10:00

power that he wants the whole

10:02

country, regardless of how they're voting, regardless of how

10:04

they're thinking of voting, regardless of what their policies

10:06

are, to feel that we all have this kind

10:08

of vested interest in trying to get the country

10:10

going again. Now, I

10:13

thought that kind of big picture messaging was good.

10:15

One more that I thought he did very

10:17

well, because we just actually people have a

10:19

chance to listen to it on leading the

10:21

Bridget Phillips and giving the same answer on

10:23

the question of what happens to kids that

10:25

move from one school to

10:27

another. It was different. Very different.

10:30

He was very good at empathizing, very good at saying,

10:32

listen, I've got no problem with private schools. I respect

10:34

aspiration. I've got a lot of time for parents who

10:36

want to do that with their kids, but

10:39

I have a problem in secondary schools. I need the

10:41

money. This is what it's going to be spent on.

10:43

6,000 teachers, this problem with maths,

10:46

PE teachers, sub-singers in. It's not

10:48

a tax on working people. It's

10:50

just removing a tax exemption. The

10:53

whole tone of it was empathetic.

10:56

It sounded like he was listening,

10:58

sounded like actually he was taking

11:01

seriously the problem. He

11:03

kept coming back to this phrase, which I think he does quite

11:05

well, which is, I'm making tough choices.

11:08

He did that with the junior doctor too. I think

11:10

that works well. I

11:12

thought with that one on the private

11:14

school, as with the first debate, the

11:16

ITV debate, he did not resile one

11:19

inch from the policy and he explained it.

11:21

But as you said, he did it in a way that was

11:23

quite empathetic to the guy who was saying, look,

11:25

this could be a problem for me.

11:27

I thought it

11:29

was interesting. You can always get a sense of, I think

11:32

I told you the other day that I saw a poll

11:34

that said only 11% of the

11:36

public are aware that Keir Starver's

11:38

dad was a tool maker, even though in

11:40

the chattering classes, it's become a sort of,

11:43

and actually, they laughed tonight when he said

11:45

he was a tool maker. And there

11:47

was one point, what was the point when there was

11:49

something that Rishi Sunak said where they laughed at him,

11:51

which I thought he would have, was

11:54

it the house price when he talked about the

11:56

19 year old and he said, you know, and again, it's up

11:58

to two. the

14:00

thing more that you can do, let's say, for

14:02

the sake of argument, you're

14:05

keeping back the option of raising certain

14:08

taxes, but you definitely don't want to

14:10

say it. What sort of

14:13

formulations can you use to sound sincere,

14:15

authentic, and that you're answering the question?

14:17

Is there any way of saying to

14:20

the audience, listen, we're

14:23

not going to raise VAT, income tax,

14:25

corporation tax, national insurance,

14:28

but we are going to, and

14:30

yes, you're right. There

14:32

are other taxes, they're not big taxes, they're not tax

14:34

on working people, and we've

14:37

got no plans to raise them. We're not rooting them out

14:39

either. Is there anything that you can do there? Or is

14:41

it just- Well, I saw that Rishi Sunad

14:43

did it. He actually used

14:45

the formula that I think is perfectly

14:47

acceptable when he said, I'm not going

14:49

to sit here and predict the economy

14:52

for five years. I also

14:54

think at one point, I think there came a point where

14:57

Kia could have said to Beth

14:59

Rigby, Beth, I get what

15:01

you're trying to do here. We've ruled out certain

15:03

tax rises and you're going to go through every

15:05

other one. Well, just be aware, you're not

15:07

going to get a different answer than what I've already given you.

15:10

Yeah. Up to you. So put it to

15:12

bed very quickly so the audience then get

15:14

bored as she tries to do it. Okay.

