¶ Initial Leadership Speculation
This is a Global Player original podcast.
The messages I was getting back were basically saying whole We know what's gonna happen.
I don't think it was that smart of Number ten friends of Keir Starmer to say Oh where's these bottles? He hasn't got what it takes. He's gonna chicken out, he's gonna do a runner, he ain't gonna go through.
David Miliband moment. The crown is within his grasp, that he only needs the courage to pluck up the will and the courage to grasp it, and it will be his.
Just on West Streeting. Is he still the health secretary? Can we just confirm that?
Uh again, I don't know. I'm in your studio answering your questions, Sarah. Don't you ask him?
Okay. But you are you presuming he is?
I I as I said, I don't know. I read a l I mean I read a lot.
If Yvette Cooper was the Foreign Secretary, you would say yes.
I mean I this is not terribly productive use of our time.
It sounds like one of those questions a doctor asks when they're looking for early onset dementia. Do you know who the Prime Minister is? This occasion it's the Northern Ireland Secretary answering a question about whether the Health Secretary is still the Health Secretary on the BBC this lunchtime.
Why would that question be so pertinent? If the Health Secretary wasn't thinking about quitting his job. What does all this mean for Kirstama's position just as the King's speech is taking place? Welcome to the news agents.
🎵 Music
The news agents.
¶ Streeting's Challenge and Starmer's Response
It's John.
It's mateless.
It's Lewis and we are in a very unusual position that everyone expects now. Westreating, the health secretary, this question that has haunted British politics this week. Is there going to be a challenge against Keir Starmer? And it seems that West Streeting, the Health Secretary, has told Allies that he is preparing to resign and trigger a leadership contest against Kirstama as soon as tomorrow. Hence the confusion.
Of Hillary Benn and others as to whether Westreating as of this afternoon is even still in his job. Something that Downing Street shortly afterwards did clarify by saying that Keir Starmer, after that sixteen minute meeting this morning in Downing Street between the two men, Downing Street saying they have full confidence or the Prime Minister has full confidence in West Streeting and all of his cabinet ministers. This all taking place, as Emily said, bizarrely.
extraordinarily against the backdrop of the state opening of Parliament, where Westminster is in its finest ermine and silliest frocks, having to pretend as if this is none of this is happening as the King reads out a speech Including thirty-five bills of things that this government under this Prime Minister intends to do whilst simultaneously not knowing for sure whether this Prime Minister is gonna be in Downing Street at the end of the week and the big question on everyone's lips.
in Parliament is does West Streeting have the numbers, the ATNPs he needs to resign and mount that challenge against
Let's not forget that the positioning of the King's speech, which is at the behest of the Prime Minister. really spoke to his nervousness about what could happen this week. It was always meant to be a firewall, essentially, to stop any huge political shenanigans from kicking off after those May elections.
And to some extent it has worked because today things are just about holding. What does that mean? Well it means basically that nobody is swearing at the funeral, right? It's about as simple as that. When I was messaging people who were part of that eighty list, who'd added their voices, their names, um, to the critique of Keir Starmer,
I did start asking whether they had been surprised that more hadn't happened yesterday. Particularly if there were supporters of Wes Streeting, had they expected Wes to go over the top yesterday? And the messages I was getting back We're basically saying that Hold your nerve. We know what's gonna happen. We know it wasn't gonna be today. And the sense, every indication has been, we think there is more to come. This is a pause, this is a moment silence.
but tomorrow it all kicks off again. And I wonder whether actually against the backdrop of the King's speech, which I think a lot of people both outside the party, outside government and within, feel was quite a a timid response. to those election results. It it was more incrementalism. It wasn't full throated. It wasn't a kind of rip up everything and and give the people something that they'd been dying for.
I think in a way it will embolden others to say, Okay, that was the last chance. If that's basically what the legislative agenda looks like for the next year, then yeah, maybe I'm out of here.
¶ Split Screen: Stability vs. Chaos
I I think it was the most perfect split screen moment today that you have Uh the king's carriage coming down Whitehall and the horse guards and everything else running perfectly to time, and what it says is that Britain is this place of solidity, tradition, stability, consistency. and the reality of the government
is that it's anything but that. It is febrile, it is uncertain, it could anything could happen in the next five minutes and it might well in the next five minutes while we're sitting here recording. And There was a moment this morning where people were starting to say, oh well, he's over the worst of it. You know, stability is returning. There was almost a two hour window where people thought, Oh well, Starmer's in the clear now. This is an ongoing problem that is not resolved.
