Join The Independent as our expert panel picks apart the key moments from the 2024 general election.Hosted by our chief political commentator John Rentoul, this event takes a deep dive into the immediate and long-term challenges facing the newly elected Labour government, including immigration, the cost of living, the NHS, education, Brexit and more with our expert panel of Kate Devlin, Andrew Grice and Anand Menon.
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00:00Hello and welcome to this independent special online event about the general election, the
00:08landslide, if you can still remember it from last week. I'm still recovering from sleep
00:14deprivation, although I was very chipper about it. I didn't know I could stay up all night
00:20and keep functioning, and I didn't moan on. I'm joined by a stellar panel of guests, starting
00:28with Professor Arnon Menon, Director of UK Interchanging Europe, a colleague of mine
00:35at King's College London, and the world's greatest expert on Brexit. My colleague, Kate
00:42Devlin, Whitehall and political editor of The Independent. And my other colleague, Andrew
00:49Grice, who used to be The Independent's political editor, and is one of the best commentators
00:57around. So let's get started. Let's not mess around. We have lots and lots of questions
01:04from you, the readers. Thank you very much for that. And let me just find the first one.
01:12Michael Whitmore. Now, I didn't choose these questions, just a question about Tony Blair,
01:16right? But Michael Whitmore said, what are the similarities and differences in
01:26how this Labour government can get things done compared to Tony Blair's?
01:32I think the biggest single difference is when Tony Blair was elected, growth was 4.5%, which
01:38meant that he could be very cautious, and Labour were very, very cautious in their first
01:41term, but still stick money into public services, because you have that growth. Growth now,
01:46we were celebrating this morning, because growth was 0.4%.
01:50Yeah, a great triumph for the new Labour government. It retrospectively raised the level of growth.
01:56Strong growth. I was thinking the word strong has changed meaning. So I think that is the
02:00biggest single fundamental difference between the two.
02:04I think the similarity between the two is that they're both incredibly lucky generals.
02:10And Tony Blair was just an incredibly lucky leader. I know you're going to tell me how
02:14talented he was. I know you're going to tell me what a great government it was. But he
02:18also was quite lucky. The economy was already turning around in 1996. And he rode that wave
02:25very successfully. Now, whatever you say about Rishi Sunak, rightly or wrongly, he has actually
02:31spent a lot of the last year trying to solve a lot of problems, because as a technocrat,
02:36he thought that he would get rewarded for that, and that the voters would love him.
02:41He was wrong about that. But he has, he has solved some of the problems for Keir Starmer.
02:47And also, I think the economy is also going to be turning around. And things like this
02:51will be seen as entirely things that Keir Starmer has done. And so you'll be quite lucky
02:56that way.
02:57Andy, you had a front row seat in the Blair government.
03:01Yeah, and I remember 97 very well. And it just doesn't feel like that, even though the
03:06result of the majority is the same. Under Keir Starmer, it feels very different. And
03:12even talking to Labour people, there isn't the euphoria there was in 1997. I think they
03:17know that they've got a much, much tougher, tougher challenges ahead, because of the
03:22economy. And as Anand has said, it all goes back to that. And I think they will have to
03:28do one thing which Tony Blair did do, which is to make the case for investment in public
03:33services, there is not going to be enough money to rebuild public services. And so I
03:38think that later in the first term, they'll have to do what Blair did, and Gordon Brown
03:44did in the new Labour second term, which was to raise taxes to pay for the health service.
03:50And there was a clue, I think, in Rachel Reeves's first speech where she said that she would
03:56ask the Treasury to do an audit of her spending inheritance. Now, that could pave the way
04:01for a debate about taxes, not to break the promises in the Labour manifesto on income
04:06tax, tax and insurance and VAT, but to look at other taxes, which they didn't rule out
04:11during the general election campaign.
04:12Yeah, that was interesting, though, because I thought she said during the campaign, that
04:17she wasn't going to do that trick of saying, I've looked at the books, it's worse than
04:21I thought, I've got to put up taxes.
04:23But I think they're starting to do that across the piece, actually, because we're getting
04:26audits of the National Health Service, they're going to have a review of sentencing to help
04:31solve the problems in prisons. And I think you'll see other ministers saying we've got
04:37to look at our inheritance, the word audit is going to be a useful word for later, I
04:41think, because they will then create the narrative that they have inherited these
04:45problems from the Tories. It won't work forever to blame everything on the Tories, but I
04:49think they can set the parameters of the debate, and they're doing that in the early days
04:54of the administration.
04:55Yeah, and I think they may take the public with them on that.
04:59Wes Treating is doing the same thing in health.
05:01He's commissioned a review of health.
05:03This is hitting the ground reviewing.
05:05I mean, this isn't this isn't the sort of decisive, prepared action that we were
05:10expecting, is it?
05:11So I think I think they're doing two things, right.
05:13And one is they're winning the piece.
05:16You know, they're doing exactly what David Cameron did in 2010.
05:19And they're defining what just happened.
05:22And they are defining it as absolute chaos from the Tories.
05:26It's even worse than you thought.
05:28And they will just keep hammering that for years and years and years, much like David
05:32Cameron did.
05:33Yeah.
05:34But then I think you're right.
05:35The other problem is that they have allowed expectations to run away during this
05:40election, probably because they had to, because the electorate is just so sick of
05:47nothing working in Britain.
05:48It's memes.
05:49It's, you know, it's kind of what everybody thinks.
05:52But expectation management has been missing.
05:54And you're right, they're hitting the ground reviewing.
05:58And they, you know, people want results pretty soon.
06:01I mean, the difference with David Cameron is he inherited a state that worked.
06:05OK, so the health service was in pretty good shape.
06:07Yeah, it was in very good shape.
06:08Things were in pretty good shape.
06:10So actually, that gave you a bit more room for manoeuvre.
06:12The problem that Labour have now is even if you come out and say, oh, my God, things
06:16are dreadful, people still want things to change because they can't get to see a GP
06:20or whatever it is. So it's a very different starting position.
06:23They have to show tangible improvements and they have to show improvements on things
06:27like the health service, which I think was a much bigger issue in this election in
06:31terms of determining the result than we all wrote about at the time.
06:34Yeah, there was a lot of focus on the economy and immigration.
06:37But if you look at reasons why people didn't vote for the Tories, it was for a lot
06:42of people, it was the NHS is broken.
06:45That's why West Streeting is using that language now.
06:47But it's no use saying it's broken if you can't fix it.
06:50They have to. They've got a couple of years to show it within a couple of years.
06:55They've got to show tangible improvements to which are going to affect people in their
06:58daily lives.
06:59Yeah, I mean, we've got a question from Sean Mansfield asking about that.
07:04I mean, can it actually be done?
07:05I mean, can the NHS be fixed?
07:08I mean, yes.
07:10Whether you can show really meaningful improvements within five years is a slightly
07:14more open question.
07:15Whether you can show progress within five years without spending significant amounts
07:19of money, I suspect the answer is no.
07:22Yeah, I mean, Keir Starmer during the campaign sometimes used language which
07:27suggested that he was going to clear the backlogs, the coronavirus backlogs within
07:32five years, the five years of a parliament.
