Why Robert Jenrick wants to see more 'white faces'

This is a Global Player original podcast. Today at the Conservative Party conference, the keynote speech was delivered by the Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenry. Except for the fact that some comments he made nearly six months ago. are gaining far more attention. The more he said

in the hall in Manchester. You know I went to Handsworth in Birmingham the other day to do a video on litter. And it was absolutely appalling. It's as closest as I've come to a slum in this country. But the other thing that I noticed there was that it was one of the worst integrated places that I've ever been to. In fact, in the hour and a half that I was filming with news there, I didn't see another white face. And that's not the kind of country I want to live in. I want to live in a country

Where people are properly integrated. It's not about the colour of your skin or your faith. Of course it isn't. But I want people to be living alongside each other, not parallel lives. That's not the right way we want to live as a country. Ten years ago, maybe even five years ago, comments like that would have got you the

From the front bench of any major political party. But this morning Robert Jenrich and his leader Cammy Baidnock have come out fighting. What does this tell us about the direction of the Conservative Party? Welcome to the news age. The newsagents. It's John. It's Lewis. And those comments by Robert Jenrick were obtained by the Guardian newspaper and chose this morning to put them up online.

And Lewis, as you say, five years ago I think the party would have been doing its best to say, oh well look I mean these been taken out of context which is sort of what Kemi Badenok started saying today that they were taken out of context. But there's the context and they're doubling down. There is no apology for any of that thing and though he says it's not about the colour of anyone's skin The comment is entirely about the colour

of the skin of the people he saw in Hansworth, which is an area I don't know that well, but Lewis, presumably you know very well having grown up in Birmingham. Yeah, yeah, I do know it. And um look it is it's a very ethnically diverse area. And I think that look there's lots of kind of

things that Jenrick says which I think are are pretty loaded. I mean even talking about slums, you know. I mean again, w an area with a lot of racial minorities living, talking about slums and all this sort of stuff, you know, it sends an unpleasant signal.

I think we can get into sort of the politics of it. I think this is obviously part of what I would say is Robert Jenric's ongoing radicalisation. Some people have speculated in the past that uh this isn't real, that he's just doing it for the politics. I actually don't think that's true. I think this is something that Jenric has sort of moved from a sort of Cameroonite kind of liberal right to

A poster boy of the online radical right, and I think this is part of that process. It's worth saying these comments were not made in public. They were made quasi in a quasi-public space. They were given at the Aldridge Brownhills Conservative Association one of their annual dinners, I think, and it was recorded surreptitiously. I think it's interesting to consider whether Jenwick would have made these comments in public from the stand.

And I was thinking about this and I think the answer's no. But I'm not completely convinced about that, which I think again sort of tells us something about the direction of travel. Like I said at the top there, I think, you know, five, ten years ago, fifteen years ago certainly

These are sort of comments talking explicitly linking the idea of white faces and integration would have been the preserve of the extremes of British politics, the British National Party. I think it may have even made UKIP blush, or it would have been controversial if Nigel Farage had said it.

Now it's being said by the Shadow Justice Secretary. And I think it is just worth saying, you know It is absolutely true, he's right, that there are integration problems in Britain. It's absolutely true that there are pockets of our cities. which are dominated and'twas ever thus really.

by particular racial groups, particular groups of in this case immigrants, but people who are d descended from recent immigration and so on. But he says in his justification, in Kemi Badenok's justification this morning, is to say this isn't about skin colour. Look, I said it wasn't about skin colour.

And indeed he does. He says in the comments there, this isn't about skin colour. But he is the one who invokes white faces. He is the one who chooses as his metric as his metric in those comments, he says, I didn't see another white face. for an hour and a half. I don't want to live in a country like that. Yes, in the next breath he says it's about wider integration. But how can anyone who doesn't have a white face listen to that?

