Has racism been normalised in the immigration debate?

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And um huge levels of immigrants coming in I mean the the UK's being colonised. The UK's been colonised by immigrants really, isn't it? That is Jim Ratcliffe. He's the face of the Manchester United Board, describing the UK as colonized. Is he wrong? Is he racist? Or is he just deeply out of his debt? This follows a trend that we've seen from those at the top of politics and beyond.

To use language and terms and ideas that were once the preserve of the far right and the way that they spoke about immigration. Is that now in 2026 the new normal? Welcome to the newsagents. The news agent. It's Lewis. It's Emily. And as Emily was saying, this is Sir Jim Ratcliffe. He's a uh British billionaire industrialist. Funnily enough. Resident in Monaco, an immigrant there, founder of the chemicals giant Ineos, and a minority owner, major control over Manchester United.

He, as you heard there with Sky News Ed Conway, talking about how he thinks Britain economically is going wrong, and part of the story of that is that Britain has been colonized by immigrants, linking high levels of immigration to social and economic

strain. As I was saying there, we can talk about it a bit more. The language of colonization used to be the preserve of the far right when talking about immigration. It seems to have become more and more normal. Just tripping off the tongue there of Sir Jim.

in a rather casual way. It has this morning, as you might imagine, or this afternoon, sparked some outrage and condemnation. The Prime Minister's Keir Starmer has condemned it as offensive

and wrong. We've also heard Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, say this. These comments go against everything for which Manchester has traditionally stood, a place where people of all races Faith and none have pulled together over centuries to build our city and our institutions, including Manchester United, FC calling for curbs on levels of immigration is one thing. Portraying those who come here as a hostile invading force is quite another. It is inaccurate.

insulting, inflammatory, and should be withdrawn. So Jim has clarified or issued a sort of apology this afternoon, saying that he was sorry if some people were offended by it. Yeah, Jim Ratcliffe. For context. Is not just a billionaire but reckoned to be Britain's seventh richest man. But that didn't stop him in 2020 moving to a place where he could avoid paying it's estimated by the Justice Minister around four billion pounds.

of tax to the UK government. Obviously a much lower rate of tax from Monaco. Not too much then. No. So he he made a few savings being a Monaco resident. Did he colonize Monaco, do you think? It's a very good question, isn't it? Because I think to step back for one minute

To talk about immigration in numbers, which was how we kind of traditionally used to do it. We used to say, you know, this is what's happened, this has been the change. I mean, ironically, we could very well end up in a place where net migration is round about zero by the summer. But put that to one side for a moment. We have talked about immigration being high in numbers terms.

But to say colonize is the bit that really sticks in the crawl. Not only is it a right wing trope that suggests somehow that puppet masters are redesigning the the sort of native population of Britain to make it look like it's full of people that just pushed their way in here. But it's also A failure to recognise. With this country and the size of our colony.

They are here because we were there. Well these people always tell us that colonialism wasn't such a bad thing. Right. It's okay when we do it. Turns out turns out it's it's fine when we do it. It's fine, it's terrible. Just just make your mind up. But as Anyone who's written or or researched or looked at the sort of whole sort of construct and ideas around colonialism, Satnam Sangha n not least, I mean he's he's written Empire Land, s an extraordinary book about exactly this subject.

They are here because we were there. We went out. We had the biggest empire in the world. And so actually to then turn round and say, What are you all doing here? is kind of crazy. Yeah, the irony is just sorry, just r just briefly, the irony is, I mean if they read that book they would be reminded that the irony is they all tell us we should be much prouder of the British Empire. The British Empire was the biggest freedom of movement block.

that has ever existed. At one point, you know, about seven hundred and fifty million people had the right to come and work and live in the UK. Yeah. So here he is and instead of talking about it in a numbers term, he's using this

I think we can say very strongly racial language. And one of the questions before we came on air was, frankly, with our own team and our editors, trying to work out whether We were shocked by this or not and Part of me thinks actually I wasn't shocked. This has sort of become normalized language now. Normalized for billionaires not all billionaires I should add. Normalized for people who are sort of looking to Farage perhaps and reform to reshape the country.

