city, you know, girlfriend, all that. And, you know, he was asked me what I think about. I said, look, it's not a pretty side. It's not something I'm in favor of happening. But it shows you the failure of the entire political system to deal with this issue. And he was like, yeah, I totally understand what they're coming from. And there's plenty of people. Again, it's anecdotal that I've spoken to as well,

Starting point is 01:25:38 who will come up and have a conversation about it. My point is this. That is a very bad symptom, society, because what that is saying is we do not have trust in the powers that be. Yeah, but I think that the reality is, I don't think we needed guys in balaclavas wandering around Dover But take us that. I mean, you guys have been literally banging on about this for years,

Starting point is 01:26:03 and you've been absolutely right. You've been proven to be absolutely right. The fractures within British society around the issues relating to immigration are very, very real. But the question is, and I think this is, again, something that people on the right need to start to reflect on, is our aspiration to try and deal with and to directly deal with, and address those fractures or is it to attempt to widen them. The reality is there is no solution to any of the problems that we have in society that are solved by mass vigilantes roaming our streets.

Starting point is 01:26:42 And let me just say another thing. If we were having this conversation in a different context, and we have all had conversations in this context, in relation to the activities of environmental protesters, anti-capitalist protesters, pro-Palestinian protesters, you and I and the rest of us would not be sitting here saying, yeah, okay, I'm not agreeing with it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not agreeing with it, but you know what, it is a product of the fact that they're not being listened to,

Starting point is 01:27:11 and it's a product of public concern about these issues. We wouldn't. We would condemn them up unequivocally, and that needs to be done with these guys. These are not patriots. They're not heroes. They're not actually really, you know, doing it, because, you know, they're enraged by the nature of immigration,

Starting point is 01:27:32 although I'm sure they're all to a manner, you know, anti-immigration to varying relatively extreme degrees. These guys are putting on balaclavas and dressing up in black and marching around pretending to be soldiers because they get off on it. They enjoy it. They enjoy it. They enjoy being macho. They enjoy the whole thing. They enjoy the publicity that goes around it. These are not in any way representative of mainstream opinion on this issue.

Starting point is 01:28:04 I agree, but my point is something else, Dan. My point is when public perception feels that government and these institutions are not taking a problem seriously, what that does is it creates a vacuum. And when there is a vacuum, it will naturally be filled. It's, for instance, the same with the grooming gangs. We didn't want to talk about the grooming gangs. Anybody who spoke about it, open and honesty was immediately described

Starting point is 01:28:33 an Islamophobia, racist, a white supremacist. And then we shut it down. And then what happened, then other people came in to talk about it and people who, a lot of people felt were nefarious and had bad intentions, but that is the inevitable consequence of not dealing with an issue.

Starting point is 01:28:48 That's fine. I completely agree with you on the grooming gang. Let me give you another example. Let me give you another example. Let's take the pro-Palestinians. demonstrations, right, which have intimidated, obviously, significant sections of the Jewish community and actually intimidate me. And I'm not a member of the Jewish community. They've acted illegally, they've broken the law, etc. But they are articulating whether we like it or not,

Starting point is 01:29:18 a position that is now shared by an increasing majority of the people. So there was a poll out this morning in relation to Andy Burnham's decision to introduce imposed sanctions. on the settlements. 60% of the British people supported it, I think, 14% opposed. Right? There is, and I say this as someone who has been a longstanding support of Israel, public support for Israel, and the activity of Israel post the appalling terror attacks has collapsed. And there is now an increasing clamour amongst mainstream public opinion for the government to act. Now, do you think that justifies the activity of the pro-Palestinian protesters who are intimidating members of the Jewish community.

Starting point is 01:29:57 No. Well, it depends what you mean. No, but that's the point. No, no, no, let me just finish. That's it. That's the difference. You just said no. But I, you didn't say.

Starting point is 01:30:06 But there's two of us here. France said no. But hang on. You do need to think about. Well, let me say. When Soella called for the marches to be banned, I disagree with that. People have a right to protest. What they don't have a right is to break the law.