07:34Now that strikes me as over-promising and guaranteeing to under-deliver.
07:40Yeah, and there's also with West Streeting, I think, actually, this was very evident at
07:44the Tony Blair conference, this faith in technology.
07:48Did you go to the Tony Blair conference?
07:49I sort of tuned in and out online in a grumpy, resentful manner.
07:55But I found that the sort of faith in technology that was being expressed, and I
08:01say this as a proud Luddite partly, but I was just thinking, really, is it that easy?
08:06And I do worry about that.
08:08I mean, there's some stuff like, you know, the IT kit in the health services is
08:11rubbish. But again, that's not going to be free to fix.
08:14No, absolutely not.
08:16Right, well, let's just take a break from readers' questions and just go back to our
08:22memories of the election campaign.
08:24Let's ask each one of you in turn for your election moment and your sort of
08:29your, the summation of your feelings about the election.
08:32Andy?
08:33Well, I was up for Liz Truss.
08:36I was writing frantically at the time, like all of us were.
08:40But I did break off to watch the result.
08:42What was that? It was about 5.45?
08:435ish, 5.30ish, I think, yeah.
08:47It's a bit of a blur, isn't it now?
08:48And I was very, very pleased to see the result, not because I have any ill will
08:51towards Liz Truss, but because a friend, an old school friend who lives in Norfolk,
08:55rang me the day before the election and said, what's going to be the Portillo moment?
08:59So I said, it's going to be close to you in Norfolk.
09:02Watch out for Liz Truss.
09:03However, I have to admit, my prediction wasn't perfect because I also told him to
09:08watch out for Jeremy Hunt. I thought Jeremy Hunt was going to lose and he didn't.
09:12That was an astonishing moment.
09:13Yeah. Arnand?
09:15I mean, I can't get beyond the initial press conference.
09:18I mean, the combination of the rain and the music.
09:21I mean, as a metaphor for what had gone before and what came afterwards, I mean, you
09:26couldn't make it up, quite frankly.
09:28It was an astonishing moment.
09:30Yeah, it really was.
09:31Kate?
09:31So my moment of the election, it's a bit left field.
09:34I'm from North Antrim, which since before I was born has been represented by a
09:39Paisley. And we all expected we'd continue being represented by a Paisley, probably
09:44for the rest of my lifetime.
09:45And in a real absolute shocker, which nobody in Northern Ireland saw coming, it's not
09:51represented by Ian Paisley anymore.
09:53And it's now represented by Jim Allister from the TUB.
09:57And the easiest way to explain that is that Ian Paisley has been out hard-lined.
10:04He's a more hard-lined unionist.
10:07But I think it's a bigger story for the election.
10:09It's a bigger story for the rest of the UK, because why has that happened?
10:13It's because unionists feel that there's a border down the Irish Sea and it's a Brexit
10:18problem. And it's still a problem for care.
10:22And it shows that a lot of issues about Brexit still need to be sorted out.
10:27And it's going to be a big, big problem for him.
10:29And Jim Allister was allowed to speak in the first debate of the new parliament to elect
10:36the speaker.
10:37Because he's a party leader.
10:38Even though he's a leader of a party with one MP, which I thought was odd, because the
10:43UUP have got one MP and they weren't allowed to speak.
10:45Anyway, he was allowed to speak and he complained about putting a border through the
10:50United Kingdom. I mean, how much of a problem, Arnand, is this going to be for the new
10:56government? I mean, Brexit more generally, not just Northern Ireland.
11:00Well, the whole Brexit thing?
11:01Yeah.
11:02OK.
11:03All the small questions.
11:04I mean, it'll be a problem over time.
11:08So, for instance, this autumn, the European Union is planning on bringing in border
11:13checks. That will be immensely important for people because it will make it a lot slower
11:16getting in. There will be queues.
11:19The government has to put in place our border checks on food, plant and animal products
11:24coming in. That might have an impact on food prices.
11:29There's a renegotiation of fisheries due.
11:31So there are all sorts of small landmines sort of scheduled for Brexit.
11:36On the sort of big question, I think this government isn't planning to.
11:41Well, two things. One, this government will profoundly change the tone in our
11:47relationship with the European Union.
11:48I think that's going to take some getting used to.
11:49We have a government that genuinely wants to be friends and partners with European
11:53states and doesn't see the relationship as zero-sum or competitive.
11:58And that tone will take some getting used to because we're so used to something
12:00completely different. But in substantive terms, my sense is they're not going to do
12:04very much. They're going to tinker around the edges of the existing trade agreement.
12:08They might sign some deals on security.
12:10There's not going to be a wholesale change in our trading relationship with the
12:13European Union.
12:14That's going to disappoint a lot of our readers and a lot of Labour voters.
12:19I mean, Mike Percival asks, you know, now that Labour has a huge majority, why
12:24shouldn't they apply to rejoin the customs union?
12:27I think that they might go further than we expect.
12:30And Keir Starmer's opening shots in this debate are quite strong, I think.
12:36I spoke to a lot of Labour people, frontbenchers now in government, before the
12:40election. And of course, they're not going to breach their manifesto promises to stay
12:44out of the single market and the customs union.
12:46But there are people high up in the government now who want to achieve a form of
12:52customs union by the end of the five-year parliament.
12:55Now, that's very ambitious. And it's not at all clear that the EU...
12:59How can you have a form of customs union that isn't a customs union?
13:01Incremental, lots of deals, lots of alignment.
13:05They want the security deal to go way beyond defence to cover energy, climate and
13:11migration. That's a big ask.
13:13And I'm not sure with the instability in France and weak governments in Paris and
13:17Berlin, you can achieve that.
13:18But they are aiming high.
13:20And I think they're going to aim higher than most people expect.
13:24Just to come back on that, I'd say two things.
13:26The sort of let's do little bits of a customs union is not going to be on offer, I
13:31don't think. I don't think the EU, anything that smells of a Swiss-type deal, the EU
13:34will run a mile from. And a load of separate little agreements, they're not going to
13:38do.
13:38What, just because it's too much trouble for them?
13:41It's hard to govern.
13:42There's a lot of paranoia amongst some of the Western European states about the future
13:46of the single market as is.
13:48And they see us getting little bits of deals as problematic in terms of other member
13:52states. The customs union, the problem with the customs union, apart from the fact
13:55they've ruled it out, and I do hope they don't go through this semantic trick of
13:58saying we said the customs union, this is a customs union.
14:02They might.
14:03But I so hope they don't, is that you have to go around the world having come in and
14:09said, this is the new reliable Britain.
14:11And so, you know, that trade deal we struck four or five years ago, sorry, but
14:15actually it's got to go. And I think there's a cost to that.
14:18There's a cost to that, particularly if you're dealing with Australia.
14:19You'd have to say it is Australia.
14:20Australia or all those countries in the CTPP that, you know, actually we can't do this
14:25anymore. And I don't think they would necessarily want to do that.
14:30Kate?
14:33So I think I think it's going to be really interesting to watch the language around
14:36this. And I completely, I completely disagree with that.
14:39And I know that you don't want them to do that, but that's politics.