But I do think I mean one of the loveliest ironies of this is that he's obviously, as I said, the face of Man United football team, which not only has an incredibly diverse fan base. in Manchester and further afield, an incredibly diverse player base. But is also one of the founders of Kick It Out, you know, this whole anti racism charity and campaign to kick racism out of football. And he has

A guy who's who's making his millions or spending his billions on an English football team who is importing, let's say, racism right to the heart of it again. And you're right, I mean we you know, we had that discussion because Yeah, frankly, the use of this sort of language, particularly from the radical right of politics reform, that has become commonplace.

But I think it is important that we kind of mark it and talk about it, particularly when it's coming out of the mouth of and as I say, quite casually I think, you know, just sort of tripping off the tongue. Of you know, such a senior British businessman and such an influential person. Because I do think it does tell you something about how widespread and normalised. that language and idea has has has become.

And we've seen this as part of a pattern. Let's just think about politics over the last five years or so. We've had a home secretary, Sula Bravman at the time, now in reform, talk about an invasion of our southern coast. We've had Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister's ethnicity as an Englishman, even as a Briton questioned because of his race.

We've also had A former Conservative Shadow Justice Secretary, now in reform, Robert Jenric, talking about going to Birmingham and it being a mark of a lack of integration and a form of displeasure not to be able to count a single white face. You know, this has a cumulative toll and it does move as we talk, as as you say, you know, the Overton window does shift on what sort of language is normal. And just to focus a little bit on why I think colonisation is a really, really problematic term.

It absolutely feeds into A long established trope. of the far right, which is the idea that it isn't just people who we're inviting in because that is ultimately what legal immigration at least, which is the vast majority of immigration is, we are, whether we should or not, we are inviting people and asking people and allowing people legally to come and do jobs in the UK or study in the UK or live in the UK or whatever it happens to be. That is an act of of power and agency.

This idea from the far right that actually what is going on is either an invasion or a colonization removes that agency. It removes that power. It suggests The immigration is something that is being done unto us, to us. Rather than something that we are elected to do. It suggests that a foreign power is taking and s control and settling in Britain and dominating

displacing or exploiting the indigenous population and imposing their culture and language on us. And there is someone for whom those ideas are absolutely synonymous. And is he not pal? That is exactly what Enoch Powell was writing and talking about in nineteen sixty eight in his Rivers of Blood Speech, which of course is so infamous within British politics. And those ideas which got Enoch Powell chucked out of the Conservative Party.

at that time are now, I would argue, pretty central to at least a core part of our politics, certainly on the right. And as we see from Jim Ratcliffe there,

are becoming, I think, normalised within certainly elite parts of British society and elsewhere. Well let's hear what Nigel Farage had to say when he was asked about them this morning. So Jim Ratcliffe, one of the richest Britons in the world, of course the boss of Ineos and now a major shareholder in Manchester United Football Club, has caused outrage by his comments. So what's he actually said? What he said that our population has gone up from fifty eight million to seventy million.

We don't need mass migration. He said much of the country had been colonized by immigrants. Now that word was a controversial word, and he said, okay, if you don't like the word, we'll tone it down. But just think about this. You ask yourself why public services have diminished. You ask yourself why rents have gone through the roof. The population explosion has done that. And then you look at parts of London, for example, where the road names, the underground signs, Aren't just in English.

They're in a foreign language as well. One million people living in this country don't speak any English at all. Four million people living in this country. barely speak passable English. And that's the point that he was making, that big areas of our towns and cities have been changed into something completely different to what they were. And that it's all making us poorer. And I don't really care.