15:17

But I think the overall effect was, I

15:21

think he achieved what he said I had

15:24

to do on tax. I thought that the

15:26

Q&A, I

15:31

thought they were both pretty good at it. I was

15:33

trying to tell myself, because as you know,

15:37

Rory, I'm quite tribal and I like

15:40

big wins in campaigns and I really want

15:42

the Tories. I love the fact that there

15:44

was a round of applause where Kia

15:46

got one of the loudest rounds of applause in

15:49

the interview when he said any

15:53

government that leaves the country in a worse state than

15:55

when it started deserves to be booted out. And I

15:57

felt that really sort of struck a chord. But. But

16:00

likewise, I thought that I

16:02

kind of was part of me watching Rishi Sunak

16:04

and starting to feel a bit sorry for him,

16:06

which I can remember once

16:08

Dennis Skinner, the great Dennis

16:11

Skinner, who God, I wish he

16:13

was still around and not lumps out of people

16:15

like Lee Anderson. Well,

16:17

he's still around, but he's not standing. But

16:19

I remember Dennis Skinner once saying

16:21

to me when people were sort of starting to

16:23

feel a bit sorry for Gordon Brown, I remember

16:26

Dennis phoning me and saying, this is dangerous.

16:29

You got to watch this. You cannot allow

16:31

this to grow once you

16:33

start feeling sorry for a politician

16:35

that he's had it. Yeah. And

16:38

I think that that's right. So again, for listeners

16:40

who didn't have a chance to see the debate, Rishi

16:44

Sunak then comes in after 45 minutes of

16:46

stammer and stammer has been smiling

16:48

a little bit. He's looked quite confident sitting

16:51

back well in his chair. He's got a

16:53

little bit of chat going on. I mean,

16:55

a little bit stiff and robotic, but broadly

16:57

speaking seemed relatively happy and confident. And

17:00

I'm afraid Rishi Sunak came on

17:02

and immediately seemed very

17:04

tired and mentally very tired, very

17:06

beaten. There was a he repeated

17:09

two lines, which he rarely does almost verbatim

17:11

a line on I was you know, I

17:13

was this debate with you and a

17:15

line. I don't know what the other

17:17

line is. I'm getting like him. I'm also getting mentally tired.

17:20

But anyway, he repeated himself. And

17:22

then he became his

17:27

tone with Beth Rigby was

17:29

to say to almost every question,

17:31

you're absolutely right, Beth. You

17:34

know, it's true. We screwed up on

17:36

this. What can I say? But I've been in for

17:38

18 months and we're making a bit of progress on

17:40

numbers. And then she'd say, yeah,

17:42

but the numbers are not great. Are they going the

17:44

wrong direction? He'd go, that's right. But you know, we've

17:47

reduced this by 25%. Next

17:49

year we'll reduce up. And the

17:51

problem is that it

17:53

and I recognized it because I sometimes

17:55

when I was very tired in my

17:57

own constituency would get into this mode.

18:01

which is disastrous. I

18:03

would sometimes be sitting with my constituents late in

18:05

the evening and I'd be thinking, listen,

18:09

I'm working really hard.

18:12

I know a lot about the subjects. I might

18:14

even know more about the details of this than

18:16

you do. And I'm going to try to be

18:18

like, yeah, you're right, but

18:20

it's all very complicated. And I'm going to try to

18:22

explain to you. And the problem is that that can

18:24

seem patronizing. It can seem

18:27

touchy. Nobody's interested in you signaling

18:29

that you're working hard, you feel

18:31

underappreciated, and that you understand the details

18:33

better than the person asking you the question. And then

18:35

the final thing is that in the

18:37

second half, when he's with the audience, it

18:40

seemed even stranger. There was a moment, I'm

18:42

afraid, towards the end, where he

18:44

began to sound, I don't know whether you recognize

18:46

from this from your own life, Alistair, but he

18:48

began to sound like a teacher who'd lost control

18:50

of his, his classroom. It

18:52

was that awful sense for teacher trying to

18:55

make it through his lesson plan with the

18:57

audience, the children just totally

18:59

turned off, nobody listening anymore. He

19:01

seemed 20 years older than the

19:03

rest of us. He seemed as though he had an

19:06

essay plan to go through. And we're all sitting there

19:08

thinking, guys, this guy's lost it. But I'm listening. What,

19:10

what did you make of his, his sugar answer?