14:42And I think this is going to be really interesting in a wider sense is do we have a
14:46government now that does politics?
14:48Yeah, because we haven't had a government that does politics for a couple of years and
14:52we haven't had a government that kind of instinctively understands the space that can
14:57be created between these things where people can have things that work for us and
15:02work for you. And there's a form of language that can be brought together.
15:08Technocrats like Rishi Sunak have managed to do things.
15:13By kind of sidestepping politics, by not really understanding how much can be
15:17created by using politics.
15:19And so I think it'll be really interesting to see.
15:22There's definitely a lot of people in Labour who do.
15:24Is Keir Starmer the kind of prime minister who instinctively understands how much he
15:29can achieve from that?
15:31And I think if he does, then I think Andy's right, they can go a lot further.
15:37But at the same time, they're going to have to roll the pitch.
15:42Yeah. Again, which we haven't seen from governments for a long time.
15:46And they're going to have to reassure voters that when they say that they believe in
15:50democracy, they really do.
15:52That's fascinating.
15:53And it's a tightrope.
15:54It's an absolute tightrope.
15:55No, but it's interesting because most people have this impression of Keir Starmer as a
16:00sort of administrator, a bureaucrat, sort of glorified civil servant, really.
16:04But actually, you're right.
16:06He is a politician and he's proved that he's actually quite a good politician because
16:12he's got himself elected.
16:15And that will be very interesting.
16:17Very interesting to watch. Also interesting that you mentioned Rishi Sunak, because we
16:20haven't had many questions about the Tory party.
16:24I mean, are they completely irrelevant for the next four years?
16:27No, I don't think they are.
16:28I mean, they might look it. And if they have a civil war and if they lurch to the populist
16:31right, then they will be irrelevant and they will deserve to be.
16:36But I think that they will pull themselves together.
16:39I'm more optimistic about their future than a lot of Tories are themselves.
16:43And I think that, you know, we shouldn't forget that this party is the most successful
16:49party, the oldest party in Western democracy.
16:52They've been in power for 67 of the last 100 years.
16:55That didn't happen by accident.
16:57They can be a very ruthless election winning machine.
16:59They have a huge problem to deal with with Nigel Farage, which I'm sure will come on
17:02to. But I wouldn't be giving them the last rights yet.
17:06I think they will bounce back quicker than some people, that many people expect, if they
17:12can avoid a civil war in the next leadership election.
17:16I think one really interesting question for me, and I don't know what you two think, is
17:21where the Liberal Democrats decide to attack the government from?
17:25Because it's conceivable.
17:26I mean, one of the interesting things about Lib Dems, if you look at Lib Dem candidates,
17:29is they were all over the place on VAT on school fees.
17:32Right.
17:33I hadn't noticed.
17:34And they were all over the place because actually a lot of them come from precisely those
17:37areas where loads of people send their kids to private schools, in which case you're
17:40attacking the Labour from the right.
17:42If you're attacking Labour from the right, you're eating up conservative space, aren't you?
17:47So I think that is going to be so pivotal with 70 Lib Dem MPs, which direction?
17:52They might do both, of course.
17:53Well, they are Liberal Democrats.
17:55They're bound to do both.
17:56I mean, they were going to attack from the left on sewage, which they think can be sold
18:00for free.
18:00Yeah. And they had a very tax and spending manifesto.
18:03Yeah. But, you know, that's very interesting about school fees.
18:09How do you think Nigel Farage is going to play out?
18:13It's going to be fascinating.
18:16I think he is going to actually find out that the oxygen from Parliament isn't actually
18:22as much as it has been in recent years.
18:25He did look like quite a small figure, didn't he, in the House of Commons.
18:31He didn't sort of dominate or come across particularly...
18:36No. And in some ways, you can actually get a lot more publicity outside Parliament than
18:42you can inside. And once you have to start obeying the rules and kind of getting slightly
18:46bogged down in things that he doesn't want to do, that he wants to rebel against.
18:52But will anybody notice?
18:53But no, look, I mean, you know, his impact on the election has been absolutely seismic.
19:00His impact on what's going to happen for the next five years shouldn't shouldn't be
19:05underestimated, not least what it's going to do to the Conservative Party, who, you
19:10know, do appear to be having a bit of a nervous breakdown in public.
19:18No, but I mean, that's what parties do after election defeats.
19:24They do tend to show signs of nervous breakdowns, doesn't it?
19:29And I don't think, Andy, I don't agree with you about the Tory party pulling itself
19:35together. I think if anything, you know, we have not tested the limits of Liz Truss-ism
19:41yet. I mean, this is the party that thought that Liz Truss is a good idea as a prime
19:45minister. The party members thought that.
19:47The MPs certainly didn't.
19:49They may have to go through another leader and another populist Liz Truss leader.
19:54It could well be that the new leader chosen later this year will not be the one who
19:58leads them into the next general election in five years' time.
20:01They may have to go down before they go up.
20:03I wouldn't rule that out.
20:05In terms of Farage, I think the debate is not really going to be about whether the
20:09Tories take over reform or reform mounts a reverse takeover of the Tories.
20:14I think where they'll end up eventually is to seek a kind of electoral pact with with
20:20reform, with Farage, because the Tories know that when they had a version of that in
20:252019, when Farage stood down his candidates in Tory held seats, Boris Johnson won a
20:30majority of 80. And that was a pivotal factor in that result.
20:33I think with that, one of the big questions over the next five years is how big a
20:38target Labour provide for Farage at the next election, because depending on what happens
20:43with immigration, the small boats, you know, it could be that it's Labour who are
20:48vulnerable next time around.
20:50Yeah. You know, if you look at a lot of those northern seated reformer in second place, far
20:55from definite this is going to happen.
20:56I'm not one of those people who the day after the election said 170, oh my God, that's a
21:00nightmare. What are they going to do?
21:01They're going to lose this. You actually have a degree of agency as a government that
21:05means that you can shape public opinion as well to respond to it.
21:08But I do think whether or not Farage can start getting cut through with Labour votes is
21:13one of the really interesting and important questions, because if he's threatening
21:16Labour, it changes the arithmetic a little bit.
21:19I mean, how is Labour going to deal with the boats?
21:24Well, I have very little faith that their current plan is going to stop the boats.
21:31Yeah, but the Tory plan didn't stop the boats.
21:32I have very little faith that anyone knows how to stop the boats.
21:35You have desperate people flying, desperate circumstances.
21:40They're going to come.
21:41When you talk to them in private, they say the answer is through the EU.
21:45I referred to it earlier.
21:47They would like migration to be part of the security pact.
21:49Now, that is a big ask, especially with all the...
21:52Well, that's a big opportunity for Farage, isn't it?
21:54Turbulence in European capitals at the moment, a weakened Macron in France, a weakened
22:00Schultz in Germany. It's not going to be easy for them to get the bandwidth to address
22:05migration. They're still sorting out their own migration policy, let alone trying to do
22:09one with the UK. But there are people in the Labour Party who think they've got a chance
22:13of getting a returns agreement, which if we were to take people from the EU, then they
22:20would allow us to return people who came across the Channel in the small boats.
