00:02
This is a Global Player original podcast.
00:07
It's three minutes after ten. A very good morning indeed to you. We are once again... How many years was I on air? I suppose probably until 2016, 2019, 20... Yeah.
00:20
I mean, a good decade... when a changing of the guard in No. 10 Downing Street was a really significant moment. I was there when Brown replaced Blair. I wasn't here when Blair came into Downing Street, when Blair replaced Major. And then, of course, I was here when Cameron replaced Brown. But that's two in ten years.
00:39
And almost bookended as well, you know, of that decade. If you took 2006 give or take as the beginning and 2016 as the end, it's almost bookended, isn't it?
00:51
And now, I mean, one loses count of how many times it's happened and is still happening in the second decade. of the last two. And I don't know what it all means. I don't know. There's a lot of chatter about whether or not the country has become ungovernable. I'm not entirely convinced by that. I think that there has been a sort of primacy or a rise of misinformation and disinformation. I sometimes forget what the difference is.
01:18
which doesn't help people casting votes, people with extremely strong opinions who don't understand anything, which reminds me, I've got some wonderful news regarding 30p lethal for you later in the programme today. Do not let me go home without addressing that and sharing that with you.
01:35
But the simple fact of the matter is that we're getting a new prime minister on Monday. Oh, no, not another one. And we will get another leader of the Labour Party today. I mean, rubric and arithmetic. Incredible, really, in support of Andy Burnham. And we don't currently know a lot about him. There's a lot of chitter-chatter about who his chancellor is going to be. This worries me slightly. And I know in a way I'm kind of poisoning my own water supply. But political journalism...
02:06
is febrile by nature. I don't think it used to be quite as febrile as this because you didn't get big events happening as regularly as they happen now. So it's as if we've become a little bit addicted to moments. Moments used to be rare. Therefore, you wouldn't be addicted to them. They'd come along and they would be exceptions that proved rules. Gosh, we're having a leadership challenge. Gosh, we're having a change of prime minister. Gosh, we're having an election. Do you see what I mean? They're still historically significant, but they used to be numerically rare.
02:40
And I'm not a political journalist.
02:43
I don't have to be. I don't have to hang out with politicians. I don't have to cultivate their goodwill or secure and retain access. I don't have to have dinners and lunches with them in the hope that they might feed me a little nugget of information. I've got enormous respect for some of the people who do that for a living.
03:02
rather less respect for the people who just take dictation from liars, but they are all now addicted to moments, addicted to excitement because they have had so much of it since, pretty much since David Cameron called the referendum and certainly since the referendum result came in. We just have moments that would once have been rare and therefore immense unfolding on a relatively regular basis and we don't necessarily know what to do with it.
03:33
But I still find myself cognizant of the significance of this moment, a new Labour leader, a new prime minister, and a new programme, a new approach. We'll hear a little bit about it later. Do stay tuned for that. Andy Burnham due to give a speech in the final hour of this programme, in the first half of the final hour. of this program. And on Monday, we'll hear rather more from him, I imagine, when he assumes the position behind the sainted lectern on the street, on the tarmac outside number 10 Downing Street.
04:07
So what do we know so far?
04:10
We know that he is going to impress upon the nation and, as far as we can tell, put his money where his mouth is, in other words, deploy actions as well as words. He thinks it's very important to shift focus and perhaps also power away from London.
04:37
I just want to let that settle in your mind for a moment. The new Prime Minister thinks it's very important to shift focus and power away from London.
04:53
And bad news for Cornwall, he's heading north. He is moving things north. He wants to have elements of the Downing Street operation based not in London but in Manchester. And by moving that focus and that power, or by moving that power, he also moves focus.
05:14
The country is, he would argue, unbalanced. And he is trying to level the scales.
05:22
I find this utterly fascinating. I am slightly odd in many ways, as you know, but I am particularly odd when it comes to London. The love I have for this city, despite not having been born here or having grown up here or even visited here very often when I was growing up, I think I could count on one hand. I'll tell you what a rarity it was for us to visit London. I once got stuck in the old-fashioned lifts at Covent Garden. I was so unfamiliar with the way in which they opened and closed. So I was absolutely a country mouse.
05:56
I was a visitor to London. A lot of the lads I was at school with, albeit that I went to school in North Yorkshire, they lived in London and they always seemed quite exotic to me. You know, the nature of the school I went to means that they knocked around places like Chelsea and Fulham. And some of them lived in Surrey, but they would be very familiar with London. And they'd mention places I'd never heard of. And I'd pretend I knew what they were talking about. And I suppose at that point in my life, I could have gone one of two ways.
06:26
I could either have pressed my face closer to the, or even harder up against the sweet shop window, looking forward to the day when they let me in and I could fill my boots with aniseed balls and gobstoppers and mojos and cola bottles and live in London. I want to live in London. Or I could have gone the other way and I could have become a little bit negative about it. I could have used my sense of exclusion and even perhaps alienation as a comfort blanket and decided that I was going to be quite negative about London.
06:58
I was going to be quite, I don't want to say chippy, but that is the word that popped into my mind. And I would be one of those people. We love that montage, or at least I love that montage. of coronation street moments when characters announce that they're going to london and and it happens as regularly as clockwork another character responds by going london and i could have been like that i remember saying when i was a kid when i just moved here 1920 i was back in kidderminster and we were at a family party and i was chatting to some of the people my age and we'd all grown up together and everyone had gone off somewhere and two or three of us had gone to london and we were probably lording it a bit over the others about what an amazing city it was and how we'd never leave and one of their dads got the hump with us One of the dads of a kid who hadn't gone away to college at all, actually, was like, it's not, you know, it's not the be-all and end-all, you know.
07:53
It's not everything, you know, that London. It's not, you know, I think we were probably sounding a bit snobbish. We were probably sounding a little bit, you can forgive a 19-year-old that, I think, but we were probably sounding a little bit precious, a little bit condescending even, perish the thought.
08:10
And so...
08:12
And I have a deep love for other parts of this country as well. I mean, my parents both come from Yorkshire.
08:19
I spent a formative year in Manchester, grew up in the Midlands. I am genuinely, whatever the domestic equivalent of multicultural would be, I really am multi-locational when it comes to my love for this country. I've spent a little bit of time in Scotland when my wife...
08:36
My then girlfriend who became my wife was working out of the Glasgow office and I used to go and visit her a lot. Deep love for all parts of the United Kingdom and obviously more love for the bits I know well than I have at the moment for the bits that I don't. Norfolk is very much, as you know, in my heart. I have a very, very colourful palette when it comes to familiarity with and affection for this country. I am not...
09:03
In terms of activity, I am not London-centric.
09:07
But I am a London lefty.
09:10
I think I am a London lefty. I spend a lot of time worrying about people who aren't me or people who aren't like me. I spend a lot of time worrying about inequality and discrimination and racism and these things that are important, powerfully paramount important issues, but which do seem to be concentrated sometimes in comfortable metropolitan environments. It's why that silly phrase, metropolitan elites, which is usually used by people who are considerably richer than Yao, or indeed me, that they use it to try and sustain the status quo by persuading people who are victims of financial inequality that the rich people aren't the problem.
09:47
The poor people who don't look like them are the problem. But there's some truth in the phrase metropolitan elite. If you live in a city and you're comfortably off, your worldview is very different from those who do not live in cities and are perhaps not comfortably off. And that's the weird thing that's happened to the Labour Party in recent years. in that the traditional Labour heartlands of people who don't live in London and who are not the highest earners in the country have been largely lost.
10:17
And the people who do live in the big cities and who are comfortably off have become the new Labour. Not just new Labour with a capital N and a capital L, but new Labour with a small n and a capital L.
10:31
And Andy Burnham is going to try to reverse that process. Andy Burnham, by moving power and focus north, is trying to do what he did in the Makerfield by-election. He's trying to recapture...
10:47
Old Labour.
10:49
I don't know what these words mean anymore. I know what they used to mean. I don't know if we can conduct this conversation without falling down the immigration hole and struggling to climb out again, but I'm going to try.
11:01
Because I want to go a little bit deeper than that. I want to look at what it actually means.
11:07
If, like me, you have a foot in both camps, you have a foot in London and outside London, what do you think of Andy Burnham's? How important is it, do you think, to shift focus and power away from London? Not exclusively. It's not as if London is going to become a political backwater. Parliament ain't going anywhere. But he is attempting to reset...
11:34
What I would have thought was an absolutely baked in element of British life.
11:41
And even if you live in Wales or Northern Ireland or Scotland, London is still your capital city as a citizen of the United Kingdom. All roads lead to London.
11:52
And Andy Burnham wants to change that.
11:56
Channel 4 have tried. The BBC have tried. Channel 4 moved a lot of its operations to Leeds, but a lot of the key players stayed in London.
12:05
The BBC moved a lot of its operation to Salford, but a lot of the key players stayed in London. Just caught trains and planes to do their jobs and then fly back again. A luxury that's not available to the people who do the proper work. People who put in eight and ten hour shifts on a show that only lasts three hours while the presenters clear off when it finishes. God, don't you hate those presenters? Aren't they awful?
12:26
He wants to move it.
12:28
I've got two questions for you, really.
12:31
Actually, I don't even have two. I think I've only really got one.
12:37
What do you think of this?
12:39
How important is it? Because I think I've got Stockholm Syndrome.
12:43
I think I'm so London now, so utterly enamoured of and embedded in this city, I've kind of forgotten what it would be like to still live in Kidderminster. If I had lived in Kidderminster for the last 35 years instead of London...
13:04
My opinion about what Andy Burnham is doing would be different. If I still lived in Cholton come Hardy, my opinion of what Andy Burnham is doing would be more important, certainly more interesting.
13:22
At risk of being that condescending 19-year-old again, there's a little bit of me that thinks, oh, come off it. What difference does it make where the focus is? What difference does it make where the power is? We're all in this together, as somebody used to say. What difference does geography make when it comes to government? What difference does geography make? But, of course, if you're London...
13:49
You would say that, you know?
13:52
It's a bit like having all the biscuits and just promising to share them. So you don't need to worry. I've got all the biscuits. I'm going to share them. No, I want my own biscuits. I want to decide what I'm going to do with my own biscuits.
14:03
You know, I want a role in the biscuit factory. I want a role in production. It's not good enough to simply say, we've got all the biscuits and we'll divvy them out fairly. You've got nothing. There's a fundamental...
14:15
patronising element to some of this. And I'm feeling it, I'm afraid. I'm guilty of it. This little sense of, oh, this is London. This is the centre of power.
14:27
We'll look after... London will look after everybody else. Look at what we do economically. Without London, the country would be a basket case.
14:35
So get back in your box and just let us get on with doing what we... And that's outrageous.
14:40
Describing to you honestly, articulating my...
14:45
subconscious biases and prejudices i suppose but i want to know what it's like where you are i want to know what it's like outside i want to know what you think of andy burnham's determination to shift focus and power away from london and towards the north how important is it oh three four five six oh six oh nine seven three and why Tell me why you welcome it or of course why you think it's a meaningless gimmick. But I really want to dig into and I'd like the conversation to be largely positive because in my bones I know this is a good idea or at least in my bones I believe this is a really good idea.
15:26
Make the country feel more homogenous. Make the country feel more united. Make it feel more committed to common causes rather than focusing everything on London. But Is it feasible? Is it authentic? Is it plausible? Is it desirable?
15:44
You tell me. The number you need is 0345 6060 973. I just want to kind of walk the tightrope between intellect and emotion this morning because I think what you feel about this is important, but I also want to know what you think about it. I want your reasoning, your critical thinking, and also the contents of your heart.
16:09
What do we think about Andy Burnham's determination to shift Labour away from the London left and to shift power and focus away from Westminster towards the north?
16:23
0345 6060 973 is the number you need.
16:29
And of course, the bit missing from my analysis, or it wasn't really an analysis, was it? It was more a series of questions. The bit missing is, explain to somebody in the South East, explain to somebody in the M25 why this is important. Because that's missing from the jigsaw at the moment. Patrick Maguire's written a great piece in The Times today under the headline, Burnham shifts Labour from London left. And I kind of understand why that bit is important. For the reasons I tried to explain at the outset about the shift in the in the meaning of the Labour vote, the identity of the Labour vote.
17:02
But if you're if you're not.
17:05
If you're like the cast of Coronation Street, whenever one of their number announces that they're moving to London, you're completely out of the ecosystem of the capital. Why is it important to shift focus, to recalibrate, to rebalance? Because it's hard sometimes to grasp the importance of something that doesn't really affect you. That's what I want to try and do today. Unless, of course, you think it's all ridiculous and gimmicky and not important at all, in which case the number remains the same.
17:37
03456060973.
17:39
Alan is in Prestwich. Alan, what have you got?
17:41
Morning, James.
17:42
Hello, mate.
17:43
It's just about the north.
17:47
I'm a board member of a tree charity, and we are trying to turn a derelict site in Bury, which is just north of Manchester.
17:58
to what's called an urban tree centre and we have bid, we put bids in and they failed and one of the comments was, quote, why bury?
18:11
And that just fills me with being an angry Mancunian. decide, yeah, you've never come out of London, why Bury, you don't even know where the place lives.