19:17

So that was getting, on

19:19

that one, on that one, we've, I've tried to do

19:21

that with Rachel Rees, I've tried to do that, Bridget

19:23

Phillips, and she tried to do it with Kia Sama,

19:25

you know, it's the end of the interview, you want

19:28

something fun and personable and jolly. And when she said,

19:30

you know, Kia Sama, you know, tell

19:32

us a bit about yourself, he said, well, what people

19:34

don't know about me is I've got a deep sense

19:36

of public service, right? So I guess he was either

19:38

way, do you know what he should have said? Do

19:41

you should have said, I'm a, I'm a really dirty

19:43

footballer. That's

19:45

good. What it

19:47

would have, what it would have been interesting to his true and

19:51

she would have been taken aback. But Rishi

19:54

told us that he had a terrible diet.

19:56

Yeah, I don't believe that. I think that was desperate in

19:58

the green room. He was watching. watching Kia Stav and

20:01

not really having an answer. And somebody said, you've

20:04

got to say something that sounds human. So

20:06

he sort of pulled that out. But yeah, nobody, nobody

20:08

went, when you're leading the

20:10

country and trying to encourage an improvement in public

20:12

health, once the prime has said, telling

20:14

everybody that. It should be stuck in your arrow bow the

20:17

whole time. Yeah. Yeah,

20:19

somebody actually just said, actually, it was a very

20:21

good point. Somebody just said, what kid should have

20:23

said is, did you know about Dan as a

20:26

tool maker? That would have brought the house down.

20:29

No, but do

20:31

you know what? There's something annoying about

20:33

the way they, I mean, it's like, you

20:36

and I do loads of events and people say things like,

20:38

tell us something funny. And you

20:41

kind of feel like, say, well, I'm not a comedian.

20:43

You know, I've got a comedian, get my daughter. But

20:46

I like your, I'm a dirty footballer. That's

20:48

good. Yeah. That's good. That's

20:50

good. Yeah. That's good.

20:52

You know, I like that. What did

20:54

you make of the questions that were

20:56

chosen? I mean, it's interesting. I'm assuming

20:58

that a bit like question time, Sky

21:01

will have sort of sifted

21:03

the audience worked out. You know, it's interesting,

21:05

for example, that, you know, in a

21:07

place like Grimsby, actually Brexit was mentioned more

21:10

than in any of the previous debates that we've

21:13

seen. Brexit in

21:15

terms of impact on the NHS, Brexit

21:17

in terms of immigration, Brexit in terms

21:19

of the economy. I

21:22

thought it was interesting as well that there was a

21:24

question there about racism in the police. And

21:26

again, you know, in what we would define

21:29

as a kind of Northern Redwall seat, as

21:31

it were, round of applause

21:34

for the black woman who said, you know, this is a problem,

21:36

what are you gonna do about it? And

21:39

I think that's the other thing that I've felt

21:41

about this whole debate in the last couple of

21:44

years, since Johnson really, and since Brexit. This

21:46

kind of, these mythologies that have

21:49

developed about politics

21:51

in one part of the country

21:53

is completely different to other parts of the country. It's

21:55

just not the case. Yeah,

21:58

so I know the question, were

22:00

interesting. There were one or two

22:02

there that were a little bit unexpected,

22:05

which made it maybe more interesting than the other night

22:07

as well. Emily

22:09

Anderson, should they have talked more about

22:11

Gaza and foreign affairs, Alastair? Well,

22:16

they weren't asked about it. And I think

22:18

that was probably a deliberate thing. I think

22:20

that what Beth Rigby wanted

22:22

to do was to really sort of pin

22:24

them both on domestic stuff. And

22:27

the truth is that on something like

22:29

Israel-Gaza, they both know

22:32

what they think, they know what the

22:35

politics are. And I think you'd have just

22:37

had five minutes where essentially it

22:39

was just kind of filling time,

22:41

I'm afraid. They're not going

22:43

to make a major announcement of foreign

22:45

policy of a change or a

22:48

different strategy on a live

22:50

tea debate about domestic relations. So, no, I

22:52

don't have a problem with that. I think

22:54

there could have been maybe something in relation

22:56

to Britain's place in the world

22:58

or the military or something like that. But now I

23:01

don't have a problem with them not doing Israel-Gaza. There's

23:03

a question just coming on seats.