If number ten is an uproar or if much of mainstream media find his comments too difficult. I believe firmly that Jim Ratcliffe is right. um a lot of what he thinks Jim Ratcliffe was saying because he's invented a lot of context which was never spelled out in the interview. But critically I think, Nigel Farage did not repeat that phrase. colonized. He turned it into something that he wanted to talk about instead. Jim Ratcliffe's own figures were

are wrong. I mean, let's just get that out. The Office for National Statistics, which I have to say, a lot of people are now checking and quoting. So if the worst that comes of this actually is that more people know the true stats rather than the Jim Ratcliffe stats, then that's not a bad thing. The Office of National Statistics, the ONS, estimates that the population was sixty seven million in twenty twenty, not fifty eight. In other words

It has crept up by about two. It's n we're now at about sixty nine, just south, just below seventy. So there has been an increase. Nobody's denying that. We can see the immigration figures, but it's not a correct number that he's using and the fact that Farage sort of commandeered what someone else had said didn't then use that phrase.

colonized because he recognises even Farage recognises that it is controversial, but turned it into something which is like the sort of I don't know, I'm gonna say the Every man's understanding of what's wrong with this country.

Which is the signs are in a different language. Really? Does that offend you? Do you hate signs in a different language? I have to say in vast majority of cases, I think there's uh in terms of the London Underground Network, we think there's one sign. Oh yeah. Right. Whitechapel. Whitechapel famously in another I mean I don't know how sort of

small your life is that you have to be f really, really angry about one sign having two languages on the other. He's not. We both know he's not. No arse. But to the point I guess now, which is that we've stopped

Talking about numbers. And that seems to me relevant. Or at least we've stopped talking about the correct numbers, we're still using the wrong numbers. We've stopped talking about numbers because somehow it is easier to make this case. that our economy has sunk. because of the colour of the people, because of the quality of the people, because of the culture of the people. Now, has Jim Ratcliffe got a point about

Our terrible economy. He has. You know, the figures came out this morning showing that we have barely grown. We've had I think point

1% in the last quarter, 1.3% overall, our economy is barely grown. It is the simplest thing in the world to blame immigrants for the fact that our economy is sinking. And there are so many other areas you can start to look, not least the failure to actually secure anything after Brexit that helped us make up for the full percent loss to GDP that that decision has cost us.

We could go on, I can go on, but it just seems to me so simple to turn around and say immigrants are costing you your jobs and we know Even economically, take the culture away from it. Economically that is not true. As ever with these things, um it's a v deeply reductive simplistic take. I mean for example, um, you know, we want to build more houses, we know for a fact we don't have sufficient

skills in the country right now to build the houses that we want, where we're gonna get'em, we'll have to get them from abroad. That creates some jobs, maybe it takes away from others. It's a complicated picture that we rarely have that discussion, something we've talked about before.

I think it is absolutely worth dwelling exactly as as you said, Emily, on the question of moving from numbers to culture. Because numbers is uh is a of course, you know First one to recognise and say, over the last few years, we always talk about the boats, but just thinking about legal migration, certainly the end of the last decade, start of of this decade, we had

Very high immigration numbers, historically high. You know, at one point net migration, you know, nudging up to a million in a year. I think it is entirely legitimate and right that people question that.

query that asked questions of the government at the time, of course it was the Conservative government at the time, and real questions about the capacity for Britain to absorb that rate of churn and change. And it is also true to say that it's perfectly legitimate as well to have a conversation about

integration and about whether some cultures or some people from certain countries are much worse at integrating than others and having that conversation. I don't think liberals or progressives or anything should be afraid of that conversation. It's perfectly That said

This obsession which is a a far right idea, which is that in a way the numbers don't matter. What matters is that there are some people who will never be assimilated, whose cultures will always be those people will always be incompatible with our own.

That takes you down a different route. And this focus on this question of colonization or invasion or whatever you happen to be, the reason it is damaging and the reason I think all mainstream politicians, including on the centre right, Should fight it is because it plays into some very dark impulses, which is immigrants aren't coming to join us, they're coming to replace us. And they're not coming to add to our society or even change our society slightly, they are coming to erase our society.