And not think that if the Shadow Justice Secretary comes to my area and sees my face, he is using my face. as a metric for whether or not I am integrated into this society or into this area. And I can understand that you would find that pretty chilling. Well let's have a listen to Robert Jenrick on Sky News this morning. Well look I I was very clear that it's not about

all people to be living side by side. We can't have particular communities in this country where there's a heavy preponderance of one group or another. We want people to be living in mixed communities, don't we? I mean I don't know about you but that's That's what I want to see in this country. That's the kind of country I want my kids to be growing up in. You know, there's huge strengths in it. There's huge strengths in that.

But we mustn't have a lot of time communities where people are living essentially ghettoised lives. Okay. So if you look at patterns of migration, I mean there's the famous yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw That then became a synagogue when the Jews moved into the east end of London, that then became a mosque when the Jews moved out. uh integrated into society and the Muslims came in. And there are patterns of migration in poor areas.

ydych chi'n gweithio'r cymdeithasol o'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol. that you have seen over kind of hundreds of years in this country. So I I'm not sure what is remarkable. about it that you find clusters of people living in certain areas because they've come to a country, they don't know anyone, and so they go to where there may be relatives or whatever.

And there's a community centre or there is a sense of where they can belong. Yeah, I think that more than anything else, if you actually start to really think about this and break it down it sounds like it's on the cutting edge of where radical right online thought has been going, which is this idea that basically the problem with multiculturalism, the problem with a multi ethnic society, or

The problem with multiculturalism is that it divides people rather than unites us. Now hitherto, what the Conservative Party have been keen to stress, including Camille Baydnock, is that this is not an ethnic issue, it's a cultural issue. the concern has been that there have been people living lives in sort of parallel cultures which are not compatible with the standards of British life and sort of British liberalism and all of these sorts of things.

What Jenrik doing here that is doing here though, or at least the accusation is, is something darker, because he's basically saying that this as much as anything is potentially a problem of ethnicities living separately. And I think as soon as you start thinking about it, it it really doesn't make any sense. Okay, so th Robert Jenrick is saying this isn't about your race. We don't or rather, he wants it to be that people are living side by side. So where does that end?

Does this mean, for example, Robert Jenric is reconsidering his support for religious schooling? Because we have religious schools in this country, Muslim schools, Christian schools, Jewish schools. Are we saying that given that all of those kids go together and are quite literally living in communities rather than side by side with other communities, that those should be abolished?

Should that be extended as well, for example, to wealth? If I walk down Marlebon High Street, is Robert Jenric sitting there going, you know, the problem around here is is that there's just far too many poorer people. It's far too should we abolish private schools on that basis? Again, communities living Separately rather than side by side.

In his own constituency of Newark, generally speaking, an extremely white area. When he walks around the streets of Newark, is he considering to himself, you know what, I wish white people around here would integrate themselves a little bit more? And this is the problem. It sort of sends out the message that somehow Those minorities have done something wrong. For failing to choose to integrate themselves. With others, i.e. white people.

rather than just living their lives. I mean I would just sort of challenge Robert Jenrick and other shadow ministers to ask themselves, what have they done to integrate themselves recently with people of other ethnicities? Yeah. But it's not just confined to the sort of area of politics. I saw a column In the Mail by Leo McKinstrey, who once was a Labour supporter and has kind of gone to the right, talking about why are there so many black people or people of colour

in T V advertising. And they don't represent the country, they're far too over represented in a way. And kind of his concluding kind of the crunch line argument at the end of the piece was In the adverts for Lucasade, why are we seeing Jude Bellingham and not Matt Letizier? And I'm thinking, what? Why why aren't we seeing Jeff Hurst? Well, I mean Matt Letizier.

