What the Hell just happened at MAGA-con?

Make their holiday unforgettable with a gift that says it all from Pandora Jewelry. A gift that tells a story and shows you know theirs. That doesn't just sparkle, but speaks. From new festive charms to forever rings and personal engravings. This season, give a gift that's perfectly theirs.

Whether you're shopping for a shiny surprise for your significant other, matching bracelets to celebrate your friendship, or a heartfelt gift for a family member, say more this holiday season with Pandora. Shop now at pandora.net or visit your closest Pandora store.

This is a Global Player original podcast. Unlike the left, we stand against treating anybody, and I love what Nicky said about this. We don't treat anybody different because of their race or their sex. So we have relegated DEI to the dustbin of history, which is exactly where it belongs. In the United States of America, you don't have to apologize for being white anymore. That is J.D. Vance at Turning Point USA.

The right wing grouping of people who are summer white supremacists, others are anti-Semites. And J.D. Vance doesn't have a bad word to say about any of them. It was an extraordinary, remarkable weekend of speeches of internecine warfare, gripping right-wing influencers and politicians who are the top tier of the MAGA movement. Are we seeing in real time the implosion of that movement, gripped by the racism and the conspiracy they themselves created? Welcome to the News Agents.

It's John. It's Lewis. And Turning Point USA is the movement that was sort of created by Charlie Kirk, who you'll remember was murdered, assassinated as he was addressing a rally. three or so months ago. And the movement hasn't gone away. The movement still attracts tens of thousands of supporters. But the unity of the movement has completely evaporated.

And so for years, you've had this right wing cluster of people who've been turning their fire on Democrats, on Republicans in name only, on liberals, on woke America. And now. They're turning their fire on each other. They were eating the enemy and now they're eating each other.

yes this was an absolutely remarkable event and all the more remarkable obviously because it was taking place in the wake of kirk's assassination and you can see in a way actually how important kirk was to the magov movement because what has been clear actually since his assassination is that

That murder has destabilised the movement. And he was someone who basically kept this central fissure under some control. And the central fissure basically is this. How big is this movement? How big is it allowed to be? And what can you? And cannot you say in this movement, if you're indeed not allowed to say, indeed, if there are any limits at all. And that is basically it. What we have been seeing, particularly since Kirk's murder, but really before that, is basically the Overton window.

of what is acceptable in mega politics apparently getting bigger and bigger and bigger and previous figures

Like Nick Fuentes, who is a Nazi, he's a neo-Nazi, he's a far-right figure, he's someone who talks about how much he admires Hitler and how cool Hitler was, for example. He talks in openly anti-Semitic terms about... The fact that Jews are unassimilable within society and that they create all sorts of problems in society. Old-fashioned, unreconstituted, right-wing anti-Semitism that would have been perfectly at home in Hitler's Germany. Figures like him...

The argument is, within MAGA, the argument is about whether people like him and others should be allowed in this movement and whether they should be legitimised as having voices and credible and legitimate voices within the movement itself. That is the argument which is...

being MAGA right now. And we saw play out over the course of the weekend. Well, it's worth just having a listen to what JD Vance has to say about that, because here is JD Vance, the vice president of the United States of America, going to this conference. And kind of you would think there would be lines where you say, I'm sorry, that is beyond the pale. We're not a neo-Nazi party where we accept talk that Hitler is cool. Instead of which, J.D. Vance...

seems perfectly relaxed that all these views should be part of the right-wing tent. When I say that I'm going to fight alongside of you, I mean all of you, each and every one. President Trump... did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless self-defeating purity tests. He says, make America great again because every American is invited. So there you have JD Vance, yeah.

If you want to be a neo-fascist, if you want to be an anti-Semite, if you think Hitler is cool, there's a place for you here in our movement. Which, of course, presumably means that the tent... is fine for them but if you're jewish or you're someone who is perhaps a victim of white supremacism

Probably you don't feel so welcome in that Big Ten. After all, the Big Ten ain't so big. And that's where you get other people who have weighed into this debate, other far-right influencers like Ben Shapiro, who is an Orthodox Jew, who feels that the movement... has absolutely lost any sense of moral purpose if it is allowing people like this to get a foothold. And he has turned his fire not only on the Nick Fuentes of this world.