18:20
Are you sure? Are you sure that, I mean, that's a north-south thing and it's not a sort of why not Withington or why not Salford or why not, you know, why Bury, why not Bolton? It doesn't necessarily speak of southern snobbery or ignorance, does it? I mean, you were there, I wasn't.
18:39
But when you visit your son in London and you see the amount of, say, lottery funding going into their parks, it's tremendous.
18:49
And that's a feeling that we got, that if this bid had been down south, It would have worked it.
18:55
We've got some of the most deprived areas in the country in this city and respectfully, and I don't want to make any enemies, there's not a lot of tourism in Bury and a lot of the money that has been spent on infrastructure in this city actually generates huge amounts of capital by attracting visitors from both within and without this country.
19:14
I know you're right. I'm just going to be the devil's advocate. And the sense of the pavements in London are paved with gold and all that kind of thing obviously isn't true. But when you're coming down from parts of the north, it does feel as if we get all the focus and you are completely forgotten, right?
19:33
About Bury, we have the world-famous Bury Market. It's the second popular destination.
19:38
Are you sure you want to do the Bury Tourism Board shtick, Alan? I mean, you're more than welcome to. You can fill your boots, mate.
19:45
I will promote... We've got the Fusallers Museum there. We've got the world-famous Bury Market, as we've said.
19:53
Is it world-famous? I mean, I've stuck the word exclusive on some newspaper articles back in the day that were technically exclusive, but only because nobody else wanted them. Is it really world-famous, Bury Market?
20:03
It's the most popular market in England, James.
20:06
If I went to Ulaanbaatar or Kuala Lumpur tomorrow and asked them to name a market in England, would they say Bury?
20:13
They would say Barry and they'd just got a shipping order of black puddings coming in.
20:18
There we go. There we go.
20:19
But to get to my original point, the other one that sticks in my mind is when Manchester actually won a bid for the new English National Football Stadium in 1996.
20:32
And the powers that panicked and said London hadn't had time to prepare for the bid. Then they re-ran the bid. And so he knew it was all over. So we built a new football stadium on an industrial estate with no direct travel links. when we could have built it on a greenfield site.
20:51
I hope the phone line sustains. It went a bit south then, if you pardon the pun. Just step away from the facts, as it were, and the detail, because they can sound not parochial, that wouldn't be a fair thing to say, but they will alienate people who live 100 miles away from Bury, but are still interested in moving the focus away from London. So just steer back. to the relationship london has with the rest of the country and tell me what because i i think you're a fan of andy burnham you've told me before so try not to just be warm about this because you're warm about him explain to a cynical skeptical londoner why simply shifting focus and power would matter would make a difference to people in your part of the world
21:35
Because we believe that everything is London-centric, James. The civil servants who run a lot of the departments never get north of the Gap.
21:46
But what difference would it make if they did? What difference would it make? I mean, it might just be vibes and feelings, which are really, really important, but would it make a substantive difference?
21:55
I think it was. You know, you see what gets out like, what manks are like.
22:04
I've lost the line. And that is it. I mean, Alan has set it up perfectly in a way. Because that's what I was trying and probably failing to articulate as someone who grew up very much outside London, real face up against the sweet shop window. But I've been living in the sweet shop for 35 years. What does it look like? to the rest of the country? What do we look like to the rest of the country? And why does Andy Burnham's determination to shift focus and therefore power or power and therefore focus away from the capital city towards the regions?
22:38
Because as a couple of you have reminded me, it's not just...
22:42
the North that will benefit from this. He is committed to... So what? Should we do that as well? Because I keep saying focus and power. Do you know why I keep saying focus and power? Because I don't have meaningful words to use in place of focus and power. They're kind of abstract, right? Focus and power. What are we going to do? We've got to move focus. We've got to move power. We've got to shift focus. We've got to shift power. Alan's put a little bit of flesh on the bones. We've got to move civil servants. I mean, what does that mean? The passport office isn't in London? There's loads of big civil service operations that aren't based in London.
23:15
The actual machinery of government, the departments, the government departments are based in London. I don't know honestly what difference it would make substantively to move them to Aberdovey or to stick them all in Salford, but maybe I'm... suffering from stockholm syndrome maybe it's my fault what would we actually move and why and what do you think about andy burnham's clear determination to to recalibrate to rebalance to reset to he's trying to balance scales that have been rendered incredibly unbalanced pretty much since the dawn of this nation You know, the reason why Neolithic communities settled upon the banks of the Thames is the same reason why London today is the capital city of these islands.
24:02
And Andy Burnham doesn't want to change that or denude London. He just wants to sort of share it out more, if you like. And I want to know, A, why it's important, why it matters. And B, I suppose whether or not it's going to work. We'll go to Nottingham and Bristol next, so don't feel excluded from this if you're in London, but I would like people who are not in or from London to explain to the cynical, world-weary Cockney why this matters, because...
24:36
She doesn't think it matters at all. Look, the government's government. It doesn't matter where it is. It's like the argument about working from home. Does it matter whether you're in the office or at home? As long as you can do the job, does it matter whether you're in Manchester or Marleybone? As long as you can do the job. How do you undo that? How do you address that sort of cynicism or scepticism? It's half past ten, and Dominic Ellis is here with your headlines.
25:01
33 minutes after 10, what does that mean?
25:03
The book that he wrote with Steve Rotherham talks about how surprised he was when he got to Westminster and realised, not that he said this at the time, I don't believe, but realised that money was being given to communities that didn't really need it. Oh, who just got a little flashback to Rishi Sunak in Tunbridge Wells, promising to take money away from poor communities and give more to Tunbridge Wells. And that must be part of it, but what does it mean in real terms?
25:27
To move power to the regions. What does it actually mean? Do you know? Does it matter? Is it vibes? Is it feelings? And moving away from London, moving things away from London, why do you welcome or not welcome that? Andy Burnham knows better, writes Steve, than to come to London and unpack. Moving power to the north creates an expectation that that is where power will reside in the future, and that is handy if you're a northern MP. Johnny, meanwhile, suggests he is, and I quote, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
25:59
Morning, James, says Robert. Andy Burnham's idea is one of the smartest ideas to come from a politician in a very long time. Westminster buildings are way past their sell-by date. Decisions are far too London-centric, with everything north seen as secondary, except for weapons or nuclear dumps, etc. The entire government should be relocated out of London and moved north, but not Manchester or Birmingham. A 21st-century facility for government that's designed specifically for the purpose is step one. One, I quite like the idea of that. We've just refurbished this building and it's like walking into the Starship Enterprise when you come in downstairs.
26:34
I spent 10 minutes yesterday looking for the holodeck. It's absolutely magnificent and it matters, actually.
26:41
My friend Emma always describes Westminster as a grown-up Hogwarts and it is. It creates this ludicrous sense of entitlement among the people who work through the door. And you're steeped in history rather than steeped in public service or public duty. James, he doesn't want to shift power solely to the regions, to the north. He wants to shift to the regions. You're absolutely right, Andy. I have corrected that since you sent it. And James writes, I'm a Hammersmith-born Londoner, ended up living in the north. There are people here in Scarborough who literally think London is a different country. That's how far removed it is from many people.
27:13
to which the obvious response is, will shifting things change that? Will it actually somehow draw the country together or change the dynamics of the domestic dynamics in any way? Kath's in Nottingham. Kath, what would you like to say?
27:29
Well, I grew up in the North East, lived in Liverpool, and I've lived for the last 35 years in the Midlands. And in all those places, all the time I've lived there, industries have been closing, factories have been closing... And the industry has been declining.
27:45
Same here, though. We've lost most of our car plants, Dagenham. I know that we didn't have steelworks and coal mines and things like that, but London was a manufacturing mecca and isn't really anymore.
28:00
I think more new jobs have come to London, the kind of financial and service jobs. I think unless you're in those areas, based in those areas, living in those areas and see it every day, you're not likely to give it the importance that you would, you know, if you're an MP who's grown up there or your office is based in Leeds. I don't see why it has to be Manchester. I would have gone to Leeds a bit further north. But it's not just a matter of power and focus.
28:32
I think with that power and focus, being more concentrated in the North and the Midlands would become resources, and it's the resources that really matter.
28:43
I think you're right. You've just reminded me of something. Forgive me for being too self-referential, but I did an interview with the Yorkshire Post last month because I'm doing a gig in Leeds in October. And I have family connections there. And I said something that hadn't properly occurred to me before. I said, if Parliament was in Leeds or if, you know, more focus was in Leeds specifically, or you could have picked other northern cities, then the entire conversation about HS2 would have been completely different.
29:14
That was going to be my main example, actually, is Northern Rail Network.
29:17
Great minds, Kath, great minds.
29:20
Northern Rail Network is so needed in the north. I mean, if you travel around the north a lot, as I do, and lots of people do, you know that the poor rail services, the slow, apart from the cancellations and the delays, it's holding the north back. And I think if...
29:40
parliament or mps were based or decision-making centers were based more in the north then there'll be more importance attached to finding the resources to build that northern rail network and we and and also increase skill training i mean those are vital things and the resources have got to be found to put them into the north and the midlands
30:01
I mean, it's almost as if we're speaking two different languages, isn't it?
30:05
And what surprises me is that MPs have constituencies, Kath. MPs should be well versed in the needs of their constituencies. And I think a huge number of them are from almost all parties.
30:18
Obviously, the politicians who skip 77 out of 77 votes, probably not necessarily prioritizing them. concerns of their constituents but the massive massive majority of mps really care about their constituents and yet we're all talking as if they fail utterly to to resonate or register once they get to westminster it's almost as if they they lose something when they get off the station at euston or king's cross well i think that emphasis on growth
30:49
growth at all costs and where when you get growth where does that money go where does that increase in national ngp national growth product go does it all go into london or into the pockets of financial traders where you know that's a good point doesn't necessarily move any of that money whatsoever up into the northwest the northeast and
31:12
And finally, what about the vibes? So the person who feels, and our messenger a moment ago referenced Scarborough as a place where London feels like a completely different country. Is there anything politicians can do that would reduce that sense of being left out and left behind? I mean, you know, if you open a government department in the middle of Pudsey, is it really going to make people in Yorkshire feel more engaged, more represented?
31:40
Well, policies, genuine policies, modernising the North East or the North and the Midlands.
31:47
would need to follow not just an office yeah that's a really good point so so you know that that i presume is part of what andy burnham means when he talks about moving um to the moving things to the regions it can't just be vibes and feelings or indeed offices it has to be movement and expenditure i haven't read that but eleanor has a producer of the program and i picked her brains about it but steve rotherham and Andy Burnham, it actually does two things, that book. The first thing it does is show you that he's had this in the back of his mind pretty much since the minute he left Westminster.
32:19
It's a very Barack Obama thing to do, isn't it? Publish a book which has got your vision in it while you are ostensibly not actually jockeying for power. It's a long game, as it were. And the second thing it does is address some of... some of the ideas that are now being rather loosely and unhelpfully described as Manchesterism but there's nothing meaningless about moving power decision making and expenditure as Kath reminds us out of London I just wonder at the moment exactly what it would look like Harry's in Bristol Harry what do you reckon?
32:52
Hi James I wanted to talk a bit about so I think and I think Andy Burnham touched on this in his speech a few weeks back and in that London being the absolute economic political centre and how centralised it is right now isn't viable for the country or for Londoners.
33:15
Why not?
33:17
So I think the example I wanted to set, so you have a lot of inflow from people outside of London into London for work because that's where the economic activity is.
33:31
I think that's a double whammy. You're increasing the housing pressure on London, which we know is bad already. But you also systematically over time, you destroy these support networks. People who can't move to London because they've got family members who are ill or need support, they're stuck. There's no work for them. And then people who can move to London, They break apart their support networks and their parents can't get help. Their friends don't have things like just free babysitting, to use a contrived example.
34:06
How would we change that?
34:08
I mean, I'm not expecting you to come up with a completely comprehensive and airtight, but I mean, just give me some headlines. Because I mean, you're very persuasive and what you say feels right. But how would we change that?
34:21
but I think the thing here, what I really want to see from Burnham is not devolution for the sake of devolution, but where it makes sense.
34:38
Are you telling me what you don't want? Tell me what you do want.
34:40
What I want is local politics to be able to make the decisions they need to, and I think importantly, to be able to raise the money and spend the money where they need to. I think you were talking earlier about with, you know, stuff, there's no money into these areas, right? There's no money coming from these areas. So maybe we invest the money in London where it's actually generating returns. But that's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
35:07
Of course it is.
35:09
There's no ability for councils to raise the money because 80% of their council tax spend is on statutory spending like social care. They can't invest any money into fixing up a dilapidated area that then can serve as a hub for economic activity. When you have that economic activity, that generates cultural activity, which makes everywhere else reduces the London monopoly on, oh, I don't want to move out of London because there's nothing going on in the rest of the country.
35:42
It's because there's no economic activity which begets everything else.
35:45
Yeah, it does. I mean, have you got a kind of beyond...
35:50
Personal interest in this? I don't want to sound patronizing, but you're incredibly informed. That's a really, really smart analysis of the situation. Are you just an enthusiastic amateur or do you have a professional interest in this stuff?
36:04
Wow. More Harry. We need a lot more of Harry. And I was a bit unfair to Alan then, wasn't I, up in Prestwich when he was talking about Bury Market, because what he was touching on and his tree project, what he was touching on is the idea of people sitting behind a desk In London, making decisions about places like Bristol or Bury and sundry other British towns and cities that begin with B without actually having the simple knowledge, the simple local knowledge that they need to understand the impacts of the decisions that they're making.