22:23But what European government do you think, given populism on the continent, is going
22:28to accept a deal that sees them accepting more people than we do?
22:32Well, if you remember, the Tories before the election were warning that if Labour got a
22:36returns agreement, we in the UK would take 100,000 migrants from...
22:40Yeah, but I think it's probably on the money.
22:43And that's why Labour didn't talk about a returns agreement during the election campaign,
22:47because they knew the Tories would come back at them.
22:48But I think that's going to come back as potentially a government policy if they can, you
22:53know, get on the same page as the EU.
22:56You couldn't do a returns agreement with France.
22:58You'd have to do it with the whole of the EU.
23:00But how does it help us if we end up taking more?
23:03Stop the boats.
23:04Yeah, OK. It doesn't look so uncontrolled.
23:06I suppose that would be a deterrent in a way that Rwanda was never going to be.
23:11If you were going to get sent straight back, why would you risk your life crossing in a
23:15small boat?
23:16No, but why would...
23:18Arnon's question is a good one.
23:20Why would European leaders, EU leaders, agree to something that looks like giving in to
23:26the British?
23:27Well, they would send 100,000 people here.
23:32And, you know, if you look at the relationship as a whole, what ministers are now talking
23:36about is not a renegotiation.
23:38There's no appetite for that, either amongst the British public or crucially, as you said,
23:43and amongst the EU.
23:45But there is a strong push for a reset and you can achieve a lot, they think, ministers
23:50think, without a new treaty, without changing or rejoining the institutions.
23:55And a deal on migration, you know, could be part of that.
23:58And I think what would work for both sides is, like you say, something that looks
24:02controlled, something that looks under control.
24:05So if you talk to Tory MPs over the last year, Tory MPs miles away from Dover, miles away
24:12from NEC, you know, they said that the outsize impact, now we know, you know, numbers
24:20arriving, is tens of thousands.
24:23But if you asked them, they would say that their constituents thought it was way more
24:27than that. It was an outsize impact that the words small boats was having.
24:33Now, what they really wanted was their government to stop talking about it because they
24:38were failing to do anything about it.
24:40And they felt that their government kept highlighting the fact that they were failing to do
24:43something about it. But if you just had something that looked like it was under control,
24:48you could take it away from the front pages.
24:50You could look as if you were in charge, grown up government.
24:54And that's not just the UK.
24:56That's also beaches in France, beaches in Italy.
24:59You know, there's a win-win for everybody.
25:02So you're saying essentially that 50, 60, 70,000 uncontrolled is less politically palatable
25:09than 100,000 controlled.
25:10I mean, you're ready.
25:12OK, that's interesting.
25:13I think that's probably right, isn't it?
25:15I mean, I think that could work, although you can imagine how Nigel Farage would attack
25:22it. But I mean, the interesting thing would be what's happening to legal immigration at
25:28the same time, which is presumably going to come down anyway.
25:32I mean, Labour have come into power at a time when it is already coming down in the sense.
25:39Yeah, I mean, but so there's some things which are just easy because the Hong Kongers
25:45aren't going to be coming in the same numbers, the Ukrainians aren't coming in the same
25:47numbers. The other stuff is more difficult because, yes, the numbers are coming down.
25:53But one of the implications of that is that the OBR will revise its growth forecast
25:57downwards because, you know, if you're having fewer foreign students coming, that is
26:02very bad for university revenues.
26:04And there's a looming financial problem, but it's not looming, it's happening.
26:07It's happening, absolutely.
26:09Over the last year, the number of applications for social care visas is down 75
26:14percent. Now, you know, in the old politics, it's a triumph, immigration is coming down,
26:19but you've got to wonder who's going to be doing those jobs.
26:22So, again, I mean, as ever with immigration, what needs to happen is a debate about the
26:27trade-offs. And actually for Labour, there's a possibility of that happening because this
26:32is the first government I remember that has been elected by a voter base that is pretty
26:38relaxed about immigration and doesn't tend to think immigration is one of the major
26:42issues the country faces. Now, whether they take advantage of that or not, we'll wait
26:45and see.
26:45Well, isn't that a question of whether Labour can achieve what Kate was saying Tory MPs
26:50wanted, which is just change the subject, and whether Nigel Farage is going to let them
26:56change the subject.
26:57And Labour will be nervous that reform came in second place behind Labour in 89 seats.
27:03Although a distant second place in most of those, isn't it?
27:07Yeah, but I think that Labour is worried about reform.
27:09They're already talking about how do we combat them because they can see what's
27:12happened on the continent in France and Germany and the Netherlands and so on.
27:16So Labour doesn't feel as confident as a party should feel after winning a majority of
27:23170.
27:24Well, I mean, isn't that because the vote share that Labour won was so low?
27:31To an extent, but I do think they're focusing too much.
27:33I mean, with all due respect, I found that Tony Blair article a bit weird because of the
27:37focus on...
27:38You disagree with Tony Blair?
27:39No, I'm entirely disagree.
27:40I said I found it weird.
27:42It's a very different thing.
27:43It almost sort of has the hallmarks of a self-fulfilling prophecy, this, that we're
27:50going to talk a lot about the reform threat and build it up.
27:54And it's not obvious how much of a threat reform is going to be.
27:57I mean, try your own thing first, would be my advice.
27:59Don't, at this early stage in a parliament, when you've got this massive majority, don't
28:04start it off being terrified about those five MPs.
28:07Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:09I'm quite torn on this one, actually, because in one way, I do agree with you.
28:13And I do think, you know, this idea that, oh, well, they got so many millions of votes,
28:18but it didn't translate into the same number of MPs.
28:22I don't think that argument holds because I think the electorate knows what they're
28:24doing. And I think the electorate wanted them to come second in an awful lot of seats in
28:29order to send a signal.
28:31You know, they wanted to say, look, I want to give you a shock, guys.
28:35But on the other hand, something that keeps popping into my brain is that the British
28:46public have voted for seismic change now three times since 2016.
28:50And they weren't they weren't very happy with what they got after the first two.
28:55And this is quite a legacy for Labour.
28:58It is quite an inheritance to be the third in eight years.
29:04The third seismic change and with the people wanting something different.
29:09Absolutely. And if the politicians don't deliver something different, they're going to
29:13get punished. And they're going to get absolutely punished.
29:15And if you live by the swing, you die by the swing.
29:18I think Labour do need to worry about reform because I don't think it's just about
29:21immigration. I think reform and power potentially could become focus of opposition, of
29:26discontent, disillusionment on a whole range of economic issues.
29:30Unless Labour can make people feel a bit better off, really convince them that they're
29:37going to succeed on public services, there's a huge gap between politicians and the
29:42public. And Starmer's making the right noises about filling that gap and winning back
29:48people's trust using politics as public service, as he puts it.
29:52But that's saying it is one thing, doing it is another.
29:55There's a huge gap between politicians and public and a lack of trust in our
30:00politicians. There is a danger that in a couple of years, a lot of voters think Labour
30:06is just as bad as the Tories and reform and Farage could potentially exploit that.