23:06

And I think this is a really

23:08

good question. Let's

23:10

say for the sake of argument, you and I

23:12

agree that Rishi Sunak is not going to win

23:14

this election. And I'm afraid he

23:16

came on to that stage like somebody who knows

23:19

he's lost this election. I mean, it's

23:21

a torture. I'm still not calling it. I'm still

23:23

not calling it. But boy,

23:26

is it a torture shame before he knows that

23:28

he's lost. I mean, and we haven't really reminded

23:30

people just how much has happened between the two

23:32

debates. I mean, there's been the D-Day debacle has

23:34

been Nigel Farage's launch has been, and then there's,

23:36

you know, turns out that his aide has been

23:38

betting on the date of the election and all

23:40

this kind of stuff day after day after day.

23:43

So he's got to be and he's got far

23:45

too much in his schedule. He's he's doing

23:47

more constituency visits than any of the

23:50

other leaders. And he's

23:52

just exhausted, ratty, angry.

23:54

So then the question is, let's say I

23:57

said to you, Alastair, okay, you're the big

23:59

strategy boss. We've

24:02

lost this election. We've

24:04

got three weeks to go. We're going

24:06

to turn this on its head. Our

24:08

objective now is to minimise how many

24:10

seats we lose. Is

24:13

there a different strategy if you just thought,

24:15

okay, we're going to try to hold

24:17

on to, I don't know, seats with

24:19

majorities of over 10,000. We're going

24:21

to try to make sure that we hold Ken Clark's

24:23

old seat in Rushcliffe. What can we do to stem

24:26

the loss? Is there a different strategy for that? Well,

24:30

there would be. You have

24:32

to wonder whether either deliberately or

24:34

accidentally, they have started to

24:37

go about that strategy. Walking

24:40

past the news agent this morning, I

24:42

saw the Daily Mail front page was

24:44

Sounac, don't give Labour a blank check.

24:47

Then you had Grant Shapps, who's

24:49

meant to be one of their better communicators

24:52

on the radio this morning, talking

24:54

about inventing this phrase, which I don't

24:56

even know what it means in the

24:58

British context, but saying, don't give Labour

25:00

a super majority. In other

25:02

words, basically raising the

25:04

prospect of a landslide. Now, I

25:07

wonder if that is, it

25:10

could just be that they're thinking out loud and they haven't

25:12

really thought it through, but if they have thought it through,

25:14

are they basically trying to

25:16

say to people, in

25:18

a sense, suppress the vote, make people feel they

25:21

don't need to vote. You don't need

25:23

to vote because Labour are going to win. That's been my

25:25

worry about this all along for Labour. Or

25:28

you are basically targeting

25:31

your resources and targeting your activity

25:33

at those seats where

25:35

you feel that you may

25:38

be able to hold on. But I can't

25:40

imagine being him and getting out of

25:43

bed. It's different if you're the Lib Dems or the

25:45

Greens. I can't imagine being with Sounac at the moment

25:47

or any of his team getting

25:49

out of bed and my first motivation, my

25:51

first thought being, well, I know

25:53

it's all over, but let's try and not lose

25:56

too badly. I just couldn't operate like that.

30:00

actually much better than he was with Beth Rigby. He sort

30:02

of woke up. He knows

30:04

the detail of the policy. So when somebody

30:06

from the NHS says, I've got a question

30:09

for you, he's able to say, Yeah, which

30:11

part of the NHS do you work in?

