BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcast. Hello, welcome to Political Thinking. Not so very long ago many would have laughed at the suggestion that Nigel Farage might be our next Prime Minister. they're not laughing now, the possibility reflected not just in opinion polls but also in recent election results is now having an impact on pretty much everything the other parties say and do. But if Farage is to get anywhere near power, he needs to show that Reform UK is more than a one-man ban.
My guest on Political Thinking this week, a conversation with, rather than a newsy interrogation of someone who shapes our political thinking about what shapes theirs, is Nigel Farage's deputy, Richard Tice, the man whose money kept the party afloat in its early days and whose story could be the model for the sort of Tory screenwriters love to portray in TV dramas.
Tice was, in fact, a Conservative for many, many years, but now he says he wants to destroy the party. Richard Tice, welcome to Political Thinking. Thank you for having me. Nigel Farage as Prime Minister. Do you remember a moment you thought, maybe, maybe it could just happen? Yes, I think it's been an extraordinary journey. It really has. And just the sort of sense we've been really saying since just before the general election where something's happening.
and it was getting... meaningful momentum during the general election campaign and that momentum has just continued apace ever since, and so that becomes ever more tenable. You had a moment, of course, which is you became a Member of Parliament yourself at the election. You said it was the proudest day of your life. Did you even then think?
Something's happening here. We knew something was happening and we just, but it's always hard to know what until actually the votes get counted on an election. For sure, it was It was a huge honour and I sometimes just actually still pinch myself to this day, waking up every day and thinking, wow, and I'm 60, when many people are sort of thinking, well, I've had a good run, I'll take the foot off the gap. I'm sort of like a kid with a new toy which is this is for real and We have actually...
I think we've got a real opportunity to shape an influence. Arguably, we are shaping and influencing already. Shaping and influencing, or is it more than that? Do you really believe, or is it just something you've got to try out, like some new clothes? You've got to say, oh, look, I could be Prime Minister because... It's still a long way. Yes, but if you don't try, you've got no chance in any walk of life. And that was very much how I was brought up.
that you've got to just, you've got to push on and occasionally you've got to take risks in life. Incidentally, if he's Prime Minister, what are you then? Well, that'll obviously be a matter for him. Ah, politicians.
What would you like to be? Well, I mean, yeah, I enjoy dealing with money. I've been involved in dealing with money in my business career over decades. And that was sort of as part of my journey, I thought, you know, I'd try and be successful in business. And then if I can give something back in...
some form of public life, whatever that might be, well, so much the better. Chancellor of the Exchequer Tice, then, we'll assume that you're quite fancy. I'm not going to assume anything, but... No, no, well, there we are. Now, you mentioned your upbringing. And it clearly was in many ways, as I mentioned in the introduction,
a classic conservative upbringing. I think most people look at it would say a bit posh, public school, country, farming, hunting, all the rest of it. Is that a fair sum up? It is a fair sum up and of course I was incredibly lucky. to have the kickstarting life that I had in so many different ways. And many might say, oh,
Just, you know, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But my response to that is, yeah, okay, fine, they're right. But it's what you do with it. It's whether you roll your sleeves up, get stuck in, whatever it is, work hard and try and make a difference. And in a sense, as I look back, that's what I hope that I've done and continue to do. You talk of wanting to give something back at public service and so on. Your granddad...
clearly had a big influence on you. Someone who knew Churchill, someone who had himself run for the Conservative Party. He did, but sadly he died literally, I think, just a couple of months after I was born. So whilst I didn't have the privilege of knowing him, and he died very young age, 54 I think it was, his achievement... and his sort of sense of ambition and go for it and try things think big was it is a it's a remarkable story he was one of the great post-war entrepreneurs
regenerative property developers. Tell us a bit about his story Bernard suddenly. starts off with a whoresome car and ends up laying the pitch at a high break. Exactly, and that was one of his first big breaks. In, I think it was around the 1930s, he relayed the pitch at Highbury Football Ground for Arsenal. And somewhere in the family memorabilia, there's a big poster on it.
