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betterhelp.com. betterhelp.com. From

1:06

The Times and The Sunday Times,

1:08

this is the story. I'm

1:10

Manveen Rana. He's

1:14

almost certainly going to be the

1:17

next prime minister. But

1:19

what do we really know about

1:21

Sakhir Starmer? The problem is that

1:23

I think for the public, no

1:26

one really trusts that we know who

1:28

he really is. A criticism has

1:30

been made many, many times of

1:32

Sakhir Starmer that he doesn't seem

1:34

to have, anyway, much of a personality coming

1:36

through. I think Angela Reynolds has described him

1:38

as an undersharer. What's

1:42

behind the controlled, cautious,

1:45

slightly wooden facade? You

1:48

get these off-the-cuff moments with him, and you think, oh, there

1:50

is a real person there that is

1:52

quite appealing that

1:54

isn't being shared. To

2:04

try to get a glimpse of the real

2:06

Kier Starmer, the Sunday Times has spent the

2:08

last few months on the road with him,

2:11

following him around the country, watching him

2:13

at work and sitting down for a

2:15

pint and a chat. I

2:19

would have loved for my kids to see my mum as

2:21

she was because towards the end of her life,

2:24

she not only had her leg amputated and

2:26

couldn't move her arms and couldn't

2:28

really feed

2:31

herself, but

2:33

she also couldn't speak. And

2:35

so one of the

2:37

saddest things for me personally is the fact that my

2:39

children never knew my mum. She

2:41

was still alive when they were born, but

2:44

they never had a conversation with

2:46

her. They could never see for themselves what

2:48

she was like. The

2:50

story today, inside

2:52

the campaign with Kier Starmer.

2:58

My name is Josh Glancy. I am the editor

3:00

of News Review at the Sunday Times, and I

3:02

also do a fair bit of writing around that.

3:04

You've also become a bit of a Kier Starmer

3:06

stalker in the last few weeks, last

3:09

few months. He's

3:12

been haunting my dreams slightly. I have

3:14

read, I think, everything about Kier Starmer now

3:16

and spent really quite a

3:18

lot of time with him, but also just

3:21

watching him move around the world on the

3:23

campaign trail, visiting schools,

3:25

hospitals, and all manner of

3:27

other public institutions. So yeah, I feel like I've

3:29

got a kind of masters in Kier Starmer now.

3:32

When did you actually first meet him? Well,

3:35

it's a funny story actually. I first met Kier

3:38

Starmer in about 2007 or eight, and

3:40

I was doing work experience at the

3:44

time. I was a student and I was

3:46

shadowing a judge around the

3:48

High Court. And there

3:50

was a big case about how officials

3:52

in mental health institutions should

3:55

restrain patients, and

3:57

acting against the government was Kier Starmer QC.

4:00

And I remember two things from that day. One

4:02

is even at the time he caught my attention.

4:05

He was very good looking. He was

4:07

obviously very ambitious and he just carried himself.

4:09

You know, most people just, you just forget

4:12

them an hour later, but something about him,

4:15

something about him stuck in my memory. But the other thing

4:17

was that I was looking at becoming a lawyer at the

4:19

time. And that was the day that I gave up on

4:21

my legal ambitions because I was, why? Well,

4:24

I was a bit hungover. I

4:26

was doodling and I was struggling to pay

4:28

attention to this very forensic detailed case that

4:30

Stalmer was putting forward in the courtroom. And

4:33

a couple of times during proceedings,

4:35

he glanced over at me in a quite

4:37

sort of firm, slightly irritated way as if

4:39

to say, what are you doing

4:42

here? Why aren't you paying attention? And

4:44

I could kind of feel like, you know, it was almost

4:46

like you were back in school and you'd done something wrong

4:48

and hadn't done your homework or whatever. And at

4:50

the end of the day, I said to my parents,

4:53

I remember when I spoke to them, I, yeah, the

4:55

law's not for me, I'm afraid it's going to have to

4:57

find something a little bit more animating. And

5:03

just give us a sense of what it's been like for

5:05

you following him around. I mean, how far have you been? Which

5:08

parts of the country have you seen with him? We've

5:11

been all over. We went, we've been, we went to a hospital. How

5:13

long has it been now? It was about three

5:15

months. Where have we been?