And that is something that we are seeing, a conversation we're seeing at the very top of politics on the radical right, including from the United States. and from MAGA, who themselves, in their own national security strategy, have talked about the idea of Europe facing civilizational Erasia. So this is all part of a much bigger picture of the politics of the Madical Radical Right and how they perceive what are, whether they like it or not, objectively, our ethnically diverse

Twenty first century societies. And that's why I guess to go back to the very first question I asked on this episode. My sense is that Ratcliffe is more than anything just out of his depth on this. I think he's a symptom of what we're talking about, rather than someone who's necessarily that. Yeah, what I would say is You're completely right. The numbers question is one we have the whole time. The integration question is a conversation we have the whole time.

But it's almost as if he has heard the kind of words like colonization in the ether and just sort of assume that that is now normal. And the question that we're really asking, I guess, is Is that because it is normal? Because these are part of a conversation that no longer stops people in their track and says, actually Don't fall for this. I think algorithmically for something. It is very normal.

is everywhere now. And I think politically, what this has done at the end of a very tumultuous week actually, is given Keir Starmer, bizarrely, a lifeline. It is an absolute life belt that he has been thrown to bring a very fractured party together. Now I have to say that is not I'm sure the primary reason that he came straight out the traps and condemned the remarks of Jim Ratcliffe.

But when you have been facing down your party, when you have been facing down a Scottish Labour leader who actually called for you to go, whether you have women in your party thinking that you're running essentially a Labour boys club or a Downing Street boys club, to be able Suddenly to find the one place on which the entire party was We'll be cohesive. I think will have been something of relief for Keir Starmer, for the Prime Minister.

And we're always talking about the fact that you don't often see that much sort of decisiveness. You don't you don't see that much ideology from the PM. You don't see that much instant response. This is somewhere where he absolutely knew what he wanted to say, very definitively, very clearly, very directly. He's managed to put what he thinks is racist language back in its place and in so doing enter parliamentary recession.

Well but this is this is I think the the challenge for, you know, more mainstream political forces on the centre left and centre right in terms of this endless debate. I mean you and I have talked about in the show endlessly at politicians over the years endlessly, which is You know, how do you calibrate it? That you are both Addressing

people's concerns and talking about it whilst not doing so in a way that potentially makes the problem worse. And that is a difficult thing to calibrate. I'm certainly not one of those people who think the best thing you can do is just sort of not talk about this at all and just say, actually it's about totally other questions. about the economy, it's about whatever. I don't think that's right. I think that mainstream forces have to address these cultural questions.

But I think the way you do it is precisely by drawing lines in the sand. And y you can absolutely be vehement about questions like this. When it comes to perfectly fine to have these conversations, when it comes to talking about colonisation, talking about invasion, talking about some of the themes that we heard Farage there, there is a real space, I think, an opportunity for politicians like Starmer and other mainstream politicians to appeal to what I think is actually

the mainstream common sense position of most of the British public, which is that they certainly want this to be controlled. They're unhappy with some of the numbers that we've seen in recent years. But I think that most people are not in that conspiratorial place yet.

when we're really talking about colonialism or reverse colonialism or whatever. And as you say Melanie In a way, and I think this is a challenge for Farage and another reason why they're not going to be talking about the numbers so much and focusing on the cultural questions. is as you say, net migration is coming down and is forecast to come down substantially by the end of the parliament. Who knows? As you say, it could be at sort of net zero. So then suddenly

Where's their song to sing? Because they can't talk about massive numbers anymore. So they have to start talking about the people who are already here and the idea that we've already been colonized and start talking about reimmigration or whatever. That's why they're starting to talk like this. Yeah, and I have a hunt. that more British people would say, I prefer people in this country, be they immigrants or not, who come and pay their taxes.

rather than billionaires who bugger off to Monaco and don't. But he's an expat, you see. He's not a migrant, he's an expat. It's very, very different. Very, very different. Very different. We'll be back just after this. party Kevin Beethoven back to the seat. Listen on our free. The LBC app. Leading Britain's conversation.