But the Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News presenter, hugely influential on the right, who did an interview with Fuentes, which was kind of noticeable for just how soft. and warm and affectionate and unquestioning it was. And this Ben Shapiro took aim at when he spoke at Turning Point this weekend. Because today the Conservative movement is in serious danger.

It is in danger, not just from a left that all too frequently excuses everything up to and including murder. The conservative movement is also in danger from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle. but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty, who offer nothing but bile and despair, who seek to undermine fundamental principles of conservatism by championing enervation and grievance.

These people are frauds and they are grifters and they do not deserve your time. And they are something worse than that. A danger to the only movement capable of stopping the left from wrecking the country wholesale.

Again, you can hear the fissure basically being demonstrated. And he didn't mention her there, but one of the people that Shapiro has in mind is Candace Owens, a very, very influential podcaster and creator within the kind of MAGA movement historically. And she's been widely accused of anti-Semitism.

Semitism, just like Fuentes. She's also, and this is another way in which, in a way that I think was completely unpredictable, The other way in which Charlie Kirk's murder has destabilised this movement is that his murder itself is now the subject of a conspiracy, with some, like Owens and others, basically suggesting that he's been taken out by people within MAGA or people within...

a wider sort of conservative movement and goodness knows who else because for whatever sort of political reasons you know there might be there in so this well you got the impression watching this this weekend, is this is a movement devouring itself, consuming itself, uncertain of its own future. Vance clearly still trying to sort of stand atop of it and try and straddle both sides, which are...

increasingly sort of turning away from each other. But I think, John, this was perhaps always inevitable, and inevitable in particular once it became clearer that the Trump era is sort of receding. into, I mean, he's only just one year into the term, but nonetheless, people are already thinking about 2028. When the Republicans and the MAGA start thinking about asking, what's next?

it was perhaps always inevitable that this sort of inter-Nissan warfare would take place because the politics on which it was always predicated were highly unstable. And I mean that in two ways.

One, a predilection towards conspiracy. And in the end, conspiracy theorists always turn on themselves and always come to believe that you yourself or the people around you are somehow embedded in an even bigger conspiracy. So that's number one. Number two is this. It was also a movement that was predicated on the idea of almost constant shock. It was...

predicated on the idea that some people are trying to tell you not to say things, that some thoughts are forbidden, that there are things that you cannot say, and so on. And what they have very successfully done... is against liberals and liberalism they have managed to reclaim many of the things that people had once said

you couldn't say or you couldn't think. But the problem is with that, it's kind of like constantly looking for the hit of that first drink, isn't it? You know, you kind of start to run out and you exhaust. You move the Overton window along and suddenly you can say things you couldn't say before. And then what's left? What's left is...

Real, real extreme stuff. It's not just talking about saying that, you know, I don't believe in structural racism and you can't tell me I should. It's starting to believe and say black people are racially inferior. They're stupid. Jews are trying to dismantle Western society, so on and so on and so forth. So basically what they have done, this movement, is engage upon a long period of self-radicalisation. And what is left...

are the nitfluences of the world, neo-Nazis of the world, and things that are not just, you know, that you shouldn't say, but are genuinely, profoundly extreme. But this is what I find surprising, that... J.D. Vance hasn't used the opportunity. Let's face it, Vance is a serious contender to succeed Trump as the head of the MAGA movement. And indeed, this weekend, got the imprimatur from Erica Kirk, the widow.

of the slain Charlie Kirk, who should be the kind of Republican standard bearer for 2028. And if you go back to the Trump first term and when he was being asked about, you know, challenged by Biden about support. from the Proud Boys or QAnon. And Trump would just say, well, I don't I just don't know much about them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they seem to like me. QAnon, I think they stand for family values and ignoring all the rest of it. And Trump knew.

that there was potential hazard in being seen to be too close to the Proud Boys or QAnon. Whereas JD Vance turns up at Turning Point this weekend and says, everybody is welcome. Everyone, we're not going to do purity tests on anyone. And you think that is really risky because wherever else America is and, you know, sure, MAGA has a 35 percent solid hold on American public opinion.