And then in the Second World War, he was involved in the war effort in terms of mining for materials, of course, for the war effort. And then post-war, the rebuilding. of towns and cities. There are suddenly houses, sort of 1950s, 60s office buildings dotted around the place. One of his ambitious things was perhaps very happily rejected by the planners, many of us property people,
We sort of resolve from planners, but I think his proposal to demolish the Ritz on Piccadilly and replace it with a boring 1960s office building was sensibly rejected. Was he cross? I don't know, but it's just a great story. So he would have knocked down the wretch of your grandfather. And he knew people in power. He sent Churchill cigars. He did, and that was very much a thing that you could do in those days, and unlike today's very sort of...
in a careful world. I think it was appreciated, and Churchill had a long track record of writing back, and there's a lovely letter thanking him for the cigars, and when he mail me a lot of smoke them, and that was a real thing. back in those days. And so is he the reason you wanted to go into politics? Do you remember years ago thinking, yeah, one day I might want to do this?
Actually, probably not. I mean, it's definitely the reason why I went into property, both his son, John Sunley, and it's a family thing. And if you cut me in half, real estate oozes through my veins. So that's very much the... The background, I've always been very lucky, but I've worked hard. been lucky enough to lead some great businesses. And I said your mum also had a big
influence on you. I mean, when I read your story, I felt a bit like I was in Rivals, the Jilly Cooper novel, or indeed the recent TV serialisation that there was of that. She trained horses. If it's not indelicate to say so, she's no longer sadly with us. She had an affair with a show jumper who sounded a bit like Rupert Campbell Black. Yes, look, I mean, mum was a, you know, she was an equestrian person to her fingertips.
So much so that I actually very often ask children, our washing would go in the washing machine with the horse rug and sometimes come out dirtier and smellier than it went in. But that was her lifestyle growing up on a farm. There's a lovely story of actually when she was in her early 20s,
and Bernard Stanley, her father. In those days, the idea of a lady driving a horse box was completely unacceptable. And so she was told in no uncertain terms, if you drive the horse box again, you'll have to get rid of all the horses. And, of course, she ignored those instructions, drove the horse box again. Her father, Bernard, went, you know, lost and said, that's it. And so, of course, she farmed out all the horses to her friends for a few months, and then they gradually...
And she had a motto that you lived by. Don't whinge. Yeah, don't whinge. Get up, get out and get on. And that is very much... part of my sort of my thinking I think it's it's really important you don't succeed by by sitting on your backside and she wanted people to be doers people of action and I do remember in the early 70s when you had your telly, because you had no remote control back in
So I had to sit close to the telly so that if I heard her come in the door, I could press the button and pretend I was doing something else before she realised I was watching telly. Is there a bit of her in you that don't whinge? You're quiet. Would you describe yourself as impatient? I look at you sometimes in studios like this. I read what you say on my phone. You get quite cross quite quickly with people, don't you?
Stop whinging, you say, you know? Yes, hopefully not too cross, but I probably am a bit impatient. I'm not a great cure. And you've said... You've been very candid about being born with a silver spoon in your mouth and you were 27, your chief executive of the family firm. You then made a lot of money yourself, a property developer. Is it fair to ask how rich you are? Um, yeah, it's fair to ask. I mean...
I wouldn't specifically answer it. Obviously, I've been through a divorce. That comes with a price. Look, the reality is... It's more than a nice car in the odd house. You're a multi-millionaire. I've worked hard, I've been successful, and yes, I had an early Kickstarter, but I do remember, for example, the... The family business, when I arrived in the early 90s, it was very difficult for property companies. One of the first things I did was go to a bank with a draft of a letter.
that said we can't repay you as you expect and therefore here are the keys. to this property that you've learnt on. So that's a sort of quite a searing experience. But in a sense part of your argument since You've been getting more attention since you've become a Member of Parliament, since people take you seriously as potentially becoming a future Chancellor Exchequer. That's been, look, I'm a business guy.