30:10I think on the economic front, what reform need to do is is twig in the way that UKIP
30:16twigged, that you need to be a bit more towards the left on economic policy to get the
30:21voters you want. And in a sense, reform are doing exactly the same thing UKIP did.
30:24UKIP started off as a political party that was right on culture and wanted to privatise
30:29the NHS. And guess what?
30:30Virtually no one voted for them.
30:32Then they kind of grasped the fact that actually the immigration stuff is fine.
30:36But if we can be a bit more left wing on the economics, that is the sweet spot.
30:39And that's why if you look at, you know, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, you look at
30:42Le Pen in France, the difference between those parties and reform here is they talk
30:47directly to young people about the fact that the economic dislocation they're facing.
30:51They talk about the state. They talk about providing for people.
30:54They talk about providing housing.
30:56And the question here is whether or not reform manage that, I think, because that can
30:59make them. I think reform at the moment aren't a real threat on the economy because their
31:03economic policies just don't sort of meet the need of the people who aren't happy.
31:09They could adapt though.
31:11They're nothing if not adaptable.
31:12So I think if they do that, then that could really become.
31:14Nigel Farage is very good at changing his mind.
31:17And it was very surprising, I thought, during the TV debates that he advocated privatising
31:22the NHS. I mean, that's that's not your sort of that's not your way to to to attract
31:28economically left wing anti-immigration voters.
31:32So, yeah, I mean, he's going to have to he's going to have to adapt that.
31:36But I mean, this is the big question for me about this this election is is James
31:43Kanegasuriam's sandcastle theory of politics, which is that, you know, that that
31:49Boris Johnson majority of 80, everybody thought, you know, that was a huge achievement.
31:54It was going to stand for years.
31:55Boris Johnson was going to be prime minister, two term prime minister for a decade.
31:59And of course, it just got it just it just washed away like a sandcastle.
32:03Is the Labour majority the same kind of insubstantial thing?
32:07I think it's risky.
32:08I think Labour could lose next time.
32:11I mean, obviously, yes, they can control the narrative and control the agenda.
32:14But I don't think in a way this election was an anti-Tory vote.
32:18It was an anti-politics vote.
32:19And that's dangerous for Labour.
32:21That's very interesting because it was an anti-Tory vote.
32:24Yeah, but I think it was also an anti-politics vote.
32:27Why did Labour only get a third of the votes?
32:30Why did reform come second?
32:32Because people were too busy voting for the Lib Dems in places where they could beat the Tories.
32:36I think it's I think it's deeper than that.
32:37It's not just about tactical voting.
32:39And look at the success of the Greens.
32:40Look at the success of the pro-Palestinian candidates.
32:44Look at Jonathan Ashworth losing in Leicester.
32:47Look at West Street's majority being cut to 500.
32:50Something else was going on.
32:51It's not just anti-Tory.
32:53And there was a lot of anti-politics there.
32:56I think several things.
32:56I mean, there's actually a load going on with ethnic minority voters
32:59that is really interesting
33:00because they're breaking off in all sorts of different directions.
33:02We can talk about that later if you want.
33:03Well, Hindus becoming much more Tory.
33:07Well, I mean, it's interesting because Hindus, migrants in general vote class,
33:11whereas non-migrants are tending to vote values.
33:15So the two groups are going in different directions in terms of how they're behaving.
33:19But on the question of the Labour majority, I'd say two things.
33:21I'd say, one,
33:23fragmentation has been a reality of our political system for a long time.
33:27And up to and including 2015,
33:30the vote share of the two big parties had been steadily going down.
33:32Yeah. OK.
33:33I remember Italian friends mocking me after the 2015 election
33:36about how Italian our party politics are.
33:39And then what happened was you had that period where you had two things.
33:44You had Brexit and you had Corbyn.
33:46And what those two things did was they repolarised stuff.
33:49So in 2017, the two big parties,
33:50I think, got their highest vote share since 1970.
33:55But I think what we saw in this election was a reversion to the 2015 trend.
34:00That's to say the Brexit Corbyn sort of consolidation was over.
34:04Yeah. And we were back to where we were.
34:05So on the one hand, people are more likely to vote for a variety of parties.
34:08On the other hand, the other thing that is really important, I think,
34:11and James got this with his talking about the red wall.
34:13The red wall weren't seats that Labour owned by rights,
34:17that the Tories won by a miracle.
34:18The red wall was seats that the Labour shouldn't have had.
34:21In the first place, yeah.
34:23But they were just culturally Labour.
34:26And what's happened, as my colleague, Oxford Jane Green says, is
34:29when the red wall went to the Conservatives, the anchor was snapped.
34:35And those seats are no longer anchored to any party.
34:38And so people will pick and choose depending on what parties offer them.
34:41Now, I happen to think this is a fantastic development.
34:43I think volatility and the rise in marginal seats is superb
34:47because it makes it harder for politicians to ignore people.
34:49But it also means that we should expect massive swings between elections.
34:53I'm not for a moment saying they're going to lose the next election.
34:56All I'm saying is we should get used to big swings.
34:59OK. So on majorities, I think I would say
35:01I don't think majorities are what they used to be.
35:04You know, we've crossed a Rubicon.
35:06Yeah. And we've crossed a Rubicon, I think, with MPs,
35:09but also with voters as well.
35:11So MPs are more likely to rebel if they've seen other MPs rebel.
35:15Interestingly, I was talking to somebody senior
35:17who was in number 10 only a couple of weeks ago,
35:21and he was saying, you know, their majority, yes, it was 80.
35:23But actually, with all the by-elections, it had really, really gone down
35:28to, you know, kind of 40-something.
35:30But he says there was one day where they had 200 requests for slips.
35:34For permission not to attend to vote.
35:37For permission not to attend to vote from Tory MPs.
35:39Now, if you have 200 of your MPs saying, I'm sorry, I can't come into work today.
35:44It's absolutely unsustainable.
35:45Yeah. Yeah.
35:47And I think I think it's also if you have a large majority,
35:51it is in some issues actually easier to rebel
35:56because it's easier to rebel if 100 of you are rebelling.
35:59Yeah. There's safety in numbers.
36:00Absolutely. So if we ever get to something like on the two-child policy,
36:04I think actually it would be, you know, there would be safety in numbers of rebelling.
36:08But also voters have started to watch these votes.
36:11Yeah. People sitting at home have started to watch these votes
36:14in a way that they never have before.
36:16And I actually wonder if Parliament's going to have to change because of this.
36:19So, you know, this whole system that we're...
36:21Yeah, abolish broadcasting and do it all in private.
36:24Do private votes like they're having in the European Parliament.
36:26No, not at all.
36:27But this whole thing that we have, where with the first vote,
36:30people vote for it to allow it to be amended.
36:34And then it's actually only the next vote that is actually the crucial one.
36:38I think an awful lot of people watching at home know that and understand that.
36:42And a lot of people don't.
36:44And we've seen that this has caused problems for voters,
36:48for MPs in their constituencies already.
36:51And I wonder if the more and more people start to pay attention to Parliament,
36:55if we might have to just call these votes something different,
36:58if MPs are going to start demanding that they've only,
37:01you know, they haven't voted for it.