Starting point is 01:30:19 And when they break the law, they should be treated. Right. That's fine. But that's an entirely principal position, but you've got a different position. But you've got a different position. But you brought up. up the climate change protesters, right? I've been, I've went and documented Extinction Rebellion protests myself. I support their right to participate in those protests. I don't support their

Starting point is 01:30:37 right to block ambulances from getting to the hospital. I don't support that. So when this is the same with these guys. If they're breaking the law, they should be, then those of them that are breaking the law should be taken away by the police and prosecuted for the laws that they're breaking. If they're protesting non-violently, if they're obeying the law, they have every right to do so, and they should be allowed to do so. Do I like the look of hundreds of men and black clad marching up and down in Balochlavus? I do not. But if they're not breaking the law, they're entitled to do that, don't you think? No, absolutely. But no one's disputing their right to peacefully protest, and frankly, in my view, they can wear what they like. But the point is,

Starting point is 01:31:17 what I'm pointing out is the difference in terms of how the argument is, the argument is But I'm entirely consistent in my argument. But with respect, you've got a, you're adopting a different point of view, which a lot of people is, which is you're not automatically saying, you say that your instinctive reaction is to support the people's right to protest. Yeah, of course. In all cases. But do you support those?

Starting point is 01:31:41 But do you support the marches that we've seen? Like, you support the marches that we've seen. I don't support them. You haven't called for the, you haven't said, you haven't said, I don't believe they should be banned. You haven't said they should be banned. No, I don't believe it should be banned. said that they should be banned down. And what you said is when you said intimidating, what I thought

Starting point is 01:31:57 you meant was that you were holding up placards supporting Hamas, which is obviously a prescribed terrorist organization. But that's illegal activity. For now. That's illegal activity. Yeah, but that's what I meant by intimidating behavior. But what I'm saying is that's fine. But the guys in balaclavas were also acting illegally. They were causing disruption. They were blocking. No, but I'm just saying it is, you know, literally, when I asked you about an example from the left, you said no, and you were unquivocal. Because you were talking about intimidating behaviour. I don't support these guys doing intimidating behaviour. But they are doing. You certainly wouldn't argue that you certainly wouldn't argue that what they're doing, even if you'd argue, and they were breaking

Starting point is 01:32:40 the law, you certainly wouldn't argue that guys wandering around the streets dressed in balaclavs and black and standing in the middle of rows isn't intimidating. If they're standing in the middle the roads blocking traffic, they should be arrested. While they're standing on the pavement dressed in Balaclavans, at Balaclavus and Black Gear, I would personally find that intimidating. Why? Well, if I know that they're there to prevent illegal immigrants from being allowed into the country,

Starting point is 01:33:03 I'll be honest with me, there's a part of me that's relieved. At least someone's doing it. If you remember of Britain's, one of Britain's legally resident in the UK ethnic minorities, and you will, you certainly well, so, yeah, well, yes, you are. I am. You are. And you saw them, would you feel... If I knew what they're protesting about, I would go over and say what I just said,

Starting point is 01:33:25 which is, I'm relieved. Someone is at least protesting about this issue, but they should act legally. Okay. But they should act legally. Well, I think there are significant numbers of other members of Britain's ethnic minorities who would see those guys and be intimidated by them.

Starting point is 01:33:42 Do you dispute that? No, I don't. No, no. But people might be intimidated by... And just to... I would be very... Look, hold on. If 300 blue-haired pierced to whatever degree, people marched up and down outside my house...

Starting point is 01:33:59 What is your anti-blue hair prejudice that's on this way? I have found there's a strong correlation between having blue hair and lots of piercing and not liking Constantine Kissin and Trigonometry. My point being is, if you saw 300 people who you suspect don't like you personally marching up and down... I see people I suspect I don't like you personally every day. I wouldn't leave the house if that was the threshold. But you get my point. People would be intimidated because they ascribe certain views to these people that may or may not be correct, right? We don't know the exact views of those people.

Starting point is 01:34:33 All I can see is if their people are protesting, they should do so lawfully, right? Yes, but they're not. And so that were just like people at Palestine marches, I thought were treated very, very leniently by the police because a lot of them were breaking the law and they were not arrested. Yeah. Right. So we want equality of treatment for all people and we don't tend to see it at a protest, in my opinion.

Starting point is 01:34:53 Right. But beyond that, what I'm saying to is, yeah, you say, you know, a lot of people will be turned off. I agree. I mean, that's a practical. That will be a practical. No, I completely agree. I think that's you entirely right about that. And it gives a lot of people who don't want to talk about the small boats issue

Starting point is 01:35:09 a thing to point their finger at and say everyone who cares about the small boats is a balaclava, where it's. thug. Exactly. I can't even remember how we got onto this issue, but I feel like we've covered the small boats sufficiently. The other thing that it's probably worth talking with you about is it's fair to say you're not Reform's biggest fan. You've made that very funny. I would actually slightly characterize that. It's not that I'm not a, you know, this isn't a football match. I'm not a cheerleader. I'm not a supporter or an opponent. I'm just genuinely assessing where I think. Your genuine assessment is you don't like reform.