I know about this stuff. I know about money. You said once, one thing I'm good at is making money. Then I find a puzzle. i think i understand who richard ties it sounds like a tory to me and then i read that he's in favor of nationalizing things this wealthy property developing former conservative believes in nationalizing british steel not just
British Steel, but 50% of all utilities, water, electricity. Have you got a bit of the Jeremy Corbyns? No, I've got a bit of actually practical common sense about understanding what our strategic national assets... And we've got to be prepared in life to learn where things have gone well, but where they have gone badly. And privatisation of water companies and critical national assets
And when you talk about utilities, you talk about the infrastructure of utilities. So water is clearly an infrastructure. The electricity pipe works. Gas transmission pipe works. That is infrastructure. The retailers who sell electricity, that's not part of your crucial infrastructure. My model is slightly different. It's where you say, okay, instead of having a conflict between the taxpayer and the private company owning and running that infrastructure, what about if you have a joint venture?
Let's call it a 50-50 for ease of maths, where you've got half public ownership, half owned by British pension funds, as long-term patient capital, I call it. but well managed by private sector management who can be well remunerated if they perform. Now you're saying it's different from Jeremy Corbyn. The CBI put an estimate of the upfront cost of nationalising the utilities of almost 200 billion.
What should we call it? Should we split the difference? So it's going to cost you 100? 100 million? 50 million? How many Thames of billions? But they probably put a price, for example, on Thames Water. Okay? Thames Water is, as we speak... in Syria's financial trouble and we very clearly in the press said
If that should be allowed to go bust, it shouldn't be sold to private equity companies that want to charge ever higher and look for sort of mid-teen returns. Let it go bust and all the shareholders and the debt holders The caveat emptor, they had the chance, they know what they're doing, they've blown it, the taxpayer should buy it for a pound, great deal.
You're not saying it's going to be free to nationalise half of British utilities? No, of course I'm not. But I'm saying you need smart hundreds of millions of batteries. And I'm not saying you force that. But what I'm saying is where things go wrong, British Steel has gone badly wrong. Nigel and I...
We said six years ago to the then Conservative government, Don't sell British steel to the Chinese You see the reason I ask you is that you got into a bit of a spat I mentioned that you sometimes lose your temper I'm just going to look at my phone to remind myself which is the chief economist of a very distinguished organization, Pania Libram, a former senior economist in government as well, wrote something that suggested that there be a massive instant run on the pounds.
if your policies were ever implemented. Why? Because he says you're doing a bit of a Liz Truss. And he's giving away lots of money and tax cuts, also now spending money on nationalising things, giving us all sorts of free things, not paying for it. What does Richard Tice say? Juvenile claptrap from a city economist who didn't even bother to check his fag packet calcs with me.
You seem a bit tetchy about this. It's just, look, it's reality. If you're a serious economist and you do some calculations, As often in the political world, journalists look at something and then they phone someone up and they say, this is our view, how do you comment? To not comment on that, when actually if you look at our election contract, all the numbers are out there, and on the three big things...
that I was challenged on by various people, I've actually been proven right on. So with regard to whether or not The Bank of England should voluntarily be paying interest on all the printed money. I was the first person in the political world to raise it. Journalists were scratching their head, economists looked at it, and guess what?
I was right. It's now broadly accepted. You can have a debate about the number. Is it 25 billion? Is it 30 billion? I was the first person to say we shouldn't be doing quantitative tightening. I said if you put a number on net zero that I call net stupid zero.
give or take 30 billion well now it turns out once again at the climate change committee have said actually it's give or take that number let's come to that in a second but overall the point being made and this isn't the time or place this isn't the sort of conversation to go through every number but the point is being made by this very respected city economist or indeed by the economy The Economist magazine.
The mishmash on offer so far may well exceed the disastrous 49-day, hair-raising, market-tanking Premiership of LizTruss in 2022. Now they were generous enough not to remind people that at the time Nigel Farage described that infamous mini budget as the best conservative budget in years. They don't think your numbers add up. None of them think your numbers add up. Frankly, it's ridiculous.
given that the numbers are all out there in the contract. The draft contract was out there for about four months beforehand. What they're suggesting is that, you know, someone who's got probably the most successful business track record, I run a multi-billion pound, multinational business listed on the stock exchange, where in four years I tripled the share price.
