"Reform is Screwed"- Dan Hodges

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1:02What is your assessment of reform? Desk root. 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 at Nigel Farage is coming to the end of his leadership. So you think he will leave soon? I do. Yes. The sanctions on Israeli settlement, his defense of welfare, his part of the broader strategy of sure enough is left flammar 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 down rank 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

2:03to have your say on what the government is doing. Dan Hodges, welcome to Shrek Noometry. Thank you. Before we get into the conversation, tell us a little bit about your background and your story and how 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 in the work for her for five years in the right, the 97 election. Then I went off, did the sort of the PR consultancy circuit for a bit and then somehow, an entirely short house, 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 up, be and positive about Andy Burnham, which is why I'd be interested for us to chat with you. Is that you're frowning a bit? Is that an unfair? No, no, no, no. I mean, I think it's being up, be. I mean, I think, I mean, I think the last time we spoke, I think it was before he became Prime Minister, wasn't he?

3:06I think he started and that's it. He was very clear that he was about to be. So he was clear. And we had you on with Julie Hunt. Yeah, we had the discussion. And obviously, at the time, there were already predictions of in-minutes, sort of doom and gloom and disaster, friendly Burnham. And I just sort of pose a little bit of a corrective saying I wasn't entirely sure that in the short term, his premiership was going to collapse quite specifically. Is maybe Julie, a Julia thought of the time. And that's basically, that's basically sort of my my analysis. I mean, I was saying before that 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 a wist to work together at the House of Commons. And as I said, that has the benefit of making fields very old and also a great underachiever. So there is a, you know, I don't think completely honest about it. As a result of that, quite like him, I hope he does well. So what's your life then? He's broadly what you see actually. There's not, you know,

4:10there'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 stick is start to great, not stick. It's who he actually is. He really is a northern who bangs on about being he's really is a really is really is from up north. And that very much shapes his, shapes his political is political outlook. He's he's amy bull. He's someone you can have a chat with. But also, I think this is one of the misconceptions that has been about hitting. And I think we touched on that at the time. There was this whole narrative where it comes into Westminster and he's going to find out being Prime Minister is going to be very different from being mayor and Manchester. But the point was, as I said, we work together for best part of five years. He's been in politics basically all his life. And he's a very, very political preacher. So this idea is some sort of baby in the woods who'd come into Westminster and come, oh my god, what's going on here? That wasn't,

5:13I never expected that to be to be the outcome. 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 about, you burn him, his skills, whatever the political fundamentals are no different to him than they were for key astronomer. And that's going to be the problem. Well, this is the interesting bit because you talk to people at, and we're friends and I were talking about this over lunch, right? That's like you talk to people, you go, no, no, you're quite like, you quite like Burnham. Yeah, quite, why'd you like him? Because it seems like a nice guy. It seems like a nice guy to me. Generally, 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, I think he was showing me, what was it? What he's saying, national defense can't take precedence of a, no, national security can't take precedence of a social security, which is fundamentally trade off denialism as I call it, which is you pretend everything is possible all at once,

6:16which it isn't. But the interesting thing is you talk about his agenda. What is his agenda? What is his vision? What is, what does Andy Burnham believe about the direction the country should go in? Well, 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 I've got to be honest, I'm in a very much the minority view at the moment. I am pretty certain that what Andy Burnham is currently doing is preparing for a snap general election at some point, some point next year. And so everything that he is doing at the moment is basically starting to align with that and maximise his opportunity to successfully call that election of which, although you know, the terminology that he used in promise of questions, yes, he was a very bad blunder and obviously gave, can be bad, not the opportunity to meet the pouts on him and his other political

7:17critics to pout on him. There is a strategy behind what 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 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 Islamists splinter parties, if he can pull away some soft lived Dems, if he can mobilise the anti-reform coalition which is forming in the country, then he could probably get to round about 31, 32% in the opinion polls and that with the split on the right, that will be enough to win him

8:23a 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, he's kind of sort of setting out a little bit, so obviously we had a statement about ending eradicating rough sleeping, which will obviously not be done with over the 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 implicitly from the South, to the North, 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 it in the burn and premiership and what we're seeing at the moment, is him basically preparing the groundwork to, as I say, calling election next year and securing it,

9:25a personal mandate and a workable majority. So just so that I'm hearing you correctly, what you think we're seeing is the reason he's not 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 in election, with, announce a few popular policy, you know, the, the cap bus fares and all this stuff. The sort of the load. Throw a few sweets to the masses, call in election, win and at that point, you start to actually implement your job. I mean, the other thing is, I mean, I've been slightly over-generous in the tippetation. The other thing is he hasn't got strategy worked out. I mean, now that's a product of a number of things. Product of the fact that in the runner to his, him sort of succeeding Kirstauma, a lot of his effort and obviously his focus was on,

10:29and of those around him, was on the mechanics that enabled him to enter Downing Street, you know, get rid of Kirstauma at the Downing Street in the first place. And if you remember the prevailing narrative sort of at the start of this year, was kind of, I mean, I remember, you know, debating this and people saying this, you know, Andy Bohn doesn't have a path, you know, I did it, but I'm done really have a path to Downing Street Kirstauma's going to be here for the next couple of years. 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 Labour Party conference, at which point Kirstauma 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 hang through in terms of policy development. But the other

11:30thing is, as I say, he is facing the same strategic political dilemmas that his predecessor and other primalists as have faced, which is how do you actually solve the interactive problems? How do you solve the problem of the small boats? How do you deal with the with the fact that Britain is basically a country that is 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 Burns, no closer to answering those questions, than anyone else at that point. And the really worrying thing for me, Dan, is this, is you've 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 parties done anything really to address it. I mean, just look at the facts, 2.9 trillion in debt, 100% GDP ratio, a currency that has lost around about 40% in value since 2020. We have doubled the debt that we had in 2008, doubled the debt after

12:32the financial crisis. Wages haven't gone up in real time. And you've got, I'm looking him, I'm going, where, how are you going to change? How are you going to turn this round? And then he goes, he hasn't rolled out tax crisis. And there's me thinking, well, we're even more screwed than we were before. Apart from that, everything's fine. But yeah, no, I mean, that's exactly right. And I think anybody who thinks Andy Burnham is just suddenly going to go click his fingers and then magically solve all of these problems is deluding themselves. I mean, I think, I talked about the big strategic problems that he's facing, the country's facing. The reality is, these are the moment seemingly intractable problems for reason because the nodes have actually come up with a, you know, of any political persuasion has managed to come up with a solution to them. I mean, the one thing I would

13:32say as well though, you know, Andy Burnham is operating with the same constraints that his predecessors operated with within which is he has to try and 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, whilst stimulating growth, whilst reassuring the bond markets. Now, if any of us has got, you know, answers on the postcard, please, if you've got an easy solution to doing that. You can't do that. No, and also, but also it's like a sort of more serious point. And also, and this is the other thing, against the backdrop of a sort of a political, a political debate in which obviously populism and the idea that there were really, really simple easy solutions. This only our politicians have had the courage