And I don't think it was that smart. Of maybe number ten friends of Keir Starmer to say, Oh, where's he's bottling it? He hasn't got what it takes. He's gonna chicken out, he's gonna do a runner, he ain't gonna go through with it. And what we've since heard is that oh yes, he is, actually, and he may well have the numbers and he is going to force a contest, which puts Starmer in the position whether he's going to run or not run. And he said he will, but the psychodrama goes on.
¶ Wes Streeting's Ambition and Support
So th I this is as I said the question that everybody is is is contemplating. Does Streeting have the numbers? Does he have the eighty? Now on the face of it this two from what I can gather talking to MPs there's two schools of thought about this. On the face of it, it would seem pretty illogical if he didn't have the numbers for him to wield a knife.
Because if he doesn't have the numbers, surely he's just gonna resign and that's go then he's gonna be in the wilderness and it will expose him, it will make him look weak, not as a proper challenger.
And and and it's certainly possible that, you know, we know that lots of the people who've resigned have kind of been quote unquote his people. We know that a lot of the people calling for the PM to go have been his people and he definitely has other allies, ministerial allies, who haven't resigned yet, who, when push came to shove, I think would resign,
And would back him. So it's possible that he's got the 80. There is another school of thought I've heard, which included one person telling me he has lost the plot. That this is a an insane move.
And they think a bit as you were just saying, John, that he has been um streeting, he's been destabilized and driven to anger by all of this talk of bottling it of looking like a coward and Streeting, who is very alive more than most cabinet ministers to how he is perceived in the media, is therefore rolling the dice because he was aware there was a picture going around
just as an a vignette to it to sort of illustrate this, there was a picture going around all the Labour M P WhatsApp groups were sent to me last night that w had a picture of Newcastle Brown bottles with Wes Streeting plastered over it, which is, you know, bottler wares. And that he this has got to him
that he's decided to roll the dice, that he is haunted by the idea. He's always wanted to be Prime Minister from when he was a young man, and he is haunted by the idea that this is his David Millerband moment, that the crown with his wi is within his grasp.
that he only needs the courage to pluck up the will and the courage to grasp it and it will be his. Now most people in the Labour Party believe that even if he does have the AT and he gets through to the ballot of the members that he will not be elected because they will not elect him because the politics of the Labour Party is not where he is, which is on the right of the party.
¶ Internal Pressure and Starmer's Vulnerability
Look, I think it's worth saying that we obviously don't know what West Streeting is gonna do tomorrow. And it is entirely possible that actually As of yesterday, he didn't know either. So maybe he was goaded. Maybe I mean we know that people around him resigned. And there is something of the kind of like You know, if your PPS has resigned, if another health minister has resigned, if your allies have resigned, it's a bit like sort of being the fourth parachuter.
out of the aircraft and say, Yeah, you go, I'm right behind you You know, you jump, I'll be fine, I'll be right behind you And then they're looking back and going, Wait, why is he still in the aircraft? Like what is he doing? So I think there is also a sense of of You know, responsibility, loyalty, if people around you have gone, is he thinking, Well, you know, I c I can't be the one that watches them fall and maybe sort of slightly crash to the ground?
Yeah, so you're that doesn't help my analogy, but yes. You know, he's both marched and pushed. But but essentially there is probably a bit of him thinking, I've kind of I've got to this point now and they've gone ahead of me, so I've got to do this. I think there's also a point, you know, when you see Andy Burnham arriving at Houston saying, I think I've got my seat, you know, I think I've got my by election to fight, maybe to our
point yesterday about your s you know, you choose your own adventure. Maybe where streeting's going, I've probably I've probably got forty eight hours to get this off the ground now.
Your your parachutist analogy is a good one because I I think that's probably exactly what he's doing. He's seeing what the reaction is to those resignations. And seeing whether people are kind of ringing him up or whatsapping him and saying, You're absolutely right, w you I'm behind you. I mean you quoted LB J on the podcast yesterday. I mean the kind of rule number one of politics of LB J is learn to count. And in politics
I quoted Roosevelt FDR which is do something. But the LBJ one is the next one.
Right, okay.