I'm not sure that the Nick Fuentes wing and that absolute far right, as you say, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant has that support. And I think it puts J.D. Vance right on the outer edge. of us politics by going there but this is what i mean when i say this is a movement which is self-radicalizing and is doing so at pace because you know if you go back only to 2024 vance disavowed fuentes during the election campaign he's told cbs that he was a total loser

had no place in Trump's coalition during the 2024 campaign. He played Dan Fuentes' influence in a blog interview published on Sunday while bluntly criticising anti-Semitism, ethnic hatred and attacks on his wife.

The movement from 2024 to 2025, where Vance is saying in 2024, you've got no place in this coalition, but in 2025 just says, I'm not going to start to impose purity tests on people, not just about fluences, but about others, shows that this is a movement which is... terms of what is ideologically acceptable it's not just moving but it's galloping and i think that in the end this sort of shows why some of the arguments that were made

you know, in the 2000s and so on, about political correctness and about then wokeism and so on. There's no doubt I think there was overreach during the woke period, for sure, from liberals, from a particularly kind of like academic way, structuralist way of looking at the world. There was too much sense.

and too much policing of what could be said and what could be thought. But there was always a kernel of... truth about that idea and the desirability of that idea because sometimes these things are like pandora's box you open it and you do not know and cannot control where it goes and you start with sort of saying yeah we should be able to say this or yeah this racial slur doesn't

mean so much oh yeah this ethnic slur doesn't mean so much oh yeah this sexist slur doesn't mean so much just a joke whatever it happens to be and on and on it goes that energy is released and in the end these people as i say they're like a drug addict looking for their next hit what can we say next but also when

everything becomes completely within the bounds of acceptability which is basically where this movement has got up to it is hard to exclude it is hard to draw a line and say okay we'll have this but not you. And that was always the argument. Whenever some of these people said we shouldn't have limits on free speech and we shouldn't be putting limits on who we're platforming and so on, the actual response should have been always, really?

There are no limits at all because this is a logic saying the answer to that question of saying there are no limits leads you directly. inexorably, inevitably, to the Fuentes of this world. Because then you're just saying, he's just a guy with ideas. Shouldn't we debate those ideas? No, there have to be limits. They are discovering, MAGA are discovering the cost.

of no limits there is another phrase that has come out of turning point usa which i hadn't seen much before i mean maybe i'd seen it once or twice but took no notice of it and that is the talk of heritage americans yes what what heritage americans Oh, I see. Oh, Heritage America. What you're saying is...

A white American. So someone who has no Asian blood, no African blood or whatever it happens to be. Because that sort of thinking hasn't got a dark pedigree or past in American history, has it? No, exactly. And so the idea that this is now taking hold. that you can talk kind of warmly of heritage Americans having more rights in America than others who've come more recently is really dangerous stuff.

And really toxic. And it took Vivek Ramaswamy, who was one of the Republican hopefuls last time round for the Republican nomination to be president. and who's still got political ambitions in the Republican Party and hopes to become governor of Ohio, saying, guys, enough of this. There's a different vision of American identity that's emergent in certain corridors of the online right. And it says that your identity as an American is based on your lineage.

That how long you have been in the country, your lineage and your genetics tied to the blood and soil of the country determines how American you are. It is the idea of a heritage American. This is the truest form of an American. is somebody who is a descendant of the American Revolution period or before. And I will tell you, this idea of the heritage American, we ought to have this discussion. It's becoming more popular. I think the idea of a heritage American...

is about as loony as anything the woke left has actually put up. There is no American who is more American than somebody else. The American quality, it's not like the left, they believe in this non-binary stuff. There's no non-binary American. It is binary. Either you're an American or you're not. And you think about it, I could prove this to you. Thank you. I'll take some applause on that.

If you really believe in this idea, think about where it leads you. It leads you to believe that Donald Trump is less of an American than Joe Biden because Donald Trump's mother was an immigrant and his grandfather was an immigrant. That doesn't make any sense. leads you to believe that somehow Bernie Sanders is more of an American than Senator Bernie Moreno from my home state, an America first patriot, because Bernie Moreno was a naturalized citizen from Colombia.