36:41
Yeah. That's a really powerful point, actually. And you might do a cost benefit ratio. Where should we spend the money? Well, if we spend it here, then the short term returns will be much greater than if we spend it there. Yeah. But what if the short term returns are not the same as the long term returns? Or what if actually there is some social capital here as opposed to financial capital? This, for me, is the great tragedy of the last 20 years of British politics. More, perhaps, I'd probably take it back to 1979, although the Labour government from 97 to 2010 tried to undo some of it.
37:14
George Osborne came along and undid what they'd undone. The absolute negation of social capital.
37:20
I didn't understand what social capital was until someone rang this programme and explained. We were talking about council houses at the time, which is...
37:28
It's social capital because you don't own it even though you live in it, but you own something. You own a sense of something if you've got a council house. You own a sense of home. You own a sense of permanence. You own a sense of stakeholding. Even though you don't own the bricks and mortar.
37:46
You own something more than you do if you're renting from a private landlord and you're subject to their whims and fickleness. So social capital would be youth clubs. Social capital would be parks. Social capital would be things that deliver something very valuable to a population, but not something that you can put a price on.
38:09
Which takes us back to a quote that I've shared with you a couple of times in the last few months without actually bothering to check whether it was actually Oscar Wilde who said it.
38:17
That a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. And the difference between value and price is perhaps, thanks to Harry's brilliant analysis, I now think, is perhaps deeply relevant to what Andy Burnham is talking about. Albeit that you'd be spending money. You're spending an expectation of something that has enormous value, even if it doesn't come in at a massive price.
38:46
10.46 is the time.
38:49
10.49 is the time so a good piece in the times today more nuance than the little bit I'll read you allows but excuse me it makes this point one often hears this sort of argument and not just about Miliband the idea is that Ed Miliband can't be Chancellor because despite having a constituency in Doncaster his concerns and his political education is far too London and One often hears this sort of argument that the London left offer policy prescriptions that make little political sense for the small towns of provincial Britain.
39:21
It's all about renters in flat shares, they complain, or people who commute to work by train, net zero, liberalism on immigration, etc., etc. To all of that, influential members of Labour's northern set would say basically nobody cares. The music that you constantly play, as the old Smiths record goes, says nothing to me about my life, which, as Patrick Maguire goes on to point out, is reductivist and simplistic, but not entirely without merit. I suppose that the popular culture equivalent of that rather academic analysis would sound a lot like this.
39:57
I'm on my way to London.
39:58
London?
40:00
She's on her way to London. London! London!
40:03
I'll go to London this afternoon. I'll be out your hair then.
40:06
London? University College London. London? We're going to London.
40:14
London?
40:15
Going where?
40:15
London.
40:17
London? I might give London a go.
40:19
London?
40:20
No, she's... I've been banging on the Barlow's door for ages. There's no answer. No, no, no. She's in London. London?
40:25
I'm staying here a few days then I'm moving to London. I've got a job interview on Monday.
40:28
London?
40:29
Yeah, the money's great, but it's in London.
40:32
London? Bethany's back from London. London?
40:36
London.
40:38
Why are you saying it like that?
40:40
Why are you saying it like that? 03456060973. Andy's in Hull. Andy, what would you like to say?
40:48
Well, it's three things now. I've thought of another one while waiting. So the first would be, is it a good thing? Yes.
40:57
Yes. Because obviously we then have a move away of the centralisation of London, which over hundreds of years slowly gained more and more power.
41:08
And obviously we've seen the north slowly die off because of all the industries dying, the coal mining and slowly withering.
41:17
So that will help rejuvenate a little bit and concentrate the minds of the politicians on somewhere else.
41:24
I think you're right. I mean, whether or not it leads to the kind of improvements and change that we all want to see is for the time being moot, because your analysis thus far is correct. That would be the intention and that would be the hope.
41:37
OK. The second one was technically it would be good for London.
41:42
The reason being, we have seen their attempts to renovate the House of Westminster for many years. It is full of asbestos. It is a fire risk. they have wasted millions of extra pounds by not moving out.
41:58
This would then cause the tourism to be able to actually visit inside. This would cause our cinema and TV industries to be able to actually use it as a set.
42:08
So we'd use it as a sort of theme park instead of as a legislature.
42:13
The same way we can sort of have people visit the palace, we can actually have them go inside, maybe sit, maybe explain to the history of our children... and go and say, you can sit there, you can act there, you can try and vote.
42:26
It'd be huge. I think it'd be a massive tourist attraction. It'd probably pay for itself eventually as well. So where would you put Parliament?
42:33
I would put it somewhere other than Manchester. The reason being... Where?
42:37
Not where wouldn't you put it. Where would you put it?
42:41
Well, I see Manchester as more the London of the north.
42:44
Yes, fair enough.
42:46
Effectively, it's got the most money, it's got the most vibrancy, it's got... Everything just what any other city doesn't have up here. It would be like London.
42:55
I would say it needs to be somewhere else like Hull or Bradford that needs the rejuvenation.
43:02
See, I don't think you think it's going to happen either, but it actually, I mean, the pull of Westminster, the idea of people, I don't know what you want to call them, reactionaries or traditionalists, or just sitting there now having conniptions at the very thought of Parliament no longer being Parliament, you know, the Poojin architecture being handed over to grubby-faced tourists rather than, I think it's all vibes. I think if you were to make an entirely intellectual decision and leave emotion aside entirely, then we probably would do what you want.
43:39
And I'll tell you what, if you move Parliament to City X tomorrow, the transport infrastructure both in and to City X would become world class as well in this country, not overnight. It's not China.
43:53
It's, you know, Hull lost the ability to have its infrastructure updated and when the train line was cut. Yes. You know, we were going to get this nice upgrade and all of a sudden it was taken away.
44:11
It is the Northern Rail Network decided and cancelled by people who are London-based or London-centric. I know Rishi Sunak has a constituency in Yorkshire, but, I mean, he looks London, doesn't he? That is actually, in retrospect, I wish I'd been a little bit more on it at the time.
44:32
It is extraordinary, isn't it, that these decisions were made from an incredibly London perspective.
44:40
To the exclusion of almost all the voices of the people who would be most affected by the infrastructure.
44:47
Yeah, I mean, if you just look at trying to get from Holder Scarborough, for example, it's like every hour.
44:55
Yeah, and I know people come to visit me from outside London, and particularly from Kiddy, actually, and the idea that I can walk out of my front door and get on any one of five buses within about two and a half minutes is just extraordinary. And obviously there's more people here, but there's got to be some room for the closing of the gap, some room for improvement. Andy mentioned Scarborough, which is relevant to the conversation that we're having in the next hour, actually. I find this... Story about parents taking their children out of school during term time because they say they can't afford to go on holiday during the school holidays.
45:28
They're not telling the truth. You can afford to go on holiday during the school holidays. You just can't afford to go on a holiday that you can't afford, which is why we ended up in Scarborough quite a lot when I was a kid. If my parents had taken me out of school, I'm sure we could have gone somewhere more expensive because it would have cost a lot less during term time.
45:47
I just find it extraordinary that we have fevered conversations about why certain demographics are doing poorly in school. And then in the next breath, we'll be defending their parents' right to take them out of school to go to Magaluf for a week. We're getting onto that in the next hour, though. And of course, it wasn't Scarborough that we used to go to. It was Filey, which is even less glamorous. Steve's in Marlow. Steve, what would you like to say?
46:09
Oh yeah, James. So growing up in the 70s and 80s with the change in industrialisation in the UK, I think the north was disproportionately affected just because of the nature of the heavy industry. So government made centralised decisions, probably quite rightly, to shut down mining, shut down steel towns, but it then did nothing. And I think it had a duty of care to recognise the impact it would have on those towns ripping the heart out of them. And I don't think it did very much at all to then regenerate.
46:41
Now, those places have, over a long term, started to do that themselves.
46:46
What would it look like, though? We may find out later. We may find out on Monday. We may find out before Christmas. We may never really find out. What would meaningful policies look like in terms of fixing some of the malaise that you describe?
47:01
It's not so much the malaise, James. I think it's the empowerment. So, for instance, Blackpool, for a variety of reasons... uh didn't get its super casino um i think if they were empowered with that decision making process themselves exactly right i mean blackpool blessed is lovely but it is a bit tired and it needs something to uh give it a boost again it's not going to be or heavy industry, but I think in a controlled way, and gambling is a different world, of course, but in a controlled way, a super casino there could do something to help get that place.
47:37
Yeah, I mean, it's a symbol, the super casino, I appreciate, because I don't want my inbox to be overtaken by people who point out the perils of gambling, but you're talking about a decision that is not taken by the people who are...
47:55
ostensibly in charge of that area. So when Andy Burnham is doing more than words, then, when he talks about moving things to the regions, he's talking about autonomy. And it's quite a persuasive argument, isn't it? It's quite a powerful argument. And, you know, in terms of the bigger picture, The focus, the northern Labour Party, the party of the north, somehow grabbing the reins of the national horse, which has been, for good or for ill, pandering to a very, very southern perspective for as long as I can remember.
48:30
There's no real downside to that that I can see at the moment.
48:34
Now, and you talked earlier about rebuilding social capital.
48:38
Yes.
48:38
And I think with disenfranchised people, this is a moment where he can actually make a difference and people go, wow, they're connected, they're doing something. Interestingly... ...election on.
48:50
Don't worry. No, no, no, no, no biggity. But you can speak about him, but you can't speak about him in any way that might be relevant to the forthcoming by-election. Those are the rules about Perder.
49:05
So don't worry, I got there in time. And I will be talking about Nigel Varys later in the programme, and indeed about 30p Lee, because, oh, I don't want to spoil the surprise for you, but it's safe to say that they seem to have discovered an antipathy.
49:19
towards free speech. They seem to have discovered an objection to people having a little bit of fun at their expense or sharing hearty words. So you can call for people to be burned alive in their beds and get a hero's welcome. on stage at the reform uk conference but it turns out that if you're one of the nation's most pop i'll go on and the nation's most popular uh commercial speech radio presenter uh you can't even tease them without getting official complaints who could i possibly be talking about and uh what am i going to share with you later Four minutes after 11 is the time.
49:59
You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. I could be wrong about this.
50:09
I hate saying that because I was fairly confident I was right at 10 to 10 this morning when I decided we were going to talk about it later. You may have heard Tom wading into this territory earlier. I used to be adamant. I used to be absolutely adamant that taking your child out of school during term time was an incredibly irresponsible thing to do. And listen, let's get this out of the way early, OK? I could, when my children were still off school age, I could afford to go on really nice holidays during the school holidays. Lucky me, right? Lucky, lucky me.
50:42
My parents, however, could not afford to go on what you might describe as luxury holidays during the school holidays when I was a child. So guess what? We didn't go on luxury holidays. A lot of the children I was at school with did. I remember a lad called Adrian coming back from Barbados when I was about 10. Barbados! We'd been in Morecambe.
51:02
Or Morikamby, as my dad suggested we should call it in order to sound a little bit more exotic than your usual Lancashire holiday maker. But this lad Adrian came back from Barbados. Where did you go on your holidays, O'Brien? Morikamby. Where did you go? Barbados. Barbados.
51:18
And I used to be pretty clear, pretty clear, that this was a fairly binary issue. That if you can't afford to go on holiday during the school holidays, if you can't afford to go on that holiday during the school holidays, then you are, I'm terribly sorry, you're going to have to go on a different holiday. And there are two reasons why I'm wondering whether...
51:46
Either I've had this wrong all along or things have changed sufficiently for me to think that I need to review my position. The first thing that has made me wonder that is the sheer scale of the people doing it.
52:04
About one in five parents are now taking trips during term time. More than two million parents have taken their children out of school during term time and And then the Times reports entirely incorrectly, but I don't blame the individual journalists, because this is the way the conversation is conducted, because they could not afford to travel in the holidays. Of course they could. They could just not afford to travel there. They could afford to travel somewhere else.
52:30
They just couldn't afford to travel there. So where are you going for your holidays? Disneyland. When are you going? Term time. Where would you be going if you couldn't actually go during term time and you had to spend that same amount of money on the kind of holiday you can afford during the school? Oh, well, we'd have to go to Mallorca or Blackpool. Do you see what I mean? There's this great phrase that Eleanor introduced me to earlier today, which I've already forgotten. But let me just double check and I'll tell you again. Lifestyle inflation. Have you heard of this?
53:00
Lifestyle creep. This idea that we are all and this is a terrible conversation for me. to conduct for a whole heap of reasons not only could I afford to go on nice holidays during the school holidays but also my children were at private school which means that you get a win-win situation because you tend to break up a little earlier or go back later so you can slide off on holiday in that one week or two week window before the state schools break up and because a tiny proportion of the population are privately educated the prices for those holidays in those windows have not risen exponentially so not only could I afford to go on nice holidays But, of course, there were some holidays I couldn't afford to go on because I didn't have the money.
53:42
Regardless of where the calendar was at that particular moment, I couldn't, for example, afford to stay at the Four Seasons for three weeks or go to, I don't know, the Georges Sank in Paris for the entire... Do you see what I mean? Unless you are as rich as Croesus, there are holidays you cannot afford full stop.