Learn how to count.
have to count. Sorry, I I'm I mistook I misheard on the Eurostar coming back from wherever I was coming back from. Um and I think that that is, you know, surely he must know whether he's got the numbers. And then presumably he must I mean I know this is a dynamic process, so there are no kind of a hundred percent guarantees and people are duplicitous. And so, you know, it's perfectly possible that MPs are not being straightforward when they say, Oh Wes, I
Absolutely.
They don't know either. There's so many newbies coming in, right? They're probably thinking, Shit, I think so, but I don't know. I mean, I I've also been hearing, I have to say, um from people who contacted me because they said that their names had been added to the other list, as in the KEER supporter list, when they hadn't put them on. Now we we know about uh Rupert Hawk, right? She she sort of tweeted quite
visibly that she hadn't actually signed up to that letter and she was holding her council. Other people have been in touch with me since. And it's not just the question of why their names were on it. It's also a question of why they felt the need. to get in touch to say, this seems to be happening.
Well it seems it seems that an awful lot of MPs are holding their breath right now. That they you know, if you think of the people that have signed and said, Right, gear you've got to go and then you've got the payroll vote, which is all the ministers and cabinet ministers and parliamentary private secretaries.
You know, that's about eighty or ninety people. There are an awful lot of people who've not said one thing nor the other. And I think it does leave Starmer in this position now where he is Too strong to die, but too weak to thrive, too weak to govern, too weak to be able to do anything. And so this Labour does seem to have managed to get itself Into the worst of all things. positions right now where you cannot see an easy clean way out of
¶ Labour Leadership Rules and Active Battle
this. I think that said, if if streeting does have the numbers, I think it's o impossible to really imagine how Stammer survives. No, I I agree. Um because although I mean
Okay, so so that would mean people that hadn't yet signed their name because of that eighty one, we know that not all of those people are streeting people. So he has got to have a whole bulk that haven't yet signed up that he knows are for him, right?
Well, I mean in the event of a contest of course, um Starmer and we should talk about the rules for this maybe uh maybe a bit, which is that you know, Starmer automatically goes on the ballot as the leader if he wants to contest. But just in terms of the parliamentary support um Starmer has, I mean or might might not have. I mean John you talk about the the eighty or ninety or so who've come forward to say he's gotta go. We've got to remember as well, there are a lot of Labour MPs
who have not said anything publicly but have said something to the whips. I mean I was talking to one last night who told me this. He said, I let my whip know yesterday there are a lot of us in this position. I believe the PM should resign.
We want him to understand the mood of the parliamentary party and go with dignity, who want to maximise the ability of the Labour Party to come together after this. The PM's reputation is being damaged by his refusal to accept political realities. So in the event, of course That there is a contest, and what happens is the rules are that you have to have eighty MPs come forward to challenge Starmer, at which point there will be a contest within the Labour Party. Starmer, if he wants to fight it
Will automatically be on the ballot. That's what happened when it's kind of the Jeremy Corbyn president when he was challenged in 2016 by his own MPs. He automatically goes on the ballot. So theoretically, and Starmer has said he will do this. he says that he's he will put himself forward. Now I think in that scenario
I think it will become very clear from those sorts of MPs I've just talked about, they will go public and say, Prime Minister, do not stand in this election and not just Labour MPs. I mean it's something I think that has kind of been sort of missed a bit today or hasn't sunk in quite enough today, is this extraordinary and unprecedented joint statement.
from all of the affiliated l unions of the Labour Party, the eleven affiliated unions, some of whom remember some of which endorsed Starmer back in twenty twenty, all saying that it is clear that the Prime Minister will not lead Labour into the next election. Now that means that Starmer is losing the support and authority from within the Parliamentary Labour Party.
And within the wider movement and it means that basically Starmer will not have a majority on the NEC, the ruling body of the Labour Party anymore, because the unions are so represented. His power within the party, he kind of looks a bit stronger today on the surface, but he's not. It is ebbing and ebbing and ebbing.
I think we're very close to what happened with the Thatcher leadership when she faced the challenge and she was two votes short of winning outright and so there would have to be another contest. And what happened then was and I think this is what happens if West Streeting gets the numbers.
The cabinet on day one, you know, came out that mad scene those mad scenes yesterday of people rushing to the microphone, West Streeting, scurrying up Downing Street but you know and you played it on the podcast yesterday of you know, them all coming out to say, Oh well yeah, Kia we've got Kears back and we love
Okay.