5:17

We've been to hospitals in Mansfield. We've

5:20

been to a nursery in Harlow. Went

5:23

to the pub at the Celtic Manor Hotel

5:25

in Newport, Wales. It

5:29

is tiring being on the road. Yeah. But

5:31

I find it quite energizing. Yeah. I like

5:33

it. I like being out. I like doing

5:35

these events. I like being with people. And

5:38

therefore, I really, and I also like getting

5:40

across the country. So when I was,

5:42

I will say this about Kistarme. He has remarkable energy. I

5:44

mean, he's 61. He's

5:47

got a lot more energy than I do. He does

5:49

16, 17 hour days. He

5:52

doesn't seem to switch off much. Wow.

5:59

And for you. You know, you're getting

6:01

more access than most journalists. You're actually getting to

6:03

spend proper time getting to see his character, getting

6:05

to see how he works. What

6:07

made you want to do that? I thought that there

6:09

had been lots of interviews with Keir Starmer, where

6:11

you get an hour, an hour and a half if you're lucky. You

6:14

try and cover lots of conversations. He talks

6:16

a little bit like a barrister. He can be a little bit long-winded. And

6:20

cautious. Very cautious. And he doesn't give

6:22

a lot of way. And it all felt like

6:24

we haven't quite got under his skin. This

6:26

man who's very likely to be our next Prime Minister. And

6:29

so when I spoke to his press team, I said, well, look, what

6:32

if we did a kind of, you

6:34

know, access all areas, peace?

6:37

So you've written a profile where you've really

6:39

managed to get more of his character out

6:41

than I think anybody else so far. Take

6:44

us on that journey with you of discovering

6:47

more about him. And let's start with

6:49

a day in Portsmouth.

6:52

Just remind us of when this was and what you

6:54

were doing there. So it's June 5th and

6:56

we are in Portsmouth

6:58

Historic Dockyard. Tom

7:14

has just come from the big D-Day celebrations with the

7:16

King. Today we come

7:18

together to honour those

7:20

nearly 160,000 British Commonwealth and Allied

7:23

troops. And

7:27

this is before the D-Day disaster for

7:30

Ishi's United? It's the day before,

7:32

yeah. He's doing a trip

7:34

with some D-Day veterans and waiting for them

7:36

on the jetty is sort of the whole

7:38

press pack. All

7:43

these cameras lined up in a row and then all

7:45

the print journalists was lined up on the jetty. Almost

7:47

like we were sort of an honour guard of midshipmen.

7:51

And one thing I

7:53

noticed straight away, I've never really been a

7:55

Westminster journalist. It's just how weird the process

7:57

is. It was the day after the debate,

7:59

the first day. debate with Rishi Sunak where he

8:01

struggled to give an answer to this £2,000 tax that

8:05

Rishi Sunak had raised that £2,000 would

8:08

go onto everyone's tax bill with the Labour

8:10

government. Here's Stalmer is going to put

8:12

your taxes up by £2,000. £2,000. £2,000. £2,000

8:17

independent Treasury civil servants have costed Labour's policies

8:19

and it's £2,000. He

8:23

called it out for being a lie but very

8:25

late. He called it garbage but it took about half an

8:27

hour for him to get there. Yeah. He

8:32

does six different stand-ups to camera each

8:35

for a different channel and they all ask

8:37

him the same question and he gives them all the

8:39

same answer and he sort of stands there and he's

8:41

quite stout. He's not fat but he's kind of stout

8:44

unyielding, hence thumbs

8:47

by his side, fists clenched and

8:50

gives each of them the same

8:52

pre-cooked answer. That the Prime Minister

8:54

of the United Kingdom with his

8:56

back against the wall desperately trying

8:58

to defend their record in office

9:00

resorted to lies and

9:03

he knows he was lying and I don't say

9:05

that. Then he does the newspaper

9:07

reporters who will basically ask similar

9:09

questions and then I was

9:11

lucky enough that we sort of got to go into a back

9:14

office basically and have a proper interview.

9:18

Yeah. You know how, yeah, and you

9:20

know you sort of like... Well you thought they're

9:22

all doing their own outlet. I

9:24

know. They're all not going to share the... The

9:26

moment. Well I'll let...