14:34or where we thought to just do the very, you know, pull the very obvious levers against the backdrop in which that sort of political philosophy has gained, for the reasons we were all aware of, is going to significant sort of political traction and a degree of currency. So, you put all those things together. And as I said, you're saying, you know, being positive and optimistic about Andy Burnham, on a narrow level, yes, but as I say, at the moment, you know, I'm not sure how any politician hasn't, and 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. I don't think there is anybody on this planet who would think that chemo is an easy, is an easy medicine to take. And I think this country is at a position

15:36where 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 are 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 characterisation 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 the other politician, it's not simply a case of saying, right, there is a very hard choice you have to 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 an issue, such as, for example, the triple law. You speak to a senior politician of any political party,

16:40privately they will tell you, triple law is unsustainable, but they will equally tell you. Just explain for people the triple law. Well, you tell me, I mean, what, where, where, where my understanding of the triple law is, it basically, pensions are always going up. Yeah, but basically, simplistically, it's a commitment that 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 introduced it? Was it Gordon Brown? I can't remember, it's been around so, so long. But you speak to any of them and they say it's not sustainable. It's not financially sustainable, 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 they're in, they're in lies, they're in lies the dilemma. What do you do? I mean, so many problems that we, 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 courage, they haven't, don't identify the problem. In terms of all they don't want to do them, it's they don't think

17:42they'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, or we're not doing that. And the people, we don't worry, we'll protect, you know, pensions will protect your trip along. And we know how pensions, pensions 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 it? 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 it wasn't dealt with, we were facing catastrophe. Theresa May went into that election, an election where it was,

18:44it was widely perceived, she would 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, Labour turn around a keys of introducing a death tax, her support collapses, with the result we all know. So, you know, when we're talking about, there's a difference between a hard decision and what is a politically impossible position. That's the problem facing Andy Bernman or other politicians at the moment. Did you know that mosquitoes have killed almost half of all people who have ever lived? Today, people are fighting back. With support from the Gates Foundation, American scientists and partners around the world have developed a new generation of bed nets that can kill up to 90% of mosquitoes exposed to them, helping cut malaria rates in half.

19:46The result? A safer, healthier future for everyone. The Gates Foundation, partners of human potential, search gatesfoundation.org slash mosquito to learn more. If you only read one side of the news, you're not informed, you're being curated. That's why I use ground news. Every day, they gather thousands of stories from across the political spectrum. Compare how different outlets are covering the same story side by side and contextualize it, including specific differences in how each side is reporting it. That's how you see what whole audiences are not being told. My favorite feature is their blind spot feed. Every day, it flags upwards of 20 stories that are being ignored by either the left or the right. Let's look at some examples. Follow along at ground.new slash trigonometry. Take this story. A pure research survey found that 56% of Americans now support banning social media for anyone under 16, with a majority of Republicans and a majority of Democrats behind it. Genuine bipartisan agreement is rare enough to be newsworthy on its own. And yet, coverage came

20:49almost entirely from the right. The left barely touched on it. On the other hand, look at this. An AP poll found that 66% of Americans now say democracy is central to what it means to be American down from 80% five years ago. That is a serious story about how the country sees itself, especially on its 250th anniversary. And it got three times more coverage from the left than it did from the right. Ground news puts all of this in one place. Headline comparisons, bias breakdowns, ownership insights and context so you can actually understand what's going on. Not just react to what you're told. Go to ground.new slash trigonometry or click the link 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

21:54happens, it's going to make these interventions look like the proverbial walk in the park. Yeah. But I mean, I think whatever intervention we're going to, I mean, look, I was having this conversation the other day. I mean, we can all have an argument about 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 eras from the national consciousness. It's like, I don't know if you've seen the film many in black where it's like he goes at the end like that. That's almost been done in relation to COVID. So I remember at the time having discussions, we had a situation where the British economy was essentially nationalized for 12 to 18 months, just everything. We had a package of financial intervention that mirrored the sort of financial intervention that took the country through the set-set World War and defeated Hitler. And it was very clear that the amount of money, the vast amounts that were being spent on supporting the economy in the country at the time

23:02would 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 Badenock and her team, so actually does the Nigel Farage and Robert Generic. 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 the 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

24:05that the politicians are looking at the moment. They're looking at saying, Andy Burnham sitting there thinking, well, okay, what if I do? So I'm going to cut welfare by 20 billion and spend on it for spending on it, you know, building drones to send to Ukraine. 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 at me, man. I am neither a millionaire nor a leaving industry. But that is objectively a disaster. We've already got a gaping hole in the public finances, and you're not even not you're, 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. People leave wealthy people leaving the country. I think 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

25:07into the country. Well, it's the same problem. Well, it's not really. I mean, the reality, I mean, people maybe leave it leaving for a variety of reasons of which you would argue sort of tax rates and tax crime, tax crime productivity employment law. The right to the right to the right of this you use. But equally, 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 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, yeah, and John Heer 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 then there was a Prime Minister who thought she had a very simple solution to this,

26:08which was to simultaneously cut taxes and stimulate the economy. And they ended up in a disaster. Similarly, it comes back to the issue I'm talking about, which is you need whatever policy 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, it is things don't work. You call the police, 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 it, you know, from people on the right, you know, the states too big, the states too big, we've got to shrink the state. But if you public don't want the state front 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

27:09the market. Go ahead 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 own energy companies 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 to implement those solutions in the first place. Well, right, and this is, you've made the point that I, whenever Francis and I 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. And if you believe the dissolution 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

28:10all. 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 that levels that we're at, that's going to be a challenge. And you're point is also right. I mean, look at Starmer. Starmer tried to cut welfare. He tried. And he was labor back benches. It's not him. Wasn't anyone else. 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 Francis started with is 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 do. 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 amazing. 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, you may be absolutely right. But if the patient doesn't

29:13give, doesn't give him concerns, the surgery, there's nothing in the surgeon. There's nothing in the surgeon can do about it. 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 coming from. I mean, we had a, 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 a group of the electorate that I would simply call working people who have been the best ignored by, best ignored and patronised by politicians of all persuasions or treated with outright contempt. And at every stage throughout that, we had, we had a

30:15global 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 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 been the people who have been least able to afford it. I would take issue with you about the issue of, oh my god, 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, the country is going to, again, use a simplistic analogy, point in its belt,

31:15I 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 central I was talking about, working people in this country have been asked to pay a little bit more. We saw this during the period of austerity. Broadly speaking, the wealthiest were broadly insulated from that austerity, and working people were. Well, the wealthiest insulated because they have wealth. But they're not insulated by the government, they insulated by the fact that they have money. They were insulated by the government. Let me give 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 the 25%. Or was that not doing? That's not insulating the wealthiest. At the same time as working people, in various other forms of taxation and the erosion of their public services, were being, were patrolling a very significant?

