Rishi Sunak's Australian communications 'magician'

From Shorts Media. I'm Rick Wharton. This is seven am. By the end of this week the United Kingdom will almost certainly have a new Prime Minister and an end to fourteen years of Tory rain. There is one man in particular working very hard to prevent that. And it's not the current Tory leader, Rishie Sunac, whose campaign from the very first bizarre rainsoak election announcement has been marked

Well, his name is Isaac Livedo and he's an Australian. He was born in Maitland, he was raised in Port McCrory and he now has pretty much the weight of a seemingly unwinnable UK government election on his shoulders. Remarkable young strategist who actually began his life at university thinking he might want to be an accountant and very quickly found out that this wasn't for him and began a really interesting trajectory into political strategy and pole reading.

With my friend Isaac Levito joining us from London, England this evening in London.

Thanks very much for joining and welcome Isaac.

Thanks very much for having me.

He's seen as a bit of a magician here because he's had some extraordinary wins working with Boris Johnson and delivered that incredible election win in twenty nineteen in.

The UK we were in quite a challenging situation where an incumbent government but effectively running against the status quo that all vote for anyone else was.

And of course in Australia in the very same year winning the election with Scott Morrison, which was I think was called the miracle election, wasn't it.

I have always believed in miracles. I was on that campaign and very few people saw it coming.

Yeah, so he's got a bit of a magic around him, which I suspect considering what we've seen in the last couple of weeks. It's a little tarnished at the moment. I wouldn't like to be in his shoes, but it that way.

Well, let's sketch that out a little bit. So how is the Rishi seen that campaign going? The Tory campaign? Where are they at? Is he kind of writing on the accumulated scandal of many years of government? Now?

The truth is that it could not be going worse for the Conservatives than it is going at the moment. Sir John Curtis, who is the kind of election guru, looks very cateveric face, which it gets on the BBC, but he's the most trusted of the posters and he's basically, you know, he's saying that they're going to be it's going to be a route they will take at least

Man in stability. At rest can restore pride and confidence in our tree, and with a clear plan and bold action, will deliver a secure future for you, your family and our United Kingdom.

Even Larry the Cat was seen in the background, you know, the number ten cat that lives, lives and seen number of prime ministers. You know, he took shelter in front of the cameras. It was. It couldn't have been written, you know, by a satirist better.

It was just shocking what we threw. The greatest hits so far of the statues and gas and other things that run with the a F of this campaign. What have we got?

Well, I think the one that you know that that was incredible And again you wonder where Livedo was and and if the problem is with advice or whether it's risty s or not listening to advice. But that was the D day, you know, the celebrations, and he disappeared, you know early supposedly for a really quite unimportant interview really with IV. Could have done it at any time time.

Good to see.

Yeah, it all just ran.

It was incredible.

But there is quite a lot of gossip around Whitehall et cetera that Sunac unlike Boris isn't listening. He tends to sort of go his own plowy zone, Pharaoh.

National service will be compulsory. The military option will be something that people.

Choose to do. So how will you make people do it?

Sorry, if national service is going to be compulsory, how will you make people do it?

Well, you'll have a set of sanctions and incentives, and we will look at the models that are existing around Europe the appropriate.

You know, every time we see you almost feel sorry for him because he's constantly apologizing.

And there's a betting scandal now within the Prime minist's own staff. Can you tell me a little bit about that.

Yes, the story began with the Gambling Commission being alerted, we think by an anonymous tip off to a small rash of bits for the date of the election.

Alas Williams Joe Pike from Bucy News did you have inside information when you placed your bet on the election date statement?

There was a clutch of personal protection officers around number ten Police met police who had done this, and then the Gambling Commission decided to widen.

It that there was an election coming and you were trying, perhaps to take advantage of that.

Adding to the similar already.

Made and it's now sneered a number of Conservatives, a number of Torri MPs to have had to apologize and stip down.

Did you tell Craig Williams, a man that you said you were with almost every minute of every day the date of the election before he put the bet on Sam? I've been clear about this. I'm furious to have learned about these allegations. We've initiated independent inquiries of our own internal ones because I don't have access.

All in our I think there's at least ten, if not more. And what we do know is that the Gamby Commision is being very close lip about it and that it could be much much wider than we've already seen. So at the moment, the front pages of all British newspapers a week or so from the election are full of the Tories, you know, gambling on inside knowledge of the date of the election. You couldn't make it up, could you?

And of course I think I know the answer now, But Isaac Lobto is tasked with trying to turn it all around. We're only days out now from the election. Can he pull off another miracle?