I think that if there is properly a challenge and it's going to happen, that is the moment when the cabinet go in one by one to see key and say I'm sorry. We wanted to support you, we did support you, but now we're in a position where the game is up, which is exactly what happened with Thatcher when all these ministers went in one by one to say, I'm sorry, Margaret you can't carry on, you don't have the support to do that. And I think that's what would happen uh then.
Currently uh the cabinet or at least some of it's in the tea room. Um we're just hearing from Lucy McDade at Sky News that Rachel Reeves is in Parliament of the Commons members' tea room trying to persuade them from not backing Wes. In other words This is a leadership battle that's already on. And I know there'll be people listening to this podcast, this episode now, and saying
Why are you getting ahead of yourselves? Like nothing has happened. We're streeting went in to have a fifteen minute coffee with Keir Starmer and since then we've heard nothing. Please don't jump the gun.
But I would have to say, as I think we tried to say yesterday, this is not happening because the media is sort of frothing at the mouth. It is happening around us, whether or not, you know, you want to hear about this. And it sounds as if Rachel Reeves right now realises that her part to play, certainly if she wants to stay as Chancellor, is in persuading people around her not to play.
Tobacco the health secretary, who, as we discussed earlier, may or may not be the health secretary this time tomorrow.
¶ Ed Miliband's Potential Leadership Return
Look, let's assume assume for a moment that streeting has got the numbers and there is going to be a contest. Feels to me, again from conversations I've been having, that that there are then two big decisions for two different people to make.
We know there it's going to be a leadership contest. It takes Andy Burnham out of it. He cannot run as much as he might want to, he's not in Parliament. Therefore, the big question becomes where Streeting is representing the right of the party. Let's also assume that Starmer wants to stand. but struggles to have legitimacy to do so. What happens to the soft left of the party? Who is representing the soft left of the party, which is the bulk or at least, you know, a lot of Labour MPs?
The natural answer would be Angela Rayner, does she stand in that contest? Now there are lots of schools of opinion on that about whether she even wants to be
to do it. The HMR CSU is not resolved, but there are other potential reasons she might not want to as well. And there are some people around who are who I think don't want her to do it but want her to be a big part of the next government. If she does not stand The name on everyone's lips in terms of representing, standing for the soft left of the party, is Ed Miliband.
And I do think that the scenario we're seeing play out is a scenario that has been being muttered about for a long time now and whispered about. Which is the Ed Miliband scenario. Which is the Ed Miliband who does not want to actually be leader, I think, again. I think he would dearly like to be Chancellor, possibly in a in a Burnham government. Who knows?
But in a situation where he felt where streeting was going to stand, the impression I get from talking to MPs is that he would feel that he could not and would not risk where Streeting is a guy who does not like Miliban, the right of the party, he would not risk a streeting victory and would therefore potentially stand and if he were to stand
This might strike some viewers and listeners as weird, considering of course he lost the twenty fifteen election and so on. He is deeply popular among Labour Party members who would be the ones who would be voting. So if this is a scenario we're seeing playing out and you're out there Wishing if you were a twenty fifteen voter wishing that Ed Miliband had become Prime Minister, this is the scenario which is most likely to yield Ed Miliband as Prime Minister of this country.
So is there are there other candidates who can emerge? Because if it's eighty to get on the ballot and there are four hundred Labour MPs, John Sopral's math is just about capable to work out that there could be five potential candidates. So if they were evenly distributed. I mean of course they won't be. But I was just wondering is there anyone else who you know, because I'm there will be people who will take again against the idea.
Can I just say one thing? I mean, you know, w you don't have to be that old or have that long a memory. to go back to Ed Miliband winning the Labour leadership against his brother David and others and Burnham, in fact, and then going on to
you know, fail the election against camp to lose the election to David Cameron. It it does seem to me, and we did talk yesterday about trying to avoid the psychodramas. The problem with the Labour Party, or with any party really is it talks to itself the whole time.
So Ed Miliband is fantastically popular within a group of people that already like Ed Miliband and the Labour Party. If you go out to the wider country, there is almost no one in the cabinet who is less popular with people who are not natural Labour voters than Ed Milibach.