I mean, that's all great stuff. I'm fine. I mean, lots of people... Struggling to get a lot of applause there. Yeah, I'm sure lots of people listening myself included would agree, you know, with the principles of what he's saying. Problem is...

These MAGA types now, like Vivek and others, suddenly getting up on these conferences and going, guys, guys, no, no, don't think that. They are like arsonists, suddenly worried about all their furniture getting burned down in the house. And that is what they've done because they have allowed a school of thought, schools of thought, to envelop American.

which, once they have been unleashed, cannot easily be contained again. And it's happening right now, even happening at the conference. I mean, Vance, at the conference, continued to target Somali-Americans after weeks of Trump insulting Somali-Americans from...

the White House itself. Vance said that Omar Fateh, a Minnesota state senator of Somalian descent, joking, had previously run for mayor of Mogadishu. Oh, I mean Minneapolis, Vance said, because he's got a large population there. And in the meantime... What are the Democrats offering you in the meantime? I got to say, ladies and gentlemen, they are not sending their best. Omar Fatay was Ilian Omar's candidate for mayor of Mogadishu. I mean Minneapolis. Little Freudian slip there.

That from the vice president of the United States, that gag is basically going, oh, we know he's not real American, don't we? He's from Somalia. You know, and they have indulged in this sort of thing time and time and time again. You know, this is an administration which is currently trying to basically disapply and disavow the force.

which says that anybody born in the United States is an American citizen. And on and on and on it goes. So they have started something that I think even the MAGA movement might have cause to regret. And it's such... a journey away from the kind of foundations of America which was built by

foreigners which was built by norwegians setting up farmlands in north dakota and minnesota and places like that and all the others who've come to this country and helped enrich it well there is that vision of america the shining city on a hill right which is the america i think many of us the empire of liberty you know would have resonance with but actually in a way with their talk about heritage americans they're actually invoking a darker

deeper past which also exists and sits co-exists with the vision that you just outlined which of course goes back to the foundation the idea that slaves with slaves represented three-fifths of a person all of those grubby moral little compromises which go back to the foundation of the country that is what they're invoking that deep

dark strain within american politics the american psyche and it is scary and this is the battle that is taking place now as donald trump's grip and total grip on the maga movement slips and people start to look beyond it honestly i think that there is no majority in an election for views like this accepting how much america has moved over the past few years this is way out there and i do not believe

is the beating heart of most Americans. And how extraordinary, John. I think what they're doing as well, potentially, and Vance is going to aid in a bet in this, although he's doing it for narrow political reasons to get the nomination, but they could be handing the Democrats an absolute salvation here.

What happened during the election, the thing that scared the Democrats more than anything else, it was the Democrats for years and decades have been wanting to construct a true multiracial... working-class coalition you know got the closest to it in some ways from certainly in recent years donald trump he genuinely the 2024 election much so much more so than he did in 2016 or even 2020 in 2024 he genuinely constructed a working-class multi-ethnic coalition voter base

This could all be thrown away. There was all that talk about Margarism evolving to build on that success. That could all be thrown away with the nativism and the ethno-nationalism that we are seeing. on full display now within the MAGA movement. And as you say, John, it feels to me that even Trump probably can't control at this point now. And in a moment, we'll be back with a question I think in 2026 will be raised again and again. It is Kirstama. the future, and what's Wes streeting up to.

News you can trust and the conversations that matter. With award-winning journalists at the heart of the stories from the UK and around the world. Breaking news here in Edinburgh. I'm Simon Marks. My American Week is next. Reporting from the heart of Cardiff. Today's story affects your life. Listen on our free global player app or the new LBC app. LBC leading Britain's conversation. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture Research with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Hey Bowen, it's gift season! Ugh, stressing me out. Why are the people I love so hard to shop for? Probably because they only make boring gift guides that are totally uninspired. Except for the guide we made in partnership with Marshalls, where premium gifts meet incredible value.