30:13

He's able to talk about community diagnostics centers

30:15

and electro surgical hubs, you know, you feel

30:18

his dad's a GP, he breathe this stuff,

30:20

you get a sense of why the

30:22

cabinet ministers like him around the table, because

30:24

he's obviously, you know, does

30:26

his homework, knows the detail is really into

30:29

the details, the policy reforms. And is there

30:31

anything though, that you feel looking at him

30:33

there? What were your sets

30:35

of his strength and weaknesses as a politician? What are

30:37

we seeing there? And where she's seen it? I

30:41

don't think he's a very effective politician.

30:43

And I've thought

30:45

that the whole way through. I think

30:47

he's he

30:51

just makes too many unforced errors. He doesn't

30:53

seem to be able to, you

30:55

know, I think he's quite into cricket, isn't he? He

30:57

doesn't seem to be able to see where the ball

30:59

is coming from. We

31:02

saw that, you know, classically, that within the interview

31:04

he did with Paul Brand. I mean, God has

31:06

ever an interview on ITV interview, that's the one

31:08

where he came back from D day. And

31:10

even and they put out this clip while

31:12

two things. First of all, was him

31:15

being welcomed by Paul

31:17

Brand, hey, before the interviews

31:19

even started, and having a

31:21

sort of chat and, you know, this over the

31:23

top, hey, lovely to see you and

31:26

then Paul Brand say it must have been amazing.

31:28

It's oh, yeah, we're about to come back, you

31:30

know, overran. And of course, just, okay,

31:33

you can say that's been, been accidental, right?

31:35

Yeah. But then this thing about, you know,

31:39

Paul Brand starts to say to him, you know, do

31:42

you really feel you can be in touch with

31:44

people when you so wealthy? And

31:46

again, I think the way to answer that

31:48

is, well, I am very wealthy. And I'm

31:50

lucky in that the woman I fell in

31:52

love with is from a very wealthy family.

31:54

I don't have to worry about those things.

31:56

But don't think for one second that minimizes

31:58

my commitment to people who don't have the

32:01

last of it. But instead he sort of, you

32:03

know, Paul Brann then gets on this thing, well, what did

32:05

you what did you have to give up as a child?

32:08

And I think you just back those off instead of

32:10

which he got sucked in, he got sucked in and

32:12

eventually said, well, you know, I didn't have Skyers. I

32:14

didn't have high TV. He needed

32:16

to preempt that and say, no, that's

32:19

not who I am. And Cameron

32:21

Cameron would have been

32:23

able to do that when oh, yeah, Cameron came from

32:25

a very privileged background, but he wouldn't have been able

32:27

to negotiate his way around. And he also Cameron had

32:29

the line that he pushed the whole time, which is,

32:32

you know, it's not where you come from, it's where

32:34

you're going, which is fine. It was like, but he

32:36

felt comfortable in saying that. And and

32:38

I think the other thing he doesn't have, you know,

32:40

this goes back to something that I've said on this

32:42

podcast many, many times. I just

32:44

think he's he's missed the big moments. And the

32:47

biggest moment he had was the first moment when

32:49

he became Prime Minister. He said

32:51

the right things, professionalism, accountability, integrity.

32:54

And then he ended up defend,

32:57

you know, doing a run of

32:59

when Boris Johnson got called out as a

33:01

liar in parliament still hasn't really even tonight

33:03

didn't really call out less trust for the

33:05

damage he's done to the economy and

33:07

still got as a candidate. So

33:09

he's kind of party he co owns

33:11

this disaster. And I thought

33:13

it was a very interesting question. It was the ultimate question

33:15

I think he got was from the woman who said she

33:18

used to be a chair of a local Conservative

33:20

Party. And she feels ashamed at

33:22

what the Conservative Party has become. And she

33:24

specifically mentioned D-Day. Well, that's that's in the

33:26

news. But she also mentioned two or

33:29

three of them mentioned Partygate. And she

33:31

mentioned trust. And that

33:33

stuff runs deep unless you cauterize

33:35

it. And he's never cauterized it.