You know that the polls are so tight now and the reading of focus groups, it's an art for becoming a science. And I think that if Sir John Curtis, who is really very conservative when it comes to these things, says they haven't a chance, I don't think they really, I really don't think they do. I mean, they have a huge majority, but it looks like the biggest problem is that is that the southern seats, the sort of the more metropolitan moderate rump of Tory voters, they've lost

After the break, What will Isaac Lavito do if the Conservatives are decimated on polling day? Palla. So far, Isaac Lovito has not exactly had the secret to turning around Richie Sunak's fortunes, and I don't think at this point many people expected he could. What do we know about Lvito and how he operates? So I'm fascinated by this kind of person and what motivates them, how does he apply his trade.

It's really interesting because usually when you talk to people about this kind of strategist, the one that's in the backgrounds of the dark arts person, generally, you know, negative things come out when you talk to people about Livido. No matter whether you talk to labor or conservative people. He's very well liked. He has apparently a really strong sort of work ethic. He's his team up and ready at five forty most mornings to ensure that they are ready to listen to the first round of news.

All campaigns, no matter how short short a period of time you've got, you need to sort of sweat the small stuff.

Obviously, he'd cut his teeth working for Cosby Texter in Washington. As a young man, Levito was Linton Crosby's star protege, the strategist who's known for the bottom drawer stories that

I saw some research recently where an overwhelming majority of voters wanted to nationalize the railways. If they asked the question, would you nationalize the railways six sixty five seventy same poll, the question was asked, do you think nationalizing the railways is actually going to solve the problem? Basically the same number said no, they don't think to solve the problem.

So he's a big believer in intuition. He believes that voters immediately gut understand when a politician is not being honest. But they don't need to hear words. They will read the body language and the feeling of the person they see.

You know, voters are extremely perceptive. Is when they see that there are you know, whether it be ulterior motives or whether again it just be.

So clearly, he trusts his own intuition and so in focus groups is able to pull together how people are feeling. As he's traveling and listening to voters. I mean it's a great pity that in this occasion, I think the best surgeons get the worst cases. I think that may well be the case for Lovedo in this election.

Yea.

And of course, as you mentioned, you know, come Friday Australia time, it's almost a sure thing now that the United Kingdom will have a new leader, and that that leader will be Keith Starmer, who is sort of there, but I couldn't tell you a lot about him. What can you kind of pull apart about who Key Starma is.

I think that what you observe, even in Australia is what the electorate is still saying, even though the polls are showing a massive, massive landslide for Labor. When you look at the polling for voter response to Starma, they don't really know him yet, and he is somebody you were, apparently in private, very witty, very funny, very relaxed. But as a politician in debates, when we see him on television on the hustings, he's quite wooden. He doesn't seem to relax very much.

We're going to hit the ground running from the very get go day one. First, obviously, stabilize the economy. We have to get that back under control. Secondly, you know, making sure that we're bringing down the waiting list forty thousand appointments each and every week, that's two million a year extra. Bring down that waiting list. A border security command.

This is you've going to remember that. To get to where he got to, he had to completely restructure the Labor Party. He had to sort of get rid of the far left that was exemplified by Jeremy Corbyn who lost that election to Boris Johnson. So dramatically he's you know, he's a very ambitious, quietly ambitious person, I think, and maybe that will come out more, you know, once he's in number ten, we'll see more of the real key Starman.

Well, it is a neat kind of dichotomy, isn't it. For as long as he's been in politics, the Conservatives have been in power. They've held government for what fourteen years now? Yeah, they're one of the oldest parliamentary parties in the world. How big a moment is it for the Tories if they are wiped out and does that reshape British politics in the short term or even the long term?

Well, I think if it does happen to that degree, it's incredibly, incredibly dramatic. Because what we haven't spoken about as we've chatted, and which Levido would have had to deal with internally at the eleventh hour, is the entry of Nigel Farage at the very last minute into the election campaign.

The MRB pole out last night said the reform of gone from expecting to win nought seats to eighteen seats.

Why he was originally not going to campaign. His campaigned many times, never won a seat, and since then Reform has hold relatively well. They do appear to be taking in the oxygen of the right of center far right of center x Tory constituency. So if they get a seat or two, that will change things hugely, if Reform actually managed to have any success at all, I think.

And then of course there's Levito. I think one of the benefits of not being in the spotlight is that no one notices when the spotlight puts on. So he will continue working and taking clients, no doubt very much.

So, you know, he in twenty nineteen, about a month after he won the election with Boris Johnson, he set up a consultancy, just as Linton Crosby before him had done, which is called Fleetwood Strategy. And now he's got a number of elections wins under his belt. Sadly this one won't be one of them. But corporate clients in the end, you know, having a strategist that has had access to such senior politicians over a period of time, you know,

That's terrifying and fascinating at the same time. Power Tatar, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate you giving us the time.

It was an absolute pleasure anytime.

Also in the news today, Defense Minister Richard Miles says Joe Biden quote definitely has the capacity to be president for the next four years. After Biden's performance in the first presidential debate, his party reportedly entered a panic over the weekend, with media reports that some Democratic Party figures were hoping to convince Biden to drop out of the race.