Starting point is 01:35:46 No, my general assessment, I like lots of people in reform. I wouldn't say I'm a supporter of their party, although I'm not actually a support of any political party at the moment. But it is important to say, I have written what would widely be regarded as a number of positive pieces about reform. Okay, let me just start again. What is your assessment of reform? They're screwed, is my assessment of reform.

Starting point is 01:36:12 Why? I think for a number of reasons. I think let's start with just the events of the last few days. Actually, let's go back a little bit. I think just before we started broadcasting, we were just chatting and how he'd been doing and I said this has been a surprisingly busy summer politically, which Andy Burnham and obviously Kirstarmer's apart.

Starting point is 01:36:40 But the other reason, certainly through the heart of the summer, was it's actually been a summer dominated by reform and debate about reform. Precipitated primarily by Nigel Farage's decision to call that, you know, bizarre by-election in Clapton. And if you remember the narrative surrounding the by-election, the by-election was this had been called primarily as an act of desperation by Nigel Farage. And it was his, I think it was described by some people as, his last throw of the dice to achieve two primary objectives.

Starting point is 01:37:17 One was to draw a line under the financial scandals dogging reform, to basically convince the media to stop talking about them, and I would simply put it to get the press to back off. The second thing was to use what he believed would be a strong mandate from his supporters in constituency to transform the broader narrative around reform to arrest their decline in the polls and arrest the decline in his personal ratings. It is quite clear that he has failed in his objective. Obviously, the questions about reforms, financing, and his role in that are intensifying. And that, and intensifying to an extent that

Starting point is 01:38:06 they are cutting through. There was polling, I think, yesterday or the day before, which showed the extent to which now the parties associated with sleeves. He's associated, yet with Slees, this issue is cutting through to the electorate. And as we all know from experience, once a political party becomes tainted with the sort of the brand of Slees, it is very difficult to remove and it can only be removed with a sort of a great overhaul within and sort of re-branding of the organisation. The second thing is that this compounds a fundamental problem. that Nigel Farage has, which is, if you look at the data, he's incredibly popular with around about 20% of the electorate and massively popular. He walks down the street, people

Starting point is 01:38:59 pour out pubs, they love him. His people who are members and activists within reform will walk over broken glass for the guy. But he is also massively unpopular with 60% of the electorate. And these are people, the people who dislike Nigel Farage now really dislike him, and they will simultaneously vote for basically anyone to prevent him and reform securing high office and entering Downing Street. And those numbers are just simply too toxic. And there is a narrative, and, you know, myself and my Westminster colleagues that, you know, feed into this about Nigel Farage being this great,

Starting point is 01:39:50 sort of, this great showman, this man who constantly reinvented himself, normal rules of politics don't apply to him. That was the case for Nigel Farage, maybe 12, sort of 18 months ago. That's not the case now. Nigel Farage is now broadly in the situation where Boris was.

Starting point is 01:40:07 Somebody who had a similar, you know, degree of broader public popularity when he was in the midst of the sort of the whole COVID crisis. And I do not see any way that he transforms his political fortunes as a result. But crucially, it doesn't really matter whether I think he does, he can or can't. One thing that we're now seeing inside reform, speak to people inside reform. It is quite clear that within side reform, that is the perception. There is now a clear perception within reform that Nigel Farage is coming to the end of his leadership. And that is starting to create and stimulate what is effectively becoming a,

Starting point is 01:40:54 the sort of the leadership election and the race to succeed Nigel Farage is actually underway now. You can see it in terms of what Zia Yusuf is doing. He is basically setting out his leadership. We had his sort of virtual leadership campaign video which he launched at party conference, his interventions which are increasingly at odds with what Nigel Farage is saying, completely at odds with his colleagues. As a result of that, the other leadership contenders, Robert Generic in particular, we'll see it with Richard Tice.

Starting point is 01:41:23 They're starting to maneuver as well. So you put that whole thing together and that would be very, very difficult for a major political party, a major established political party to sustain. For a party like reform, a new party, a young party with still a relatively low political base, there is absolutely no way in my view it can get from where it is now to actually being potentially a party of government. As I said, I suspect there'll be a general election next year by a general election next year and certainly not with Nigel Farage remaining as the leader. So you think he will leave soon?