33:38

And Maxo. And

33:40

hey, are you guys taking questions here? question for

33:42

both of you. But hey, and

33:44

Maxo need to actually give us the question. So let's

33:46

go. Do you think Rishi Sunak will hold on to

33:48

a seat? Yes, he will hold on to Richmond. Will

33:51

you invite Sunak and Star Royalty-Bate? We have invited them but

33:53

I don't think they're going to come on. Why

33:56

Sunak going on about stamp duty for first time

33:58

buyers when that's already in place? place? I think

34:00

the answer is some of it was a temporary

34:03

policy and he's shifted up the

34:05

amount of money. Oh, I'm loving Matthew. Matthew,

34:07

the Welsh flag, soon looking like he's

34:09

running out of Per civilians. My word, Rory,

34:11

my word is breaking through. That's

34:14

very good. Hannibal Barker just started your

34:16

book, Rory, loving it. Little

34:18

tempt since Alice is always telling me I need to

34:20

plug my book. Thank you so much for buying my

34:22

book just out in paperback. It comes

34:24

straight in as number one on the Sunday

34:26

time bestseller. And Hannibal, thank

34:29

you and please encourage other people to

34:31

buy the book. What book are your children reading at the

34:33

moment, Rory? Well, they're reading the lovely

34:35

two books that you just gave them. And I

34:37

had a slightly depressing moment when I

34:39

came down to breakfast and Sasha, who's been reading your

34:42

book, said, Alice, there's so much

34:44

more positive about politics than you are. Why

34:46

do you keep being negative about politics? I

34:48

thought, Michael, he's now brainwashing my children. Good

34:50

for him. I'll get him. I'll get him in state schools before

34:53

I'm done. How can

34:55

CX team make him look less

34:57

tired and racy before events? Well,

34:59

you can't. I mean, the only thing you can

35:01

do, you can sometimes make up can help you.

35:04

But I'm assuming he was wearing, you know, TV

35:06

makeup because you have to do for the lights.

35:10

The only way to make

35:12

yourself look less tired when you

35:14

are very tired is through finding

35:18

levels of energy that you didn't know you had.

35:21

And I, to be fair to

35:24

him, I think at times I've seen him have that.

35:26

There have been times when I thought, God, if I

35:29

was him, I'd be on the canvas and he's managed

35:31

to get up and show real levels of energy. But

35:33

tonight was not one of those nights. I thought he

35:35

genuinely did look tired. And

35:37

I thought he looked very fed up with it all. Well,

35:40

we're coming to the very end. Sorry,

35:43

Adebayo Adeji, can someone explain

35:45

what stamp duty stamp

35:47

duty is? So this is a payment

35:50

that you make when you buy

35:52

a house. So in addition

35:54

to the money that you spend for your house,

35:56

an additional sum goes to the treasury. And

35:58

depending on how much you spend on the house. the house that duty

36:01

goes up. And he's trying to

36:03

make houses more affordable by saying he won't tax people

36:05

when they buy houses. Nick

36:07

is suggesting that soon actually

36:09

drink more coffee, but I've got a feeling he doesn't drink coffee. I

36:12

think in this weird sugar free, sugary

36:14

diet that he has. And

36:16

the sugar doesn't work. I was trying it today. I've had

36:18

it like you a pretty exhausting day

36:20

running around doing lots of stuff. And I

36:22

was trying to keep myself going on cost

36:25

of coffee, sugar bars, like these gluten free

36:27

kind of fudge bars. And of

36:29

course, the promise is you get a crash. Maybe

36:31

he was just in a sugar crash when he

36:33

came. Roy, did you see that question that just

36:35

flashed by that says, can you both tell us

36:37

something funny or interesting about yourselves that

36:39

we don't know and hasn't been in your

36:41

book? Presumably the answer is that you

36:44

are a dirty footballer, right? No, that's not you.