I've been around the block. I've got a successful track record. I sold up before the financial crash. I know what I'm doing So for these economists who've never run a business themselves Give us a call, folks. And of course, you're not going to impose huge tax cuts without, first of all, doing the savings to pay for them. I'm sure they'll take up the opportunity to maybe get you together on the Today programme. Let's trust me in time.
Was it a great budget? Is she a model? Apparently she advises reform... I don't think you should believe everything that you read or read in the press. No, no, no, that's just for clarity. Does she ever advise? certainly never advised me I've never spoken to her about our reform matters the only irony that I've talked to her though I first met Liz Truss when she helped me write a think tank pamphlet
before Think Tank coincidentally named Reform back in 2007 about academics. So if she wanted to swap parties, would she be welcome? Let's trust, would she be? I don't know about that. I mean, you know, that's way above my pay grade. I mean like, you're certainly not ruling it out. You mentioned net zero and you call it net stupid zero and you've been absolutely clear and again this isn't the interview to go through the detail on net zero but I think people want to know something very simple.
Do you or don't you believe that man-made climate change exists? Man-made CO2 emissions exist, and you can debate whether it's between 3% and 5%. had a bit of a ding dong with question time about that. 5% or 5% of all CO2 emissions are man-made. The balance 95 to 97%
is natural CO2 emissions and... Well, the absolute garbage wants to say that human activity is the main cause of runaway climate change. You never read that the Norway's equivalent of the Office for National... produced a report a few months back that said Having looked at the real-time data They do not see evidence that man-made CO2 emissions is responsible for the global warming over the last 150 years. Interestingly, that was an ex-employee. It wasn't reviewed as a paper at his early release.
In a sense, the detail's not important. Richard Tice is saying, I don't buy any of this stuff. You're not just having an argument about how we do net zero. You're actually having an argument about whether we should bother at all. Not just because China's bigger and India's bigger.
You're basically saying to the country, it's all guff. David Attenborough's talking nonsense. 99% of climate change scientists, they're all talking nonsense. I know better. And that's a nonsense figure. That 99% figure is a nonsense figure. The reality is I can give you a list of a thousand scientists.
who disagree. Science has never settled. It always evolves. But here's the point. Most of those scientists, I know who you're referring to, and they're not climate change scientists. There's plenty who are. There are professors with Nobel Prize warning. Sorry, Nobel Prize winning professors of physics and engineering who take this view. The point is... You can't stop climate change, and this I think is the big lie.
climate change has gone on for millions of years and always will what you can do i think the smart thing to do is to adapt to it my issue is that net zero is the wrong thing at the wrong time at the wrong price and And we are impoverishing ourselves. We're destroying jobs and industries.
in this regard you sound quite like Donald Trump and I wonder if now looking over this hundred plus days that we've Is that presidency, is if you like what some people call moving fast and breaking things, is that a pretty good model for you as to how a reformed government if there ever is one might Moving fast, yes. Not breaking things, but certainly changing things. I mean, I think that The country is in serious trouble.
On the day of the spring statement, I did 14 interviews and the word I used on the financial numbers by the OBR was delusional. And four weeks later, on the debt number that was produced for the debt to the year, I was bang on the money. And so, yeah, we're in serious financial trouble. I understand the critique of Britain, but in a sense, I want to know, given that Nigel Flores is so close to Donald Trump, he's endlessly had his photograph taken with him, he's spoken...
rallies for him. I think people are entitled to know. You said after the local elections, it was time for honesty, you said. You know, there'd have to be some hard truths, you said, about reforming power. You knew you'd be Is Trump a good model? Is that the sort of way in which government needs to be dealt with? Our model will be our model. No one else's model. We will do things our way. Nigel and I have worked very closely for 10 years, and he's a good president.
when I was not president, you mean Donald Trump? Donald Trump. Is he a good president? Well, he's certainly changing things. I think history will show, hopefully, that he plays a legacy-changing impact on... on resolving some of the horrors in the Middle East
on trying to get a ceasefire in Ukraine. All this stuff is really difficult. You're sounding a bit like Keir Starmer. So in Keir Starmer's case, he doesn't want to be horrible to Donald Trump. I know what you're doing. You don't want to be nice to Donald Trump because you know lots of people in Britain don't like it.