The news agents. So there has been so much news and the pace has been so fast with the Manlesson affair that one story that actually is a really big story has basically slipped down the headlines a little bit. But I think it's about to make a bit of a comeback, and that is the role of the cabinet secretary. And the cabinet secretary is the most

senior civil service in the country. They lead the civil service, they're one of the chief aides of the Prime Minister. They're basically the guy there always has been a man so far, might be about to change. Basically the man that the Prime Minister turns to

to try and get his agenda through the civil service and kind of the machinery of government. It's the person the Prime Minister meets when the newly elected Prime Minister goes through the front door of number 10. It's the Cabinet Secretary who is standing by the front door who says, Welcome, Prime Minister. And there was a new cabinet secretary about fourteen months ago, a guy called Chris Wormold. I reported on the show earlier this week. He has

been sacked, um, or at least he's been told that he is on the out. Keir Starmer apparently unhappy with him as cabinet secretary. And he was also, though, the man that was being asked to be in charge of the process of all of these files. Being released in relation to Peter Mandelson. There's been lots of speculation now, as part of this clear out of number ten, including the Cabinet Secretary, as to who might replace him and even this

Yet again appears to be falling foul of a vetting problem. That's right, because the woman in the frame for this job to replace him is called Antonia Romeo, and she has been one of the civil service real high flyers. She was at the Justice Department. She's currently working alongside Shabana Mahmoud in the home office and Kistarma is

said to have been very impressed with her handling of the small boats issue. In other words, the sort of questions that we were just talking about in the first half of this episode, bringing migration numbers down and bringing illegal migration under control, have been her remit in the last And last night there was a pretty expensive

Extraordinary intervention. As a man who was at one time her boss, he was head of the diplomatic service until 2020, permanent undersecretary of state at the FN. FCO. His name is Simon MacDonald and Lord MacDonald, we should say. He gave an interview to Channel 4 News where he basically suggested that he had warned number 10, Keir Starmer, about

Antonia Romeo. Just have a listen. Due diligence is vitally important. The Prime Minister has recent bitter experience of doing the due diligence too late. it would be an unnecessary tragedy to repeat that mistake. I mean th they are saying that she's already been approved uh as as suitable for this job, so why do any more uh process? I repeat the due diligence needs to be thorough.

Uh if the candidate mentioned in the media is the one, in my view, the due diligence has some way still to go. Uh well th I mean th that takes me to the the fact that sh she was investigated. Um When she was working for the Foreign Office, when you were running the Foreign Office. Are you saying they need to go back to that process? I would prefer to go into detail with the team in number ten rather than your viewership, but yes.

Just to kind of break this down for you, he's essentially saying I've been trying to warn Downing Street, I've been trying to warn Keir Starmer not to hire this woman and they've been ignoring me. Now, we should try and give you some background to this, which was that about a decade ago, she was being investigated for questions of behavior of bullying at one stage. She was cleared by the Cabinet Office.

But she was investigated by the Foreign Office. Since then, as I say, she's done a lot of high-profile jobs. She's worked at the Justice Department. In fact, by some reports, She was fairly instrumental in alerting people to Dominic Raab's behaviour. Uh when he was her boss there, he was the justice secretary that was fired essentially or resigned over bullying allegations. And this Foreign Office Mandarin, Simon MacDonald, is absolutely right.

On the surface of things, to say due diligence is vital, right? I think if there's one thing at the end of this very confusing week we can all agree, it's that. It's better to vet people properly before you appoint them. It would have been better to understand the email chain between Mandelson and Epstein before you appointed him.