37:04They've only voted to keep it going or something like that,
37:08because it's causing them problems on the doorstep.
37:10It really is.
37:11Because their votes are being misrepresented by their opponents
37:14or by campaigning campaign groups.
37:16Yeah, yeah.
37:17I think that is absolutely true.
37:18We're not going to get away from the question,
37:21which a lot of readers want to want to ask about,
37:24which is proportional representation, because I mean, this was the most
37:29arithmetically, it was the most disproportionate result
37:32in terms of share of the vote translating to seats.
37:35And yet suddenly all the pressure on the left has disappeared for PR.
37:42And it's Nigel Farage who's up in arms about it.
37:46He would have got 90 MPs if it had been proportionate.
37:48So but to be fair to him, he's always called for it.
37:52Yeah, I think the debate is not going to go away.
37:54And I think if we had another disproportionate election next time,
37:58which we may well do, given all the character we're talking about
38:01and the fact that there are no safe seats anymore anywhere.
38:06So you could have a similar result.
38:07And I think the debate is going to really take off this time.
38:12As you know, John, we on the Independent have campaigned on.
38:17Some of us on the Independent have campaigned for it.
38:19The Independent has campaigned for PR.
38:21We support it. And personally, I support it.
38:23And I think the present system, although in its defence, you can say
38:27it gets the result it wanted and arguably it did do that.
38:29Well, it was very interesting that Rishi Sunak, of all people, said
38:33said what a decisive result it was when he was speaking in the House.
38:37But I just think it becomes indefensible over time
38:40if you carry on getting totally disproportionate results.
38:44And I suspect we'll end up one day with with reform
38:49and not not Nigel Farage's reform, but electoral reform.
38:52And then you would see a kind of Labour-Lib Dem alliance,
38:57not one party, not a merger, but working together in a proportional system.
39:02I have a feeling that in 10, 15 years, you know, that may be where we end up.
39:07Absolutely not. But what do you two think?
39:10So it's interesting, I've heard of a recent discussion
39:14amongst senior Tories about this issue.
39:17We're talking about the fact that
39:19it would probably split the bigger parties in the UK
39:23if we had proportional representation because of the first past the post system.
39:27Our parties are massive coalitions.
39:30So Labour would probably have its more left wing elements split off.
39:34Stay a kind of Social Democrat party in the middle.
39:37The Tories would probably also have its more right wing elements split off,
39:41which some former cabinet ministers would not be particularly sad to discover.
39:46So if you even have senior Tories starting to warm to the idea of PR,
39:51then, you know, it does seem as if it's more on the table.
39:54I mean, the other thing I would say is we already have it for
39:58elections to to Stormont.
40:01We have it for elections to the Scottish Parliament.
40:04You know, there are parts of the UK that are doing proportional representation
40:07already. Yeah, but as you were as you were suggesting earlier,
40:10the the voters are more sophisticated and they've actually produced
40:13a sort of proportional outcome using the existing system
40:17because, I mean, they're given the Lib Dems a proportional, precisely proportional.
40:21Yeah, and the Conservatives
40:26and Labour obviously very disproportional.
40:28But I mean, in some ways, those were
40:32the results that people people were aiming for.
40:34I think the electorate adapts, to be honest.
40:36I think there's pros and cons to both systems.
40:38But I think the electorate are much smarter than we give them credit for it.
40:41Though it's very hard if you reform all the Greens, however much people adapt.
40:45I mean, I mean, with all due apologies to your readers,
40:48I'm quite a fan of First Baster Post, but I'm starting actually the reasons
40:51why I'm starting to have doubts about First Baster Post is not disproportionality.
40:55It's a policy reason.
40:57And it links back to what we were saying earlier about big, big swings
41:01is I think one of the chronic public policy problems
41:04we have in this country is short termism.
41:06And I think short termism happens partly because when that lot are in
41:10and the next lot come in, the next lot find it virtuous to undo
41:13what that lot did, just as a point of principle.
41:16So one of the reasons we haven't got proper social care is because if you propose
41:19it in power, we're going to knock it down and vice versa.
41:22And one of the advantages of a proportional system for me is that it might
41:25might force the parties to work together,
41:28which might lead to more stable, medium term public policy.
41:31Don't be soft on that.
41:32Sorry, I'm sorry.
41:35Occasionally I give in to those.
41:38All it would do would be would be sclerosis.
41:40It would just mean that you would never, never achieve
41:44change because you, you know, you'd have some sort of
41:48mishmash coalition of parties.
41:50It would just be permanently in government.
41:52But if you have a mishmash coalition of parties in government,
41:55all of whom were agreed on the need for social care, we'd have something.
41:58Well, yeah.
41:59But I mean, you know, the coalition that was called the Conservative Party
42:02was agreed on the need for social care and didn't do anything about it.
42:05And before that, the coalition that was called the Labour Party
42:09was agreed.
42:09Let's think about the story, right?
42:10Andy Burnham has a plan for social care, a perfectly reasonable plan.
42:13The Tories call it a death tax.
42:14Labour panic, dump it.
42:16Yeah. Seven years later, Theresa May has a plan for social care.
42:18Not entirely dissimilar to Andy Burnham's plan from seven years ago.
42:22Labour call it a dementia tax, the Tories panic and they dump it.
42:26That sort of just sums up the dysfunctionality for me.
42:28And I wonder whether in a more proportional system
42:32that would happen in quite such a flagrant way.
42:36I think there was a problem with those policies
42:40which was teased out by an adversarial system.
42:44But we can go.
42:45That's possibly a debate for another time.
42:52Let's see if we've got any other questions.
42:54I like this one.
42:56Andrew Chandler, is the truth ever found in the extremes of British politics?
43:02Rarely, I think.
43:04Thinking back to this campaign,
43:08the parties on the extremes had much less media scrutiny
43:12than the mainstream parties.
43:14And you could argue that both Farage's reform and to some extent
43:18the Greens had very unrealistic spending promises in their manifestos,
43:22which did not really get that much scrutiny.
43:25Didn't get any scrutiny at all.
43:26So I think it's harder for them to be held to account
43:31and to be made to tell the truth, to answer the question.
43:34And it was interesting that when Nigel Farage started to get more scrutiny,
43:39because clearly he made an impact in this campaign,
43:41he made a mistake on Russia, blaming NATO, blaming the West.
43:47But it wasn't a mistake.
43:48That's what he actually thinks.
43:49He believes it.
43:50Well, it was a mistake.
43:51I say, sorry, yes.
43:52In terms of reforms, vote started to go down after those comments.
43:57He's way out of tune with the British public on Ukraine.
44:00And of course, the revelations about reform activists and candidates
44:05that did a lot of damage.
44:06They were going up in the polls until those two things happened
44:08and they started to go down a bit.
44:09They peaked.
44:11There's a common view, isn't there, especially among supporters of PR,
44:15that the parties like the Greens have something very important to say
44:21to add to the political debate, even if they're going to be a minority.
44:26OK, well, look, I mean, I don't want to be controversial here,
44:29but the Northern Irish member of the panel is going to stand up for,
44:32yes, the extremes is sometimes where you find the truth in politics
44:38and you ignore it, I think, at your peril.