So despite the fact that Nigel Farage spoke at his election rallies, had a photograph taken in front of the gold door, they endlessly call each other and tweet each other, suddenly the deputy leader of... Donald Trump, oh, nothing to do with us. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying, look, you can either like or not like his personality, but there is a man with the biggest election mandate who is negotiating hard for America. Your man will not like his negotiating technique.
His job is to negotiate for America. The role of any leader of the United Kingdom and the leadership team is to negotiate hard for the UK. My real issue is I think people are getting sort of... over excited about I think what we've got to focus on is what's going to be the state of this country in four years' time. We can't borrow £150 billion every year and expect it to end well. Sure.
despite the fact that the markets are saying to you that they think you are planning to do just that by the way that's exactly what Simon French the Economist said and they're not just to be absolutely clear understood now Before we move off Donald Trump Is immigration where you've got the most to learn from Donald Trump? His supporter, I would say, is one of his great successes, that the borders have not quite been closed but almost been closed.
in the United States. He's deported many more people than any president for some time. Is that a good move? I would argue that perhaps President Trump learned from Nigel Farage because Nigel's been talking about immigration for probably well over a decade and has been proven bang on the money, both on the scale of legal immigration, where we want smart immigration. net zero immigration. It's the only net zero I do want.
And with regard to illegal immigration, so we've all got our own particular issues. You don't want a deportation-style policy? No, well... Nigel's been on this for a very long time and we announced just during the local election campaign that yes, we would have a minister for deportations. We should be. removing foreign criminals in our jails and people can't expect to come here illegally and stay here forever. That's not part of the gig.
what would you think if you're back in your old job a property developer and some politician or a government bureaucrat said um look i know you want to build this housing estate I know you need some briquets. or you need some roofers, or you need someone doing jobs even more skilled than those. But I'm very sorry Mr. Tice, the government has decided that it's only when Mrs. Teapot
Makes her decision to go to the Costa del Sol one in one out net zero That's what you say. It's only then that you can have the people you need. Sorry wait six months wait a year You can't have the people you want Serious that, is it? It's deadly serious. And there's a long-term average of about 400,000, 450,000 people who leave the UK every year. And so you can welcome a similar number. You can measure it over a three or four year period. You're not doing it monthly, obviously.
And you can say, yeah, these are where we've got particular skill shortages. But here's the point, Nick. We were building way more houses the 70s 80s and 90s when we didn't have mass cheap low-skilled immigration than we're building today so I'm just not buying this nonsense that we're incapable of doing it in the UK when we've got 9 million people economically inactive. What happened was,
When you had large-scale immigration come in, guess what? It's a basic economic theory. If you increase the supply of something, the price goes down. And the price of British wages was suppressed for a decade and more. This week the Prime Minister used language about being strangers and it was pointed out it was a very similar phrase to one used by Enoch Powell in the famous, some say infamous, rivers of blood speech in 1968 when he warned of the consequences
of immigration. Now Nigel Farage, your leader, has spoken to me in the past about being an admirer of Renan Powell, saying that he thinks he made some mistakes, but he was basically right. Do you think Enoch Powell was basically right? That nobody should be apologetic about using his language at all? Well, I think that...
If you have large-scale immigration into a community without those folk coming in integrating... wanting to work and learn the language, then it's not going to work for the host nation, the host community. Smart immigration is when actually it works for both sides of the equation. Those coming in, get a job, integrate.
feel welcome, and the host community. So it's got to be insensible numbers. He was broadly right. Not the rivers of blood, not the prediction of violence, but he was broadly right. I think anybody who looks at immigration as a topic and is prepared to talk about it, which obviously...
is sometimes quite difficult. You say, look, this is how you make it work and make it work very successfully. And there are plenty of examples around the world. I've given you two opportunities to say you don't think he was right. You think he broadly was right. Not in every respect, time has moved on. You see, some people regard reform
And I'm not going to do what I think you think I'm going to do, which is ask you about extremists and racists in the party and so on. That's maybe for another day. They think you just don't like modern Britain. You don't like the country as it is. You're nostalgic for something. Is it fair to say you don't really like modern Britain? I love modern Britain. What I weep about... and I'm so sad about is that modern Britain at the moment isn't working.
for the vast majority of the country and people are getting poorer by the week by the month i think it's give or take six out of the last eight quarters people are getting poorer because there's almost no growth in the economy And if you've got large-scale immigration, 750,000 give or take net arriving every year, everybody's getting poorer. And public services too often... You spend quite a lot of time out of Britain.