It would have been better to understand the relationship that Matthew Doyle had with somebody who has now pled guilty to paedophilia before you appointed him to the Lords. All these things are true. And yet I guess we are opening up this space. Where it looks as if this whole idea of vetting can be used to cancel, suggest, and the same.

Insinuate people who have actually already been cleared by procedures and have very senior jobs already. And I do think there's a danger here that that kind of intervention looks quite dinosaur and quite wrong footed in an era where, for understandable reasons, The Prime Minister is trying to clear out some of the old stuff, is trying to get A sort of new look and a new feel is trying to get

Frankly, more women around him. I mean look, it is an absolutely extraordinary intervention, the McDonald intervention. I don't think anyone can quite remember anything like it when you have a Well they can, because he was the one who called on Boris Johnson to go. I mean at that time it worked. Yes, although what I mean is that was a civil servant talking about a politician, right? So to have such a senior former Mandarin, sort of member of the civil service class.

Go on the airwaves basically saying, I want to get involved in this job appointment process is very, very odd. You know, the tension I think within government about it is running very hot. There's also been an absolutely blistering government source quote with them hitting back saying this is a desperate attempt. From a senior male official whose time has passed.

But spent their career getting Britain into the mess it finds itself today. This is from a government source quoted in the Times. A computer says no culture. that cannot challenge the status quo. Antonia is a disruptor. She isn't settled with the status quo. She's one of the few senior officials that has always fought against a computer says no culture embedded in the British state. This is the sort of language which

Conservatives at that time were talking about officials and the machinery of the state. And I have to say, I do think I've talked to a few Labour people about this. this morning, I think they absolutely do see it that way. One of the stories of the last 18 months has been a real, I wouldn't quite say poisoning, but certainly a real deterioration of relations.

And Labour. You know, you think about when Labour came in and they were talking about, you know, we're wanting to work with the civil service, you we're gonna have your backs unlike the last lot. One of the things, if you talk to Labour spad. One of the things they'll often say to you quietly, gingerly under their breath is, Dominic Cummings wasn't wrong about everything, and he wasn't wrong about the way the state works.

And we heard Keir Starmer say it aloud. You remember he talked about too many civil servants being happy in the kind of tepid bath water of decline? And there is a feeling that machinery of the civil service doesn't work. There is a feeling that MacDonald kind of embodies that. and embodies the kind of desires and the kind of ease of the civil service class and they do want

to have someone go in and disrupt it. And the reason they're unhappy with Wormold is because Labour say that you need to have sort of shop therapy for the British state, but they appointed Wormold, who many people will say kind of embodied a lot of the worst tendencies of the civil service class. That's the way they talk about him anyway. So that's the kind of tension which is going on behind the scenes. I was very curious when I heard that last night, the interview go out and

I tried to get a sense of where this is coming from. I I ran it past a couple of sort of fairly high profile Labour women. And one of them said very frankly, I can't say he's wrong'cause what do I know? other than there have been processes that were all followed, she's already had the highest vetting possible and I've seen people being openly hostile and misogynistic towards her. If I had to state my life, I'd say this is a hymn problem.

Now I don't want to be part of a coterie of people who automatically believes that all the men are guilty and all the women are absolutely fine,'cause I don't think that

forwards the discussion in any shape or form. But I do think this takes us once again to the heart of something that we've sort of come close to, which is the whole idea of a boys club and it's very hard to define because it is not open misogyny quite often and it is not sexism in the same way that we sort of think of sexism playing out, you know, in sort of earlier decades. It's something that is exclusionary without ever being entirely spoken out loud. It's that sense that you're in the room

But you're not really in the room. You're part of the discussion, but your words aren't really going in. And I would say that Antonia Romeo is not like that. She's really, you know, ballsy. She's quite direct. She's very frank about what she says and what she thinks. She will be if she is next to Keir Starmer in this role, she will be outspoken and she will be in his ear and she will make no bones about what she tells him. And I wonder whether it is just part of this whole question of like

Do we let them in or do we keep them out? Do we let them in or do we keep them out? Because there is still this culture where you can point to a room you can say, Oh look it's half and half. Look at the cabinet. Lots of women, lots of men, look at the room, lots of women, lots of men. But it's who is actually speaking, who's actually being listened to, who's actually being taken seriously. And that's why I think there's still a lot of women who think

Yeah, don't end up in your sort of football metaphors and your fighting metaphors and your trenches metaphors. Like just do something that stops it being a boys' club. It's tricky though, isn't it?