9:28

I'll crack on. I'd love this small talk but... So

9:31

I won't ask you all the same questions as I did because that would be boring. I

9:33

mean for you as somebody who doesn't normally

9:35

do Westminster, just seeing that lineup, seeing the

9:37

sort of the one question shouted again and

9:39

again by different people and the

9:41

same very controlled pre-prepared answer,

9:44

does that contribute to why he often

9:46

looks quite robotic? I think

9:48

it absolutely does. I came away from all of

9:50

this thinking a little bit anxious about how we

9:52

operate our politics in this country because I think

9:55

in some ways what Starmer's

9:57

doing is a logical response to

9:59

the... kind of the level of media

10:01

scrutiny and the relentlessness of the media

10:04

scrutiny he gets. Another logical

10:06

response in a funny way is the opposite, is

10:08

Boris Johnson, you kind of laugh it off, you

10:10

always have a joke, you almost play the

10:12

clown. Because

10:15

I don't think it's realistic for someone

10:17

to like give you genuine, thoughtful, original

10:19

answers and it's relentless. And I think

10:21

they're trying to come up with coherent,

10:24

sustainable ways to respond to the kind

10:27

of pressure they're under. And Starmer's slightly

10:30

wooden, mask-like appearance I think is one

10:32

of those things. And then

10:34

you managed to take him off for a private

10:36

word, how different is that? And what does he

10:38

say? He's remarkably different in

10:41

private to public. Now this has been true of

10:43

many public figures, probably all public figures to some

10:45

extent. People said that about

10:47

Ed Miliband, you know, who is quite genial

10:49

and funny in private. John Major was another

10:51

one, far less stiff in private. But

10:54

the delta between public care and

10:56

private care is just vast. You

10:59

get him one on one and he just, the

11:01

tension comes out the shoulders, he's quite funny. Really?

11:04

Yeah, he's quite, he's convivial. When you say quite

11:06

funny, I mean... I don't

11:08

know, I mean the first time I saw him

11:10

on this trail in Harlow back in March, when

11:13

I came off the train he said, oh we're

11:15

going to a school for eight and nine year

11:18

olds and the average age will drop considerably. Now

11:20

that isn't like absolute stand up funny, but

11:22

it's quite funny for a politician, you know,

11:25

off the cuff. I mean these things are

11:27

relative. Right, I chuckled, I chuckled.

11:30

You know the old test they used in America, would you

11:32

go for a beer with this guy? I think you would

11:34

quite happily go for a beer with Kirst Dahmer, but private

11:37

care, public care, I think you wouldn't fancy it. Not so

11:39

much. Yeah. Well we'll get

11:41

on to you having a beer with him because I

11:43

know that has happened. Before

11:45

we do this, so there you are in Portsmouth.

11:48

He has just been asked by 20-odd

11:50

journalists about his disastrous performance in the

11:52

debate the night before. What does he

11:54

say to you about it? He was pretty

11:57

guarded, he gave me a complete null answer. We're

12:00

doing speeches every other

12:02

day. We're doing lots of

12:04

interactive events. We've got more

12:06

than one debate and set

12:08

pieces on the television. So,

12:10

you know, it's all in

12:13

the mix in the sense of... He

12:15

basically just didn't answer the question. I did

12:17

ask him about it later on in the campaign again, and

12:21

he did acknowledge that the

12:24

format is not great. You know, they were

12:26

getting 45-second answers, and that he

12:28

doesn't really respond well to being asked for

12:30

sort of snappy off-the-cuff lines. He's very methodical.

12:33

He's about process. He's a barrister. He likes...