No, I spend the vast, vast majority of my time here in the UK. You shuttle to and from Dubai? No, shuttle's completely the wrong way. I probably go there once every... Six to eight, my view on life. Once every six to eight weeks? Yeah, my view on life is I work, primarily, or if I'm lucky enough to go on a holiday, but
I work 24-7. Your partner lives in Dubai and I ask you this, I don't think it's unfair because you're public about your relationship and she is too. My constituents, my constituents, They see a lot of me in Parliament. I was the first Member of Parliament to get to 100 speeches, new Member of Parliament, always without notes. I wasn't suggesting you were part-time MP.
24-7 a lot of people move to Dubai go there because they don't much like Britain including your partner and wrote a column in which she said unlike angry divided Britain she said Dubai is the ultimate multicultural success story. Those who break the law or can't look after themselves are simply imprisoned or deported. So they don't.
Is that a better society? A place that simply imprisons or deports people who break the law? Well, I'll tell you what. What is a better society is if you're at a coffee shop. And you, as a lady, you leave your handbag and your phone on the table. You go to the loo.
Then you come back a few minutes later. Guess what? Your handbag's still there. Your phone's still there. And that is the sort of society we should aspire to. We can learn. We can learn from it. This is a problem we've got as a nation. A political class, we're not prepared to learn enough from other nations. They're getting it right. She puts out another thing. In school every morning, she says, your partner, they also stand for the national anthem.
This is how countries with clear identities work. It educates our children about being proud of the country that you are living in. Do you think all children should stand up for the National Anthem? I think that's a matter for...
for debate, but you've got to be there to discuss this because we want our children to be proud of our country, to be proud of our flag. The fact that some of our flags you're not allowed to be proud of at the moment is I think shameful and it's part of the loss and that's why modern day Britain for many people isn't working and it's not making people better off whereas in the 80s and 90s I touched on
The economy was growing every year at two and a half to three and a half percent. Final one, she highlights the Sheikh's commitment to a culture of respect, tolerance and... And isn't that a great thing? Shouldn't we have respect, tolerance and openness? But at the moment... Talk about a country that locks up political opponents. And no one's saying everything's perfect about it, but... It locks up people that disagree. It doesn't have the basic values of a Western...
And our basic values at the moment are not working. The basic British values are not working because crime is through the roof. People who commit crimes are not being required to serve proper justice. Foreign criminals are... blocking up our jails. So yeah, the country is not working for British citizens. We're not getting better off. Public services are not working. And quite rightly, people are angry. And that's why they voted for reform in massive numbers where they're allowed to vote.
a couple of weeks back. Tell us what happened, because you were a Conservative, you've been open about that for a very long time. I mean you were a Conservative way after a lot of people joined UKIP, for example. You tried to become the candidate for London Mayor. even when Theresa May was Prime Minister. It wasn't that you rejected it as soon as the Brexit vote had happened. What happened? Why is this? Classic conservative background, not a conservative background.
Yeah, so I had a journey with the Conservatives where I was a member. I then resigned in 2012, I think it was. I was a bit grumpy with David Cameron's Strategic Defence Review, which was rushed out and I think very damaging. to our armed forces back then and I said I'm not coming back until Cameron's gone and when he left I rejoined back in when it was 2016. and
And then I got disappointed again because Theresa May, she promised to do Brexit properly, and of course she didn't. And so one thing led to another, and so I left again. But yes, I did try and get the nomination for London Mayor, and the Tories said thanks, but no thanks. It wasn't that you left the Tories, they left you.
Well, that's lots of people sort of say that. Yeah, look, I think they didn't deliver. That's the bottom line. And that coincided with a time where we said, actually, you've got to do Brexit properly. As I said in the introduction, you're close to Nigel Farage, you've been funding the party long before it became successful in the way that it is now.