And two, advertising companies aren't there trying to be woke, they're trying to sell products. And they're trying to sell as much product and as fast as they possibly can because that is why advertising exists. Letizier has also become something of a himself, a bit of a c conspiracy theorist in recent years. But the idea that you should not use Jude Bellingham but you should use

Matletizier, I mean, you know, I used to go and watch Mat Letizier, he's a great footballer, but I mean I don't even know what the argument is. It's so silly and yet this all sayable now. And I think well exactly I think I think this is what I mean about the sort of creeping radicalization of of some of this stuff, which is that you know the fact that Generic and the fact that Generic says this and is not resilience from it itself.

nudges everything along a little bit further. Stuff that would have been considered unacceptable or offensive to say suddenly becomes you know, we talk about the overton window politics all the time on this show, suddenly becomes acceptable. And you know, as again and I I'm not interested genuinely. I mean I think we're not we talk about this all the time. I'm not interested in shutting down debate on anything. I'm not interested in saying I'm not even saying necessarily generic should

Yeah, Kemi Baylor can choose to keep him in his shadow cabinet or not. But he should not be surprised that The comments like these are controversial and I would just invite him to consider how he might feel. If let's for example, let's say a left wing MP or I don't know, a a left wing influencer who had been associated with the Gaza protest. Imagine that they went down to Golders Green, for example.

in a Jewish area of North London and said or someone said, Oh gosh, what it seems that this area is full of Jewish shops. It's full of Jews living on their own. They're not living together with the community. That's an awful thing. Why that why is that? Imagine the rightly I think the response that that would engender and the accusation of racism that that would come or anti Semitism would come from that.

From the right, including Robert Jenrick himself. And so that's the thing, is that if you're genuinely going to reject a model which is basically a model of a deep liberalism and a pluralism, where we say as a society, look, fundamentally people can live where they like and they can live in the communities that they like. And yes, we don't want to see people become, to use his term, getawise.

But at the same time, ultimately, we're not going to go around and indeed it would be completely impractical. To sort of seriously suggest ways in which the state is going to try and direct and incentivize social mixing of communities in a way that we might find preferable. Obviously this stuff happens organically anyway, but what is generic? Seriously suggesting it would actually require acts of a sort of deep statism and dirigisme.

to basically for the state bussing people around to you know I mean this was a debate that happened in the United States and there's been very controversial of course in terms of racial segregation in schools and all these sorts of things. It would require a complete change of mindset. unpleasant and disturbing about what Jenrick is doing because in all seriousness.

he doesn't really really think through, or he doesn't really believe in the practical consequences of what he's saying. So what it then becomes, or it sounds like, Isn't it simply a bit of a dog whistle? And it just reflects that kind of slow shift to more extreme language on race and ethnicity and culture that we've been seeing galloping now for some time. Look, where I agree with Robert Jenrick, I think integration is incredibly important.

I think it's incredibly important that people have a shared sense of the values. of this country that it is a liberal, tolerant, free speech, open, outward looking country and that, you know to settle here, you're very welcome, but this is the country that you've chosen to live in and that you need to kind of accommodate yourselves to the values of this country. I think that is a really important thing and I've you know, kind of the work my parents used to be involved in a million years ago

was entirely devoted to that. And I think that that is incredibly important. But the way in which you are saying it and the way in which you are doing it is seems to me to have, you know, party political purpose at its heart to create a kind of wedge issue and it's not going to be overly welcome. By the communities you're claiming to say you want to see living these blended lives alongside everyone else.

You are making a distinction over a white face and a dark face. Well the other thing is that I just think that it's a deeply reductive view of integration. which is to say, okay, of course, any of us could go to a particular area which is weighted towards one community or the other or to one race or the other. It's sort of disturbing we've been talking these terms, but one race or the other.

And you go around and you think, Gosh, it's not very integrated round here, is it? You know, where are all the white faces? whatever it happens to be, so use his metric. But then again, as you say, John, I'm from Birmingham. I do know Hansworth reasonably well. Um I went to a sixth form college, which was sort of in the middle middle ish of Birmingham, and it was very, very racially mixed. It was probably like a third white

Third black and then a third sort of Pakistani or Indian, right? Broadly speaking. We were all from different parts of Birmingham. He's right, Birmingham, by comparison to London or even some of the other cities, is more racially s quite racially segregated, kind of historically. That is true. But then all these kids were going from all these individual areas, which on the face of it looked very homogenous.