54:04
You cannot afford them full stop.
54:08
Right?
54:10
And now you remove the full stop and you insert some brackets. And you say, I cannot afford them unless I take the children out of school and go early. Well, I don't think I am wrong.
54:21
You're not necessarily going to like me for this. But I sit here, and I am. I hope you know that it's entirely authentic. I despair at the performance in school of some children from certain demographics. It breaks my heart that you are almost... almost scarred for life by childhood deprivation, that your opportunities for self-improvement are hugely limited by the circumstances of your birth and upbringing. We've wrestled and wondered why, and we will again. At the moment, it seems to be white working class children who are most likely to do worst at school.
54:58
And it's not about ethnicity because the white middle-class children are doing fine. Part of the problem for me, a big part of the problem for me, is all of the people telling their parents that education is a waste of time or that teachers are the enemy.
55:12
Not least when teachers feel that they've been left with little... choice but to take industrial action the right-wing blowhards who profess to care about the quotes working class end quotes will be queuing up to tell you that teachers are a bunch of work-shy layabouts who have enormous holidays and spend their lives knitting i don't know curtains out of their own armpit hair and living on muesli and sponsored sandals the hatred that's directed at teachers is one of the ugliest elements of a society Because the people that suffer most from the demonization of teachers are the people who start with the least.
55:47
The poorest children. The most in need of education. The children who would benefit most from being at school.
55:58
are the children who are least likely to be at school.
56:01
Not only do they play truant more, but I would suggest that they are also going to be part of this problem. Although there'll be plenty of middle-class parents caught up in this as well. It's probably a preponderance of middle-class parents who are suffering from lifestyle creep.
56:15
They think that they should be enjoying a better lifestyle than they can afford.
56:20
They think that their discretionary income, if you like, is not the measure by which they decide what holidays they can afford to go on. They decide what holidays they can afford to go on according to cheating and Instagram.
56:33
Listen, I would have been performatively unkind at some point about this.
56:38
I was very, very worried when I started therapy and discovered that some of the things that I'd done over the years on this program had been mean and cruel, particularly with regard to obesity, actually, and tattoos and some other issues as well. But on this one, I think back in the day, I would have become a bit theatrical at this point, and I would have been... I would have hoped amusingly rude. I'm not like that anymore. The reason I worried when I started therapy was because I thought perhaps that's why you were tuning in.
57:09
And if I stopped being that person, then you might not tune in anymore. You might not enjoy the show as much as you did when I'd give people a largely undeserved but essentially lighthearted kicking.
57:20
I'm not doing that today, but I do think that you've got your priorities horribly wrong if you're taking your child out of school to go on holiday.
57:29
I really do. There'll be some exceptions, military families. Of course there will. People who truly can't afford to stay in a caravan in Filey for a few days unless they go just before school breaks up. And it's a choice between that holiday or no holiday.
57:45
I understand all of that. But if you care about education, then you can't care more about your holiday.
57:54
Can you?
57:55
What's it like from the classroom's perspective? I mean, if teachers want to queue up to tell me that the problem is nowhere near as acute as I think it is, then I will change my mind. Genuinely, when I saw that figure today, two million parents are doing it.
58:13
Am I the baddie? Am I the one that's getting this wrong? If two million parents are doing it, maybe I need to review my position.
58:24
Nearly a quarter of parents in households earning more than £100,000 a year said that they had taken a child out of school to reduce costs.
58:33
Hey, lads, if you're earning more than £100,000 a year, guess what? You can afford to go on holiday. You just can't afford to go on that holiday.
58:42
Where did you go when you were a kid? I'll tell you what we did. And remember, my dad was paying a king's ransom to send me to public school and prep school. And my sister went to private school as well. Here are some of the holidays we went on. I think before I started, I was a tiny baby, I think. We went to Morecambe a lot. We went there when I was seven or eight years old, my first year at prep school. We went to Morecambe in Lancashire for a holiday. I think we stayed half bored in a boarding house. Do you remember coming downstairs in boarding houses? Yes. In English seaside resorts, there's one memory I have.
59:15
The sound of the landlady scraping the carbon off burnt toast before bringing it in to the dining room for breakfast. So we were an aspirational middle class family. My father was a Daily Telegraph journalist and we went on holiday to a boarding house in Morecambe.
59:36
I'm not going to lie to you. I love my parents. I'm very grateful for all the sacrifices they made on my behalf. That is not one of my happiest memories.
59:45
Another year, my great uncle John, on my dad's side, had a little cottage in Filey that had not been updated since before the Second World War.
59:56
The only thing that had changed was the meter into which you could now put modern five-pence pieces as opposed to the pre-decimalization coins that you needed to feed the electricity meter when my dad went there as a kid. This is not the Four Yorkshiremen episode of Monty Python. I had an incredibly privileged childhood. An incredibly, not where near as privileged as some people, but considerably more privileged than most. We were comfortable, we were happy, we were warm, and we went to expensive schools.
60:33
But we did not go on expensive holidays, ever.
60:37
Foreign holidays. Are you ready? A caravan in Benaday in Brittany. A Euro camp. Do you remember? You'd get the GB sign for the back of the car. We'd stick it on the back of Dad's Morris Marina. Possibly a Morris Itale by that point. Company car, you see? Privileged. You stick it on the back and we drive to a static caravan on a massive campsite in Brittany. And that is a really happy memory because the kids ran wild. We all made friends with the kids in next door's caravan from all sort of walks of life and backgrounds. And we had an incredible fortnight there.
61:09
Absolutely wonderful. That is a really, really happy memory.
61:13
But it wasn't Barbados.
61:16
It wasn't a boutique hotel in San Antonio. It was not expensive. It was about as cheap as they could get away with. And we didn't even do that every summer. Some summers we didn't go on holiday at all. Now, listen, I'm owning my privilege. I'm violently owning my privilege because I am not pretending for a moment that I was denied anything by not going on these holidays. I'm simply using my own personal experience to point out, A...
61:45
that you can afford to go on holiday, you just can't afford to go on that holiday.
61:50
And B, a holiday is not a human right.
61:54
Sometimes you just can't afford things. And that is a lesson that perhaps is not being learned on anything like the scale that it should be by not children, but the parents of those children.
62:04
First time I ever went on a plane, I was 11 years old. And a friend of mine at one of my posh schools, his family had an apartment in Mallorca.
62:13
And I flew to Mallorca for a holiday living in their flat. That was the first time I didn't think I went on a plane again until I was, can that be true?
62:23
I don't think I went on a plane again until I was 18. Can that be true?
62:28
I think it is.
62:30
I had a Greek girlfriend at university. I went to see her in Greece. Well, that can't be true, can it?
62:36
Didn't go on an aeroplane between the ages of 0 and 11 and 11 and 18. But the point I'm making is even from a background of privilege and comparative comfort, fancy holidays were things that we could not afford. And they still are. They still are things that you can't afford. So why are you going on them?
62:59
and taking your children out of school to do it.
63:04
I've talked myself back round again. It's a tragedy, this. I've got no particular beef with you. When I talked a moment ago about being performatively unpleasant and theatrical, I'd now insult you. I'd say something like, you don't care about your children's education. You are a philistine. And I'd kind of half mean it and I might sum the debt. You know the kind of presenter I'm talking about. They don't really believe in anything or care about anything. They just wake up every morning and think, how do I push your buttons today?
63:31
I'm not going to do that.
63:33
I think if two million people are doing it and you live in a society where ostentatious consumerism is the new God, then I get it. I understand why you're doing it. Had the cards fallen a little bit differently, I'd probably do it myself.
63:48
I probably would have done it myself, but I can't.
63:52
Or rather, I wouldn't have done because I can't quite get past the idea that taking your child out of school to go on holiday is telling your child that holidays are more important than school.
64:03
Worse, that fun and I'll do what I want and rules don't matter is more important than school. What possible chance have you got of persuading your child to become a productive, responsible citizen if you're teaching them from the age of six that the rules are for mugs?
64:28
Rules are for mugs. And holidays and fun and consumerism, they're the really important things. Not education and books and knowledge.
64:40
It's all about holidays and fun and irresponsibility and kicking back and having pictures to stick on Instagram and Facebook to persuade people that you're richer than you really are. Go to bloody Brittany.
64:52
Go to Scarborough. Go to Morecambe. Go to Blackpool. Go somewhere that you can afford during the periods of the year that you're allowed to take your children away. Don't go to places that you can't afford unless you take your children out of school and teach them the silent lesson that school doesn't really matter.
65:15
And you're going to try to persuade me that I'm wrong and that you can do both. And that might be true in a handful of cases, but I'm afraid to actually persuade me to review my position. You're going to have to tell me that two million parents are exceptions to the rule, that one in five parents of school aged children in this country are all perfectly capable of filling up the holes left by taking their child out of school in terms of education, knowledge and instruction.
65:43
But crucially.
65:46
you're also teaching them that school doesn't really matter.
65:50
And then you'll ring me up in a couple of years complaining about the performance of certain demographics in the education and why are they doing better and why aren't these kids doing it and you'll pretend that it's got something to do with two-tier education or anti-white racism or some old nonsense like that. When the real answer is, and all ethnicities will be doing this, but I bet the best performing in schools, I bet there's a correlation between the ethnicity of the kids who do best in schools and the ethnicity of the kids who are not taken on holiday during term time.
66:21
I could be wrong. It's going to be impossible to prove, so I'll stick my house on it while I can. Either you teach your children that the most important thing they can do during their schooling years is schooling, or you teach them at its holidays.
66:36
0345 6060 973. Who else is thinking of the lad whose dad used to tell them he was taking them to France for the day and he took them to the Isle of Sheppey? Because you get on a boat.
66:48
Just tell them. They're young. They don't know. We're going to France. Oh, that's so exciting. And he took them to the Isle of Sheppey. It was one of the best calls we've taken this year. Speaking of the best calls we've ever taken, I was at the streets concert in Alexandra Palace last night. Beautiful gig, absolutely legendary gig. I've been to two gigs this year that are among the best I've ever been to in my life, and that was one of them.
67:07
But a lovely young, I say young, he was about 40, a lad called Ollie came up, and sometimes people bump into me in public, and I can't quite believe how excited they are to see me.
67:18
but he was and he remembered he couldn't help himself saying the best call that we'd ever taken on the program and it was probably the one it was probably the one that I would also put up there as the funniest ever I wonder if you can guess what it is or whether or not you want to just text me a quick message about it was the Woolwich Ferry wasn't it that that caller was just from about a month and a half ago What was the call that Ollie, who I bumped into at Alexandra Palace, regards to your dad as well, Ollie. The call that probably is the funniest we've ever taken on the programme.
67:48
Let's see how many people get it right and I'll do the reveal after this.
67:52
It's not as obvious as I thought it was, the funniest call we've ever taken. You're right, Matt in Lincoln suggested it was the bloke who was trying to convey the different accents that he believed pigeons had.
68:05
Ollie, going back to the pandemic, it was the lad in Leeds, from Leeds, who was in China at the outbreak of the pandemic. He really was special. It was Luke, wasn't it? Was that his name? A beautiful lad, and really brought some joy into the situation. A couple of you have guessed correctly.
68:21
The call that I probably would chalk up as the funniest we've ever taken. Aba's got it right and a few others. But no, none of the Brexit calls, David, they're not allowed. Anyway, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about one in five parents taking term time trips. 25 after 11 is the time. And my conviction, my contention...
68:46
that for all the talk, particularly from middle-class parents, about the cultural value of the holiday they've taken, the holiday you could afford to go on during the holidays would also have cultural value. So spare me. Lee's in Cockermouth in Cumbria. Lee, what would you like to say? Les, Les is in Cockermouth in Cumbria. There you go. I should go back to school, Les. What do you want to say?
69:07
Yeah, no, just saying that we spoke with our school about taking the kids out during term time. And the school were very supportive of it based on what the kids would get out of it versus being at school for that last week of term.
69:23
Where did you go?
69:25
Where did we go? We went to Europe, to Turkey, to Greece. Well, you did it all the time?
69:34
Pretty much so, yeah. I think so, yeah.
69:38
And the school... Really? Really?
69:40
Yeah, well, I've helped out a lot at school. I was part of the community at school. And it was saying, well, this is what I'm putting on the table to the school, the headteacher. And they were going, yeah, we can see what you're doing there. You're going to take them on an educational type.
69:53
Do you know what? I mean, this is a bit awkward for me. I mean, I believe you, but I also at the same time somehow don't believe you.
70:00
Yeah, well, we've spent a pretty parallel life with... I grew up in North Yorkshire. My dad had a marina and we went to Filey and Morecambe. So I can't be telling lies, can I?
70:09
No, well, that's very true. But why couldn't you go to Filey and Morecambe with your kids?
70:13
Well, we've taken them there also because it's the best cultural trip they'll ever have.
70:17
But you could afford that during the school. And it was for financial reasons. Because, I mean, you're teaching your kids that holidays are more important than school.
70:25
No, it wasn't that. It was probably a better holiday for the kids because we could go outside term time, more educational, more interesting.
70:37
I mean, I guess there's people who've got enough money. We could have gone in the term time or not in term time. But we get, like you say, we get a better holiday for the kids.