You know what it's always said about him, he splits every party he's ever been in. Rupert Lowe called Reform a protest party led by the Messiah and a day later he was out. And he's just been cleared of the suggestions that he was a bully, that he threatened and so on. The Crown Prosecution Service are not bringing charges against him. It does suggest you're awfully thin-skinned. You can't really cope with criticism.
No, I don't think we're thinned at all. I mean, actually, we work very hard internally. But the point is, and you saw it in other political situations, you have your discussions and your debates internally behind closed doors. And then here's what, to use a footballing analogy, a football team of 11 individuals doesn't win matches. 11 11 people who act as a team act together and I'm a Liverpool fan So I'm feeling quite good about this at the moment With a with a with a good strong manager
who the team respects, they are successful. But no space for a Roy Keane, a Rupert Lowe who says, I don't really like the manager. I'm going to be rude about him. I'm going to test him and challenge him. No room for people like that. You have to be a team. You have your discussions and debates behind closed doors.
And then ultimately the boss makes a decision and you crack on and and that's what we're doing and in a sense Yeah, of course it was sad. I said it was a shame, but the bottom line is the voters have just clearly expressed strong view for reform and have way moved on past that that hiccup Tempting though it is to let you celebrate Liverpool's triumph as a Manchester United supporter will probably move swiftly on other than to say you're a pretty good footballer yourself
You played for Salford University. I was, I played for Salford University. I was a goalkeeper and I enjoyed that until an injury sort of ruined my career. But my... And you used to play some quite lively teams. We did play some lively teams, one of which was Strangeways Prison. in the early to mid-1980s, before the riots, I think, in 1987. And listeners will be pleased to know we always had to play away in strange ways.
and they had a football pitch, obviously, behind wires, and there was Alsatians patrolling the touchline, and there was one moment where, obviously, it was a sort of, it was a Him against me. I was the goalkeeper. The striker was through and I had no choice. I took him down. ref blows penalty and so I'm doing my Bruce Grobbler act and a warder just walks behind the goal with an Alsatian who says young man if you know what's good for you you'll let it in and sure enough I let it in
I'll never forget it. You took advice. I took advice. I often take advice. Are you Nigel Farage's goalkeeper? No one's ever said like that before. We've worked very closely together for 10 years and it seems to be working pretty well. I mean, at the end of the day, we are achieving things that no one ever thought possible in a two-party system and
Sure, if the two main parties had done their job properly, there'd be no need for us. But I would argue, whatever you think of our politics or us as individuals, it must be good for democracy and interest in politics and for journalists to talk about it.
where you've got a bit more competition, you've got new disruptors coming up with a different approach to it, slightly more bullish, slightly more business-like. And I think that's a good thing, and whether it's us or whether it's the Lib Dems or the Greens, Paul. We're all providing, I think, a slightly different take on it. Richard Tice, Deputy Leader of Reform UK, thank you for joining me on Political Thinking. Thank you.
Competition is good, says Richard Tice. It seemed to me he was trying quite hard not to get ahead of himself, not to predict that Farage will be Prime Minister or he will be Chancellor of the Exchequer. Just saying to people, take a listen. Give us a try. See what you think. One consequence of that though is people are going to ask tougher questions, much tougher questions than he or his party have been used to.
That's it from this edition of Political Thinking. Thank you very much indeed for listening. If you want to hear the edition with Joe Biden last week, it's on BBC Sounds along with a couple of hundred other editions of Political Thinking. The producer was Dan Kramer, the editor is Giles Edwards. The Sound this week. If you want to be notified as soon as an episode of Political Thinking drops, please go to BBC Sounds and press subscribe and make sure that your push notifications are switched on.
Hi there, I'm Izzy Judd and I'm so pleased to be back with the Music and Meditation Podcast Series 5. We'll be talking about everything from defining boundaries and letting go of guilt to evolving with change and concentrating on your own path with an insight line-up of special guests including Deepak Chopra, Helen Marie and Light Watkins. So if you We'll be right back. on BBC Sounds.