White or black or brown or whatever it happens to be, and then going to college all day long, learning together, socializing together, going out the weekends together. Is that not integration? So, you know, like it's just a really kind of simplistic people go to the shops, they go into the center of the city, they interact, they talk. Again, it's not to underestimate.

or to sort of try and ignore the fact that there are problems and pockets of integration. We know we see some of the problems around sort of extreme ideology in certain kind of uh and the sort of rise of of Islamism in some areas, in some pockets and so on, and there are pockets of problems around integration. Yeah, it's not to undermine that, but to sort of just say and use as a metric, go to an area and go, gosh, there aren't many white faces around here and somehow

consider that to be or posit it as some sort to let's be honest, a very uh inevitably very white audience in Aldridge Brown Hill's Conservative Association dinner, and posit that as a a piece of evidence to suggest that somehow The whole of the integration model of Britain has failed.

It's just reductive stupid nonsense. And I think deep down Jenwick knows that. Well, let's talk about the speech itself, because this is all what we've dwelt upon so far is something that he said in March, which was caught on a recording. And as you say, Lewis, it wasn't meant for broadcast.

It was a a association dinner where you think you can get away with more than you'd probably you know, it's not gonna be a Conservative Party release speech with check against delivery at the top of it as a press release. I mean I he's been caught out but he's doubled down. In the speech today we had props. We had him producing a judge's wig to talk about All these judges that had become activist judges and were no longer interested in the law, they were on the side of immigrants and you know

almost implying there needed to be a purge of these people from the jurist bench and you thought, Ooh, I've heard this before. I've heard it in America where, you know sort of Trumpian supporters when they get a judgment they don't like think well it's the fault of the judge rather than the law and Again, yeah.

Jenrik putting himself on that populist right where you think, right, the solution to Britain's problems is we've got to have a purge of these judges. And that was a part of it. He also went after the Attorney General. uh Hermer, uh Lord Hermer, for having once defended Jerry Adams. And he thought, Oh, hang on, sorry, that's what lawyers do.

Lawyers defend people and they prosecute other people and the legal system works by everyone has a right of defence and they have a you know, a right to defend themselves. And I kind of thought Where are we getting to in what his perception is of how the justice system works? You might be wondering.

What have I got in this box? No, no one was. Well don't worry. I'm not about to do a Michael Fabricant tribute act. This is actually serious. For those of you at the back of the room who can't see. I have here a judge's wig. It's something we should all respect and revere. When a judge dons a wig, it signifies the transition from their everyday personality, their identity, to that of a legal arbiter.

It's a visual representation of the judge's role as an unbiased mediator, focused solely, only on upholding the law and delivering justice. An unbiased mediator. That is what a judge should be. And that is what the vast majority of judges in our legal system do. They wear the wig. They respect and revere it. And that is why, in turn, our legal system is respected and revered all around the world. But we've got a problem. It's one that Labour choose to ignore.

Today I've uncovered Dozens of judges with links to open borders charities who take the social media to broadcast their open borders views who spent their whole careers Fighting to keep illegal migrants in this country. Some even continue to do so whilst astonishingly serving as judges. It's like finding out halfway through a football match that the ref is actually a season ticket holder for the other side. I mean look, it's uh

God, I was gonna say something really rude, but go on go for it. I was gonna say it was cringe as fuck, really. I mean like it's just like I just honestly, like the the wig, I mean for goodness sake, you know what? Let me be more serious about that.

I find Robert Jenwick a really quite interesting political figure. I do, I do, I agree. I think he's a really interesting and look, he is the only concept And he's a great communicator. He's he's become a great communicator. He we've talked about it on the show before, he understands the power of Digital video, the content age. He is the only one in a Conservative party which shows almost no signs of life, which is completely moribund almost.