36:46

Everybody knows that. Anybody who's ever seen you can't

36:48

know that. I think if you said you were

36:50

a dirty footballer, that would be a genuine

36:52

shock. Go on then, tell us something about you that

36:55

we don't know. You

36:58

know that I'm really crap at the bagpipes. Promise everyone's

37:00

been spending nearly three years listening to us banging on

37:02

about this kind of stuff. Okay, but I'll

37:04

tell you. Do you know

37:06

I delivered my first son? We didn't get

37:08

to the hospital. Yeah, I knew that. You

37:10

didn't know that. Here's one for you. I

37:12

once played the bagpipes for Elvis.

37:16

Sorry. For Muhammad Ali. For Elvis?

37:19

Sorry, Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali, yeah,

37:21

Elvis. There's a picture of Elvis

37:23

there for Muhammad Ali. Muhammad

37:25

Ali. That's good. That's very good. Yeah,

37:27

there we go. Okay, I like that. I like that

37:29

very much. Blimey. But you're

37:32

right. I mean, now you've done it to me. I now

37:34

understand. It's hard. It's hard. But that's why

37:36

you should always have a couple of those things up your

37:38

sleeve. I'm going to send a text to Keir right now.

37:40

Keir, next time you're asked about, say somebody just say, I'm

37:42

a very dirty footballer. Yeah. Well,

37:45

I did have a really pompous one actually when I

37:48

was running for leadership, I remember because you remember that

37:50

somebody's putting the thread that they remember Theresa May was

37:52

asked the question, so the naughtiest thing she'd done is

37:55

run across wheat fields. Yeah. Yeah. So

37:57

I was asked by some poor journalist,

37:59

you know, you know, what's the worst

38:01

thing you've done in your life? And I, I

38:04

said kind of horrible. I turned this kind of 10,000

38:06

yard stare and said, well, I

38:09

spent a number of years in Iraq and Afghanistan and

38:11

I, I've done some things that maybe I

38:13

don't want to discuss. He

38:18

wins you wins you. I

38:21

had, I was asked after the trees and may thing, I was doing

38:23

a thing where I was asked what was the naughtiest thing I'd done.

38:26

And it was the day that I stole the Archbishop

38:28

of Canterbury's mitre. Oh,

38:31

yes. And we, and with this photograph of you, Twitter

38:34

handle was that. Yeah, it still is. This is

38:36

my, is my, is my WhatsApp thing. Um, so

38:38

there we are then. So, uh, when

38:41

we, when we sort of summarize then, how do we,

38:43

how do we summarize that it hasn't really changed? We

38:46

summarize, I'm afraid that afraid for those who

38:48

sort of soft stories that that was very

38:50

much a victory for kids. I'm a no

38:52

doubt at all. He seemed

38:55

regardless of the content, he seemed confident,

38:57

relaxed, smiley. He felt like somebody who

38:59

was about to be prime minister. There

39:02

were details, you know, he was a

39:04

bit long winded. He didn't answer questions

39:06

necessarily that well. There were good bits. Like

39:08

when he talked about his family, uh, it

39:11

was a good, good, good comment about him being

39:13

worried about his teenage kids. But broadly speaking, he

39:15

seemed, and a lot of this is not about

39:17

the content that must be what partly drives people

39:20

that are just too mad. It's about the tone.

39:22

We talked about this with the Gove George W.

39:24

Bush debate where Gove had all, uh, all

39:30

the stats and all the arguments

39:32

and George W. Bush just seemed

39:34

relaxed and happy and walks it.

39:36

So Stama walks it and, and

39:38

Sunak came on. And unfortunately it

39:40

was that sort of petulant professor trying to hammer

39:42

facts home

39:45

to an audience that doesn't want to listen. And

39:47

you can't, it can't afford

39:49

in politics to do either the,

39:52

I'm going to educate you whether

39:55

you like it or not by giving you facts.