Starting point is 01:42:06 I do, yes. Now, the question is whether or not Andy Burnham calls an election before he basically departs. But as I said, whether I think it or not is irrelevant. One thing I know for certain is people inside reform think he's going to leave relatively soon, which is why the sort of leadership job is starting. But that, I mean, but surely isn't reformed just a party based around the personality of reform fraud? No, I hear this a lot. I generally don't agree with that.

Starting point is 01:42:38 I mean, firstly, for the reasons we've all discussed, you know, we were talking about these people who are watching this program, getting angry and all that sort of stuff. That is a small but still a less significant proportion of the electorate. They've, again, for the reasons you've both articulated, are basically done with the established parties who they think have betrayed them. Well, who have betrayed them.

Starting point is 01:43:02 It's not that they think that. That's what's happened. Yeah, I'm trying to be sort of going into objective mode here, but yeah, yeah. But if we are going into objective mode, we should say that those parties have betrayed them. Right. I mean, if you promise people something and then don't do it, you've betrayed them. Fine. I'll concede your characterization of that.

Starting point is 01:43:21 But the reality. It doesn't change a broader point. I just thought it's important. Yeah, but no, but the reality. You were saying there's still a base of people who view the world the way reform views the world. Yes, and reform will be a political, will have political influence moving forward, particularly in an environment where to secure a majority of 170, you only need to secure 34% of the votes, Keer Starmid.

Starting point is 01:43:43 We're not in a situation where you need to get 45% to win an election. So in that context, they will remain. Also, you know, say this consistently, there are some what I would regard as serious, other alternative serious political players within reform. I think Robert Generic is whatever you think about, his inability to sort of mask his very naked political ambition. It is a serious political operator. I think Richard Tice has thought, you know, deeply about the professionalisation of reform. And, you know, I've spoke to Richard about, he was on TV yesterday saying,

Starting point is 01:44:18 who the hell is Dan Hodges? But Richard and I have actually had some really interesting discussions about how you, how you sort of his strategy for mainstreaming the reform brand, etc. And, and, you know, and he gets it. And, you know, also, you know, somebody like Lee Anderson, who is obviously very much a better mar of the left, can articulate, I think, in a very, very effective way, the genuine hopes and dreams of those people that we were talking about who, as you say, have been portrayed.

Starting point is 01:44:51 So the idea it's just the Nigel Farage show, I think is just, I think is wrong. and in any case, it can't just be the Nigel Farage show for the reasons that I say. The reality is his numbers. Just forget Nigel Farage, if you had a policy, you put in front of me a politician with those levels of approval. Because the key thing is, if you look at other senior politicians, there will be a section of the electorate that like them, there'll be a section of the electorate that dislike them.

Starting point is 01:45:24 But that section of the electorate that dislike them, as opposed to either not really knowing who they are or being agnostic about them, is much, much lower. That's the problem with Nigel Farage. Everybody says Nigel Farage is necessary to drive Reformers base. The problem for Nigel is, he does drive reformers base,

Starting point is 01:45:40 but crucially, he drives his opponent's base as well. And when you get into that situation politically, you're basically done. But do you not think whoever replaces him would immediately find themselves if they were lucky to be known by the entire country, which they're not, right? Compared to Nigel Farage,

Starting point is 01:45:56 nobody knows of Zia Eusufus, nobody knows Robert Jenerick, Nobody knows even Lee Anderson and Richard Tice, right? But the moment you become leader of reform, 60% of the country will say you're fascist and evil and will not vote for you. And will vote for anyone who opposes you. It depends. It depends what the strategy is. I mean, I think the part of the problem for reform is, you know, a year ago, they were on 31% of the vote.