He is the only one who shows any any sign of life at all and and he's been doing a lot of intellectual running on all sorts of different things and is thinking deeply about politics and the problems of the country. That said

It is deeply, deeply dispiriting to see in someone who is clearly intelligent. and or understands the power of his own words, someone inviting the continuing trumpification of British politics on steroids in that way. He knows, he himself even acknowledged that British judges, he's just said that the vast majority of British judges are not politically motivated or whatever, and he hasn't really got any evidence.

serious evidence to suggest that even a small minority are. But here he is for his own political purposes, advancing something that we have fortunately largely resisted in this country for a long time, although the Conservative Party has certainly been dabbling in it for certainly since the Brexit period. Which is this corrosive and caustic toxicity an attack on all of the institutions that actually make our democracy possible. And Jenrik is clever enough

To know that, but instead he's standing up there at the Conservative Party conference, making, let's be honest, what we all know is a leader speech. A leader speech in waiting. It is all about his leadership ambitions. There's nothing illegitimate about that. But why on earth does he have to have he's

He is doing a thing. I mean in a way what you can see with with Jenric and Baidenoch is the kind of completely two different visions of where the Conservative Party is is going. Baidenock is basically talking about basically dismissing Farage as incompetent And is useless and the Conservative Party has competence and therefore can sort of, you know, be economically sound and all that sort of stuff. Jenric, meanwhile, is doing paragisma and Trumpism on steroids.

and is deciding to go firmly into the sort of Faragis kind of territory. And his language in that speech was so so you could have heard it at Reform Party conference. You know, he's basically talking about the old order collapsing. He's talking in dark tones about the kind of sort of tone of British politics and

the sort of massive change which is to come and all of these sorts of things. And you are basically seeing those two different visions for the future of Conservative politics on full display in Manchester this week. Please let us keep it like we have it. in this country where judges are not political appointees. where you know in America that the Supreme Court has a six to three conservative liberal majority. I have no idea

what the make up of the British Supreme Court is. I have no idea whether it leans one way or another, and I am grateful that I have no frigging idea whatsoever about the political inclinations of judges and whether they were a a Tory appointed judge or a Labour appointed judge. I think it is an enormous strength of the British system that we have not got that.

And an attempt to politicise it in the way that Lewis you just described, I think is utterly reprehensible. And I think it's so easy to so discontent to sow suspicion, to sow doubt in your mind about whether the justice system is working. And I just don't think it does any good at all and I think what we've got, not perfect. There's a backlog of cases, not ideal, all the problems of the justice system are there.

But just to tear it down and say what we've got to do is to have a purge of activist judges. A mafia lawyer. Calling the Attorney General a mafia lawyer. I mean, you know, you can have a discussion about Herman's political judgment, which I think lots of Labour MPs uh would like to have a discussion about, but calling him the mafia lawyer, I mean come on. Yeah, ridiculous. Right.

In a moment, Emily from the Tory Party Conference itself and what she's found there in the halls of Manchester, which are not exactly brimming with people. For continuing coverage of the Conservative Party Conference, of course you can listen. On LBC, which you can listen to via our free global player. The news agents. It was one of the worst integrated places that I've ever been to. In fact, in the hour and a half that I was filming with news there

I didn't see another white face. And that's not the kind of country I want to live in. In the hour and a half we've been filming news here, we barely saw another non-white face. We're at the Conservative Party conference in a little enclave in Manchester. It's predominantly the domain of the well-heeled, smartly suited white man. The former Australian PM, Tony Abbott,

He of the tarantula, Sir Gavin Williamson. It's always a pleasure to be in Britain and I always like to encourage Britons to be more proud and confident in their country. And of course the Conservative Party is the most successful political party in history.

It's 200 years old and I can't see its long and proud history ending anytime soon. Robert was just talking about uh the issues and uh areas of of concern and I think there's actually what you've seen is just a very powerful statement of actually a direction

byddwn 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'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'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'n mynd i'n mynd i It's not about the colour of our skin or our faith. Of course it isn't.