And if you ask people outside the Labour c party or or who would not naturally vote Labour who they might warm to, you know, as a Labour Prime Minister, if they had to choose somebody, it would be more in the character of Shabada Mahmood, right? And Shabana Mood will never get the leadership because the Labour Party don't like her. And sorry, but that is that is the the vicious circle that you're in. That the Labour Party
¶ The Case For and Against Miliband
That's always been party politics, hasn't it? In the sense that the party
Yes, but that is why Kier worked works stroke worked because people didn't have an image of him as being one flank or another. He just about He was just about okay. He was okay for the bond markets. He was all right for people who were natural Lib Dem voters, maybe even some natural Tory voters who said, Yeah, we've had enough, we're going we're going we're gonna give Labour a chance.
This is just repeating what Labour already knows. That people who like Labour will vote for Ed Miliband, but people who won't vote Labour won't vote.
But ca I'll just push back with the kind of the what this is what people say the case for Ed, right? If he were to stand. The case is Right, first of all, he could unite the party. He's on the soft left of the party, that's where most of the party is. You have streeting or someone like that, he pulls the party apart. A Shibana also potentially pull pulls the party apart. Ed would unite the party. That's important.
They would also say, what is the criticism of one of the main problems that Starmer has had? You basically have a politician without politics, who doesn't really know what he thinks, who doesn't have a sense of mission about what his government should be about. Ed Miliband, that is not the case for Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband has a a deeply cultivated political philosophy. He has a very clear idea about what he wants to do, the sharpest sense of what social democracy means in the 21st century. And and they would also say, yes, of course he was leader, yes, it didn't go well. They would say
that he's grown a lot since then. He's a far more fluent and formidable communicator. He gets the sort of twenty twenty six content age that we're in when he's one of the few members of the cabinet who can actually really do that. And so
Honestly, he would be a gift to reform. He would be a gift to Kemi Baidon.
Give me a gift. So I mean, I'm not sure.
So the one so the you we mentioned on passant one particular group there and what the their reaction would be. And that is the bond markets. And if the bond markets thought it was going to be Ed Miliband, I wonder what would happen to the cost of government borrowing. And I kind of
I know it's utterly anathema and rightly so that you know, people think, Well hang on, w how can the bond markets decide to our next Prime Minister is going to be? What who yeah? But it does matter. The cost of government borrowing
To a point. I mean look, I understand that when Rachel Reeves, you know, cries in Parliament and the bond markets get really shirty and then nothing happens and and we go, Oh thank God we've calmed them down. That can't be a sustainable argument. It genuinely can't be a sustainable argument. That we can't stop, you know, with one person or one chancel because of the bond markets. Because actually what you're doing is you're saying Labour's completely in hot.
to this one thing because they have to be a big thing. You're not talking about policy, you're not talking about growth. You're not talking you're you're genuinely not talking about anything with any vision or any narrative. You're just talking about fear. That that that cannot be right.
And also I mean we should also say as well that like, you know, uh bond market uh investors today have pushed UK guilt to a twenty eight year high. So the instability I mean, this is one of the things that people go around talking about Starmer at the moment. So we've got to keep Starmer there because
uh he is the stability and you've got the bond markets. Well you can also the counterpoint to that is to say Starmer's weakness and his lack of authority over the party is the instability. That's what's causing the instability.
And what is happening on the bond markets is happening now. Now you might say, oh well it would be even worse with an Angela Raine or Ed Miliband or or whoever. But right now we're seeing that market instability now. And it's look, let's be honest, for the reasons I've said It's not gonna resolve with Starmer because although he looks a bit stronger today, sort of on paper, he survived yesterday
The conversation hasn't gone away.
¶ Leadership Contest Outcomes and New Faces
The basis of power has already flowed from all the different sort of parts of the Labour Party and Parliament. So it's just a matter of
Let's just just throw this one in then. And obviously we don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. W it's entirely possible that Wes will change, it's also entirely possible that we'll have a day where nothing happens. But are you saying that Wes treating Win? Could he could he win against Starmer but not against Miliband? Is that where we are?
I I don't think there is any way that Streeting wins a contest against Ed Miliband and possibly even against Dama because um you know frankly the Lab Labour Party leadership contests are not that difficult. All you basically do is say He's a Blairite bastard and I'm not.
And you've got three white men in that contest.