Starting point is 01:46:24 So, you know, and obviously there were people running around saying, oh, you're fascists, you're racist, you're all that sort of stuff. stuff was just bouncing off. The problem is the realities they've played into their opponent's hands. And so what's happened is, as I said, you know, I was speaking to people at the time who were talking me through that the next stage of reform strategy was to broaden and mainstream their message. What happened was, there was obviously then the split with Rupert Lowe and the establishment of Restore. And, you know, I used exactly, we literally saw it this weekend. We literally saw it. Nigel Farage came out with a very very quickly clear position on the demonstrators, disgusting, etc. Rupert Lowe says, no, actually I'm putting my arm around. And suddenly Nigel Farage

Starting point is 01:47:08 shifts his position and reform shift their position. And what they're doing now is, rather than pursue that strategy of reaching out and mainstream streaming their messages, which I think could potentially have been successful and could potentially be successful in the future, they're basically chasing after a store. Now they're shoring up to the right. Well, like Burnham is trying to shore up the left. Yeah, but yeah. Yeah, but doing the settlement. They, yeah, that's kind of what they're trying to do, but they're doing it from, they're doing it from a much lower base.

Starting point is 01:47:37 Yeah. Because the point is, the reality is, Labor's vote sharing in the polls is probably slightly underestimating where Labor are at the moment, because there are people who are voting, and the devil or whatever, who won't, it'll come back. But equally, the polls are overestimating reforms, support, because obviously whenever you have a party of protest, who position themselves with the anti-establishment people. Obviously, when people are asked by a pollster, who you're going to vote for, it's very easy to say reform. And then when it comes to a general election,

Starting point is 01:48:06 when you're actually voting for a government, as we've seen with all parties, of all persuasions, who are minority parties, their support then gets squeezed and shrink. Well, just let me push back on that a little bit, because what about, we all know the shy Tory phenomenon, where, you know, obviously people don't want to admit that they vote conservative because there's a stigma to it, shall we say? I mean, that's got to be 10x with reform, hasn't it?

Starting point is 01:48:33 No, because I think the whole point about reform's brand, and also, you know, we're in a different space now in the era of populism. You know, my experience of reform supporters is that, you know, people who support reform aren't in any way ashamed or nervous about it. They want everyone to know it. And they want people to know it because that is, in a sense, part of the deal that you are standing up and you are basically defining yourself as someone who is, someone who is taking a stand against the traditional establishment.

Starting point is 01:49:07 And the other problem is, yeah, there wasn't a past, a shi, you know, shiatory thing, but if there is a shy reform phenomenon, that is because of the increasing toxicity of the party in the party's brand. And again, I can't remember what the poll was. There was a poll yesterday which shows reform now significantly ahead of Labor in a poll when you're questioned, which of the parties do you like least and which of the parties will you go out and make a point of voting against. And this is the problem reform have. Because of their attempt to chase, restore, they are toxifying their brand to the extent. that people are now actively going out and saying,

Starting point is 01:50:00 look, I'm going to vote for basically anyone if it means reform won't win. Yeah, it does seem like they, you know, from an outside perspective, they overreacted to the creation of restore. Yeah, yeah. And I don't understand why. Do you understand why? Yeah, I do.

Starting point is 01:50:17 I get their head route. I don't know if there's personality conflicts. Well, no, I think it's the nature of the online world. I mean, early in the history of trigonometry, we had this episode. We only had about 90,000 subscribers when suddenly we started, you know, we're basically people who thought of us as being in the center. We have a lot of criticisms of the kind of woke thing, but that's kind of where we were. And then we started getting loads of like naughty comments in our, on our videos, which we were

Starting point is 01:50:49 horrified by. So we publicly said, like, you know, basically get out of here. this is not for you. And then it turned out that there was some kind of behind the scenes orchestration between these Nazis who were brigading our videos

Starting point is 01:51:03 in order to create this perception that there were loads of them as like three people in the basement somewhere. But when that happens, particularly in our case when you're a small channel, you're like, what the fuck is going on? Like this is not who we are,

Starting point is 01:51:20 it's not what we created before, these people had. And it took us a little while to just go, oh, this will pass. Because for reform, I imagine, it would have felt like, oh, you know, this guy's left our party. And, you know, I think it is fair to say Rupert was treated badly by reform. I don't know exactly what happened. But suddenly they're picking up X percent of the vote.

Starting point is 01:51:44 You're seeing them come up with policies. And, you know, being a fringe party of opposition has its benefits, which you can say things bluntly in a way that you can't if you're seeking that mainstream credibility. And so when, if you're on, you know, on that part of the right and you're seeing Rupert Lowe talking about certain issues that you care about and he's given it, you know, 10 out of 10 on powerful rhetoric and presentation and whatever, you're kind of going, that's a good point. You know, you said that well, et cetera. So I understand why they may be panicked a little bit and started.