32:19Yeah I mean, look, the 20th 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. So I remember a 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, there's not even wealthy people, if people who are earning more than others are protected or insulated, no, they pay a hell of a lot. No, but I see this argument use a lot and I get the point, but the reality is, firstly, you have to remind you look at what people are paying in proportion to terms, not just in relation to their actual income, but the actual experience of their lives. So if somebody

33:21who, say somebody in a working class community, let's use an example, they're child because of the various things their child can't afford to get a house at their own or whatever, means their child has to move in, they have to support their, 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. You're just being silly now. No, I'm not. I mean, that is the thing. So you want to bring in a private jet tax? No, I'm not. Because that's not what we're arguing. I'm not making a specific policy point. I'm making a broader point. I'm contesting the argument. This is a canon on it. Oh, everybody across the board, who has been facing it during the years of austerity, everyone across the board has been facing the same burden. And even the argument you put

34:25forward, which is wealthy people, what wealthy people pay as an overall proportion of the tax, the tax take from the stay, it's not about that. It's about the direct impact of a period of austerity, of economic hardship, of social hardship. And the reality is the wealthiest, as you can see, you said because they're wealthy, have been insulated from that. By their own financial success. Sometimes because of their own financial success, it's success, into other times because of wealth that they've been able to inherit. Yeah, for some, but 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. There are many examples of that. There are other examples of people who are wealthy because they're basically the dad as well. The dad as well.

35:25Yes. Whatever. 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. 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 tighten it, 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. 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

36:31money work, go tell them, go tell them, go on, go on, I'm doing it right now. I'm doing it. I don't know how many of the minutes I'm doing. 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. They understood and they said, fine, okay, let's give it a go. And they did, they did tighten their belts. They did tighten their belts on what happened. Well, austerity cuts, spending by like 1%, he didn't do anything to reduce our debt or even our deficit, which is kept growing. My point is, but if it can I just say on that point? Again, if you go out and you say to the, but you know, you say to the British people over the last quarter of a century, everything, everything's been fine. You have a reason to call them. Now let me tell you what I would do, but I've got what I have for you, and then I'll care to you. I'll do some about it through that larger Σ- okay? That's generally the reason, that's exactly what everyone says, incite a lot

37:32of speculate. I know, that's totally my talent. You argue these four parts of the of the reality. And you accept it. No, I don't. You accept it yourself. No, no, no, no, no. I completely reject this. You said they are crazy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You said they are insulated. You said that they are insulated. Why they're unsuccessful? Yes, they're unsuccessful. And exor- There's more ends, 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. That's why we all want- Yes, but what a wealthy person would do with regard as one of the hardships of life is very, very different from what we can trust. That's why we all want to make more money because it protects us against those things. Yes, lots of very hardworking people can't make that money for reasons other- 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-row of taxes,

38:33people earning 60 grand a year. There's a plumber. My plumber, I talked to a merchant about- he was complaining to me about the top-row of tax, right? Working people, as you put it, are often the hardworking ones who start a small business or whatever, other ones that are paying this and they are 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? Yeah, that's a bit fair. Why is that fair? We're getting into a slightly narrow debate, but we can have a debate about what the top-row of tax should be at what point it would come in, what a someone who is generally rich would be. Firstly, the fundamental principle to go back to my point is working people have been asked to pay more to the extent that directly impacts their livelihoods, their day-to-day lives

39:37in a way that you've conceded wealthy people 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- Yeah, we've got to chase after it, I think I need to be again in the- Not just because I'm not just saying that because I'm some crazy man, 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. And if you say the British people again, you're going to have to pay the guy with the two or three private jets. 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.

40:37Nobody said a warning, that's exactly the type of situation where you'd want to use policy genius. They're not an insurance company, they're a marketplace. Policy genius 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 in 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 Chalacov, I think his surname is a policy former policeman in the map talking about the impact of the cuts. That really had a impact, including on crime and London today, which we're all dealing with. I don't want public services to be cut. What I am saying is the reality of what Francis is saying is the reality of where we are

41:41is, 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 this is the kind of just salmon. I think this is perfectly straight. The point. 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 my 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. We're going to have to get the economy actually growing. It hasn't been growing yet, but we are also going to have to reduce public spending. There are certainly there's an aspect. I mean, even I am, we're going to have to use public spending so I'm sure you would get it as well. 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. It's a necessary long term solution. Absolutely. I would agree with that. What we have to do is get the economy grown.

42:41So 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, we've got to make sure that people with the private jets don't have as many private jets. But if they leave like the founder of revenue, or if they leave like this guy is 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. It's running a small business for a trigonometry, right? We wouldn't play more people than we employed today if the rules were not what they are. I don't disagree with that. 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. In 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

43:41surgery without the consent of the patient. I agree. And to do that, that is very difficult against a backdrop of an electorate that has caught a century of a proper real meaningful. But that's what people mean by courage from politicians, though, isn't it? Well, that's the point. But that's the easy thing. It's very easy to say we need courage from politicians. What I was about to explain is for somebody to stand up and have this discussion 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%. If you don't want that, we have to do this now. That's what people mean by courage, isn't it?

44:42Yeah, absolutely. And obviously, I think we would, you know, the easiest model, the model people would point to would be, would obviously be more of a facturing in a way she transformed the political consensus. But I mean, she had the advantage, which maybe is an advantage that Andy Bern might have, which she obviously had a completely fraction and divided opposition. And obviously also what turned out to be to get out a jail free card of the popular boost that she got from the Forkland's War that gave her the political space. And if it hadn't been for the Forkland's War, you know, British history would have been very different. And that perception of the model that she would have been 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 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. I'm going to do all these things, none of which you actually voted for when you voted Labour.

45:43I'm going to do all these things. I know it's hard, but tough, and I'm showing it, I'm going to be very brave. And by the way, I've got, you know, two and a half, a spot just under three years to do it, introducing his strategy, as I said, going back to the original point, I see exactly the strategy is pursuing. OK, do the do not do these stuff, but slightly more popular stuff, deal with the politics, win a majority, give myself five years, give 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 when he gets that personal mandate that we will, and all majority, he may not get one at all, you know, events could just fire 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 at, we'll get a sort of a proper and genuine assistant. It's a fair point. I mean, the other issue that people consistently talking about and are very, very frustrated

46:45about, and understandably so, is levels of immigration into this country, which is one issue, an illegal immigration on the other. And it really upsets people. And quite rightly so, because they look at people coming to this country illegally, 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 labor problem. 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, you know, this is a good example of the nature of the debate. I mean, firstly, you're absolutely right, politicians of all persuasions are failed to get to grips with the issue. Now, I would put this in, 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,

47:50it goes back to what I was saying about the view of politicians to what I'd brought to call working people. There was an arrogant presumption that there was a consensus that immigration was not all the way 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, you know, I've held my hand up and said, well, I was one of those people. Now, I would say in the defense of people like me, it's because we, I grew up in the 70s and 80s, where there was very, very significant racism and a very still prevailing backlash against modern 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 very, very good intention. We completely lost, lost contact with where the British people were and as I say, working people were in relation to that. So that's the reality. But I think more recently, and because again, it comes back to this idea of easy solutions.

48:56The simple political reality is, Rishi Sunak knew just how toxic the immigration issue was. People like a pretty Patel, not somebody I think who you would call, you know, sort of particularly liberal shrinking volunteers, this is all, all, all some new people across the political spectrum knew, but they were faced with, 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 characterisation, oh, well, they're all just cowards and traitors and whatever. It wasn't that. They made a, they made a, they made a political calculation. And I think, obviously, you know, it's quite clear, certainly 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

50:01back 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? How are you going to pay for that? So if you look at, and you know, we might come on to reform specifically. But you look at any policy announcement from reform, for example, every single policy announcement, every single policy area is wrong through the prison of immigration. This is how we, this is how we, we find the money for defense. We wouldn't be spending it on the migrants. This is how we, we'd find the money to properly, fun welfare and give it to needy people. We won't be, we won't be giving any of it to the migrants. And aside from the other issues, the nature of the immigration debate and the 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 card. Deal with immigration, all of our problems are solved.

