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00:00 Hello and welcome to another episode of Politics Unpacked
00:03 with myself, Rafe Blackburn,
00:05 National World's Politics Editor.
00:07 We're in the middle of party conference season,
00:09 so there's no PMQs to keep us occupied.
00:11 However, we'll have an array of political speeches
00:15 over the next three weeks
00:17 at the Conservative Conference and Labour Conference,
00:20 both of which I'll be attending.
00:22 But first up, we're gonna take a deep dive
00:25 in Sered Davies' leader's speech
00:28 at the Liberal Democrat Conference in Bournemouth yesterday.
00:31 And Sered's speech started in rather bizarre fashion.
00:36 - I'm afraid I have to start this afternoon with an apology.
00:39 You might remember, after our incredible victory
00:44 in Somerton and Froom in July,
00:47 when the amazing Sarah Dyke
00:50 overturned a Conservative majority of 19,000,
00:55 I said, "It's time to get these clowns out of number 10."
01:00 We even wrote it on the side of a big blue cannon,
01:04 do you remember?
01:04 Well, a party member got in touch afterwards
01:10 to say he is an actual clown.
01:14 (audience laughing)
01:17 And he took great offence
01:19 at being compared to the Conservative government.
01:23 (audience laughing)
01:25 Clowns didn't crash our economy
01:28 and send interest rates soaring.
01:30 Clowns didn't let water companies make billions in profits
01:34 while dumping filthy sewage into our rivers
01:36 and onto our beaches.
01:38 Clowns didn't plunge our NHS into crisis,
01:42 pushing waiting lists to record highs.
01:44 Clowns didn't waste billions of pounds of our money
01:49 on dodgy PPE contracts.
01:52 Clowns didn't prop up a lying, law-breaking Prime Minister
01:56 and then allow him to put his cronies in the House of Lords.
01:59 Clowns didn't do it, the Conservatives did.
02:05 (audience applauding)
02:06 I'm sorry, I used the wrong C word.
02:09 So let me try again.
02:12 It's time to get these Conservatives out of number 10.
02:18 So Davey here is referring to a publicity stunt
02:23 in one of the more memorable openings
02:26 to a party leaders conference speech.
02:31 And he's referring to a time when the Lib Dems wrote,
02:34 "Let's get these clowns out of number 10
02:36 on the side of a blue cannon
02:38 after they won the Somerton and Froome by-election in July."
02:43 And Davey claims now even clowns are getting annoyed
02:47 at being associated with the Conservatives.
02:49 He says a Lib Dem member who is also a clown
02:52 got in touch with him and asked if,
02:56 and said he was being offended
02:57 at comparisons with the Tories.
02:59 Now I don't think any of us had apologizing to clowns
03:04 on our bingo card when it came
03:06 to the Lib Dems' leader speech.
03:08 However, it certainly got people talking,
03:10 got people talking on social media.
03:12 And that was exactly the point of this,
03:14 it was quite a funny opening to the speech.
03:17 As the Lib Dems are not one of the major parties,
03:20 they have to fight a bit more for column inches
03:22 and time on the bulletins, TV shows, radio channels,
03:27 aren't just gonna publish and broadcast Ed Davey's speech
03:32 with just like blanket coverage.
03:37 So basically to ensure he gets his clips
03:40 at the top of the bulletins,
03:40 he has to think outside the box.
03:42 And this gag about clowns was certainly an example of that.
03:46 And it also allowed him to quite cleverly run through
03:49 some of the conservative failures over the last 13 years.
03:53 So after that quite funny opening,
03:56 it wasn't too long before Sir Ed moved on
03:59 to more serious matters.
04:02 - Our campaigns, our victories are changing the future
04:07 of British politics and turning the tide
04:09 against the conservatives.
04:11 We've shown the next election won't be all
04:15 about the red wall, it's about the blue wall too.
04:20 Former Tory heartlands where we've shown
04:23 we are the only ones who can win,
04:25 the only ones who can bring the change people crave.
04:30 And even better.
04:34 - So here Davey is setting out
04:36 the Lib Dems election strategy going ahead
04:39 to the next election, which you think will be
04:41 in about a year's time.
04:43 So his party has been very effective in by-elections
04:46 where they can put a lot of resources into one seat.
04:50 You know, they've won a number of stunning
04:52 by-election victories over the last few years,
04:54 overturning huge conservative majorities.
04:56 However, at the general election,
04:58 you have to spread your resources more thinly.
05:00 And the first positive host voting system we have
05:03 makes it harder for smaller parties
05:06 who tend to find their vote share spreads
05:09 and they get fewer MPs than their vote share
05:12 properly deserves.
05:13 So while I've been out reporting
05:18 and covering recent by-elections,
05:20 you know, the party have told me
05:21 that they're really trying to focus on the blue wall.
05:24 As Sered mentioned there, now the blue wall
05:27 is an area of kind of Tory heartland seats
05:31 outside of cities from the Southeast to the Southwest.
05:35 And they tend to care about environment issues.
05:39 Some of these areas might be quite pro-EU.
05:42 So there are a number of issues
05:44 which Lib Dems can really target,
05:46 winning seats back from the Conservatives,
05:50 which might be a little out of Labour's reach.