39:57

You haven't thought about things, nor as you said,

40:00

in reference to Dennis Skinner, can

40:02

you ever allow people to feel sorry for you? And

40:04

I'm afraid, you know, people,

40:07

even people didn't like him will just think,

40:09

God, that is a miserable man. Well,

40:14

I'm still not going to feel sorry for him.

40:17

And there were some pretty brutal questions, weren't there? I

40:19

mean, I jotted some of them down. How

40:21

do we know you'll still be prime minister in a year's time

40:24

if you win? That was pretty brutal,

40:26

I thought. Why should anyone believe you when you

40:28

say, which you went through all the different things

40:30

they said on net migration? Why should

40:32

anyone believe you? That got a round of applause. No,

40:35

he was on a very, very, very, very difficult

40:37

wicket. And

40:39

there we are, poor old Rishi. No, I mustn't feel sorry for

40:41

him. Mustn't feel sorry. They've done a lot of damage to the

40:44

country. So Rory, do you think it made you more, let's

40:46

get into the polling question. Did it make you

40:48

more likely to vote Labour? For

40:51

a floating voter like me, yes, I thought, Keir

40:55

Starmer is beginning to hit

40:57

his stride with reassuring moderate Tories.

41:00

And I think they need to be careful leaning

41:03

too hard into

41:07

class warfare, which you're getting a

41:09

little glimpses of sometimes in the backstories that

41:11

you're getting out of some

41:13

of the shadow cabinet. They're

41:15

beginning to lean so hard into,

41:18

they're genuinely tough backgrounds and stuff.

41:20

But if it's combined with, I'm

41:23

tribally Labour all my life and

41:26

this country is run by a bunch of

41:28

whatever people, then you are gonna start scaring

41:30

Tory voters a bit. I think what

41:32

was good about Keir Starmer is, he

41:38

just seemed eminently reassuring. And

41:42

that's a trick. I

41:45

mean, it's a trick. It's very important, incredibly

41:47

important for him. Yeah, and that's

41:49

even though as somebody just pointed out, that's quite a thing for

41:51

you to say when he was also talking about working

41:54

on tax for private schools. Absolutely.

41:58

Okay, so for everybody. on the

42:00

live show, I absolutely promise that

42:02

if you join us for the

42:04

live show after the next debate, I

42:07

will show you the pots. And

42:10

you see whether you think I should have

42:12

spent so much money paying tax, the

42:14

British government importing them from the Netherlands. Did

42:16

the pots cost more or less? Charlie

42:18

96, what did your parents do for a

42:21

living? Gone very quickly on that one.

42:23

So my father was a soldier and then

42:25

a civil servant. What did

42:27

your father do for a living, Alistair? My father

42:29

was a vet. Very good.

42:31

Thank you very much. He was

42:33

the Northern vet. Those shirts, he always wore

42:35

those shirts that you wear. Those checked shirts. Yeah,

42:38

those checked shirts. Yeah, he told me to

42:40

take a pan with vet. Yeah, exactly. Okay.

42:43

Okay. I shall see you tomorrow.

42:45

Tomorrow, late afternoon, I will be

42:47

in France tomorrow, en route to

42:50

Germany. I think it's important to

42:52

take the

42:55

pulse of the European political scene and possibly

42:57

take in the Germany-Scotland game. I might just

42:59

drop in on that. You might just. I

43:01

just might drop in on that. But

43:05

we shall be back tomorrow, late

43:07

afternoon, logistics

43:09

permitting, in order to have

43:11

a chat about both the conservative, we should talk

43:14

about the other manifest as well, but particularly the

43:16

Tories and Labour manifest those. Great. Thank

43:18

you, Austin. Have a great trip tomorrow.

43:21

Safe trip. could

44:00

impact Britain's role in the world and change

44:02

everything in the US elections. I

44:04

am just so excited because Biden has

44:06

not been doing so great. This

44:08

is something that's gonna be giving him one

44:11

to two point difference in places like Michigan.

44:13

When Starmer comes in with a 60 or

44:15

an 80 seat majority, search

44:18

disorder in your podcast app

44:20

to listen right now.