Well, Raina might Raina might stand, you just hear conflicting things about whether she wants it and whether she will, and so so if if if you know, if if Raina were to stand, I think it's hard to see an Edmunderband um Ed Miller Band standing and she again might win, but who knows.
I d I don't disagree with you, but isn't it absurd that the insult that would be heard that would be hurled And that would cost him the job is the fact that he's a Blair right bastard. We don't want another person who keeps winning elections. That'd be bloody disastrous for Labour. We're not We're not in politics we're not in politics to win elections. Let's go for a proven election loser like Ed Miliban. Look at it's mad.
Maybe politics has changed since twenty fifteen though, John. Maybe maybe he could win an election.
No, no, but I'm pointing out the absurdity of that.
Okay, but that is the weirdest thing. Like, go back to that um contest, it was the Miliban brothers and Andy Burnham. Like, honestly. Like what the
Let's call Diane Abbott up, see if she wants to.
No, I think we should get David back from New York, find a by election for him to fight as well.
कर दो कर दो कर दो Where is the new talent? You know, why aren't we talking about new talent now?
Well what about of course the real uh
Oh god.
The real dark horse, of course, is um Allen. Al Caes the MP for Birmingham Sally Oak, um a former army veteran who people do talk about, although I have to say it would be truly even more ludicrous from my point of view for the Labour Party. The Labour Party is like
Oh, we've got this leader who when we elected him, we didn't know what his politics was, but he had a great backstory, kinda looked apart, but basically he has no direction because he doesn't really know what he thinks and none of us know what he thinks. So let's replace him with a guy who has even less it's even less well known what he thinks, as far as anyone knows, has even less of a political philosophy, but fuck me he can better.
Like I mean, you know, is that really is that really where we're at as as a polity? That would really be the end.
¶ King's Speech vs. Public Discontent
I mean I guess, you know, what we should say is that we have all basically leapfrogged what's actually happened today to talk about what might happen tomorrow, what we're expecting to happen tomorrow. And if you go back to the king's speech, which I think we should, you know, spend a couple of minutes doing, maybe we can hear a bit, uh the king then, you know, in the ermine, on the crown, is basically reading out Keir Starmer's own words.
And a lot of it is about security, resilience, again security, stability. I mean these are the words that keep coming back. And I guess the question is, will there be people in the country who say just let the man get on with shoring up our our stability as a country, you know. If if this is what is the plan, you know, to bring down prices, to bring down to sort of boost our defence spending. He's talking about, you know, speedy up remediation for cladding. I know that's something that we've
done a lot on before. He's talking about raising standards to support the young and disabled. Doesn't talk about the welfare uh bill at all, interesting enough, so no cuts to that. But there will be people in the country who say, give it a rest. Like just Just let the guy get on with something that looks like
Yeah, but there I think against that there are an awful lot of people who really dislike Keir Starmer with an intensity that I find hard to understand, given that basically he is a
A lot of people around him say Joe. A lot of people don't think he's a decent guy.
Okay.
'Cause he's what he described himself as, which is a hard bastard.
Well I thought that that showed itself with the Olive Robin sacking, but I think that perception I c what I'm all I'm saying is that I think in the country there is a profound dislike. of Keir Starmer that seems to be slightly out of proportion to, you know, what his public image is, which is as a sort of, you know, bland managerial
Technical.
If the country wanted stability, what they would need to do is just keep voting for Keir Starmer's government, you know, in elections and by elections and in the polling But they're not. So if the public wants stability, ultimately it does go back to the public's political decision.
I mean they they keep voting for they keep voting for change. They they could keep doing it. And if the if you know, ultimately if Labour just had a great set of local elections, if they kept winning by elections, if they were polling at even thirty percent, none of this conversation would be happening. Like you know, I don't want to say it's the public's fault, but the public that
Public spoken.
The public is is part of this, right? So no there aren't enough people saying they want Keir Starmer to Stay on and be stable. For that to happen.
And do this. Right. I mean, is this Starmer or is it his government? Does the person who comes, let's imagine, after Starmer, have to stick to this legislative agenda that the king has just read out, or is all that ripped up?
all to be decided
We'll be back in just a moment.
🎵 Music
From a range of trusted voices and award-winning journalists.
Good morning, I'm Nick Ferrari. It's time to
Find out the latest news and hear every side of the story.