It's giving gifts! With categories like best gifts for the mom whose idea of a sensible walking shoe is a stiletto. Or best gifts for me that were so thoughtful I really shouldn't have. Check out the guide on marshalls.com. And gift the good stuff. at Marshalls.

Politics, you know, Lewis, is always full of gossip. It's always full of ambition. History is littered with people who had ambitions for the top job. But the reality is we've got a prime minister with a huge parliamentary majority, a big vision for the country and a huge...

challenge and program of change to deliver which we really want to see and feel in the days and weeks ahead. Wes Streeting is on manoeuvres isn't he? Have you seen the front cover of the the front page of the Observer this morning? Yeah, of course I've seen that. Wes is a good friend of mine and Wes is a very talented guy and he's doing great stuff in the NHS. Should he wind his neck in a little bit?

Well, look, the prime minister is a confident prime minister who knows that he's got lots of talent in the cabinet around him. And I don't think he has a problem at all with people coming out. Is that why he's being briefed against him?

Well, the prime minister wasn't aware of that. And I know that when he looks around the cabinet table, he sees the team that he's chosen, that he's handpicked, who are working with him and he's working with them on their agenda and their focus on delivering for the NHS. The Prime Minister is not irritated by these interviews that we're streeting and others are giving.

I think the Prime Minister is totally focused on delivering for the people who've elected. So that was the Labour Party chair, Anna Turley, speaking to me on my LBC Sunday show yesterday, referring to, or me asking her about... Comments from West Street and the Health Secretary, who remarkably enough, just before Christmas, has squeaked in a front page appearance.

on The Observer on Sunday, doing a very, very nice, almost Bowdoin catalogue-esque kind of walk through the woods, I think, in his constituency, where I think it's fair to say, as always with West Street these days, it was a wide-ranging interview string.

quite far beyond his brief, where he said, among other things, he hinted at the idea that he would be in favour of some new customs relationship with the EU, a customs union, the customs union, whatever. But he said, I'm really uncomfortable with the level of taxation in this country.

We're asking a lot of individual taxpayers. We're asking a lot from businesses. We've got a level of indebtedness that we take very seriously. The best way for us to get more growth into our economy is a deeper trading relationship with the EU, which, given the same interview, he rules out freedom of movement, which should take out...

single market has led many people to conclude that on some level he would be in favour of a new customs union. And I guess what makes it remarkable is, you know, and the news agents has a little role to play here. As always. Always. Not that we think a lot of ourselves.

David Lammy the other week where that hair started to run you know that Britain would be better off if it was in some kind of customs union and he was firmly slapped down by number 10 where they said this is not government policy to rejoin the customs union that having happened for west streeting then to resuscitate it as an idea does look like well one

i think is a good idea and two i couldn't give much of a what number 10 is saying on this and therefore you know i've got bigger fish to fry and i don't care and i i think that this is the kind of you know i'm i know we can spend too much time divining what is happening and what is going on at the top of the Labour Party and whether plots are afoot to remove Keir Starmer. But you'd have to say that it does look increasingly...

that West Streeting is on manoeuvres and I'm sure would say, no, no, Keir Starmer's here to stay. But he's just thinking, in case he's not. I probably need to be doing a little bit of positioning of myself. You're completely right, John. I mean, this is clearly Streeting's ongoing attempt to firm out his support within the Labour movement, which he... knows and i think this is going to be a bigger and bigger issue in 2026 i think the gravity

back towards the EU is strong within the Labour Party now. Not least because, I mean, polling has come out which shows that around 70% of Labour supporters, 80% of Labour supporters actually, and 70% with other parties, think that the PM should be open to talks on rejoining. the eu and more than 80 are in favor of labor supporters of a customers union right so the the politics of

The Labour Party is such that closer EU integration is still widely popular. I think what this adverts to as well is actually basically a debate within the Labour Party, which has been raging since the 2019 election, arguably actually even before that with the Brexit referendum. which will of course be 10 years old next year. The Labour Party has oscillated, flipped, between basically saying in that time, the majority of our voters are Remainers, and therefore...