Starting point is 01:52:17 But, I mean, I don't think the majority of the electorate is in that position. And it does, I agree with that. I think they definitely seem to over-index that wing. I mean, there is... Just one more thing as well, Dan. Just the point, I think, look, size plays a part as well. Look, let's look at the way that the Labour have dealt with the Greens. The Greens have posed just as much, if not more of a threat to Labour than Restore did to reform.

Starting point is 01:52:47 But Labor never panicked. They Labour never... I didn't see them behaving, show any of the same behaviours or trying to attack the Greens or do anything like that, even when the Greens won and Gorton and Denton. Because I think it's about the size of the Labour Party and it's about the history of the Labour Party. The Labour Party has been in existence for over, what is it, a hundred years. There are people there with experience who've won elections who've gone, look, this happened and whenever it was, just chill out, it will be fine.

Starting point is 01:53:20 will weather the storm. I'm not sure there are those people within reform, and reform is a very, very new party. And when you're very new, when you're much smaller as a political party, you are ultimately going to be less secure. Yeah, you're fragile. Yeah, I mean, also, I mean, you know,

Starting point is 01:53:37 I was speaking to somebody at reform conference who was basically saying, look, what you need to understand now is, we know we're not going to win the next election, right? That is not our objective, to the extent it ever, realistically was their objective. Their objective now is to either is to kind of like overtake the Tories and basically supplant the Tories as the as the opposition or get even if you want to go like a 10 year strategy get a significant number of seats at the next election that the next

Starting point is 01:54:10 stage they're in a position to to supplant the Tories and so to do that they're now adopting a sort of a course vote strategy to happen, you know, what got will hold. But I think there are two problems for them with that. One is the thing, as I said, 20% in my view is significantly overestimating reforms current support, just if you look historically at what happens to protest parties. But the other thing is because they are starting to toxify their brand so much, that will start to have a, I think, an increasing impact. impact. And we're already seeing it on the soft levels of, softer levels of reform support. And crucially, something has happened, which is a small thing, but a very significant thing is

Starting point is 01:55:00 because of the rise of Restore, an increasing number of pollsters are starting to prompt for Restore. So in the opinion polls, we'll start to see Restore's vote going up. And I think we saw it in, was it the more in common poll? I think it was the more in common poll, started prompting to restore immediately. Restore got, I think, 4 or 5% and the Tories jumped ahead of them. Now, the problem for reform is they are clinging on by their fingernails because they are just about at the moment clinging on to a lead over the Tories. Once they drop below the Tories into third place in the polls,

Starting point is 01:55:40 at that point, I think it really is game over. I think at that point what you would see is, you know, a very fast cratering in support because at that point it's quite clear, look. You may like some of, you might like Nigel, you may like some of the stuff Nigel says, but if you want to stop Andy Burnham, you want to stop his, you know, big grand socialist agenda, you're going to have to stick with the tourists. And I think that's the danger for them of even having the trying to cling on to, you know, the base that they've already got on.

Starting point is 01:56:13 they perceive it. I don't know. I think, look, I think it's important to remember the context of all of this, which is for reform to win a hundred seats at the next election would be insanely amazing, historically speaking. We shouldn't forget this, right? So, of course, they were riding high in the polls, and people were talking, they were talking about, you know, the 100 days of government, and that may still happen, may not. But given that they have five MPs, for them to get 100 MPs or even 80 MPs of the next election would be a massive result. Well, look, to be perfectly honest, from where they are now, if they got 40 MPs at the next election, I think that would be quite a considerable achievement.

Starting point is 01:56:49 And that would, and that would sort of, as I say, that would anchor them at that point in British politics. But also, you know, I mean, the other thing is, if they want to be a serious political party and they do want to form a government at some point in the future, you know, they are going to have to let go of Nanny's sort of apron spring at some point. You know, Nigel Farage is not, whatever you think about Nigel Farage, you know, he's not immortal. And I think anybody who looked at his, you know, his interviews he gave at the end of reform conference got a bit of an insight into what he's thinking about is how long he wants to be in, be in this for. What did he say about that? Well, he was talking about very much, and he introduced the narrative, he was talking very much about how his family had asked him to get out of politics and he contemplated it, etc.

Starting point is 01:57:47 And some people were saying this is a kind of like launching a soft resignation. But the reality is, you know, I think this is across the board. Reform are just going to have to grow up. They're going to have to grow up as a party. You know, this, you know, and this constant narrative of how everyone's out to get us and the establishment and all that sort of stuff, when they keep making this success. session of ludicrous and goals. I mean, that was a, it was a by-election taking place which was supposed to draw a line under the funding crisis, and there are Nigel Farage's senior age going around tight town for dodgy donations. You know, these are not at the moment, this is not at the moment.