70:49
You get a holiday you can't afford. I mean, I think I might report that teacher, if you leave his details with the switchboard, I'm going to report that teacher to Ofsted. Absolutely outrageous behaviour, encouraging parents to teach their children that holidays are more important than holidays. than schooling uh let's mind how you go 28 minutes after 11 is the time speaking of Ofsted sounds a bit like Ofcom doesn't it don't let me go home without telling you the uh story the latest news from the front line of the free speech warriors like 30p Lee Anderson Peter's in Glasgow Peter what would you like to say hi good morning James how are you I'm all right mate what's on your mind
71:24
So I've got three points. But first of all, I think that you're on a bit of a wind up this morning. I'm not entirely convinced.
71:33
Well, I did go to great pains to explain why I'm not on a wind up. And I think I managed to step back from doing that sort of performative obnoxiousness. that I would have done once and, you know, using words like philistine. But you are, if you do this regularly, you are making a teacher's life harder and you are on some level subconsciously telling your child that holidays and actually ostentatious consumption is more important than education.
72:00
OK, well, hopefully I'll cover some of that. But I'll be very interested to see what your opinion is at the end of the show. So we'll wait out for that. Anyway, so three points. First of all, I think the price increase over the holiday period is absolutely scandalous. I think there's too many people, too many companies that are just purely profiteering from the limited term time.
72:20
Yeah, I mean, lots of people couldn't afford Oasis tickets because of the way that they priced them and the way that the prices went up.
72:26
Exact same situation. But it doesn't justify...
72:32
teaching your children that it's okay to steal tickets or teaching your children that going to a concert is more important than going to school. It's unfair and it's unlucky, but it's not an answer to the question of why you would take your children out of school to go on a holiday that you can't afford to go on, full stop.
72:45
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And also accept the fact that I'm in Scotland. We don't have the same term time as England.
72:52
They do increase quite a bit. However, when the English holiday hits, the price increases absolutely through the roof. That moves on to the next point.
73:00
First point's failed, just so you know.
73:04
Second point is, if you speak to any adult round about our age or whatever, and you ask them what are some of your fondest memories, most likely they'll talk about holiday times times when they're abroad with our family on big adventure holidays not me um as opposed to sitting there and saying i remember this one time in school just before the summer holidays when we sat through a great lesson i've never heard anybody the best bits of your school days were the were the bits towards the end of term when things were all a little bit more relaxed and you might have a point if we're talking about half a day or a day but you're talking about a week or a week and a half
73:40
And the teachers are trying to teach these children that education is really important and you're teaching them it's more important to go to Disneyland.
73:47
Well, that brings me on to a third point.
73:48
My second point failed. Carry on.
73:51
So again, I accept the fact education is absolutely important and it does vary depending on the year. Hang on a minute.
73:57
No, back to point two. You can still go on holiday. You're just going on a holiday you can afford. You're not going on a holiday that you can't afford. It's not as if if you don't go on holiday during term time, you're going to spend the entire summer shelling peas. You're just going to go somewhere cheaper.
74:13
But more people would be able to afford it. Yeah, but I'm talking about you now.
74:16
You can afford to go on a cheaper holiday during the actual school holidays.
74:20
Yes, absolutely. Exactly.
74:21
So you're still going to have lovely memories. Ha-ha! Second point failed twice. Next.
74:27
So the third point is, and this is particular to my child's school, in primary school as opposed to secondary, except you get exams and all the rest of it later on. But the last couple of weeks, the kids do almost nothing. It's all about fun days. They have numerous movie days.
74:44
It's a huge part of the bonding process. It's social capital. It's a part of their educational journey into community. What would happen if everyone did it? Because we're up to one in five now. What would happen if it was five in five?
74:56
Well, maybe the government might set up and take notice and maybe try and impose some sort of limitation on the amount of...
75:01
So we're encouraging strikes now. We're encouraging children to go on strike in order to change holiday pricing legislation.
75:10
Perhaps. Yeah, why not?
75:11
Point three has also failed. It's 11.32. You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC. I'm not on a winder. I possibly am being a little bit provocative, but I hope not in a performative or obnoxious way. I really mean it. But at the same time, all the parents I'm going to speak to are going to sound persuasive. That's why the rules should be more stringently enforced, because the thing you can't get past is the entitlement. It's fine for me to do it, but obviously it would be awful if everybody did.
75:42
So why is it fine for you to do it if it would be awful if everybody did?
75:46
Here's Dominic Ellis with the headlines.
75:49
It is 11.35. You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. Would you like to have a guess at what 30p Lee Anderson and his colleagues, presumably his colleagues, I can't imagine he's allowed to operate independently, and Reform UK consider to be... hate speech? Because I can show you exactly what they think is not hate speech, what they think should be celebrated. Where do you think their threshold is for complaining about somebody publicly commenting on, for example, politicians?
76:21
So let's start with Lucy Connolly. You'll be familiar with her. She was jailed for inciting hatred and potentially, of course, inciting violence when she wrote mass deportation now set fire to all the effing hotels full of the...
76:38
Word I can't say on the radio without upsetting Ofcom. For all I care, while you're at it, take the treacherous government and politicians with them. So literally and publicly calling for politicians to be set on fire.
76:53
to be set on fire during a period of our history when there were rampaging mobs on our streets, partly as a consequence of politicians choosing to amplify the racist lies of the alleged rapist Andrew Tate, or of course an important voice for British men, according to Nigel Farage. Partly as a consequence of that, there were rampaging mobs on our streets during that window.
77:19
of our of our history and this woman chose to call for politicians and obviously for asylum seekers to be set on fire and this is how 30p lee anderson and nigel farage's party responded to her
77:36
Our Planet Normal guest this week has become a living symbol of two-tier Britain. The sheer injustice she has suffered has shocked millions of people across Britain and, indeed, across the whole world. She's a wonderful mum, wife, beloved childminder, little kids from every corner of the earth she's taken wonderful care of. So I am, of course, referring to Britain's favourite political prisoner. Ladies and gentlemen, Please give the warmest of welcomes to Lucy Connolly.
78:23
So that is behaviour that gets celebrated. You get a hero's welcome. You get treated like an X Factor winner if you call for politicians to be set on fire.
78:35
What would be the response from these people to somebody comparing a politician to... Well, let me read you something from... Unfortunately, it's not in the Daily Mail today. I mean, it's not in the Daily Mail today, not unfortunately at all. It is... confined to their website, Reform UK's chairman, Lee Anderson, has demanded a public apology from left-wing LBC presenter James O'Brien over recent comments made about Nigel Farage. So the first thing you think is, flipping heck, he must have said something worse than set them on fire.
79:07
Right, that's just logic, isn't it?
79:10
If you're going to take a woman who has called for politicians to be set on fire and give her a hero's welcome on stage at your party conference, that was two, quote, journalists, end quotes, called Alison Pearson and Liam Halligan, who were inviting her onto the stage to her own theme tune. So if they've actually decided to issue a complaint or to demand a public apology...
79:33
to demand a public apology from me, little old me, I just, I'm terrified. I must have said something worse than that. What could you say that would be worse than that?
79:45
Particularly given recent events involving Anne Widdicombe. I thought, what have I said? I must have said something awful. They've demanded a public apology. The people who gave Lucy Connolly a hero's, well, let's read more of the article. On Monday, Mr. O'Brien took to the airwaves and levelled several furious comments aimed at the Reform UK leader as tributes continued to flood in for Anne Whittacombe. He dismissed claims Mr. Farage has made about attacks on him during the Reform Chief's announcement that he would resign as MP to fight a pilot.
80:17
That's all fine. I've got the receipts. I've got the proof. Across his show, the LBC star said, I have seen this all before. I have seen the claims about his security, which generally hinge upon widely reported news. or non-existent episodes that's all true something about this moment is different from the time he lied about his wheel nuts being tapped they're quoting me now here we go so this is the bit that's worse than calling for politicians to be set on fire are you ready for this i mean i don't know if this is a trigger warning or a suggestion that you you because you know these people are big believers in free speech Big, big believers.
80:50
Say what you like about this lot. They really believe in free speech. And they're big defenders of what they call hurty words. So even calling for politicians to be set on fire, it's just hurty words. Shouldn't be punished. Let's give her a hero's welcome on stage at our party. What the fudge has O'Brien said that is ten times worse than calling for politicians to be set on fire?
81:12
So, obviously this is quite funny.
81:36
But there's a very, very serious point here about the dangers that our politicians and our political figures face and about the importance of authenticity and honesty. If somebody who calls for politicians to be set on fire, mass deportation now, set fire to all the effing hotels full of the B words, for all I care, while you're at it, take the treacherous government and politicians with them, that behaviour gets this response from
82:05
Our Planet Normal guest this week has become a living symbol of two-tier Britain. The sheer injustice she has suffered has shocked millions of people across Britain and, indeed, across the whole world. She's a wonderful mum, wife, beloved childminder, little kids from every corner of the earth she's taken wonderful care of. So I am, of course, referring to Britain's favourite political prisoner. Ladies and gentlemen, Please give the warmest of welcomes to Lucy Connolly.
82:48
That's the woman who called for politicians to be set on fire.
82:54
Your friendly neighborhood radio host who compared a politician to an irremovable skid mark on the wide fronts of British politics, that gets an official complaint.
83:03
I mean, as I said, it's obviously hilarious because these are the free speech warriors. These are the free speech bros. These are the people that are...
83:15
adamant that you've got to relax about hurty words and people shouldn't be punished for the things that they say, doing an admittedly slightly childish joke, I suppose you could call it puerile cold rage, but an admittedly puerile figure of speech getting this response, this level of anger, and actual calls for politicians to be killed, getting a hero's welcome. You have to keep pointing this stuff out, even if it sounds completely bonkers, because if you don't, God knows what happens next. And I was mildly curious about what sort of quotes journalist end quotes would take down this sort of stenography from 30 P. Lee.
83:50
So I looked at the byline and it's someone called Christian Calgi, which rang a bit of a bell for me because he's the bloke that called for Zahra Sultana to be deported. An elected British politician he took to social media to call for her to be deported, presumably because she's a Muslim.
84:07
So he posted something about not being able to wait until his taxes don't pay her wages. Someone else replied saying, well, I can't wait until my taxes pay for her to be deported.
84:18
To which he responded even better.
84:21
So, I mean, you can almost imagine the conversation, can't you? 30 P. Lee saying, oh, we're going to send a letter to James O'Brien's bosses complaining about him calling Nigel a poo. Who's going to print that? Who's going to run that? What journalist should we? I know just the bloke, Lee. I know just the bloke. Let's get the bloke who called for an elected British politician to be actually deported because she's brown. He'll run it. He'll stick it in the mail online. Oh, great idea, said Lee. Let's get him now. He's on speed dial. Hello, Christian, I've got a story for you.
84:54
And so the bloke who wants a politician to be deported for being brown is writing a story about me comparing Nigel Farage to a poo while simultaneously inviting onto the stage at their own party conference a woman who called for politicians to be set on fire. This, my friends, is a snowflake moment.
85:16
It's 11.48. You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC.
85:21
That infamous tweet once again, mass deportation now, set fire to all the effing hotels full of the B words for all I care. While you're at it, take the treacherous government and politicians with them. I suppose you could argue... Or you could dispute whether she's calling for the politicians to be set on fire alongside the human beings in hotels or whether the politicians are just going to be deported for unspecified crimes. But she goes on, I feel physically sick knowing what these families will have to endure. If that makes me racist, so be it.
85:54
That woman, Lucy Connolly, who got the hero's welcome at the Reform UK conference, But she's out and about again today. Joseph Draper, LBC's reporter, is at CPAC, which is that sort of strange American organization where very, very right wing people gather in largely empty rooms in this country to warn that the West is under threat or that everybody is in danger of... suddenly disappearing and guess who's there? Liz Truss and indeed Lucy Connolly and almost certainly, or Joseph will correct me if I'm wrong, Nigel Farage at some point as well.
86:28
And as you've probably gathered, Joseph Draper too. Joseph, what's going on?
86:33
Well, I would not blame any of my listeners for not having a clue what CPAC is, James, but it's the Conservative Political Action Conference. As you say, if you were a Republican in America, this would be a big part of your schedule. It'd be a huge event. It's a kind of Trump-fest, hugely instrumental part of Donald Trump's fan base, really. It's kind of a Comic-Con for right-wing figures in America. Liz Truss over the last few years has been a frequent appearance there.
87:05
I think last year she said she wanted a Trump-style revolution.
87:09
in the UK. Well, I think this is her attempt to do that, bringing CPAC here to the UK for the first time, trying to transplant Trumpism, I suppose, to British politics. And she took to the stage yesterday at this hotel where I am now next to the O2.
87:28
I will say, James, the crowd here yesterday on the opening day I think, can fairly be described as threadbare, as she took to the stage, in her words, saying that we needed to save Western civilisation from destruction by the progressive left. I mean, that's what she said. Got some applause, but as I say, there were quite a few empty seats. Those people who were here, James, spending between £500 and £10,000 for a ticket.
88:02
It's not a cheap event, this. £10,000? £10,000.
88:07
What do you get for £10,000? An absolute stone-cold guarantee that Liz Truss won't talk to you?
88:13
Well, I can tell you what you don't get. You don't get free coffee.