As I take responsibility. results. I also take responsibility for delivering the change that we promised.
Nah, he's still toast. He's just wasting our time now. The words of two in a growing list of Labour MPs whose patience with the Prime Minister has run dry. Is there anything he said or can say to make you want him to stay? Listen on our free.
LBC out. Conversation.
🎵 Music
¶ Farage's Undeclared Donation Inquiry
So in other news at Westminster this morning, because amazingly there is other stuff going on apart from uh Labour's psychodrama and it's that the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner has announced that he's launching an inquiry into whether uh the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, and Member of Parliament for Clacton, broke Commons rules by trousering
five million quid and not declaring it before he became an MP. I mean, what has the world come to where you can't even take a humble little five million quid gift and have to tell someone about it?
Yeah. It was just a personal donation.
You should personally donate.
Personal, you know. Just didn't notice it.
We all get given five.
We'll get given a little five million here, a little five million there. Farage has insisted uh this this is the this is from uh Christopher Harborn, you'll know by now, he's the Thai based cryptocurrency billionaire.
Can you use his proper tie name, please?
Um I really I bet you've got that, have you?
It's yes. People can go back and listen to the episode we did it a couple of prior.
that we did a good Yeah he has a tiny and he runs a a rather beautiful sort of spa or something, doesn't he?
Wellness retreat.
To make Nigel Farage feel better. Um and Farage I think has argued that this is basically for his personal protection. He has pointed out that a lot of people want to kill him or he thinks they want to h hurt him and that he's used this money for his security, right? He's used it for, I don't know, bodyguards or personal security or
security. And he does have personal security. Again, that would not prohibit you, presumably, if that was a great bona fide reason, from declaring it and saying, This is the money that I've been given and this is it going into the register. I guess um what this means if and it's only an investigation at the moment, but the committee does have the power to suspend Farage from the Commons
And potentially to prompt a recall petition in Clacton. What does that mean? It means if more than ten percent of the electorate in his constituency decide that they want to call a by election, then they vote. To recall, at which point Farage himself could then possibly sit a by election.
I think Clackton would be that favourable.
I found you a seat.
Yeah.
Not to worry. Um yeah, I mean and th that would happen if the Commons Authorities suspend him for more than ten days, then that does trigger um that uh p recall petition which is which could potentially lead to um that by election and and who knows. But so there's lots of sort of stages to to go before that. I mean the rules are are clear. The Commons Co Code of Conduct says that new MPs must register all their current financial interests.
and any registrable benefits other than earnings received in the twelve months before their election within one month of their election. the rules say that purely personal gift or benefits from family or commercial loans would not normally have to be registered. So reform have been sort of trying to hammer home that last bit, arguing that it is a purely
personal gift. But clearly for you know for the commissioners to take this up, like lots of stuff does get to refer to them. You know, it's a classic thing that, you know, opposition parties do or governing parties do if someone's
in the soup, as they used to say, then they would, you know, refer to someone and say, Hope you start a um investigation. Often the commissioner just discards it. So they must think I think we can, you know, safely infer that The Commissioner must think there is grounds to believe that he may have broken the rules to open this investigation.
I think we can see like five being in receipt of five million from a guy who has already given twelve million to your party in the year twenty twenty five alone and has promised to give more and gets a lot of his money from crypto, Thailand based guy, clearly for the People's Army, not an ideal look.
And a record nine million in a single political donation in August.
Some things.
Donation, I should say.
I mean uh rather than talking about what the rules are and whether they were broken or not, the politics of this as I see it playing out, is that Farage will play from the Trump handbook that it's people trying to gang up on me? And you know and there it's victimization and I am j just because I'm upsetting you this you can't beat the
Exactly.
So you can try and beat me through you know ru rule me out.
¶ Accountability and Political Transparency
What I love about this country is that we still believe in our system.
Yes.
And the rule. God, right? I love the fact that the parliamentary commissioner is actually calling this and not saying, Oh, I don't want to give him political
fire here or I don't wanna you know I mean that is not the reason to not do your job. Right? So, you know, let's just kind of thank God we still live in a democracy where these things are taken seriously. Even if there's nothing even if he's done nothing wrong Great that actually you have institutions that are respected and and carry on doing their job without intimidation or fear.