Starting point is 01:58:24 Whatever you think of them, a serious alternative party of government at the moment. And they, you know... Can I just ask you one question on that point? I mean, the point, there are a small party, so why head of policy is soliciting donations? or why PR person doesn't make any sense to me. I don't understand why that was going on. But I think the point that some people have made, which is if you subject any party to this level of scrutiny,

Starting point is 01:58:52 where you've got activist groups doing year-long entrapment things to try and catch people out, et cetera. I mean, I was reading Michael Crick's biography of Nigel Farage, which is by no means a complementary book, I don't know if you've read it or not. But one of the things Craig talks about, is the extent to which the Tories cheated in their elections against Farage's party, which I think would have been UKIP or Brexit party at the time.

Starting point is 01:59:16 So, I mean, don't all political parties get up to this sort of stuff? Yeah, all political parties do, but all political parties receive the scrutiny. No, they don't. Not like this. I mean, where is the right-wing infiltration of Labor trying to expose donations? It's not happening, right? Whereas this latest Channel 4 thing, it wasn't a Channel 4 thing at all. You had a bunch of foreign-funded far-left activists who did this, then handed it over to Channel 4. I mean, my memory may be tripping me up, but I certainly remember, I think there was some sort of undercover,

Starting point is 01:59:52 there might have been some sort of undercover operation around the sort of the old cash for honours. Yeah, but you're going back into what is ancient history for much people. Well, not. It's just the early days of the black government. No, but I mean, well, no, it was the latter. I think it was the latter days of the. Blair government. Middle, middle. But the point was, Tony Blair, you know, Tony Blair was interviewed under caution when he was in, he was in Down. He said we saw Labor politicians around. But that's

Starting point is 02:00:17 20 years ago. I'm talking about now. Who's investigating Andy Burnham's donations? Nobody. Where's the activist far right group that's doing that? It's not happening. But the reality is you're not going to get and, but this is comes back to what we're talking about about being serious. You're not going to get Andy Burnham or anyone around Andy Burnham. Yeah. Sitting down with anyone saying, give us some dodgy donations. You know, that's the... They have other people further away doing that. That's the reality.

Starting point is 02:00:40 You know, there are different people who deal with the donation side of this. Andy Burnham wouldn't go anywhere near it. Whereas you've got Nigel Farage in the middle of a by-lection sitting there saying, well, I'm boys, isn't this great? You know, I mean, and then saying, oh God, it's all, you know, they're out to get us.

Starting point is 02:00:55 Dan, thanks for coming on, mate. It's good to chat. Appreciate your perspective. Good, thank you for having me. What's the one thing we're not talking about a society that we should be? Oh, my God. the one thing we're not talking about in society.

Starting point is 02:01:07 Don't say Andy Burnham. No, I... What I find interesting is the way... It's not one thing, the way we jump from a settled consensus of what the most significant issue of, the great intractable issue that we need to solve at the moment is. So obviously at the moment we're talking about immigration. Like I said, I was told, you know, social,

Starting point is 02:01:33 care was the biggest issue. I think before that, I remember being told, you know, we had an education crisis that if it wasn't solved, that the country was going to fall apart. Lack of productivity was another great one. I think the thing, it, I don't think the problem is the thing, that there's one thing that we're not talking about. I think the problem is that we only have the capacity politically to focus on one thing at the time. And, you know, we spend all our time and we're currently talking about immigration and this is the big issue. In 10 or 15 years, Pete may not be us, may well be us, we'll be sitting around this table and there will be another major political issue and we'll go, why the hell didn't we see that coming? Yeah, that's it.

Starting point is 02:02:28 I mean, maybe it's, but then again, maybe not because we might be all dead. Because AI, AI, yeah, exactly. Yeah, right. I feel the same by then. So, you know. Yeah. Dan Hodges, thanks so much for coming on. Head on over to Triggerpod.com.

Starting point is 02:02:39 Don't you care where Dan's going to answer your questions? As a former Labor researcher, this current government must be particularly disheartening for you. Do you believe there's any hope of Labor actually coming up with a working policy on defence, welfare, education, the NHS net zero, or anything else?

TRIGGERnometry - "Reform is Screwed"- Dan Hodges

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