51:02And that's just not, that's just not the reality. And again, you know, you know, I'm playing back to you, what you were playing to me. Yeah, you're absolutely right. 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 one. We deal with immigration, all your problems are solved. And as we all know, that's not the reality. Did you know that mosquitoes have killed almost half of all people who have ever lived? Today, people are fighting back. With support from the Gates Foundation, American scientists and partners around the world have developed a new generation of bed nets that can kill up to 90% of mosquitoes exposed to them, helping cut malaria rates in half. The result? A safer, healthier future for everyone. The Gates Foundation, partners of human potential, search gatesfoundation.org slash mosquito

52:05to learn more. Well, look, there are certainly people saying that, particularly online, where it seems to be that, you know, we get rid of everybody who's got a million level over this amount and we're going to be living in an ENID blight and wonderland, which is probably false. And we all know that. But you have to have a lot of empathy for the electorate, who 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 ghastly. This, be honest, Dan, they were ghastly. They were told that immigration was going to come down. It 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 ghastly. I mean, there was a point before that, before they were ghastly, that was at a second stage in the process when they were being told, don't worry, we're going to get immigration down before that. They were being told if you raise the issue. Yeah, you're a big neurasis. You're a big neurasis. And, you know, and like I said, all those were suit, you know, and time I was on the

53:07Liberal 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 and they'll write to be very concerned about it. Now maybe some agree, you know, a couple of, maybe Zach Polanski might say that, maybe Ed Davey 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. There is not an easy solution to this problem. What about illegal immigration? Because, so I was going to come onto that. I was going to come onto that. I was specifically going to come onto that. There is a solution to mass migration, but then there is a cost.

54:09And as I said, you know, we see it. There is a problem with Cambridge people in the country. But let's just look at the issue of illegal immigration. The tour is obviously, we're aware. The tour is a party that traditionally has been very, very hardline on immigration. Forget Labour from this for the moment. Tour is 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 the small boats and they failed. Now, the prevailing narrative from their political opponents, Labour did this in opposition reform, obviously, continue to do that was, they were either completely, completely bumbling incompetence,

55:10or be they were traitors, 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 government's 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 Rwanda plan, I think, is probably what is required. But the reality is, again, for reasons we all know, the Rwanda plan didn't work. So, but again, when you've got people like, I say, I think, pretty the tell was the person who sort of helped negotiate the plan. When you've got people like that, even Suella, I mean, Suella Bravenman blames everyone

56:11else. Even when you've got people like Suella Bravenman who was home secretary, you couldn't engineer through government, she again now goes for the Rwanda plan, they were all traders, sort of, lying. When you've got people like, ah, who can't find a solution? And I know these people and these people who were desperate to find it and who were not all bumbling idiots, but are actually quite intelligence, serious sensible people. That says to me, this is not the simple, this is not an easily solved, solvable problem. And again, it comes back to it, but again, as I was saying, at the moment of the British people want to hear that, at the moment of the British people want to hear that, or are they attracted to, you know, I don't know what the latest proposal is, you know, 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

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58:13Go 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 the effectively turn the bar around, make sure it has enough fuel to get back to the coast? Because the reality is if you look at it, there wasn't attempt at a turnback policy, but that was limited in success. What actually worked for the Australians was taking the asylum seekers and basically dumping them on desert island off the coast of Australia. That was what actually had the maximum deterrent effect. Why can't we do that? Because we haven't got a handy island in the middle of it. That's what we're doing at the moment. That's what we're doing at the moment. Come on, man, there's enough light. We can find some way to put asylum seekers. Well, no, we can't.

59:14That's the problem. Come on. Okay, where is it? We're a wonder for a star. Right? That's the thing. We got a wonder. The government negotiated the Rwanda scheme. The scheme 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 against their human rights and all the Southern 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 or whatever. 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 the land border. Well, you can get things done if you have the political world. And what is Donald Trump's current approval rating and what? How are the Republicans? But his current approval rating is low, but it's because of the subterranean.

1:00:17It's because of their right and his political policy. It's because of their right and the rise in gas prices. No, no, no. There are a wide variety of reasons why Donald Trump is unpopular. But one of the key reasons why Donald Trump is unpopular is he has embraced a populist. There are easy solutions form of governance. And he has said, 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 withdrawn consent for his model of governance. You're talking about, I mean, there is also the other technical point, which is, you know, 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.

1:01:17But I mean, are you contesting, I mean, are you pointing forward the argument that there is actually an easy solution? Just politicians have been too stupid or too, too, too woke to pursue it. No, even though it was in there, even though it would have been in their direct, you know, narrow political interests so to do. No, I think that there's probably a kind of ideological consensus, which puts the actually simple, I didn't say easy, but simple, 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 so eloon to talk about this, the thing she said, 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 and often legal migration. I didn't have collective agreement. I didn't have the support of the Prime Minister. I apologize if I'm asking stupid questions. But what is the rationale for your cabinet colleagues to not want to do this?

1:02:23I 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. We could replace the ECHR with our own Bill of Rights democratically reflective of our areas. 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 constitutional protections. But whatever way you look at it, whatever constitutional protections you put in place, and I think in a separate context, people are running around at the moment worrying about civil liberties, what these, everyone's being locked up for whatever they tweet. If you want to strick away or broader super-governmental protections and just simply say I'll just leave

1:03:29it up to the politicians, we can trust them. I'm not prepared to do that with any politician. The idea, I would just strip away all the human rights. Now I thought I'd replace 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, and putting in place a formally codified constitution, that is not something you'd be able to do in a week. No, no, no, no. You are looking at probably a decade's long process there. I wasn't talking about full constitution, but if you had a British bill of rights that was specifically addressing the border situation. But if you're looking at drafting a bill of rights, which obviously is, you know, tall intent and purpose is a codified constitution, that would be one of the most fundamental changes in British society in British history. That will have to be a series of exercise that will have to be done over a period of time.

1:04:31But this is like an eclect saying 15 years ago, we can't build nuclear power stations because it takes 15 years. No, it's much, much easier to build nuclear power stations than it is to put in place a constitution that replaces, as I say, hundreds of thousands of years of British history and in shools that we all have the appropriate protections to sit since we require it. Don't you think, Dan, let's just be honest here. I think to be honest. I think to be honest. You know, no, no, no, no, no, but there's something else. You put full this idea of politicians, you know, not wanting to do it because they're too woke or whatever else. And I can't remember the other option. Isn't the other, isn't the reality too stupid? Isn't there's, there's a third option here, which is we don't have politicians with a required backbone to actually get these things done. But and I'll tell you why because the moment there is the slightest pushback, they capitulate that 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.