88:16
Good grief. £10,000?
88:18
It's £3 for a coffee here, James. Nice work if you can get it. Sorry, I interrupted you in a state of spluttering incredulity. Carry on, Joe. Yeah, well, presumably those tickets don't get you free coffee. The coffee here, £3 for a cup, and it tastes... suspiciously granulated to me. But we've had speakers, James, from right across Europe and the world, right wing, pretty fringe figures, I must say, Romanian pro-Trump ultra-nationalists, George Simeon being one of them, who spoke about the great replacement theory and the need to re-emigrate immigrants in the West.
88:56
matt goodwin of reform uk he was the candidates you'll remember james and the gorton and denton by-election claiming on stage yesterday this is one of the most extreme claims i've heard today or this week claiming that election was rigged by the so-called islamo green party islamo green party the islamo green party is that a thing or has he just invented that well there's no evidence to suggest no but i mean the name i've not heard of this is it a new splinter group because i mean you've got reform restore reclaim reverberate reflux regurgitate is there another one of the i mean is there an islamo green party now out there joe i think he was just referring to i think what he meant was the green party which won that election comfortably yes i must it must be said that the green party won that by election comfortably But from what he said, James, this so-called Islamo Green Party used Muslim clan networks.
89:52
But they've looked into this. They've looked into this, Joe. This is what Farage claimed about some family voting or something like that. Yeah, exactly.
89:58
It's been investigated. Exactly. I mean, look, there is no evidence of this.
90:03
The authorities have looked into that election. There's no evidence it was rigged. As far as all the evidence says, this was a completely fair election.
90:11
but clearly he hasn't come to terms with that loss. He thinks, based on zero evidence that we've seen, that it was rigged by Muslim networks. So that was one of the most extreme comments I've heard at this conference so far, James. And surprisingly as well, the shadow business secretary, Andrew Griffiths, also took to the stage alongside many of these figures, saying people who believe in the UK's net zero targets are no longer welcoming the Conservative Party.
90:40
But Kemi Badenoch used to believe in the net zero targets.
90:44
Well, there was a report, yes, but there was a report that Kemi Badenoch had said no candidates now in the next election.
90:50
I saw that, but has she accidentally banned herself from her own party?
90:55
Potentially, I mean... Well, we need to look into this next week. We may have to, but I mean, it's clearly...
91:01
That wasn't confirmed by the Conservative Party before now. That was reporting on this alleged kind of ban. But as we had a shadow business secretary on stage yesterday, appearing to confirm that new policy, James, of candidates at the next election. So that was an interesting moment as well. Now, as I said, all this being spearheaded by Liz Truss, former Conservative Prime Minister, albeit very briefly. Six weeks.
91:25
Six weeks. There we are. Well, I did manage to speak to her yesterday, very briefly, James. And I put some of the language that we've heard today and yesterday to her.
91:34
We are in a political battle against some quite extreme elements, and that is very frightening.
91:42
And you've described that as a political battle there. Many people would say that some of the language used today is quite extreme and contributes to that language and that culture of hostility in politics. We've heard about the enemy from within. You described how Western civilisation is under attack and needs to be defended.
92:01
I think that's a pretty... But is this not language that contributes to... Saying Western civilisation is under attack, it needs to be defended, I think is a perfectly reasonable statement about where we are.
92:13
Perfectly reasonable statement.
92:14
Who's it under attack from? I need to be careful on the way home.
92:18
The progressive left, apparently. For example, who are the... I mean, it's not me, is it? I asked for specific things.
92:25
I didn't get many jokes. It's outrageous. You can't even compare someone to... Anyway. So we don't know. She hasn't named... Because, I mean...
92:32
no no specifics look out for them anyway later be careful absolutely there you go carry on uh but also we've had lots of references to to islam and muslims being the enemy within at this conference as well so lots of extreme language one person who's due to speak today james as you say is lucy connolly as she was she's the wife of the former conservative councillor she was jailed you remember for around 12 months for a tweet during the Southport riots in which she appeared to suggest that people should go out and set fire to the asylum hotels.
93:05
Now, I spoke to her yesterday, James. I put that language to her, and this is what she said.
93:10
No, I 100% regret what I said. I regretted it at the time. I deleted the tweet on the same day that I wrote it. Within hours, I knew that it wasn't the right thing to say. As I said, it's not a representation of who I am and what I really believe. I was just upset.
93:25
But equally, I don't think, like I said, we should be sending people to prison for words.
93:32
It is very clear, set fire to all the effing hotels. What is that if not an incitement to violence?
93:39
for all I care. It's like saying, I don't care if that happens. It was a flippant comment, isn't it? Or a horrible one, but it was like, there is no call to direct action. The other side of the coin is the left, as we would say, or the extreme, not even the left actually, the extreme left, I think are responsible for that. I think, you know, the left and then the mainstream media and the media channels that are constantly, you know, hounding Nigel Farage, constantly, you know, trying to dig dirt upon reform and calling them Nazis and calling them fascists and racists, it's dangerous.
94:16
Is saying that the far left wants to destroy Western civilisation contributing to that cause you've described as bringing people together, or is that demonising your opponents?
94:29
But that's what they do in politics, isn't it? They demonise each other. And I think, again, it's childish.
94:33
You said CPAC is about getting away from that. Liz Truss stood on stage today and said that Western civilisation is at risk of being destroyed by the left.
94:44
But that's Liz's opinion.
94:47
James, it's not over yet. Later today, we are expecting Nigel Farage to come here to deliver his speech. Of course you are. Presumably, the crowd will be a lot thicker for that.
94:59
Definitely thicker. Possibly also bigger.
95:02
Potentially, we'll see. Joseph Draver, live from CPAC, because somebody has to, speaking to Lucy Connolly, who I think it's fair to say seemed a bit confused. But then, you know, it's the people who keep pushing her into positions of prominence who are probably to blame for her embarrassment. It's not as if she asked. for these levels of attention, but I presume they are rather hard to resist. Fascinating to find out which parts of the mainstream media it is that are calling this lot Nazis or fascists. Again, it's as if they never have any actual examples of the things that they're alleging.
95:37
I remember the images of Nigel Farage hobnobbing with Rupert Murdoch at Evgeny Lebedev's summer party, and yet up pops Lucy Connolly to claim that the mainstream media are somehow dedicated to attacking them. And you've got the bloke in the mail online today who last came to public prominence for calling for a British politician to be deported, agreeing with the idea that she should be deported, presumably for the offence of being brown or being a Muslim. But mainstream media is against these people. It's a very odd business, isn't it?
96:07
And I think you'll agree with me. It's quite important that someone continues to point out the absurdity, the hypocrisy and the actual unpleasantness of it all. Because as we have seen elsewhere in the world, we know what happens when they don't. Or we know what happens when politicians try to silence criticism or journalism or even a little light ribbing.
96:31
Three minutes after 12 is the time Andy Burnham has arrived in, I don't know, is it a sports hall? Yeah, it looks like a sports, usually a sports hall. Anyway, he is about to become Labour Party leader. He will be giving a speech, we think, in about seven or eight minutes' time, and I am minded to take that live. I wonder how many changes of prime minister we would have to have before we stop taking the early moments of the arrival and the seat of power.
96:59
Lucy Powell is there.
97:01
And I think Shabana Mahmood is there as well. So I think we can probably spare ourselves their speeches, but we will definitely want to hear what Andy Burnham has to say.
97:10
I also thought, having spoken to Joseph Draper there, live from the CPAC conference here in London, where various fruitcakes and weirdos are delivering. I thought we'd cross live, have a little bit of a listen to what's going on in the conference hall over at Liz Truss's special conference at the moment.
97:39
Maybe we need to reassess our opinions of these people. I haven't got the actual name of that speaker, but I suspect it could have been any of them.
97:47
And while we're in the mood for some clips and indeed some allegations of insightful or dangerous language being leveled at me by this lot.
97:59
Henry's family have responded to this in just the most extraordinarily dignified way.
98:06
But I suggest the rest of us respond to this with pure, cold rage.
98:12
The problem was, of course, that Henry's family, Henry Novak, the man that he is referring to, the murdered teenager, categorically requested that people emulate them and their dignity and their understanding and recognition that the murder had nothing to do with race and their plea for people not to try to turn it into their futile plea in the case of the man whose voice you've just heard try not to turn it into an opportunity to encourage hatred and or discrimination I think we were talking about that I can't remember what specifically the topic was on the 2nd of June, but this happens occasionally, is I take a call in completely good faith and I am usually, in these sort of examples, very impressed by a caller.
98:59
And then my inbox starts pinging with people going, James, James, you didn't realise who that was.
99:04
And it happened on the 2nd of June when we took a call from Ravi.
99:08
This is not an answer. This is not to divide the whites from the browns and the blacks.
99:13
We need unity in a time of need in our country when the statesmanship is required, not politicians. Politicians like Nigel Farage will use every opportunity because they have no soul, they have no real love for the country. Which other person, individual politician, would light a match and throw at the country to burn and ask and call for violence and call for community to go against each other, you know, cause riots and mayhem? No politician, no potential leader would ever do that.
99:47
And while Ravi was speaking very powerfully and very knowledgeably and as a Sikh as well, of course, which was relevant to that story because the character who murdered Henry was ostensibly of the Sikh faith.
100:02
You started saying to me, James, that's Ravi Singh from Calcer Aid. And I realized by the number of messages coming in that I needed to find out rather more about Calcer Aid. And you suggested a way in which I could do so. You suggested that we got Ravi in to do full disclosure.
100:18
So we did.
100:20
Tell me about Sarbat Dabala.
100:22
Sarbat Dabala means well-being of all. The Sikhs practice it in every prayer. There's prayers daily two, three times. So it always ends in Sarbat Dabala. Sarbat is the world. Bala is well-being. So we pray for the well-being of all mankind, all humankind. So it's in our blood. We don't say like, oh, may God bless the Sikhs. We say may God bless the whole of humanity. That is in every prayer. It's the strength of who we are. It makes us what we are, which is like that we cannot sit still.
100:56
Basically, a Sikh cannot be comfortable with all the suffering going on. It's ingrained. You have to think about other people, regardless of race or religion.
101:04
and it's not just abroad also here when there's floods in the uk whatever we get stuck in with great friends in somerset and yorkshire so let's not let's not gloss over that because i mean you you might go to places like kosovo and afghanistan and and syria but you also go to somerset when the floods are brilliant friendships and and i think you were giving out water to people stuck in the convoys on the way into dover that was in 2022 i think a few years ago so wherever there is need
101:32
We stuck in.
101:33
We get stuck in. We have locals here. This is why when you talk about the politics changing, UK politics changing, far-right groups, there are communities that will not even touch that area. Hebden Bridge, amazing people. Yorkshire we have, Lancashire, Somerset. We've got such amazing contact. Now, because of that, every year in Wells, in Wells Cathedral, in Somerset, we do meet the Sikhs. Because the floods, because the Sikhs went in, they wanted to remember. So we do that annually now and become an annual event in August, I think, or July or something.
102:06
So it's a great sort of like friendships. Now, whenever anything threatens in Somerset or any of the parts, they will call us, we need sandbags, we need this. They don't need anything at the moment. So our last floods this year, I was in Somerset, see if they need anything. There's a very good group called FLAG. They do amazing work for the floods and for the community. So they call us, it's teamwork.
102:29
But what's going to work? You need to be a parent of a certain age to understand why that word there Ravi used just triggered that little song in my mind. But Ravi Singh there, the founder of Calcerate, it is a truly incredible story of a man who just felt when confronted with both horror unfolding and a sense of powerlessness, decided to do something about it.
102:55
And what began as one mercy mission to, I think, Kosovo has turned into a massive international operation built upon all of the principles that you just heard him explaining. So not only is Calcer Aid an extraordinary organisation, but Ravi is an extraordinary bloke with an extraordinary story that he tells on this week's episode of Full Disclosure. It is now 10 minutes after 12. I can see that Lucy Powell has just quit the stage.
103:23
Andy Burnham is due to be named as the new Labour Party leader. Is it worth hearing the naming, do we think? I can tell you a couple of things that are coming up a little bit later in the programme. I want Simon Marks to talk to us about this bizarre address, and I'm afraid in Simon's case, predicted address that Donald Trump gave. to his undeserving nation yesterday.
103:44
The prediction that he was going to attempt to, at the very least, muddy the waters of the coming midterm election has come to grim fruition. And Simon will be able to talk us through that while limbering up for his shift in this chair from four o'clock. And we'll pick up with Natasha. We'll catch up with Natasha Clark as well after we've heard from Andy Burnham to have a little think about the speech that he's just given today.
104:10
I may also have time to canvas your quick opinions on what we hear from Andy Burnham in the next sort of five minutes or so. I'd love to do that, by the way. So stand by, make sure that you are listening. And then if there's time, I'll find out what you think about what you heard. We may hear a little more detail regarding the uh insistence the ambition the determination to move stuff i need a better word than stuff power focus away from london and into the regions not just the north as i somewhat unhelpfully suggested at the very top of the program today but into all of the regions all of the parts of the country that may feel that too much attention is paid to, too much focus remains on and too much money gravitates towards the capital of these islands, London.
105:06
So Shabana Mahmood is the chair of the Labour's National Executive Committee and therefore the person charged with announcing the new Labour leader, which I think would be quite a nice moment to witness.