44:42And one example, I would say, would be how unionists currently feel about Brexit.
44:49Another one, I would say, would definitely be both Brexit,
44:52both reform and the Greens.
44:55The SNP, not what they were, but certainly over the last nine,
45:00ten years, I think, underestimated.
45:02I actually don't think that that issue has gone away.
45:05And I think it's still something that Keir Starmer is going to have to deal with.
45:08Yeah, that's very interesting.
45:09And I think this is why politics is not easy.
45:14No, but it isn't.
45:15You know, I mean, people, you know, think that you can just put things
45:17in a manifesto and, you know, kind of suddenly solve things.
45:20But politics is incredibly, incredibly difficult.
45:22And to most things, there is not an easy answer.
45:26And you have to create situations like the Good Friday Agreement,
45:34where people can come together and live with entirely separate identities.
45:41And I actually think that that's not a bad analogy for where lots of people
45:45in England are at the minute, which is, you know,
45:48we kind of talk about the Red Wall, we talk about the Blue Wall,
45:50we talk about there's a lot of very different, distinct identities in England.
45:55And lots of people don't feel that these are being represented politically.
45:59Arnon?
46:00I mean, just sort of avoiding the term extreme,
46:04I thought one of the really interesting things with the campaign was it was
46:07Stephen Flynn, who was the only person who consistently pointed out
46:11the sort of fiscal deceit floating around the centre of this election.
46:15You know, the IFS figure about, you know, those spending plans
46:19are eye-watering, OK?
46:21They're looking at something like a 2%, 2.5% real-terms cut
46:25in the funding of non-protected departments, which includes,
46:28because we're talking about prisons this week, justice.
46:31It's a simply fairytale fiscal policy.
46:36And actually, because there was a kind of pact of silence
46:39between the two big parties on this.
46:41So both big parties, for instance, saying,
46:43oh, we'll raise loads of money by clamping down on tax fraud.
46:46No, you won't, right?
46:48But because they were both saying it, it was fine.
46:51So I think there is something to be said for a sort of party.
46:54Again, I'm not going to use the word extreme for the SNP,
46:56but a party that isn't in that debate in the same way, they can talk.
47:00I mean, it's easy to speak the truth if you're not going to get elected.
47:04OK, but I think there is an element of truth to that, yeah.
47:08That's fascinating.
47:10Right, we've got a very, very tough question here from Aldridge Sagala.
47:17Do you think Labour will be in government for longer than 14 years?
47:24No.
47:25They're going to, unlike Tony Blair,
47:27they will be under fire from the left and the right.
47:31They're going to have a lot of enemies.
47:33The Greens will be an important enemy.
47:36They will hoover up votes on the left.
47:38The pro-Palestinian candidates have got to be,
47:41that issue and the Gaza debate has got to be addressed.
47:44That could cost Labour votes.
47:46Yeah, and it's not as if it's going to be settled soon.
47:51And on the right, they're going to be under attack from Farage,
47:54as we've talked about.
47:55So, you know, Labour's going to have a lot of enemies.
47:57It's going to be really, really hard, with no money at the moment.
48:01If they don't get the economic growth, which they're banking on,
48:04you know, they pay a huge bet on, they put a lot of chips on growth.
48:09If they get it, they have a chance of being in power for longer,
48:11of rebuilding public services.
48:13But if they don't get the growth, they have a huge problem.
48:16It reminds me of the bet that Rishi Sunak put
48:20at the beginning of last year on those five targets.
48:25Stop the boats.
48:26I mean, actually, the stop the boats one was a very foolish target
48:30because there's no way he could have delivered on that.
48:33But I mean, the others, he thought he could get waiting lists down.
48:36He thought he could get, you know, he thought that growth would resume
48:41and it didn't.
48:42So if you bet on those things wrongly, then you are going to be in trouble.
48:47So the question is longer than 14 years.
48:50And the only parties who successfully go that long,
48:55successfully get a new leader and kind of reinvent from day one.
49:00So, I mean, the SNP would be there, or several new leaders.
49:03So the SNP would be the kind of obvious one.
49:05Didn't they do 17 or whatever?
49:09That is a fascinating question.
49:11Who takes over?
49:12Who's the heir apparent?
49:13Who would take over from here and give them that kind of second wind?
49:19You know, that kind of.
49:20And what would that look like?
49:22How would they kind of try and start again?
49:26New, but not new.
49:27A continuation, but also kind of fresh enough to be a new government.
49:32Fascinating question.
49:33I mean, the flip side of that, I'd be very surprised if they're about 14 years,
49:36partly because of the thing we said about swings.
49:38The flip side of that is in a couple of years' time,
49:42that discussion about Starmer's successor is going to start.
49:46You know, who is going to succeed?
49:48How long is he going to do?
49:49Oh, my God, is he already in his 60s?
49:51Well, I mean, that's old for a prime minister.
49:52You know, I understand that our perceptions change
49:55because we look in horror at what's happening over the Atlantic.
49:57But for here, Starmer is quite an old prime minister.
50:00Yeah, and you'd expect him to be a two-term prime minister, perhaps.
50:04Well, maybe a two-election prime minister.
50:05But that means that by the time we get to the next election,
50:08we'll be talking about who his successor is going to be.
50:10Yeah.
50:10The other thing, just talking about pledges,
50:12was I just don't know if any of you know the answer to this.
50:14Why would the Labour Party make a pledge about growth that was comparative?
50:20I mean, we're not...
50:21Especially when one of the comparatives is the United States.
50:24It just... I saw that at the time and said,
50:27but that's obviously not within your gift.
50:28Yeah.
50:29And I don't know if anyone's got an answer.
50:31I mean, it's...
50:31They diluted it.
50:32It used to be one of the missions was the highest growth
50:37in the G7, and then they relegated it down the batting order.
50:40They realised it was a huge hostage of fortune to say it,
50:43and haven't passed the test and got written in that way in the first place.
50:46I don't know if you're completely right about that.
50:48It was a mistake, but it's still in the manifesto.
50:51Yeah.
50:51Not in the headlines, but it's still there.
50:53But it's still there.
50:54It's not under their control.
50:56Because what we really don't want is another of those silly debates
50:59about, you know, that we had on the tour is sort of highest...
51:01If you measure it from there to there, we've got the highest growth.
51:05If you extend out at all, then actually we're second bottom.
51:07I mean...
51:11So to be fair, I think if we get into that debate, they're fine.
51:15Yeah, no, if we're that close, yeah, no, that's true.
51:17I mean, if we've got that much economic growth, yeah, nobody feels equivalent.
51:21To go back to the Tories for a moment,
51:24I mean, if Labour stumbles and we seem to expect that to happen,
51:31are the Tories going to be in a fit state to capitalise on that?
51:35I mean, because they don't look it at the moment.
51:39And I think this is a bad thing for the Tories.
51:42It's a bad thing for democracy.
51:44But it's also a bad thing for the Labour government.
51:46You know, I don't think...
51:47Because you need a strong opposition.
51:49You do need a strong opposition.