We need to remember that. And as Streeting says in this article, we can't out reform reform. That held quite some sway. It was basically prosecuted by Keir Starmer, among others, when he was in Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet. He was instrumental in basically making sure a Brexit deal with Theresa May did not take place, despite the fact that Jeremy Corbyn and those around him wanted that to happen. The other vision has been the Morgan McSweeney...

vision which has basically prevailed under starmer as leader which has been to say yes the majority of our voters are remainers but we have huge numbers of seats which are brexit oriented seats and where we have and we can't be seen to antagonize them again. That's where 2019 got us. That view is increasingly out of fashion.

within the Labour Party, and even with quite a few Labour MPs, because they say, again, not unreasonably, if you look at the hemorrhaging of the vote that Labour has had since 2024, the vast majority of it has not gone to reform.

It's not gone to the Tories. They didn't get many Tory voters in 2024 anyway. The vast majority of it has gone to the Lib Dems and the Greens, and they need to bring the left back together, and this will be a key way of doing it. So the debate within the Labour Party is not...

Customs union, good or bad? I mean, I think within the Labour Party, everyone thinks that a customs union was a very good thing. There were one or two Labour MPs who supported Brexit, but by and large, everyone was for Remain. The debate is over whether tactically you can reintroduce this. debate now with the electoral risk that might be inherent in that

in the red wall seats and all the rest of it. And they did stand on a manifesto saying they wouldn't do it. And they did stand on a manifesto because Keir Starmer didn't want to frighten the horses. Like in so many things, it was the don't frighten the horses manifesto. And so for Labour now to go and reverse that... would be a massive step and a breach of the manifesto. But you can see that, you know, as Britain struggles for growth and it is sclerotic at the moment.

that you have more and more Labour MPs saying, the biggest bloody way we can get... economic growth back into our economy is to be part of a customs union opening up this market to the rest of europe and lewis you had on your show yesterday matt vickers who was doing his best to try and find something

somewhere that would defend why Brexit had made us all better off. And it sounded like he was struggling a bit. Economists from Stamford University, the Bank of England, King's College London and the German Central Bank... and the University of Nottingham say that the signature achievement of your last government Brexit has cost every single man, woman and child in this country £3,000 in terms of lost economic growth.

I'm sure that those people probably would have told you that was what was going to happen. Well, I mean, we heard the sky was going to fall. They're all just woke. America's National Bureau of Economic Research. What skin in the game have they got? This new publication I've never heard of. I'll tell you what the difference is. Well, have you heard of...

Before the general election, we had the fastest growing economy in the G7. We've now got the slowest growth in the G7. In fact, the shrinkage. We've got the slowest growth in the G7. We had near record levels of employees. Are you saying that Brexit's been...

good for this country economically. I think it's created opportunities. We've gone out there. We've set up trade agreements. You're there. You're there having a go at Rachel Reeves. You're there having a go at Rachel Reeves for increased bureaucracy.

of friction for business, of making life difficult for business. Have you ever tried being a small business exporting to Europe these days? It's a nightmare. Let me take you out of Westminster so you can come up north, speak to some people who are creating jobs. I'm talking about exporters, small businesses, people trying to... send goods to Europe. It is so much harder than it used to be because of your... Well, there we go.

Nice to relive that, yeah. Well, Matt Vickers, he's a Conservative frontbencher. I think he enjoyed it. This is basically where the politics is. And I think the politics is distinct to the economics. Because the truth is, you know, in terms of, like, getting growth in the economy, if the government turned around tomorrow and said, you know what, we rethought everything, I think we are going to have to have a...

customs union it's eight years to negotiate i mean the eu are you know absolutely will be exacting in terms of what they wanted in return and also then there would also be questions about the trade deals the

few trade deals we have done and how that would intersect and how it'd work. And even when they've had a customs union, they've got one in Turkey, it doesn't stop them sometimes slapping tariffs on Turkey. So it would be really complicated to do just in terms of the policy. So you have to do basically, I mean, streeting knows that.