But is it the way we want to live as a conference in these parallel lives? Robert Genrick, Shadow Justice Secretary, clumsily paraphrased above, is on comfortable home turf here. Shadow Lord Chancellor, Robert Genrick, MP. His speech this morning to a pretty full haul and packed fringe event afterwards is a reminder of the two parallel narratives going on this week in Manchester. Make no mistake. The old order. It's collapsing.

For too long the chattering classes drowned out the voice of the people. Our job, conference, is to make sure that the people's will prevails. While he praised the leader, Kemi Badenok, his address was what they euphemistically call wide-ranging. In other words, he spoke with a rhetorical twang of a leader in waiting, accepting past party failures. Evoking a romantic England of cricket, rugby, rolling hills, quiet decency and flags. We've got so much to cherish about who we are.

Blue remembered hills seen from black country towns, big skies over the flat acres of Nottinghamshire, the best farmers, food and drink beer in the world, from Aberdeen Angus Stakes to Hawkstone Lager, a love of pub. Our love of animals, the common law, jury trials, a royal family, so admired that they make the most powerful man in the world go weak at the knees.

But the core of his message sounded more Trump than Twickenham, an edict to fire what he called activist judges and allow them to be politically appointed by the government of the day through the role of the Lord Chancellor. A move the Lib Dems fear is a Trumpian purge. You've just made a speech about removing activist judges. Can you just explain to us why that's in order to make it? Of new labour.

Whereby judges were appointed by the Lord Chancellor, obviously taking that decision very seriously and the Jews. So they'd be politically appointed. No no no no. That's the opposite of that. What I want to see is that I want to see is the removal of activist judges that we have in our country right now. If you had an anti immigration judge can I just ask if you had an anti immigration judge Can you justify Would that be an activist judge? You on social media has given their views.

on immigration. Or who is the trustee of a pro borders charity? No of course not. I I I I wouldn't do that. So when Lib Dems call it a Trumpian purge. What's your response to that? I'm defending the judiciary. I'm defending the judiciary. The bad judges, we defend all of the good ones. And I think our country has amongst the most respected and revered judiciary in the world.

But a small number of people are bringing that into disrepute. And you can't see a problem with appointing them. You can't see a problem with appointing them politically. Well it worked well for hundreds of years. So no. No. Thank you very much. Jenrik represents the headline hunting flank of this party, even if he's yet to wield the knife against his leader. There's many conservatives who, crudely put, wish he'd shut up and allow them to fight their way back to relevance.

by talking about the stuff Tories believe they used to do well. Michael Spencer, Lord Spencer, is a former Conservative Party treasurer and businessman. is we've worked out from a Conservative point of view where our battleground is going to be. We can't fight over immigration, that's owned by reform. But the battleground that we're going to fight on is going to be on the economy and on welfare.

Uh the economy's in terrible shape as you know and the welfare situation is catastrophic in our country. Not only is the cost of it spiraling out of control, but the the the damage that is society done by welfare, the the huge level of unemployment of the younger generation. And it shouldn't be that. And so, you know, the Conservatives n Labour are unable to handle welfare. They they just have attempted to and failed. Reforma Farage is busy handing out

uh happy money everywhere. The Tories need to fight on the economy and welfare and I think we can really gain some traction there because I think everyone knows the economy is in a mess, but I think there's an increasing awareness That welfare is like an iceberg. It's a real problem. But beneath the water this is going to sink our economy. And did you just tell me that you're not going to fight on the battle of immigration? You think that's something that you can't win? Well uh

It's like the Tories discussing NHGS. I mean immigration we screwed up. I mean let's be absolutely blunt about this. In that period under Boris Johnson I was appalled myself at the time. We allowed in hundreds of thousands of immigrants. I'm by the way, I'm in favour of immigration, most of us are, but we kind of need to control our immigration and that was out of control. And and so our credibility on immigration is is fundamentally impaired by that.

Kemi's made her position clear on immigration. We really want to reverse it, but that's not what's going to get the election. But she is talking about immigration. She's talking about leaving the ECHR. Is she right to call For us leaving the ECHR. I think so, yes. I mean in fairness it's a it I I accept that it's a lot of divided views on here. I personally think it's the right thing to do, yes. But she is fighting this battle on immigration.