12:35

He's not a soundbite man. He's not a

12:37

soundbite man. He likes a case. I

12:40

almost think he takes a slight pride in this

12:42

fact, actually, that actually he sees this process

12:44

as quite gimmicky, quite superficial, and he

12:47

sees himself as someone who is thoughtful,

12:50

methodical, a statesman. And so

12:52

when he walks into these environments, he knows that

12:55

he's not nailing it. But

12:57

I think a part of him does say, well, hang on, not

13:00

being good at this is because I'm

13:02

good at that, the stuff that really matters. I think that's how

13:04

he sees it. And when you do, you know,

13:06

have a beer with him in

13:08

Newport or wherever, what's

13:10

he like? I mean, what does he want to talk

13:12

about? Well, look, I mean, he's a serious

13:14

person who has a lot of serious

13:17

thoughts about the world, right? So he's very happy

13:19

talking about it. In Celtic

13:22

Man at Bar, we talked about Israel

13:24

Garza. We talked about Britain's

13:26

role in the world. We talked about

13:28

Brexit. But equally, you know,

13:30

there was one occasion where we were

13:32

off the record in a Starbucks in Stafford. And,

13:35

you know, I sort of bound it

13:37

up to him and said, OK, I've got a really big

13:39

question for you. It's controversial on there. And he looks at

13:41

me slightly panicked. And I said, Jack Riele,

13:43

should he have gone to the Euros? And

13:46

he just sort of relaxes. Like, yeah, I was quite surprised about

13:48

that. It always amazes me when

13:50

he talks publicly about football. He sounds so

13:52

strangled and insincere. But he really is a

13:55

football fan. He loves the chat. He can do the

13:57

banter. But he can't seem to bring that

13:59

to the point. public. What's

14:05

going on there? Why does he, you know,

14:07

people describe him as being opaque? He

14:10

doesn't quite fit the mold of a

14:12

traditional politician in many ways. But why?

14:14

Why is that? So

14:17

I became slightly fixated with this issue.

14:20

And so there's a number of things going on. One

14:22

is he came into politics late in his

14:25

50s, fully formed as a barrister,

14:27

really. And it's quite hard to change your

14:29

style and personality at that point. I

14:32

would also say that he doesn't want

14:34

to say anything he doesn't believe. He doesn't

14:36

want to grandstand for the public. He

14:38

wants to get into office, assume power and

14:40

fix things. He would say,

14:42

I'm not in it to be famous. In our house,

14:44

we don't have a single picture of

14:47

me with a political leader. Right. We've

14:49

got pictures of the kids. Not

14:51

even in the loo. People put it in the loo because I think it'd

14:54

be too often to put it on the mantelpiece. So put

14:56

it in the loo thinking that everyone will have to go

14:58

to the loo whilst they're here. And so they'll see it.

15:01

Not a single picture. So I'm not driven by this.

15:03

I must have this... So I think he both

15:06

instinctively and strategically just sort of

15:08

shies away from the performative

15:11

aspects of being a modern politician.

15:16

Is it also something about him being

15:18

less ideological than other politicians? Yeah.

15:22

So he, he

15:24

argues that he doesn't have a clear-ism,

15:27

that he's not a Blairite, but he's

15:29

not Corbynite. It's not so

15:32

easy to say, well, that's come from

15:34

ideology, because it doesn't come very often

15:36

from ideology for me, not particularly ideological.

15:39

I'm a pragmatist, but being

15:41

a pragmatist does require you to know the details

15:43

of what you're talking about. Yeah. Because otherwise you

15:45

can't be pragmatic. He's

15:47

obviously on the left, but he's not, he

15:50

doesn't fit into one obvious strata of the party.

15:52

I mean, he would describe himself as a pragmatist.

15:55

And so he would argue,

15:57

I don't always know what I think until I've seen the

15:59

brief in front of me. and I've assessed all the angles

16:01

and I've got to the core of the problem and then

16:03

I can start thinking about a solution. And

16:06

as a character, I mean, you know, in many ways

16:08

he sort of said he's funny, a good

16:11

normal bloke. Is

16:13

he also quite ruthless? I

16:15

think he's shown himself to be extremely ruthless and

16:17

I think he admitted that to me. I said,

16:19

you know, are you ruthless? I

16:21

take decisions, other people have said it's ruthless and I'm

16:23

not going to deny it. We've had to take some

16:26

difficult and probably ruthless decisions. I

16:28

don't think it would be sensible of me

16:30

to say otherwise. They mean really difficult decisions.

16:34

Taking their decisions is not difficult for

16:36

me. He argued that it's a

16:38

ruthlessness with a purpose, the

16:40

purpose being to win power. I don't want to be sort

16:42

of casual about this because this has got to report to

16:45

someone else that's sort of easy to be ruthless. I really

16:47

don't mean that. It's not

16:49

casual ruthlessness. It's

16:51

a ruthlessness with a stealing purpose. And

16:54

that the Labour Party and the left of the Labour Party

16:56

in particular is often its own worst enemy when it comes

16:58

to winning elections, which they don't do very often. And

17:02

in order to get there, he had to

17:04

take some pretty tough decisions. That

17:06

included, for example, demoting

17:09

his friends as well as his opponents.

17:11

So Nick Thomas Simmons, who was the

17:13

Shadow Home Secretary, wasn't quite working. He

17:16

got subbed out for Yvette Cooper,

17:18

which is pretty tough. They're

17:21

really good friends. They go for breakfast

17:23

together. Still? Yep, still, which is impressive.