And so you have to view it through the prism of the politics. And he will know, of course, that Starmer suffered a rebellion only earlier this month when 13 Labour MPs voted in favour against the whip of rejoining the Customs Union, including Meg Hillier, the influential chair of the the Treasury Select Committee. So, you know, this is real stuff in terms of opinion. Like you say, John, you know, the vast majority of the Labour MPs in the House of Commons

were Remainers, whether they were in the Commons at the time or they weren't, they would have been Remainers. So he knows what he's doing in terms of the politics. And what really intrigues me is whether in terms of a theme for 26, he's clearly pushing. and pushing and pushing and what is the line where number 10 feels they're able to say you've got to stop pushing now because of course they tried to do that when they briefed against him

you know, a few weeks ago, and it completely backfired on them. And it's given him license. Way more license! It's given him the ability to do what the hell he likes. And the idea, you know, we've talked about Morgan McSweeney on this show a number of times, and him sort of being the enforcer and making sure that...

You know, the people who get candidacies for safe seats are people who believe in the Starmer project and whatever else. Actually, I think he's got absolutely zero authority now and zero capability to say, Wes, knock it off. Because Wes sees there's nothing to be lost by, you know, knocking it off. And so he will continue. And that is a sign and a warning sign for Starmer over.

the grip he now has on his party. Yes, indeed, because once as well, if streeting does it, and it seems to be getting away with it consistently, it wants to stop the shabana moods of the world or stop the, you know, other people in the cabinet. let alone people outside the cabinet like Andy Burnham and others, to constantly basically looking like they're criticising Number 10's position, which just adds to the sense of...

a disputatious party, a party that can't get its act together. The internal Labour Party discipline is going to be one of the really interesting themes of the new year. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture Research with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Hey Bowen, it's gift season! Ugh, stressing me out. Why are the people I love so hard to shop for? Probably because they only make boring gift guides that are totally uninspired. Except for the guide we made in partnership with Marshalls, where premium gifts meet incredible value.

It's giving gifts! With categories like best gifts for the mom whose idea of a sensible walking shoe is a stiletto. Or best gifts for me that were so thoughtful I really shouldn't have. Check out the guide on marshalls.com. And gift the good stuff. at Marshalls. Before we go, on Friday afternoon, I saw a post from... the estimable Noah Hoffman, Sun political journalist, saying that this is a dark day for British democracy. I thought, what terrible thing has just happened? And it was that...

Number 10 had announced that it was going to cancel the afternoon lobby briefing because no one really goes to it anymore. And that was it. There'll still be a daily lobby briefing at 11 o'clock each morning for the political journalists at Westminster. And that number 10 is instead trying to kind of get other people who influence politics on TikTok, on Insta or whatever it happens to be and reach them as well as the lobby journalists who are based at Westminster.

Yeah, this has set off a political ferrari, really. I mean, even, you know, senior Tory MPs... Dame Caroline Dynage, who chairs the Commons Culture Media and Sports Select Committee, has criticised the decision to end afternoon lobbyists chipping away at democracy by restricting journalists' access to number 10. Just to explain to people, lobby is something both John and I...

different times have been in it uh it's basically a briefing system which take place takes place in private with the prime minister's spokesperson or one of his or her deputies and the idea is is that basically all journalists from all publications and broadcasts will ever can sit and

ask questions on any number of subjects that they wish until basically the conversation is exhausted and the Prime Minister's spokesperson is supposed to answer with some degree of honesty, although that doesn't always take place, notably in particular over Partygate where the lobby was completely lied to. repeatedly but anyway

And this, number 10, are basically saying is a system which they think, and I happen to agree with them on much of the substance of it, no longer works. It doesn't really work for journalists. It doesn't work for number 10. And I always felt, in particular, being in it, I don't know about you, John, when I was in it, I always thought it was completely absurd.

Because it was, I think what... broadcasters probably have a prejudice in this way but they tend to dislike it more i think than print journalists do who really like it but i think the point is this takes place in circuit when i was doing it you had to go like up a corridor down a corridor down another corridor up another staircase into the sort of bowels of the palace or really the

of the palace yeah west erie overlooking the temple in this absurd kind of darkened room and you just sit there and question after question after question would be put. And more often than not, it descended, in my experience, into just sports for the journalists who would bother to turn up, trying to come up with sort of inventive funny questions to embarrass or to get some information from the prime minister spokesperson of the day. And sometimes, of course, you could get information.