Dominic Raab lost his job because of bullying, because that was considered to be you know, it's a breach of the ministerial code. Now I you know, we don't know what happened with Antonio Romero, so I'm not you know, I don't think it's right for us to sort of speculate in that way. But but for example, I suppose if theoretically there were a candidate for

the permanent secretary job, and there had been an example of of bullying. And of course it all depends on how serious it was and so on. But if it's disqualifying for Rob Ought it not be disqualifying for that person? I don't know. You're absolutely right, but to go back, the reason Raab left was because the report found against him and he had already offered to resign if it found against him. In this case

She has been vetted like she's already working at the home office. You know, if she can work at the home office why can't she work in Downing Street? If she's been vetted and it was ten years ago. and nobody's found anything substantial then why are we starting to do that. I And I think you can hide a lot behind this idea of vetting. You know, get your vetting right when you need to vet people. But don't re vet people just because

Well yes, and I that's why I do think this particular intervention is is weird. And I would just say as well is that I think that I think like I say, I think that there is A strong case. McDonald said there, oh you had cabinet secretaries who serve many prime ministers, and that was historically the norm. I think things are changing and have changed.

I think that i there is a widespread actual consensus from left to right actually that the machinery of the state in Britain today is not fit for purpose. Somebody needs to break something, in other words. I am so struck. You know, I I've spoken, you know, over the years to conservative spads, Labour spads, conservative politicians, Labour politicians, and I'm very struck that there is such a similarity, consensus in how they talk about their ministerial experience.

They'll often say and the you know sensebourns will say, Yeah, you know, there are some brilliant civil servants, we are supportive, but I'm really struck as well if you talk to politicians, particularly Labour politicians, who were in the last Labour government and have come back. They all again say a similar thing which is they feel the state The British state has been hollowed out. It's not as agile as it was. The people aren't as good as they were.

the quality of the advice they get and the people in those jobs isn't as good as they were. And I'm struck by the number of people who will say, again it's a Cummings idea but basically agree with it, which was, you know,

that you could halve the civil service but double the salaries, then you'd have better results because you would have a situation where you're getting better people for longer and you'd have better outcomes in terms of policy. You know what they do in France? It's really interesting. The civil servants work on essentially one area of expertise their entire life. So if you want to build a a a fast track train

You get the civil servants who know exactly how to build a fast track train, and that is what they they know. They're not sort of actually shuffled around as much. They are allowed to sort of Sit there and learn and expand on a brief. What sort of beds in I guess expertise?

fast stream salary I should say, um, which is the the you know, the supposed to be the brightest and the best getting the civil servants in. It's barely moved in a decade. You know, it's it's symptomatic of that. And so I think that there is look Whatever Romeo's other problems that she may have had, who knows? I think the feeling within Labour is that she if she is a

Disruptor and someone that can really help with the reform of the state which needs to happen. Whoever it is, whether it's her or someone else, that is the sort of figure that you need at the top of the civil service, whoever is Prime Minister. We'll be back in a moment.

The news agents. There are lots of people that speak to me all the time and they praise me and they've got things to say and I just don't i I have embedded it so deeply that This is my fault. This is this was my fault. I behaved inappropriately. I did the wrong thing. And this is my fault and I genuinely believe that I will believe that till the day that I die. I I'm gonna say it a million times that it isn't I'm gonna tell women it isn't their fault.