17:26

But when it comes to the left, he's been willing

17:28

to take the slings and arrows and

17:30

has been quite brutal about

17:33

anyone who puts their toe over the line. They're gone. It's

17:36

as simple as that. Unusual for

17:38

somebody who, as you say, isn't an

17:40

ideologue to take such a hard line

17:42

on certain policy matters. And one of

17:45

them has been this sort of debate

17:47

around Israel Garza. How

17:49

did he talk to you about it? Because that was

17:51

a moment where he was going against a lot of

17:53

his party, or at the starts he was taking, made

17:55

a lot of them very uncomfortable. I

17:58

think Israel Garza has really... really

18:00

cut him up. A friend

18:03

of his told me this, that it's really tormented

18:05

him because on the one

18:07

hand he is a left-wing

18:09

human rights lawyer. So his

18:11

milieu and his background has probably led

18:13

him to be very conscious of Palestinian

18:16

rights, of the implementation of international

18:18

law. On the other hand, he

18:21

has promised the Jewish community to be a friend

18:24

and to be utterly rigorous about

18:27

stamping out anti-Semitism. His

18:31

wife is Jewish, his father-in-law is

18:33

Jewish, they go to synagogues sometimes. He's

18:37

met with hostages, hostage families from Israel. So

18:39

I think he really does feel both sides

18:41

of it. I think he feels very attacked

18:43

at times on both sides. He's had protesters

18:46

turn up at his house in North London,

18:49

meaning his wife and kids couldn't

18:51

get into the house. I

18:55

think he really does feel that the anxiety

18:57

and the angst of it all very deeply,

18:59

he's not going to show it very often.

19:02

But it's definitely there. Coming

19:09

up. Oh he's raging

19:11

torrent of emotions but it's all inside.

19:14

It's all kept in and then

19:16

occasionally you get little flashes of it. Josh

19:20

and Kirstarmer get into his difficult

19:23

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21:01

see what it can do for you. That's

21:04

betterhelp.com. Josh,

21:21

you talked earlier about how much of his

21:23

character is really

21:25

determined by his past. I

21:28

mean, what was his childhood like? Yeah,

21:30

so I went down to Rygate, which

21:32

is about an hour on

21:34

the train from London Bridge. And

21:38

it's Surrey commuter belt, but I think for some

21:40

people that conjures up images of gin and jags

21:43

and quite sort of wealthy suburbs.

21:47

It's not particularly wealthy, particularly when he was growing up in

21:49

the 70s. They lived in a three-bedroom

21:51

house. He shared a bunk bed with

21:53

his brother Nick. They weren't well off

21:55

at all. He talked about the phone bill sometimes

21:58

going unpaid. There were holes in the masonry. one

22:00

of his friends has described. And then his father,

22:02

as he has told everyone at Infinitum, was

22:04

a toolmaker. I did actually ask him

22:06

what tools his dad made, which were... What

22:08

did he say? Well, he really came alive when I

22:11

asked him that. I thought it was just going to

22:13

be... It was my last ever question to him. And

22:16

he kept me there for about five, ten

22:18

minutes of describing it. He

22:21

made injection moldings, which are

22:23

basically, if you want to make, say, a million Starbucks

22:25

coffee cups, and he picked up a Starbucks coffee cup

22:27

to show me this, in order to

22:29

do so, you create a metal mold, which

22:32

is customized to the shape of the coffee cup. And

22:35

then you inject molten plastic in it again and

22:37

again and again, and you get the little cups.

22:40

So it's quite a high skilled work. And he

22:42

was telling me how they now

22:44

do it very differently. And he went to visit

22:46

the factory in Filton near Bristol. He was really

22:49

incredibly knowledgeable about it, but also quite emotional.

22:51

He said, it was one of

22:53

those moments I really wish my dad was still around because I'd love

22:55

for him to see it. He's

22:59

still got the... When

23:01

I saw that, I just, in Filton, which

23:03

I found is fascinating place, by the way.

23:08

That's one of the moments I really wanted

23:10

my dad to still be alive. Yeah. To

23:12

see what's happened. To see

23:14

the modern way of doing what he did.

23:16

Yeah, yeah. Brilliant. And

23:19

he would be fascinated by it. And

23:21

that actually really struck me because to

23:23

get back to your question, he

23:26

is, and we're all forged by a

23:28

childhood, but he really carries this stuff with him. He

23:30

carries the resentment

23:32

that his father felt towards local snobs who

23:34

looked down on him as a manual laborer.