105:17
This is the formal bit. Following the resignation of Sir Keir Starmer as Labour's leader, the NEC set out the procedures and timetable for a contest to seek his replacement. The returning officer has informed me that the requirements of that contest have now been met.
105:36
It's hardly a nail-biter, folks.
105:39
And so despite the efforts of a lone MP, I can confirm...
105:45
I can confirm that there was only one eligibly nominated candidate. Following the period of nominations by Labour MPs, one candidate received 379 nominations. Having met the threshold of 20% of the parliamentary Labour Party, they were eligible to proceed to the next stage. One other candidate received one nomination and is not eligible to proceed.
106:11
Among the affiliated trade unions and social societies, the one eligible candidate received 23 nominations in total. This included nominations from all 11 trade unions, comprising well over 5% of the affiliated membership. There being no other eligibly nominated candidate, it is therefore my honour to declare that the duly elected leader of the Labour Party is Andy Burnham.
107:06
Eleanor wants me to describe what's happening. There's a lot of cheering, and Andy Burnham's about to speak.
107:14
Woo!
107:17
Woo!
107:19
And some clapping.
107:22
Cut. He's wearing a nice burgundy tie.
107:25
Can't wait till Monday. There'll be loads of this.
107:27
Stay tuned. I'm doing it in the grown-up studio as well, the one that Andrew Marr's normally in. It's going to be really exciting.
107:33
I might not leave.
107:37
God help us all.
107:41
A nice warm round of applause for Randy Burnham, who is about to speak.
107:44
Thank you so much, friends.
107:47
What a moment.
107:49
And what backing you've given me.
107:52
All our affiliated trade unions, all our socialist societies, 379 of our MPs, and I don't need to say commiserations to Catherine West.
108:04
Because she backed me too. Thanks, Catherine.
108:09
All of them heard the call from the people of Makerfield on behalf of forgotten places everywhere up and down this country for a return of the labour they once knew.
108:25
And now we answer that call.
108:27
We will be that version of labour again.
108:33
We are united today, as Holly said, as Lucy said and Shabana said, and thank you so much for your words.
108:41
We are united, and we put the power that comes from that unity at the service of people and places who have been waiting too long for politics to let them hope again. And that's what we're going to do, everybody. We're going to give them hope back.
109:00
This is a proud moment you have given me and my family today, and an emotional one.
109:08
But it is one for which I am ready.
109:13
I am ready.
109:16
Ready to lead and to build on the foundation laid by one person more than any other.
109:24
Under Keir Starmer's leadership, we went from our worst defeat to one of the best victories in our history.
109:34
Keir put Labour back in a position to change people's lives, and that is what we have been doing these last two years. New rights for workers and for renters.
109:46
NHS waiting lists falling for the first time in years.
109:51
In fact, since I was Health Secretary, I think, so well done, Wes.
109:55
Rail back under public control.
110:00
Britain's reputation rebuilt on the world stage. And as Lucy said just this week, the biggest rebalancing of the scales of justice this country has ever seen. Today we thank Keir for his service to our party and to our country.
110:39
Ten years ago he and I worked together drawing up the original Hillsborough law in my office in the aftermath of the second Hillsborough inquest and I drew on all of his legal expertise when I presented that bill to Parliament.
110:58
to be in Parliament on Tuesday when Keir delivered on his promise to the Hillsborough families and all of the other campaigners who were part of the Hillsborough Law Now campaign.
111:11
A promise to end the cover-up culture in this country, to pass power from the authorities to ordinary people, and to prevent anyone in future going through what the Hillsborough families did. It felt to me like life coming full circle.
111:38
My journey to this stage today began in earnest at Anfield in April 2009.
111:49
The COP made me confront the fact that this country does not work for working class communities like the city of my birth.
112:02
In fact, it's worse.
112:04
It turned its back on them.
112:08
Political power was used viciously against them to protect vested interests.
112:16
Economic power cruelly stripped with the deindustrialization of the 1980s, as it was against so many places up and down the land.
112:28
And let us never forget, these are the very same places that built this labour movement, this trade union movement where we are today, Paul. Those are the places, but they were the places that were done down.
112:43
This labour movement The trade union movement was forged in the steel works and iron works of Sheffield, Scunthorpe, Port Talbot and Teesside, in the coal fields of South Wales, Central Scotland, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire, in the mills across the Pennines, west and east, in the shipyards on the Cline and on the Tyne, and in the dockyards of Liverpool and here in London.
113:14
The people of these proud places made Labour. But we have to ask ourselves, just as I had to ask myself at Anfield that day, have we been good enough for them?
113:28
Change starts with honesty.
113:31
We must recognise that this generation of politicians, myself included, have failed to challenge a political culture and an economic model that simply doesn't work well enough for ordinary people.
113:46
Four decades of the neoliberalism that began in the 1980s have not been kind to the places that built our party, nor to the communities across the UK in rural and coastal areas.
114:01
So we pledge today to them to be better.
114:08
And as I accept the honour of leading this party forward, I will tell you about five things I will do to make us so, to make us better.
114:20
First, I will work relentlessly to build a culture of one Labour team.
114:27
Because change starts with us.
114:39
We won't beat Britain's new right if we are consumed by infighting and pulling in different directions. That is and always has been an indulgence that falls heaviest on the people who need labour most.
114:58
Fighting to eradicate it and the insidious briefing culture that goes along with it will characterise my leadership.
115:07
In future, when a Burnhamite walks into a bar, as many Burnhamites are known to do.
115:17
Talking about you, Kevin.
115:20
In future, when a Burnhamite walks into a bar, I want the barman to say, great to see you. We don't like factional politics in here.
115:40
Now you might know, and your reaction suggests so, there's a different version of that joke told by people who put internal politics before anything else. But here's the truth. Their factionalism has bedeviled us.
115:57
Today we move beyond it.
115:59
I have supported all our Labour leaders in my lifetime because I believe a united Labour party and Labour movement is the best hope for our country. And I know you believe that too. As do our members up and down the land.
116:22
And I will lead this party in that spirit.
116:27
not seeking to suspend or punish members who have principled views that may be different from mine, but building unity by respecting all shades of opinion.
116:39
And contrary to what you may keep on reading, I haven't made any decisions yet about who will be in that top team, but I will soon, and when I have, you will see it reflects all parts of our party, all communities, and it will reflect your own place within this great party of ours. A stronger, more united Labour Party lifting up a stronger and more united Britain. And this brings me to my second change.
117:10
I will work to build a new politics.
117:13
The country is crying out for it.
117:16
We might enjoy the point scoring against others.
117:20
The public don't.
117:22
How can politicians point fingers when living standards are falling?
117:28
and politics as a whole isn't working for them.
117:32
It infuriates them and makes them switch off.
117:36
In Makerfield, I decided to make a break with this.
117:42
I said we hadn't been good enough. I told people what I would do to fix it.
117:48
You know what?
117:50
people started to listen again. They gave us a fair hearing, as the great British public always do, and then another chance. But let's be honest, everybody, this is a last chance to change, and we must take it together, united together.
118:19
tell people what we will do, rather than always going on about others. And if we do more of that, let's see if we can get the ear of the country as well, not just make a field.
118:34
Let's take a problem solving rather than a point scoring approach. Let's have the courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected, like social care, and have the conviction to go out there together and argue for our plans.
118:52
And let's have the self-confidence to find common ground with other parties where we can. By seeking more consensus, we may just find the change we make is more lasting.
119:05
we may find our political discourse in this country becomes that little bit less toxic, and we should be working to achieve that too.
119:19
And the turbulence of the last decade may not quite feel as so inevitable as it does today.
119:29
My third change is our political direction. Yes, we will work with other parties where we can, but doing so from the clarity of knowing exactly where we stand.
119:41
As your leader, I will set a direction that is distinctively Labour.
119:56
We won't try to out-green the Greens, or out-reform reform, or doing what we've done in the past of wearing too many Tory clothes.
120:09
Let me tell you, I'm quite happy that Kemi doesn't approve of my wardrobe choices, because I'm not keen on theirs either.
120:19
From here, we do it differently. We win by being us.
120:24
Boldly, confidently, authentically us.
120:31
Labour, that's how we win. I want people to understand the thinking behind the political direction I set so people can see the decisions we take and the reasons why. I am clear, Britain took a series of wrong turns in the 1980s.
120:51
Political power was centralised, and economic power was privatized.
120:59
The country surrendered control of the essentials, housing, water, energy, transport, and left people exposed to higher costs.
121:11
That in turn led to the concentration of more wealth and power in the hands of fewer people and fewer places. Large parts of Britain were de-industrialised without the power to set new ambitions for themselves.
121:29
Proud British towns, now a shadow of what they once were, and high streets in decline, so common up and down the country.
121:40
Slowly, at times imperceptibly, over four decades, political and economic power drained away, out of our communities, in every region and nation of the UK? If local places don't control something as basic as a bus service, how can they connect people to opportunity and turn things around? If the sell-off of council homes leaves the country chasing rents in the private rented sector through the benefits system, and paying for temporary accommodation for thousands of families as they have to do here in London and elsewhere across the country, how then will we find the money to invest in prevention and improve people's lives?
122:25
The truth is we can't. And if we don't have sufficient public control over the cost of the essentials, how can we have control over inflation, public spending, and the rest of the economy. The right used the phrase, take back control, but they are the ones who gave it away in the first place.
122:59
If we want an economy and a country that works for all people and places, which to me should always be at the very core of labourism, then it requires a new path to the one we've been on for the last 40 years.
123:17
The government I lead will confidently lay that path out starting next week.
123:24
And that is why this change today is the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years.
123:33
It will take us to a country where life is more affordable and all people and places are lifted from where they are now.
123:44
And conference, this is my fourth commitment to you. I mean it when I say all places.
123:51
I will be a leader for the North, the South, the East, and the West, for Scotland, Wales, and for Northern Ireland.
124:09
Yes, the north of England has given me so much. Everything, in fact.
124:16
And in return, I have sought to give it the strongest voice I could. That was my job. But now I do the same for everywhere.
124:29
because I see the same challenges everywhere I look. The same challenges can be found in the Southwest as the Northwest, or in East Anglia as the Northeast.
124:42
And this is the moment to speak for all parts of the country and unite people in a common cause.
124:51
I love every part of this country. I love all the different accents, all of the different traditions, some of the football clubs.
125:03
But no, I love every part of it.
125:07
But I also know they can all be more than they are.
125:11
And that's what kind of drives me in politics, the kind of feeling that they should be more than they are. The feeling that kids shouldn't have to leave those places, those proud places, to get on in life. We should make them more than they are. Help them take power to be more than they are. And this brings me to my fifth and final promise. We will take power back from Westminster and Whitehall and give it to the place where you live.
125:53
More power over life's essentials so you can make them work better and more affordable for people. Just as my good friend Steve Rotherham is doing today as we are here meeting at the TUC in London. He is at a meeting, chairing a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and he is presenting to that meeting a plan to put the entire Mersey Rail network back in public ownership by 2028.
126:25
A plan to cut fares, make trains run on time and a railway run in the interests of the passengers, not shareholders.
126:47
We want to give your area more power to build the council and social homes that you desperately need for those families I was talking about a moment ago. More power to improve your high street, backing local businesses such as the pubs and the shops that bring them to life. And make no mistake, everybody, I will be a pro-business leader of the Labour Party as I was a pro-business mayor of Greater Manchester. we turn places round together and that is the way we ran in Manchester and we will take to the whole country and as part of that more power to re-industrialise and to build an education system based on parity between academic and technical education to give every young person growing up in different parts of the country, a path in life to university or to a work placement, to apprenticeship and into a good job.
127:49
Hope for every young person is what we are going to be about. And this is it. When you add all of that together, A plan to give people more power to bring back the hope we have all been missing too much and people are looking for us to deliver and we will.
128:12
So everybody, you're here and you're sharing this moment with me. Thank you so much for being with me. I've had a long journey through politics.
128:23
to get to this moment, as you all know, because so many of you in here and so many others watching this on television know what they did to help me along my way and knock me into shape as they needed to do.
128:44
I want to, if I may, just single out three.
128:48
I was his parliamentary private secretary in my first experience of the front bench, but he has been the truest mentor to me in the decades since, and it's just wonderful to be with you, Lord Blunkett, David, on this special day.
129:27
I would say he taught me everything I know, but no, that's certainly not about football.
129:35
But it is wonderful to have you at this moment with me, David. Can I also say to Dame Margaret Beckett, you were a wonderful friend to me and guide throughout my time in the Cabinet. You were always there for me to give me that nudge that I needed. And similarly as with David, I am so proud, honoured that you are with us today.
130:19
And sitting next to Margaret, for those of you who want somebody to blame, He is the man you can hold to account. He is the man that fired up a young Andy Burnham in the northwest of England in the mid-1980s with rhetoric of the kind that remains unmatched, I would say, in modern politics. It has always been something that I treasure to get a message out.
130:50
from him with his advice and the care and the thought he puts into those messages. They mean everything to me. I would not be standing here. I would not have joined this great party of ours in 1985 had it not been for the legend that is Neil Kinnock. It's absolutely brilliant to have you with us today.
131:39
So many of you here who I can't name, so many watching have helped me get here. I haven't done it alone.