1:05:34And otherwise the consequences are simply too awful to contemplate, which is where we are as a country. No, I mean, if you, 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, crowd pleasing trobe, which is, which is frequently paddled. The only solution is the politicians don't have backbone. That's, I mean, if you want to say that, that's, that's not true. I mean, how senior politicians, all of them have considerable backbone, which is why they are senior politicians. They put themselves forward in, in the public eye. They put themselves up for election. As we know in the current 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 easy. Well, why isn't it that I don't see any of them then going up and tackling the French about their part to play in illegal immigration?

1:06:36Well, what do you want them to do to the French? Right. That's, that's, we can't broadcast that. Let's keep it within the realms of the socially acceptable. Well, saying to them that this situation is unsustainable, we can't do this. And if you are not going to play your part, then there are, 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, oh, 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. You, 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 our house. If the situation was, was reversed, what would, what would I answer?

1:07:38What are our answer? What, who is the politician who would say, here is my, here is my policy, here is my policy agenda. My policy agenda is to keep all these nasty illegal immigrants in the UK and stopping from leaving. Now we had this situation. I know where reform said they've got this deal with who is it? Yeah, Baudela. And we already see this way. I mean, I did think at the time, I think the second, if you're running on a populist program, I'm not entirely sure. Well, so you're saying the French are doing this to us deliberately? Of course they do. They do. They do. Well, that is, to me, if that is, they are, of course I think they are, but I've never heard someone admit it publicly. So if, if we know they're doing this deliberately, that wouldn't 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 a new arrest, not Carras. I'm not. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't think as I said. I'm kidding. I don't think I'd open. But let's just, let's, let's look, we talk about these things. This is, this is why this country is so fucked because we say all these outrageous

1:08:40things as if they're normal. You're saying that France is deliberately sending tens of thousands of illegal immigrants into our country, 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. 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 Casas Belay and the cause for war. Fine. So as I say, what is your practical solution? I don't know. We should go to war with France. Well, just a matter of general principle, yes, but, 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 we, but this is the point, you know, we, as a, yeah, this is again, a separate

1:09:40argument. 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 opt 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, you, I completely understand you've used very motive language there, but I said fine, but what is that your practical solution to this issue? And again, neither of you have actually been here. Well, that's because I don't have the, I'm not that below, but what we might, what we might, 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 bands on important, certain French goods, for example. But how much would, would, would, would introduce reciprocal bands? Does absolutely find it. It's absolutely fine. But you have not for that it's not for the, it's not for the, it's not for the workers,

1:10:44it's not for the workers, the workers who work in those industries. Turn the boats around and dump them on the French beaches back. Well, that's currently what reforming, but that, that, that's our government trend. No, because, well, that's what I would do. Yeah, well, you, you might, and I would escalate to the point where they started to take the service. But as, 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 would mean? We don't have boats. Well, no, we don't have boats. They can tell them. I mean, first we know, we don't have boats as we saw in the, we saw in the, in the situation with the war with Iran. It took it, how long did it take? It took us best part of, yeah, we've seen a single vessel. Yeah, but yeah, we are talking about a warship. I'm talking about small boats that can tow another small boat back to the French water line. But you're, as I said, you're then talking about invading French territory and assuming

1:11:45that the French won't react. Well, 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 he's saying. It's not an invasion. I, well, it's not an invasion. If, 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, well, if, if you, if you have, if you have, if you have, what is, what is being called? If you, if you're talking about mobilizing, if you're talking about the, the government, the, the, the, the, the, you know, the French Navy are not landing on the boat on the shores of Dover. If what you're talking about is the Royal Navy landing, you know, actually on the, no, no, no, no, no, we're tow the boat back to the, to the, to the, to 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 and then we tow it back. Yeah. And we just keep telling them back and over and over until they stop coming. Why will they stop coming?

1:12:45Because we keep telling them back. 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, how do you physically turn the boat back exactly the way the Australians did? I know how they did. I think when we had Tony Abbott on, I don't remember all the details, but what he explained to me, you give them unscuttable, what's the word? It's just got basically, you give them rafts that they can't scuddle so that the people might understand it. Yeah. 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 them back. That's right. But as I said, 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

1:13:51lifeboats systems and send them back. As I said, what the Australians eventually did was they found an offshoring solution. If you want a practical solution to this, then the practical solution is an off-sus, my humble view, is an offshoring solution rather than the invasion of France or these rather complex naval operations, given we don't really have a navy in them. 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, and they're not being done. They're not being done. 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.

1:14:52It's starting off with a false Singapore. We started off this conversation 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. Now, because we've got onto the subject of immigration, switched back into the respect very lazy, oh, there are simple solutions to this, and that's why people are boiling. You write people are boiling. People are boiling because they have identified a problem. They've 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 de-boiled with respect by people going around, falsely telling them there are easy solutions out there that are simply not being a simple solutions that are out there that are simply not being implemented because their politicians don't have back well. Because I think that the legal immigration thing, to me that is eminently solvable.

1:15:57I know you can say, keep repeating that. Because I think fan-point is how are this and what's going on. 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. Oh, it's how completely agree with you. They did not want to address this. So the fact that they did not want to address it for me shows a complete lack of back-buying that they pretended this problem didn't exist. And in very real life, when you pretend the problem doesn't exist, the problem will only get worse. Yeah, and I think I was completely open about, as I said, there are various stages in this debate. And at the beginning, it wasn't the problem wasn't addressed because of a lack of back-buying, 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. But that is a lack of back-buying. If you're concerned when you get into politics, it's people, it's people to be bigoted.

1:16:58It is a lack of back-buying. No, no, no, no, no, no. No one wanting people. Yeah, people. It's people's perception that is false instead of doing the right thing for your country. Yeah, that's a lack of back-buying. No, 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 a back-buying. I think where you, and I've acknowledged this, but it is quite clear that there was a moment, you can talk about it, round about Brexit, maybe even before Brexit, where politicians recognised, actually firstly, there were genuine, really genuine concerns by large numbers of people who couldn't buy any stretch of the imagination, be characterised as bigoted even though some people on the liberal left still attempted to do so. There was a recognition that this was a genuine problem that had to be addressed. If what you're saying is, look, if you're changing your argument and you're saying, look,

1:18:00the lack of backbone was amongst politicians who failed to initially identify the problem. No, they failed to identify. They failed to be honest. That's the lack of back-buying. Or failed to be honest about the problem. I wouldn't characterize it that. But fine, that's a fair point. But that's very, very different from the argument you put forward now is, given, as I say, there's a context now that we all understand that all the politicians do recognise there's a problem. Different between that and saying, oh, yeah, there's a very simple, in your words, there's a very simple solution. And they're not pushing this button marked, simple solutions to the small boat crisis, 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 letter and write 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

1:19:04group in Portsmouth, I think. Group of men don't really know much. I don't think we, 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. 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 there'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 a hundred thousand people to a million people. Do you think the politicians might move closer towards a solution? No, because it doesn't solve any of the fundamentals. But the process you describe 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

1:20:05about 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 perading around in their sort of... Yeah, it's not a side that anyone particularly wants to see. It was a hypothetical from me making the point that I think 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. But they find the solution pretty quickly. What you're saying? Do you genuinely believe that senior politicians such as Andy Burm and Andy Burm, such as Shibonerman mood, such as Keny bad knock, Chris Phil? Do you genuinely think they do not understand the level of public concern there is about this issue? No, I don't think they don't understand the level of public concern, but I think politicians

1:21:08and we've seen this very clearly work on a very short time window of prioritization and they care about what's in the use 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 Burm, the small boats are the number one priority right now. When you study 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 level. That's a deal with the fundamentally Caesar, which... But small boats. No, you said he has to shore up his left flank, which is not people who care about the small boat. 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. That is also the public priority. Right. Well, of course. Yeah, I agree.