You know, look, Farage wants the attention. So does Zach Polanski and the Green Party want the attention. And yet when these things are thrown at them of over whether it's over a five million pound donation or not paying your council tax then they get really uppity and think, Oh God, why are you having a go? and this is just, you know, the s sort of establishment political parties having a go. No, you're being treated like serious players and you're gonna be held to account like serious players.
And we should say as well that we would not even have known about this five million from Chakrit Sakyuncrit.
That rolled off the top of the yeah.
Uh
Not quite so. Um, were it not for the work of Anna Isaac at the Guardian, who has been doing all the work on this. So, like, you know, this. We don't even know for sure. I mean I was asking them on uh various reform people on election night last week, like, is this all the money? Like is there is there other money? Is there are there other millions or either from from Mr Sacking Crit or from somebody else?
They couldn't say. And and you know, Farage's line has been throughout to say that, um, you know, this has all been used for security. And I said the same thing, well let's see the receipts, you know, just so the public can be absolutely assured that this is a pure
purely th of purely about security, oh you don't need to do it. You don't need we don't need to hear see that because we've given you our word that that's the case. Well if you're going in saying that trust in politics is broken, that we need to drain the swamp
you do need to provide a certain level of assurance that you're n not like everybody else. And this is genuinely not like everybody else, because I there is no other political figure on record that we can think of who has received such a large amount of money. from one single source, we've never seen one party so dependent on the largesse from one person. And at the same time, and obviously
They are saying there is no link between these things whatsoever. They've got twelve million from this crypto billionaire, and it just so happens to be that the Reform Party has the most pro crypto prospectus of any major party. And as well, Nigel Ferrar, before any of this was even known about the five million, goes on LBC talking to our colleague Nick Ferrari and it just trips off the tongue, Mr Harborne's
Um company and what he happens to be doing, saying that it's a great example of where Britain is being left behind by the crypto boom. Remarkable.
That's just coincidence. So cynical. We'll be back in a moment.
🎵 Music
¶ Trump's Interventions and Digital Rants
He seems to be on the brink.
Well my advice to him has always been, open up open up your oil in the North Sea. You got one of the great oil finds anywhere in the world and you're not using it. They're not allowed to use it. And it's one of the best in the world, among the best oils in the world. Open up your oil in the North Sea and get tough on immigration. Did he stay or go? Europe is being very, very hurt by immigration all over Europe.
Stay or go?
That's up to him. But I've told him from day one, you're getting killed on energy. You're windmilling your country to death. Open up the North Sea. You have one of the greatest sources of energy in the world.
Open up. Kia, you are windmilling our country to death. That is the one criticism that I don't think anyone else actually threw at him on Friday in those local election results. But that was Trump who has basically told Kirst Arma to open up North Sea oil. I guess a lot of people in this country would probably
back him, although ironically, in the King's speech, the one thing that Keires Darwin was absolutely adamant about was that ain't happening. So it does feel qu like a quiet two fingers up to the US President.
Well Donald Trump is now in uh China for his meeting with President Xi which is hugely important. But before he went he had a lot to get off his chest in a very short space of time. Fifty five truth social posts in the space of three hours. I'm gonna give you maybe eight minutes of them. ten fifteen PM accuses Obama of attempting a coup in twenty sixteen. ten fifteen PM. Says Obama worked with the CIA to overthrow Trump.
ten fifteen PM Repost tweets saying Obama is a traitor and that he should be arrested. ten twenty two PM Attacks Dominion voting systems for twenty twenty election saying they switch votes. ten twenty two PM says Fulton County, Georgia had their twenty twenty fraud exposed. There was none. twenty twenty ten twenty three accuses Obama of personally making one hundred and twenty million dollars from Obamacare. Don't know where that comes from. Ten twenty three PM.
Cites quack lawyer Sidney Powell on the twenty twenty election. ten twenty four PM posts fake JFK junior account that says Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. ten twenty seven PM demands Senator Mark Kelly resigned. And so it went on. What's going on inside that head?
There's an image I can't get out of my head now, which is like maybe he's just on the loo. You know?
Oh, Emily.
Talking about sort of teenagers taking their phones with them and how bad it is. I wonder whether Trump just kind of locks himself away and just kind of can't leave the phone away.
got lovely viewers and listeners they don't want to end this podcast listening and thinking
Yeah.
particular image. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye bye.
Bye for now.
This has been a Global Player original production.