131:50
I haven't got everything right, and I'm sorry where I've fallen short.
131:57
But I have always given it my all, and I always will.
132:24
Truly, I've given this party everything I've had, but now it's done the same for me. I have listened and learned as I've gone along, you'll be pleased to know. And hopefully, I've got better as a result. You can be sure of this.
132:44
I know what I believe after 25 years as an elected Labour representative. And I know what I want to do, working with you all. I have a plan.
133:02
And what I also want you to know is that I won't change.
133:06
I have a style, it's my style. I will always stay close to the ground, close to the people, hopefully still in my season ticket when the new season starts.
133:22
in Cardiff on Tuesday. Brilliant, just to meet and chat to people as they came up to speak. I will always stay the same, because I draw my strength from people. I hear things pick up straws in the wind as I was going about Manchester as my job as mayor. And I say to Kevin Lee, who's here today, and I want to thank Kevin, who's been such a staunch supporter and friend for me on this journey.
133:56
I would bring a little idea from Greg's, or the pub, or wherever, and he'd say, well, this is hardly from a think tank, what am I meant to do with this? But that's how we did it, just to be close and listen, and that's what I'll do. I'll be out and about in August, in all parts of the UK, definitely in the South, and I'm off to Gravesend later to show I'm for the South too.
134:21
That's the way I've always done it, and it made me really proud recently You might call it faint praise, but I took it as very serious praise. Someone said recently, Andy's all right.
134:37
He's for us.
134:41
I was so proud of that, that I made it my slogan in Makerfield.
134:45
I am for us. For all of us.
134:53
And I want people to say once again that Labour are for us.
134:59
I want that to just fall off people's tongues and we can do it. We can be that party, the party that puts more power in people's hands, drives good growth in every postcode and puts hope in every heart.
135:14
that gets the country pulling together again and moves beyond the divisions of recent years. All people and all places, public and private sectors, in a new sense of unity and common cause. That's my mission as your new leader, to bring back hope.
135:33
I believe in all of you, and I am confident we can do it.
135:39
Thank you very much.
136:03
Andy Burnham, quite emotional. A bit of New Order there at the end.
136:09
Oh, just got me there. Andy Burnham there delivering a speech about which I have, I think, two things to say. One speaks to the world of fairness and one speaks to the world of unfairness. I think the fairness is reflected in the fact that he has clearly been preparing for this moment for a heck of a lot longer than the leadership gossip was unfolding.
136:31
Listen, we can all be proved wrong, and it is, as ever, the hope that gets you. We can cope with the despair. It's the hope that gets you every time. But he was talking, particularly as I mentioned to you earlier, with reference to the work he's done with Steve Rotherham and the book that they wrote together. He has been putting together a project, putting together a plan, putting together a vision. And the ease with which he could hit five quite distinct and clear points with regards to ambition, I thought was excellent.
137:03
Speaking to a world of unfairness, he sounds really fluent and human. And unfortunately, Keir Starmer didn't and doesn't. And that is unfair. That shouldn't matter. It is not a reflection of whether or not you have a...
137:20
whether or not you are doing a good job as a politician or a prime minister in your office. But, of course, a big part of the job is what you do behind the podiums, what you do on the stage. And that was, you know, it was pretty good, wasn't it? It was pretty good. It was very persuasive. It was what an awful lot of people want to hear. And it was delivered with a real...
137:42
sense of authenticity the problem with authenticity is that you can fake it and be brilliant and you can be it and not seem it that's what's unfair that's what i'm talking about but um i said to eleanor about two years ago now about a year ago when i thought that the writing was appearing on the wall for for keir starmer even though not everybody was prepared to admit it at the time that the next one has to have a northern accent which is a glib throwaway line But it was shorthand for me, for the opposite of glitching.
138:13
It wouldn't have to be a northern accent.
138:15
You know, you could sound like Danny Dyer, but you shouldn't sound like me. The next leader of the Labour Party should not sound like me.
138:22
They should sound like they belong to the communities that they used to represent. And Andy Burnham does. He just does. And it matters because votes are cast... For a million different reasons, for 40 million different reasons.
138:37
And although he ain't no Barack Obama, as Charlie has texted me to say, he was a heck of a lot better than we have become used to in recent years. I'm going to rattle through some texts. I'm going to take a break. And then I think we're going to catch up with Simon Marks about events in the United States last night because they are desperately important. Sheila, no doubt, will be inviting your views on the speech that you've just heard from Andy Burnham. So you can reserve your space on the switchboard for that. My apologies to Alistair and Lorraine and Nicola and Linda and David and Pamela and Ryan and Mark and all the people wanting to talk to me about school holidays.
139:10
But here is, by way of a quick canvas, Suzette. Burnham talks a good talk, but my flame of hope is so fragile, James, I'm not willing to sacrifice it until I see some proof. Politicians always say what they think we want to hear. They need to understand we no longer have faith in their words. We judge them by their actions. I disagree, Suzette. I mean, I obviously agree with you, but I think you miss one point, which is politicians always say what they think we want to hear. True. How they say it matters.
139:37
How they say it matters, and how he said it then was good. He will do better than Starmer, says Elise. He is leaning into his feelings and what he stands for personally, which we never really got from Starmer. Elise, they're addressing what I described as the world of unfairness, because she's right, and it's not fair. We shouldn't be judging them on these things, but we do. Lauren, all my messages so far from women. This is probably one of the most authentic speeches I've seen a politician deliver recently.
140:05
Time for the men. Jonathan, listening to him speak, I'm reminded of why he lost to Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn. So it's not all positive. Jane writes, a Burnhamite. He talks a good talk. He'll make mistakes. He'll hack us off. But let's hope it largely works out for all our sakes. Yes, he may be a bit egotistical. What on earth is wrong with that, Jane? But that doesn't matter too much if someone has genuine empathy. Andrew writes, feeling very optimistic listening to Andy Burnham speak. Andy writes, he's no Martin Luther King. Well spotted, Andy.
140:37
Hey, James, writes Dave. By contrast, I'm getting the same excited feeling as when Tony Blair walked into number 10. And Lynn, a little more cynically, writes, and I will give you the sun, the moon and the stars.
140:50
It is 12.50. Quick heads up to next week's programmes. 10 o'clock Monday morning. Is it time for Andy Burnham to resign? That's a joke I stole shamelessly off Simon Marks, who has joined me in the studio now to talk not about British politics, although I suspect you may be touching on that when you are sitting in this chair from four o'clock this afternoon, but about US politics. And this is quite nuanced, isn't it? This speech that Trump gave. Let's begin with why we're not going to play any clips from it.
141:20
Well, I mean, we could play clips from it, but I think that it would be giving voice to a speech that was entirely fact free. I mean, we knew going into this presidential address is primetime presidential address. The kind of thing that presidents book when they've got major announcements to make to the American people regarding the affairs of state. Wars, paying tribute to the deaths of people that have died in disasters, whatever it happens to be.
141:48
And, you know, last night, ABC, NBC and CNN didn't carry the president's remarks live because we all knew that they were going to be dominated by what he claims is fresh evidence that the 2020, yes, six years ago, the 2020 presidential election was rigged. And really, I mean, he ranted and he raged last night. He once again insisted that Joe Biden's election victory had been rigged, that it was all the result of a vast global conspiracy stretching from China to Venezuela, that it involved the deep state.
142:25
that it involved the far-left radical wing of the Democratic Party, that he now refers to as communists, that the media were an integral part of the plot, which is why he insisted ABC and NBC were not carrying his remarks last night. But there is not a shred of truth to any of it. They published... Thousands and thousands of pages of documents last night, a trove of documents that they said prove that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
142:56
There is no evidence that can be found in those documents that back up those assertions. And indeed, after it was all over, and we are going to play this later today on LBC in My American Week. After this was over, John Solomon, who's now a presidential advisor, was a journalist until they took him into the White House.
143:14
He's been amplifying these claims of the election being rigged for six years. He was collared by reporters in the White House driveway who said, hang on a second, can you just confirm that there is no evidence to support the view that a single vote was flipped as the result of... of Chinese or Venezuelan interference in the election. And he said, well, all I can do is go with what the intelligence community says. And the intelligence community says, yeah, it didn't change a single vote. But I'm still researching it.
143:45
He's had six years to research it. So this was... But there was a darker side to this speech, James. This speech was a warning to America. This was not just a man giving voice to the usual flim-flam about election integrity and I was robbed. This is a warning to America three and a half months before the midterm elections that he is not going to recognize the outcome of midterm elections unless the Republicans win them.
144:15
And there were voices last night back in Washington, some of them people who had worked within Trump's administration in the first term. saying that they believe that this speech was designed to lay the groundwork for the deployment of ICE agents and Border Patrol at polling stations in November in a bid to intimidate voters and a warning to America that if Democrats win these midterm elections, he is going to refuse to accept the outcome, litigate.
144:46
try and delay the moment when Democrats should be forming a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate if they win, and that this is all preface to what's going to be coming down the road in late November and December.
145:00
This is a Hollywood movie plot, isn't it? This is the hunger games or something like that. The president addressing the nation with a farrago of lies, blatant, provable, obvious lies, in the hope that he will bring enough of the population with him to upend democracy
145:16
Not only did the documents they published last night fail to prove that China interfered in the election to the point where they were tipping it in Joe Biden's favor. But the documents, when you look at them, actually do reveal that the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. perhaps was not a hoax after all, and that, in fact, the Russians were engaged in malign actions trying to boost Donald Trump's ability to win that race, and also, as we know, the 2016 race against Hillary Clinton that he did win.
145:48
Indeed, and of course none of it addresses the question of why, if they were so successful at rigging this in 2016,
145:54
20 they failed so abjectly to do so in 2024 and exactly the same electoral system and huge questions for his cia director john ratcliffe who was in post in 2020 during the first trump term and absolutely uh i mean you've got to wonder whether he's going to stay in post because of uh this this appalling series of developments on his watch nothing was done about um
146:19
Where do we look now? What could make a difference? You've mentioned three of the biggest broadcasters electing not to take the thing, the broadcast itself, the address itself. But the Oval Office is going to be full, sadly, including some British journalists, of people who will suck up all of the lies, regurgitate them and disseminate them. To whom do we look now for resistance to what is clearly underway?
146:43
Well, I'll tell you one person I think everybody should be looking at more than we have been. And it's Senator John Ossoff of Georgia. He is increasingly proving to be an extremely effective voice for the Democrats, both on Capitol Hill and in his native Georgia as he tries to seek his own reelection this November to the Senate.
147:05
He has been challenging Trump and Trump officials continuously, constantly pointing out the extent of the corruption that has enriched the president and his family over the course of just the last 16 months since President Trump returned to office. And I think he's becoming definitely a horse to watch in the race for 2028.
147:27
But ultimately, you know, I think there's going to be a massive test for the American people coming up In November, if the Democrats win the midterms or if Trump insists that, you know, he takes action to suppress the vote, particularly minority votes, with all of the gerrymandering that's taking place across the South now approved and authorised by the Supreme Court to build these new congressional districts, these new constituencies that will favour Republicans, there's going to be a real, there's going to be a Donnybrook coming.
148:01
where the future of American democracy is at stake, and we have to see where that goes and how it plays out.
148:07
I'm so glad you're here, for all the obvious reasons, but also because it is absolutely impossible to exaggerate the jeopardy of the situation, the peril of
148:18
It is very hard to overstate it. I mean, the more that we talk about this and then, you know, Trump supporters and there are dwindling band of them who accuse us all of Trump derangement syndrome and insist, no, no, no, no. He's telling the truth. You know, he's pure as the driven snow. He's telling us in plain sight what he is going to do. It is evident that. They are taking steps day by day, week by week to game the outcome of the midterms. The only elections this man recognizes as free and fair are the ones that Republicans win.
148:53
Yikes. Simon Marks, more from you after four o'clock live on LBC when you will be in this chair in a few moments. Sheila Fogarty will be because that is it from me for this week. If you've missed any of today's show, you can catch up on Global Player or, of course, at the LBC app where you can stay up to date with all the latest news, videos and opinions. You can also listen to a range of podcasts, including James O'Brien Daily. the best bits from my LBC show every day. So do download the official LBC app from wherever you get your podcasts now, including Full Disclosure with the magnificent, of course, Ravi Singh.
149:28
A bit different on Monday, as I said, from 10 o'clock. Is it time for Andy Burnham to... No, I'm joking.
149:34
I stole that joke on Simon Marks. I want to give a full credit where it's due.
149:39
We'll be live streaming from Westminster throughout the day on Monday, starting from 7am.
149:46
I will be in the grown-up studio that is normally reserved for Andrew Marr because we're going to do it like proper telly. I'll be going full Dimbleby in my attempts to commentate on the event of that important day. So do tune in for that. I'm going to get a haircut. Oh, I wasn't. Why is it...
150:03
Thanks.
150:04
No, I'm kidding.
150:05
Cheers. I might brush it. Telly, innit? I need a haircut. I should have got one before I went on holiday, but I don't know. Anyway, download the official LBC app for free from your app store now. Coming up at four on LBC, Simon Marks is in for Tom Swarbrick, but now it's time for Sheila Charms School Focusing.
150:20
They gave me my money back.
150:21
This has been a Global Player original production.