1:22:08So they have that. They have their intellectual concerns, etc. 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. 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 it. 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. You can't do it. But then when we get to the point where we're like, it has to be done. Everybody gets together and we find a solution of something. Okay. 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.

1:23:14But on the specific point you may, you're also wrong. What, first, I'm too, too, two levels. Firstly, you're not going to see a large number of people. Yeah, it was hypothetical. I'm not saying it's going to happen. It's hypothetical. 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. 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 at a very, in my view, correct position, but it was a very clear position. Marge Fry has said they were disgusting. Robert Jenrick said the police should do their worst 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 back the guys in Barclavars and

1:24:14Black and at that point, restore reform panic and began to change their position. Therefore, 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 does align themselves with guys who are going out in the streets with Barclavars, Black, Black, Parading around militaristically, attacking police officers, vandalising property, causing major disruption, doxing, 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.

1:25:18The leader of this group is a man who was jailed for two years for attempting to kidnap someone at a nice point in a row over £10,000 drug. 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. As I said, 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 the look. 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 lead it, leave it to people on the right. You certainly can't leave it to people in ballaclavas. The practical political reality that is though, if the right tries to align themselves with

1:26:21these guys 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. Did you know that mosquitoes have killed almost half of all people who have ever lived? Today, people are fighting back. With support from the Gates Foundation, American scientists and partners around the world have developed a new generation of bed nets that can kill up to 90% of mosquitoes exposed to them, helping cut malaria rates in half. The result? A safer, healthier future for everyone. The Gates Foundation, partners of human potential, search gatesfoundation.org slash mosquito to learn more. Because my concern is that. 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. The fact that you have these guys' importance, and the fact that there seems to be gaining

1:27:25some 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 public. I was on the train coming, just designing a total, of course. I was on the train coming into London this morning. Young guy came and sat opposite me, very respectable works in the city, girlfriend, all that. And he was asking me what I think about it. I said, look, it's not a pretty sight, 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 that, again, it's anecdotes of that I've spoken to as well who will come up and have a conversation about it. My point is this, that is a very bad symptom, societally, because what that is saying is we do not have trust in the powers that beat. Yeah, but I think that the reality is, I don't think we needed guys in power clavus

1:28:28wandering around over the toll, because you guys have been literally hanging on about this for years and you've been absolutely right. You've been pruned 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 directly deal with and address those fractures or as 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. 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

1:29:33here 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 and it's a product of public concern about these issues. We wouldn't, we would condemn them unequivocally and that needs to be done with these guys. These are not patriots, they're not heroes, they're not actually really doing it because they're enraged by the nature of immigration, although I'm sure they're all to a man, anti-immigration to varying relative extreme degrees. These guys are putting on ballot clavas 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.

1:30:34I 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. When there is a vacuum, it will naturally be filled. It's for instance the same with the grooming games. We didn't want to talk about the grooming games. Anybody who spoke about it, open honestly was immediately described as an amafobo racist or white supremacist. 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. That's fine. I completely agree with you on the groom again. Let me give you another example. Let's take the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which have intimidated obviously significant sections of the Jewish community and actually it's made me. And I'm not a member of the Jewish community.

1:31:36They've actually illegally broken the law, et cetera, bar. They are articulating whether we like it or not 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 in post-sactions on the settlement. 60% of the British people supported it, I think 14% post. 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 clamor amongst mainstream public opinion through the government to act. Now do you think that justifies the activity of the pro-Palestinian protest that's too intimidating members of the Jewish community? No, well, it depends on what you mean, right? No, but that's the point. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, let me just finish. That's it, that's the difference. You just said no. But you didn't say.

1:32:36But there's two of us here. You said no. You said no. Bar, hang on, and we do need to think about it. Well, let me say, when Suella called for the marchist to be banned, I disagree with that. People have a right to protest. Well they don't have a right to break the law. And when they break the law, they should be treated. That's fine. But that's not. I've gone, but you've got a different position. But you brought up the climate change protestors, right? I've been, I've went and documented extinction rebellion protest myself. I support their right to participate in this protest. I don't support their 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 there. Then those of them that are breaking the law should be taken away by the police and prosecute it 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 and by the

1:33:37clavis? 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 speaking their right to peacefully protest. And frankly, it might be they can wear what they like. But the point is what I'm pointing out is the difference in terms of how the argument is. But I'm entirely consistent in my argument. But with respect, you've got to, you adopted, you're adopting a different point of view, which a lot of people is, which is you're not automatically saying, you say that you're an instinctive reactionist to support that people's right to protest. Yeah, of course. And okay. But do you support those, but do you support the marches that we've seen? Like you, you support the marches that we've seen in some of our lives. I don't support them. I don't support them. You haven't called for the, you haven't said that. I don't believe this in advance. Or I'm glad. But I never said that they should be banned and what you said is when you said intimidating what you, what I thought you meant was that you were holding up placards supporting her mass, which is, which is obviously a prescribed terrorist organization. And they're really good activity for now.

1:34:38That's it. That's a legal activity. Yeah, but that's what I meant by intimidating. And what I'm saying is that's fine, but the guys in power clavers 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 behavior. I don't support these guys doing intimidating behavior. But they are doing. You would certainly wouldn't argue that they're not, that they certainly wouldn't argue that what they're doing. Even if you'd argue and they were breaking the law, you certainly wouldn't argue that guys wandering around the streets dressed in balaclavers and black and standing in the middle of rows isn't intimidating. If they're standing in the middle of a road's booking traffic, they should be arrested. They're standing on the pavement dressed in balaclavers and black gear. I would personally find that intimidating. But why? Well, if you find out that they're there to prevent illegal immigrants from being allowed into the country, I'll be honest with you. There's a part of me that's relieved at least someone's doing it. If you remember Britain's one of Britain's legally resident in the UK ethnic minorities,

1:35:42and you will come, you saw your wealth. So yeah, but well, yes. Yeah, you are. Right. 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, which is I'm relieved. Someone is at least protesting about this issue. But I should act legally. Okay. I think there were significant numbers of other members of Britain's ethnic minorities who would see those guys and be intimidated. Do you dispute that? No, I don't. No, no, but but people might be intimidated by it and just to I would be very. Hold on. If a three if 300 blue head pierced to the to to whatever degree people marched up and down outside my house, what is your anti blue hair prejudice? Well, I have found there's a strong correlation between having blue hair and lots of piercing and not liking constant and kissing and trigonometry. That my point being is if you saw 300 people who you suspect don't like you personally

1:36:46marching up and down, I see. You'd be in a state of like you personally every day. I wouldn't be the house. I'm saying is, but you get my point. People would be intimidated because they are scribe certain views to these people that may or may not be correct, right? We don't know the exact views of those people. All I can see is if the people are protesting, they should do so lawfully, right? Yes, but they're not. So that were just like people at Palestine marches. I thought were treated very, very linearly by the police because a lot of them were breaking the law and they were not arrested. Right. So we want equality of treatment for all people and we don't tend to see it or protest in my opinion. Right. But beyond that, what I'm saying is, yeah, you say, you know, a lot of people will be turned off. I agree. I think. I mean, that's a practical. That will be a practical. No, I completely agree. I think that's you're entirely right about that and it gives a lot of people who don't want to talk about the small boats issue, a thing to point their finger at and say everyone who cares about the small boats is a balaclava wearing thug.