But everything about us, the w not the things we say, the way that we behave speaks to victims. So you know right now Epstein victims, our fired victims. They are watching what we do. They're not listening to what we say. And what we're doing is we're taking their story and their bravery.

And we're using it to get rid of Morgan McSweeney, to tell a story about men, to ask questions about who knew who, who knew what and what parliamentary method can we use to to blame the government. It's right the governments are held to account. Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd.

I think it'd be really beneficial for the government. That is Natalie Fleet. She is the Labour MP for Bolsover. She's been the MP there since twenty twenty four. Speaking to me for Friday's episode. About the last couple of weeks that the Labour Party has experienced, that the country has experienced, with Epstein, the Mandelson affair, Morgan McSweeney, and so on.

And as you can hear in her voice there, she is deeply, deeply passionate and moving about the experiences of victims, not just Epstein's victims, but other victims of sexual abuse as well. Not least because as she will tell us uh in that interview, she herself was a victim at the age of fifteen of grooming, as a result of which she had her now twenty five year old daughter. I think those words will resonate with so many women who have

listen to the conversation that we've been having for the last two weeks. I don't mean we, I mean the nation. and listen to how we've sort of managed to turn it into a Is Keir Starmer fit to be Prime Minister and just gone What the fuck? Like, how did that become the central issue when the Epstein files dropped? How did that ever become the actual question that we managed to put to ourselves? sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n What it is like to be raped.

I mean, I'm not even gonna colour that. What it is like to feel shame that is not hers, that should never have been hers, what it is like to carry round this ridiculously misplaced guilt. that so many victims live the rest of their lives with. And somehow we've turned it into a conversation about whether we like the policies or the politics of our leaders. And I do think that that asks a really important question, which is, of course,

We have to look at who has protected who. We have to look at who has promoted who. Should Mandelson have ever been given the job? Of course he shouldn't. I think plenty of people recognise that. Should Kirstama have been a little bit more diligent with how he interviewed and how he asked and how curious or lacking in curiosity he was, of course. But somehow I do think it asks a bigger question, which is

causes their own dislikes, their own issues. Their own ends, right, to the question of whether Keir Starmer is fit to be Prime Minister because Yeah, it's not great. I mean, it's not great to promote the friend of a Piedaver. Both times. It is not great to be someone curious that you're not asking the right questions. It is not great.

to essentially allow the wrong people to dominate these extraordinary places in our public life. But please let's not make it about our own ends all the time, if you didn't like the guy anyway. Like something I thought about a lot this last couple of weeks is like how much attention

like we in the the media, the press, our political culture, we place so much emphasis on symbolism. This whole debate this last couple weeks has been well he was a friend of this person and he continued to be a friend

even though he knew what he knew, which is bad and like it's a moral failing and that is clearly bad. But like I suppose what Natalie's saying in this episode tomorrow, and I think what you're saying there, Emily, is like if we reserve that same level of outrage for the realities, right, for for the fact Of what these people experience of our justice system, which is completely, you know, for want of a better expression, just completely screwed, right? It's completely

fails victims of sexual violence literally day after day, week after week. If there was that same level of complete indignation on the front pages, then we'd probably be in a better place, right? Exactly. You do need a grading system. Somebody who's committed torture against women. is a lot lot worse. Than being the friend of a friend of a pedo. Yeah. Or somebody who didn't realise that they had continued a friendship with a pedo until after that.

And if we are putting everyone in the same bucket, which is you're all as bad as each other, you're all the same, you've all got the snouts and the trough all the rest of it. I think we're failing everyone because we're we're not even discriminating between real crimes.

And what I will call sort of adjacent crimes. And that is a that is a bizarre place for us to end up. Yeah, or just tolerating a criminal justice system which allows pedos to get away with what they do for year after year. Um that full episode, that full conversation with Natal Natalie Fleet will be available

On Friday you'll be able to watch it on YouTube and of course listen to it as always. Looking forward. We'll see you then. Bye bye tomorrow. Bye. This has been a Global Player Original Production.