05:53 What Sered is also trying to do
05:56 is he's trying to send a message
05:58 ahead of the upcoming mid-Bedfordshire by-election
06:00 where both Labour and the Lib Dems
06:02 are fighting to be the main challenger
06:04 to the Tories to replace Nadine Dorris's seat.
06:07 And he's saying in these areas,
06:08 if you want to get rid of the Tories,
06:10 we're the people you need to vote for.
06:12 So yeah, he's trying to kind of usurp Labour in that regard.
06:18 And now we'll move on to a bit later in Sered's speech
06:22 when he brought up the UK's relationship with the EU.
06:26 - Part of our economic vision,
06:29 another area where we are so different from this government,
06:34 something that would so obviously
06:37 make an enormous difference to our economy
06:40 and our standard of living,
06:42 something we have always been proud to champion,
06:46 even when no one else even dared whisper it,
06:49 fixing our broken relationship with Europe.
06:55 (audience applauding)
06:58 (audience cheering)
07:01 The Conservatives botched the deal with Europe
07:23 and it's been a disaster for the UK.
07:26 They sold out British farmers and fishers.
07:29 They tied up British business in red tape
07:32 and they pushed up food prices in our supermarkets.
07:35 So much unnecessary pain inflicted on so many by so few.
07:40 (audience applauding)
07:46 And only the Liberal Democrats
07:51 have consistently stood up against it.
07:54 Only we have set out a detailed plan
07:58 to tear down those trade barriers,
08:00 fix our broken relationship with Europe
08:02 and get a better deal for Britain.
08:04 Yes, only we.
08:07 (audience applauding)
08:10 - So here, Sered Davie is pledging to fix
08:17 our apparent broken relationship with Europe.
08:22 And you'll have heard he got one of the biggest cheers
08:25 of his whole speech there.
08:27 However, despite him saying that the Lib Dems
08:29 are the only party to solve this,
08:31 and they've got a detailed plan
08:33 of how to improve the UK's relationship with the EU,
08:37 you'll notice he didn't mention at all
08:39 that he necessarily thought that the UK should rejoin.
08:42 Four years ago in 2019, the Liberal Democrat leader,
08:45 Joe Swinson, stood on a platform
08:48 which was all about cancelling Brexit.
08:50 And after the election then,
08:51 the Lib Dems were left with just 11 seats
08:53 and Swinson herself lost hers.
08:56 So now, despite polls showing that Brexit regret
08:59 is higher than ever, it's pretty noticeable
09:02 that the Lib Dem leadership don't want to come out
09:05 very vocally in support of rejoining.
09:08 And while I've been on the campaign trail recently,
09:10 it's pretty obvious that candidates have been briefed
09:13 not to really discuss Brexit.
09:15 When I asked the Lib Dems' mid-bed feature candidate,
09:18 Emma Holland-Lindsay,
09:20 what relationship she would like with the EU,
09:23 she basically didn't answer my question.
09:27 She merely said that she was focusing on delivering
09:29 voters' concerns around the cost of living crisis.
09:32 But yeah, next we'll move on to Davies' big announcement
09:36 towards the end of his speech.
09:38 - And today, I'd like to focus on one particular
09:43 awful part of this health crisis
09:47 that shatters lives and takes people in their prime.
09:52 It can be very difficult to talk about.
09:56 It's difficult for me.
09:58 And I know it's difficult for many of you.
10:01 But we do need to talk about it.
10:06 As many of you know, my brothers and I lost both our parents
10:09 to cancer when we were young.
10:11 My dad died aged 38, just a few months after being diagnosed
10:17 with a cancer called Hodgkin lymphoma.
10:19 I was only four, so I don't remember it very well.
10:23 What I do remember is my mum's grief
10:26 and her incredible strength in the months and years
10:29 that followed after being widowed so young
10:32 with three boys under 10.
10:35 I know there are MPs in every party
10:38 who have lost loved ones to cancer like I did,
10:41 or indeed who've battled cancer themselves.
10:44 So I fervently hope we can build a consensus across politics
10:48 to make cancer a top priority in the next parliament.
10:52 But as leader of our party, I can at least promise you this.
10:58 For Liberal Democrat MPs, it will be a top priority.
11:03 And that's why today I'm announcing our new
11:05 and ambitious plan to end unacceptable cancer delays
11:09 and boost survival rates.
11:11 (audience applauding)
11:12 (audience applauding)
11:15 We will hold the government to account
11:23 for every target it misses and every patient it fails.
11:28 We will never stop fighting for better care
11:30 for you and your loved ones.
11:32 - So there we heard Davey tell the heartbreaking story
11:39 of how he lost both his parents to cancer
11:42 by the age of 15.
11:43 In between those two clips we heard there,
11:46 he said how his mother died when he was visiting her
11:51 in his school uniform on the way to school.
11:53 And so you can see why he's so passionate
11:57 about improving cancer survival rates.
12:00 And it really was a heartbreaking section
12:03 of his conference speech.
12:04 At conference, Davey announced the policy
12:08 for a new legal right for cancer patients
12:10 to start treatment within two months of an urgent referral.
12:14 And he also promised to put 4 billion pounds into cancer.
12:17 And these health policies,
12:19 which is a major new announcement from the Lib Dems,
12:22 got a pretty good reaction.