1:37:46Yeah. 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 reforms biggest fan. You've made that very, very, very, I would actually slightly characterize that. No, it's not that I'm a, 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 am just genuinely assessing where I think you're genuine assessment is you don't like reform. No, my general assessment, my general assessment, I like, I like lots of people in reform. I wouldn't say I'm a, I'm a supporter of their party, although I'm not actually a support of any political party at the moment. But what it is important to say, I have written what would, what would, widely regarded as number of positive pieces about reform. Okay, let me just start again. What is your assessment of reform? Descrewed is my assessment of reform. Why? I think for a number of reasons. I think let's start with just the events of the last, the last few days.

1:38:56Actually, let's go back a little bit. I think just before we started broadcasting, you know, we were just chatting and I, so how you've been doing and I said this has been a surprisingly busy summer politically, which Andy Burnham and obviously Kirt Stummer's apart. 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. It's primarily by Nigel Farage's decision to call that, you know, a ZAR by election in Plakton. 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 as some people as his last throw of the dice to achieve to primary objectives. One was to draw a line under the financial scandal stopping reform to basically convince the media to stop talking about them.

1:39:57And I would simply put it just 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 question is about reforms financing and his role in that are intensifying. And that and intensively to an extent that they are cutting through. There was polling, I think yesterday or the day before, which showed the extent to which now the party is associated with sleeves, he is associated with sleeves. This issue is cutting through to the electorate. And as we all know from experience, once a political party becomes tainted with the brand

1:40:57of sleeves, it is very difficult to remove. And it can only be removed with a sort of a great overhaul within and sort of rebranding 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 is incredibly popular with around about 20% of the electorate and massively popular. He walks down the street, people call out pubs, they love him, he is people who are members and activists within reform or war-cogrow-conglass 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

1:42:01office and entering Downing Street. And those numbers are just simply too toxic. And there is a narrative and myself and my Westminster colleagues have, you know, feed into this about Nigel Farage being this great sort of, this great showman, this man who constantly reinvents himself, nor 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. Somebody who had a similar degree of broader public popularity when he was in the mid-storfe, 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 cannot come.

1:43:06One thing that we're now seeing inside reform, speak to people inside reform, it is quite clear that within inside 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 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 Zio Yusuf is doing. He is basically setting out his leadership store. We had his sort of budget leadership campaign video to launch the 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 Jennerick in particular will see it will reach its ties. 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.

1:44:09For a party like reform, a new party, a young party, a 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 will 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? I do. Yes. Now, the question is whether or not Andy Bern 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 really leave relatively soon, which is why the sort of leadership job he needs is starting. But that, I mean, surely isn't reformed as a party based around the personality of reform. Yes, I hear this a lot and I generally don't agree with that. I mean, firstly, for the reasons we've all discussed, we were talking about these people

1:45:14who are watching this program getting angry and all that sort of start. That is a small but still unless significant proportion of the electorate. They, 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? Or have betrayed them. Yes, yes. It's not that they think that. Well, that's what's happened. Yes. I'm trying to be sort of going into objective mode here, but yes. But if we are going into objective mode, we should say that those parties have betrayed them. Well, if you promise people something and then don't do it, you betrayed them. Fine. I'll concede your characterisation of that. But it doesn't change your point. I just thought it's important. Yes, but no, but the reality is still a base of people who view the world away from the reform. And reform will be a political, or have political influence moving forward. Particularly in an environment where to secure a majority of 170, you don't need to secure 34% of the vote. It's a keyist armament. We're not in a situation where you need to get 45% to win an election.

1:46:17So in that context, they will remain also, so this consistently, there are some, some I would regard as serious other alternative serious political players within reform. I think Robert Jenrick is whatever you think about his inability to sort of mask his very naked political ambition. He is a serious political operator. I think Richard Tyson has thought deeply about the professionalisation of reform and, you know, I just went to Richard about a huge audience, he yesterday saying who the L's down haunted. 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 he gets it. And also somebody like Leanderson, who is obviously very much a better one, or the left, can articulate, I think, in a very, very effective way, the genuine hopes and dreams of those

1:47:19people that we were talking about who he's so been betrayed. 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 politician, you point me a politician with those levels of approval. Because the key thing is, if you look at other politicians, senior politicians, there will be a section of the electorate that like them. There will be a section of the electorate that dislike them. That section of the electorate 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 a message to drive reformer's base. The problem for Nigel is, it does drive reformer's base, 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

1:48:22lucky to be known by the entire country, which they're not? Compared to Nigel Farage, nobody knows his ear. If there's nobody knows Robert Generick, nobody knows even Leanderson and Richard Tyce. 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 opposed you. It depends what the strategy is. I mean, I think the part of the problem for reform is a year ago, they were on 31% of the vote. There were people running around saying, are you fascist? You're racist, you're all that sort of stuff. And that stuff was just bouncing off. The problem is the realities they played into their opponent's hands. And so what's happened is, as I said, I was speaking to people at the time who were talking me through that the next stage of reform strategy was to broaden the mainstream their message. What happened was there was obviously then the split with Rupert Low and the establishment

1:49:22of Restore. And I used exactly, we literally saw it this weekend. We literally saw it. Nigel Farage came out with a very, very clear position on the demonstrators, disgusting, et cetera. Rupert Low says, no, actually I'm putting my arm around. And suddenly Nigel Farage shifts his position and reform shift their position. And what they're doing now is rather than to see 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 stool. Now they're shoring up the right. Well, like the L.A. Burnham is trying to shore up the legs. Yeah, but they're doing the settlement. Yeah, that's the kind of what they're trying to do, but they're doing it from a much lower base. The point is the reality is, Labour's vote sharing the polls is probably slightly underestimating where Labour are at the moment because there are people who are saying they're voting green and they're dem or whatever, who won't come back. Well, literally, the polls are overestimating reforms support because obviously whenever you

1:50:26have a party of protest, who position themselves as with the anti-establishment people, obviously when people are asked by a pollster who you're going to vote for, very easy to say reform, then when it comes to a general election, when you're actually voting for a government, as we've seen with all parties, all persuasions, who are minority parties, their support then gets squeezed and trained. Well, just let me push back on that a little bit because what about we all know the shiitori phenomenon where 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? No, because I think the whole point about reforms brand and also we're in a different space now in the year of populism. You know, my experience in reform supporters is that people who support reform are in any way ashamed of 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

1:51:27are basically defining yourself as someone who is taking a stand against the traditional establishment and the other problem is, yeah, there wasn't the past shiitori thing, but if there is a shiit reform phenomenon, that is because of the increasing toxicity of the party in the parties brand. 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,

1:52:30I'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. I don't understand why, do you understand why? Yeah, I do. I get my head right, I don't know, it's personality conflict. 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 have 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 like loads of like Nazi comments in our videos, which we were 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 quite brigading our videos.