Arguably not particularly relevant. It seems to be a battle between reform on the right, Labour on the left, Labour flailing badly, and bluntly I'm afraid to say the chances of the economy are uh recovering under the policies that they are implementing, their chances are nil. The situation economically is going to get worse without doubt. And reform on the other side, a a populist right wing party, Farage will uh be

be handing out happy money as I said earlier. So the Conservatives need to r recover their um integrity really and find their traction. And as I said, I really believe welfare and the economy are where it's at. Oliver Dowden was the Deputy Prime Minister until they lost the election last year. If I said to you, what is the purpose now? What is your priority? If you're trying to define this party against the reform party,

What is that difference? Well for me the Conservative Party always has been and always will be the party of the economy and what I mean by that is about uh your family's finances, providing for yourself. yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw. uh they've lost that that mantle and I think there are very, very

uh serious concerns about r what reform can do on the economy. Are they promising all things to all people? I think it's only the Conservative Party that historically and now Should the party be concentrating less on immigration debates and more on economic debates? Well I think it's im of course it's important that we um address immigration and that's what

happening uh right now. I think it's important that we have a a broad based uh appeal and we uh address issues such as immigration. I think they're perfectly sensible policies. But for me the the economy is absolutely central and I actually think that that's what you're starting to see from the uh the Conservative Party now and I'm very supportive of it. Some of the ghost town imagery of this conference has been overstated or at least it feels that way to us.

Today the speeches are half full, the chatters high, they've cleverly brought all the fringe events inside the main exhibition centre to make it a bit busier. But one thing you can feel quite palpably is the absence of anything that feels like power. I've been covering Conservative conferences since the Blackpool days of 2007, nearly 20 years, and this is the first time that I've been struck by a sense of how little this all matters. The speeches, the fringes, even the off-mic gossip.

seem a long way from the centrifugal force. There is no X-Factor, no sense of a political superstar. There's no one, bluntly put, who could really turn heads by walking into the room. Older Tories do sense the way back to power, but wait for it. This one is not for the faint hearted.

In the 24 hours that we've been here, several senior conservatives have been confiding to us their sense that sits somewhere between dread, anticipation and, yes, excitement, that an economic crisis could be their best way back. The worse things get, in other words, the clearer their sense of purpose as a party becomes. They won't predict a recession. They'll tell you it's the last thing they'd ever want.

But in some small subconscious corner of the brain, they believe a crash is coming and it could give them an opportunity that today just isn't really there. Here in Edinburgh. Second week is next. Your life. Or the new LBC app. LBC, leading Britain's conversation. The news agents. And before we go, and before we leave Manchester, Tory party were giving out three B's.

for people arriving uh at the conference yesterday and among them the freebies was a bar of chocolate, yum, very nice. Yum. Yum. Okay, that's a perfectly acceptable word. And it was talking about Britain. BR IT I A N Make Britian great again. Brittian. Not ideal, is it? Suboptimal. It's suboptimal. It's a bit rubbish. Like the conference itself. I mean you can still go and get your photo taken with a cardboard cutout of Margaret Thatcher.

And you sort of think isn't sort of So you're not stuck in the past, are you, fellas? Exactly. I mean for God's sake, you know, formidable Prime Minister that she was. Nineteen seventy nine, nineteen ninety, yadda yadda yad. In some different cabinets. Things have moved on. Yeah. Well have. Although is it not her it's her birthday? A hundredth birthday. Yeah, she would have been a hundred. She would have been a hundred. And they'll still be celebrating her for a two hundredth.

When's your hundredth coming up, John? Uh a little while too. Oh, it was last week. Oh damn I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's so predictable. Your your age gags are getting lamer and lamer and lamer. It's because I've done them all. Exactly. I've run out. I've done them all five times. Anyway, nothing like nothing like ending on a nice sour note. Yep. See you tomorrow. Bye bye. Bye bye. This is a Global Player original podcast.