51:50I don't think it helps governments to just have that much of a free reign.
51:55You start making mistakes.
51:56You don't have enough people telling you you're doing the wrong thing.
51:59It's difficult.
52:01I'd say two things on that.
52:02Firstly, it's been really interesting what Lucy Powell said in opposition
52:05and has kept saying,
52:07which is that Labour want to make parliamentary scrutiny more effective.
52:11Now, that just might be words, but they are repeating it since the election.
52:14And they're saying we're thinking of ways to...
52:17Who's been saying that?
52:19Lucy Powell.
52:19Yeah, but she's been saying that since the election.
52:22She's been saying that.
52:23They were saying it a lot before the election.
52:26Do you think Keir Starmer agrees with that?
52:28Or is she just off on some freelance...
52:30No, it is party policy.
52:31I mean, it was in the manifesto, I think.
52:32But we'll wait and see.
52:34But they have stated an intention to say,
52:36we're not going to do so much secondary legislation.
52:38We're going to improve scrutiny.
52:39So...
52:40No, we're going to make all announcements in parliament first.
52:43Yeah, yeah.
52:43Well, let's see.
52:44Yeah, that's going to happen.
52:47It's interesting, isn't it?
52:48Because, I mean, if they do end up forming a circular firing squad,
52:51then there's going to be no fit state to be an effective opposition.
52:57So we'll have to see.
52:57What do you think of Kemi Badenoch?
52:59I mean, she's quite a forceful fighter, isn't she?
53:04I mean...
53:04Nice understatement.
53:06But could she cause Keir Starmer trouble?
53:09I mean, that's...
53:10I mean, it's not just having a good leader.
53:12That's part of it.
53:13It's being united behind that leader.
53:15And actually having...
53:16standing for something.
53:18Yeah, yeah.
53:19I think the danger for the Tories is that they just oppose everything
53:22that the Labour government does.
53:24And, you know, there will be a lot of good...
53:26some goodwill, especially at the start from voters.
53:29They will want the government to succeed.
53:31So if the Tories just attack everything
53:34and still try and rerun the election that's just finished,
53:37then they will become irrelevant and they will not be back in the game
53:40and not be back in contention at the next election.
53:43They have to look forward, not back.
53:44You know, they have to appeal to a new set of voters.
53:50It's no use veering off, careering off to the right.
53:53They've got to look at the votes they lost to Labour and the Lib Dems as well.
53:56They have to appeal, desperately need to appeal to younger voters.
54:01The crossover age at which you're more likely to vote Conservative than Labour
54:05was 39 at the previous election.
54:08In 29, it's now 62, which is astonishing.
54:11Yeah, absolutely.
54:13I used to write pieces saying the Tories need to appeal to the under 40s.
54:16Then it was the under 50s and now it's the under 62s, which is remarkable.
54:21I think it's true.
54:23Since 2019, they've lost almost exactly the same proportion of votes to left and right.
54:28So this argument that it was simply a reform thing.
54:30I mean, the reform thing was exaggerated
54:32because, of course, reform didn't stand in a whole load of those Tory seats in 2019.
54:35Yes.
54:36So you're looking at, you know, vote share change.
54:38It suddenly looked amazing because of that.
54:39Well, there were a lot of seats that people thought were safe Tory seats.
54:43I mean, and Liz Truss's was one of them, actually,
54:46because I think the Brexit Party didn't stand in that seat.
54:49So she had a 26,000 majority.
54:51It looked completely safe.
54:52But of course, that was a seat where UKIP got quite a large share of the vote in living memory.
54:58But it was also the personal brand defect in reverse.
55:01Yes, there were some special factors in that case.
55:05But I mean, there were other seats that looked like safe Tory seats
55:08because the Brexit Party hadn't stood last time.
55:12And they really weren't safe, as we discovered.
55:16Just on the age of people who vote Conservative,
55:21in some ways, I think that this is flipping and is going to start to become Labour's problem.
55:26And let me tell you why.
55:27I've lost count of the number of Tory housing ministers that I've sat with over the years
55:31and I've said, it's you.
55:33You've got to win the next election.
55:36Because they had to solve the housing problem.
55:39And they weren't solving it.
55:41And they knew themselves.
55:42And they were admitting it privately.
55:44That that was why the age of people who were starting to vote Tory was going up and up and up.
55:50Because people in this country could not get on the housing ladder.
55:54And overnight, on Thursday, that's now Labour's problem.
55:59So there's one kind of chink of life.
56:01I still think they've got desperate, desperate problems.
56:04Except the early signs are Labour are actually going to try and do something.
56:08But will it actually have any effect?
56:10But I mean, they've been quick off the ball, to be fair to them.
56:14And if they look as if they're trying, that's half the trick in politics, isn't it?
56:19So, yeah, I mean, are we looking at a situation where the Conservatives could die out?
56:25I mean, could they be?
56:26I mean, they could still be overtaken by the Lib Dems at the next election.
56:29I mean, if...
56:31The point of volatility doesn't necessarily mean Labour back to the Tories.
56:34I mean, it's all over.
56:35It could mean that the Tories collapse further.
56:36I mean, there's no guarantee that they're going to come back.
56:39I mean, despite what Andy was saying about them being the most successful party in Western democracy.
56:45They've got no automatic right to exist.
56:48They have to earn it.
56:49I personally, I think they will.
56:50I think they will eventually see sense and bounce back and be the main challenger to Labour.
56:56But in order to do that, they've got to turn into the sort of party that David Gauke could vote for.
57:02And they're nowhere near that.
57:03They need to go back to where David Cameron was.
57:05I mean, Cameron won an election, two elections, if you count 2010.
57:11And they seem to have forgotten that, incredibly.
57:14You know, so much has happened since then with Brexit and Boris and Truss.
57:19But they need to go back to the centre.
57:21If they vacate the centre, then that suits Labour and the Lib Dems very nicely.
57:25But it's absolutely true.
57:26I mean, successful political parties can come very, very close to death, if not dying.
57:29I remember once ringing a French friend and laughing because I was polling six points behind the incumbent president
57:35when Hollande was on 6% in popularity polls.
57:39You know, so it can happen.
57:43Well, look, I'm sorry, I've just looked at the time and we're running out of time.
57:49So all I need to do is say thank you very much for an absolutely fascinating discussion.
57:56I just need to tell viewers what is coming up on The Independent next week,
58:04our next virtual event with The Independent's travel team.
58:09That's going to be Simon Calder, the man who paves his way,
58:12the great Simon Calder, is going to be answering your questions.
58:18The panel will be looking at the changing face of travel since the 1990s
58:21and asking Simon for his memorable moments,
58:23just as we were talking about our memorable moments about the election.
58:28If you want to sign up for the View from Westminster newsletter,
58:34that appears Monday to Thursday when Parliament's in session,
58:39and my weekly Commons Confidential email, which is available to subscribers,
58:45giving you a view of what's going on behind the scenes in Parliament.
58:49All of that is available on the website, so do sign up for that.
58:54And thank you very much to Andy Grice, Kate Devlin and Arnon Benham.
59:02I think that is just about it. Thank you very much.
59:06Thank you.