1:53:34Right. In order to create this perception that there were loads of them as like three people in the basement somewhere. Yeah. But when that happens, you, you, you, you, particularly in our case, when you're a small channel, it's you're like, what the fuck is going on? Like this is not who we are. It's not what we created for these people. 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 part here. And you know, I think it is fair to say Rupert was treated badly by reform. I don't know exactly what happened, but, but suddenly they're picking up X percent of the vote. You're seeing them come up with policies. And you know, the being a fringe party of opposition has its benefits that would you can say things bluntly in a way that you can't, if you're seeking that main 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

1:54:37out of 10 on, on powerful rhetoric and presentation and whatever, you're kind of going on. You know, you said that well, et cetera. So I understand why they may be panicked a little bit and started, but I mean, I don't think the majority of the electorate isn't that position. And it does, you know, 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 a point. I think, look, size plays a part as well. Look, let's look at the way that the labor of dealt with the Greens. The Greens, supposed just as much, if not more of a threat to labor than restored did to reform, but labor never panicked. The labor never, I didn't see them behaving and they show any of the same behaviors or trying to attack the Greens or do anything like that, even when the Greens won and Gordon and Denton. Because I think it's about the size of the Labor Party and it's about the history of the Labor Party.

1:55:38The Labor Party has been in existence for over what is it? 100 years. They're people there with experience who've won elections who go, look, this happened and whenever it was just chill out, it will be fine. Yeah. Whether 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, I've been speaking to somebody who reformed the 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 really was their objective. Their objective now is to either kind of like overtake the tourism, basically supplant the tourism 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 stage, they're in

1:56:41a position to supplant the tourism. And so to do that, they're now adopting as sort of a course vote strategy to have what got will hold. But I think there are two problems for them with that. One is that the thing, as I said, 20% in my view is significantly of resonating 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 brands so much, that will start to have a, I think, an increasing impact. And we're already seeing it on the softer levels of reform support and crucially something that's happened, which is a small thing, but a very significant thing is 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 restores going up. And I think we saw it in, was it the more in common poll?

1:57:44I think it was the more in common poll, started prompting for the restore immediately. Restore got I think four or five percent and the tourists jumped ahead of them. Now the problem for reform is they are clinging on by their fingernails because they are just about the moment clinging on to a lead over the tourist. Once they drop below the tourist into third place in the polls, at that point, I think it really is game over. I think at that point what you would see is a very fast cratering in support because at that point it's quite clear. Look, you may like some of, you may like Nigel, you may like some of the stuff Nigel says, but if you want to stop Andy Burnham, you want to stop is big grand socialist agenda, you're going to have to stick with the tourist. And I think that's the danger for the Maviva and having the trying to cling on to the base that they've already got or they've pursued.

1:58:44I don't know. 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 the hundred days of government and that may still happen may not. But given that they have five MPs for them to get a hundred 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 issue. Very, 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, did you know that mosquitoes have killed almost half of all people who have ever lived?

1:59:45Today, people are fighting back. With support from the Gates Foundation, American scientists and partners around the world have developed a new generation of bed nets that can kill up to 90% of mosquitoes exposed to them, helping cut malaria rates in half. The result? A safer, healthier future for everyone. The Gates Foundation, partners of human potential. Search Gates Foundation.org slash mosquito to learn more. You know, they are going to have to let go of an anti sort of apron spring at some point. You know, Nigel Farage is not whatever you think about Nigel Farage, you know, he's not an author. And I think anybody who looked at his, you know, his interviews he gave at the end of the reform conference card that have been incited into what he's thinking about is how long he wants to be in, be in this form. 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, his family asked him to get out of politics and he contemplated

2:00:47it, et cetera. 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, reformer just going to have to grow up. They're going to have to grow up as a, as a party. You know, this, you know, and this constant narrative, oh, everyone's out to get us and the establishment and all that sort of stuff, when they keep making this succession of ludicrous and goals. I mean, that was a, it was a by-election taking place, which was supposed to draw, draw line under the funding crisis. And there are Nigel Farage's senior age going around tight tan for Torchi donations. You know, these are not at the moment. This is not at the moment. Whatever you think of them, a serious alternative party government at the moment. And they, you know, and- Can I just ask you one question on that point? I mean, the point, they're a small party. So why head of policy is soliciting donations or why PR persons, 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

2:01:51this level of scrutiny where you've got activist groups doing year long entrapment, things to try and catch people out, etc. I mean, I was reading Michael Cricks' biography of Nigel Farage, which is by no means a complimentary book, if I don't know if you've read it or not. But one of the things Crick talks about is the extent to which the Tories cheated in their elections against Farage's party, which I think would have been you, Kippel, Brexit party at the time. So I mean, don't all political parties get up to the sort of stuff? Here 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? Well, this latest channel four thing, it wasn't the channel four thing at all. You had a bunch of foreign funded far-left activists who did this, then handed it over to channel four. I mean, my memory may be tripping me up, but I certainly remember, I think there was

2:02:52some sort of undercut, there might have been some sort of undercover operation around the old cash framers. Yeah, but you've gone back into what is ancient history, for might be a bit. Well, it was the early days of black government. No, no, no, no. But I mean, well, no, it was the latter days of the black government. Middle days. But the point was Tony Blair, you know, Tony Blair was interviewed under caution when he was in his event. He said we saw labor politicians around for those 20 years. 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 happened. The reality is you're not going to get, and this comes back to what we're talking about about being serious. You're not going to get Andy Burnham or anyone around Andy Burnham, sitting down with anyone, saying, give us some dodgy donations. You know, that's the... They have other people further away than that. Surreality. You know, there are different people who deal with the donation side of it. Andy Burnham would go anywhere near it, whereas you've got Nigel Farage in the middle of a bar election sitting there saying, well, I'm boys, isn't this great?

2:03:52You know, I mean, and then saying, oh, God, it's all, you know, they're out together. Damn. Thanks for coming on me. It's good to chat. Appreciate you. Good to see you. 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. 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 subtle consensus of what the most significant issue of the great intractable issue that we need to solve at the moment. It's obviously the moment we're talking about immigration. Like I said, I was told, you know, social 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, the country was going to fall apart. Like the productivity was another, another, another great one.

2:04:54I think the thing... 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 to focus on one thing at the time. And we spend all that time on we're currently talking about immigration and this is the biggest issue. In 10 or 15 years, people may not be us. They will be us. We'll be sitting around this table and there will be another major policy and we'll go, why don't we see that coming? That's it. I mean, maybe it's... But then again, maybe not, because we might be there. No, I know. Exactly. Exactly. That's right. Dan Hodges, thanks so much for coming on. Head on over to TriggerPod.co.uk where Dan's going to answer your questions. As a former Labour researcher, this current government must be particularly disheartening for you. Do you believe there's any hope of Labour actually coming up with a working policy on defence, welfare, education, the NHS, net zero or anything else?

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