They came armed with information and they would give it to you. And then sometimes it just becomes a complete sport in how they'll deny it to you. And my feeling about it always was... It is ridiculous in the 21st century that this is taking place behind closed doors. The public can't see it. Basically, let's be really honest, because lobby journalists, particularly print journalists,

If I'm being at the risk, I know I'm not going to make myself popular with some of my colleagues here, but because there's a sense of importance which is attached to it, almost feeling because it's in private. Not only that, but there is a sense, I think, that kind of...

You're getting access to something that somebody else is not getting. And then you're the intermediary from it, even to your own news desk and so on. And particularly for print, it can be written up. The source is saying this, the source is saying that and everything. It gives it an extra sense, I think, of importance.

necessarily deserves and i think that you know my view always was it should be brought into the public televise it have exactly the same rules by the way which is that briefing goes on as long

As the journalists in the room have got questions, I know print journalists then turn around and go, oh, but then it just becomes sport for broadcasters and it all becomes about peacocking. A, as if there's not peacocking in it now. Anybody who has been in it could definitely see that. But B, at the end of the day, I always felt about it.

with it right now is that not only is it in secret but the prime minister spokesperson can get away with saying what they want because there's no jeopardy they'll just say i'm not answering And there's no jeopardy in that because no one ever sees it apart from a clutch of lobby journalists who are in the room. I think the one thing that Boris Johnson did that was right was to build this briefing.

room that would be fit for televising briefings. Why can't they be televised? We hear the White House briefing being televised. And if a journalist, you know, if you've got a good scoop.

And you wouldn't bring it to the lobby to get a comment on because then you've... telling every other lobby journalist you've got the story so frankly the information you're getting is information they're giving to everyone why don't you do it in public and why don't we see how government works and i think the arguments

against it seem so bloody antiquated now and the only reason it doesn't happen I mean marginally from a number 10 point of view they would have to have someone who was pretty good on their feet and telegenic and all that sort of stuff but that's not too difficult court to fix. It's the print journalists who think that they'll be put at more disadvantage if things are televised and then it's out.

into the public domain immediately. It just seems so anachronistic in a digital age to have this system that goes back to Bernardingham and the kind of 11 o'clock and the four o'clock briefing and you were only able to say Whitehall sources. You weren't able to say number 10 sources. I mean, it's just done and it wastes so much time. I also think that some of the reaction to it, again, with the greatest... respect to some of my colleagues, is so over the top.

I mean, the idea that, I mean, a system now which often conveys no information to be replaced by a system they say will also convey no information. Well, you might as well at least make it public. And I agree. I actually agree. The way that Downing Street had proposed it, I agree. There is a danger with some of the things they've said. said that it could reduce

the amount of scrutiny which takes place. So that has to be carefully decided upon. But the way that some journalists were talking about it, people very grandly saying, you know, prime ministers who take on the lobby don't like the results. That's exactly the thing that the public don't like. They sense it almost sound like a mafia boss or something.

You know, at the end of the day, there should absolutely be scrutiny and there should be a two way conversation about how that takes place because the best sort of journalism, everybody gets something out of it. But right now I can understand at least from number 10's point of view, not just this number 10, any number 10.

Dominic Cummings came basically to the same conclusion with Johnson. I can understand why they feel that right now it does not work for them and they don't need to have that intermediary when they could do it publicly and at least have... that openness and be seen to have that and also be able to get their message out there more clearly look the best thing for me when i got my lobby passed back in the day when margaret thatcher was just at the end of her premiership

was that it meant you could get a car parking pass for Horse Guards Parade. When Horse Guards Parade was a car park, rightly, the government has said, no... This is one of the most beautiful views that Canaletto painted. It cannot be a car park. Right, that's it. Abolish the lobby now. Exactly. Ever since I lost my car parking pass, get rid of the lobby. Doesn't work. We'll see you tomorrow. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye-bye. This has been a Global Player original production.