23:37

Just as I carried the disrespect my

23:39

dad felt by the fact he

23:41

worked in a factory, it really

23:44

impacted him. It made

23:46

him recoil from company, become

23:49

quite isolated. And

23:51

I'm not sure I completely appreciated that at the time, but

23:54

it is amongst the reasons that I

23:57

will never treat people with disabilities. He carries

23:59

the stuff with him. Stoicism of his mother

24:01

she had stilts disease, which is a kind

24:03

of very aggressive form of inflammatory arthritis She

24:07

nearly died on several occasions But

24:10

was very sort of stoic about it and would

24:12

go climbing in the Lake District If you ever

24:14

asked her how she was Even

24:17

if what I knew she was an intense

24:19

pain. Yeah, she would never

24:21

ever complain. Yeah She

24:24

would always say absolutely classic the exact

24:26

words. I'm alright. How are you? This

24:28

is almost a classical stoicism. It's

24:30

a very I mean it is But

24:34

it was to her core and it's

24:36

gone a bit into the core of me. Yeah,

24:38

he carries the difficulties

24:40

his brother Nick had Difficulties

24:42

learning and the bullying that

24:45

he received and I learned to hugely

24:47

respect the progress he had made given

24:50

the opportunities that he was handed in

24:52

life and therefore I Recoil

24:55

when anybody uses the word thick That

25:00

the holes he's had to get over

25:02

in his life whether it's that

25:05

resilience from my mom whether it's this Value

25:08

of respect and dignity which does

25:11

come I think from my dad. I don't

25:13

know for me. I just need Anchors

25:16

like it's a rough

25:18

old sea out there. Yeah And

25:21

these are as he said as he put it to me these are my anchors There's

25:24

this Ferocious aversion to snobbery or

25:26

grandness. He really doesn't like having doors open for

25:28

him. He likes to carry his own bag I

25:31

spoke to a security detail at one point about this.

25:33

He'd sent out a bunch of snacks for them in

25:35

a school And I said

25:37

does he do that a lot? They're like, oh he always makes sure you're

25:40

well-fed I was like what's he like? They

25:42

were always he's great because he'll stand in a queue

25:44

for 20 minutes quite happily He

25:47

always says thank you. He was asked after your kids or your

25:49

family Not like some of

25:51

the other ones who were born to rule what an interesting

25:53

phrase it was really interesting That

25:56

because again, it goes back to this point. He has this kind

25:58

of There's that awful phrase, we

26:00

have a chip on his shoulder. But

26:03

you saw that in a recent interview where he was

26:05

slightly not quite mocked, but this point was raised, like

26:08

you keep banging on about your dad being a toolmaker.

26:10

I think it was even in the Sky debate as

26:12

well. And he got quite defensive and

26:14

flustered. When I grew up, my

26:16

dad was a toolmaker. He worked in a factory.

26:19

That's true. My mom was a nurse,

26:21

and actually we couldn't make ends meet,

26:23

which actually isn't a laugh thing. Matter,

26:25

we couldn't make ends meet. Because, okay,

26:27

yes, he's making political caps out of it. Of

26:29

course he is. But he actually really cares about

26:32

the tools his dad used to make. And

26:34

he really cares about the fact that people

26:37

didn't value that work as much as they

26:39

should do. And about the dignity of

26:42

working people. And that's

26:44

why he sometimes gets a bit snippy. Because there

26:47

is this hot current of emotion running

26:49

through him. You don't see it very often. I was just

26:51

going to say, that's probably the last way most people

26:53

would describe him. Oh, he's raging, torrent

26:56

of emotions, but it's all inside. It's

26:58

all kept in. And then occasionally

27:00

you get little flashes of it. And I think

27:03

when it comes to issues around his parents, his

27:05

family, and working

27:07

class or lower middle class people who are trying

27:09

to get by in life, I

27:12

think that really, really motivates him. Quite

27:15

clearly, his experience with his family

27:17

growing up lives with him

27:19

every day. In terms of

27:21

his family now, his wife and children, how

27:24

close are they all? How is that sort of playing

27:26

out in terms of his career?

27:29

Because we don't see much of them on the campaign. No,

27:32

we don't. And the absence of his

27:34

wife, Vic Stalmer, has become a talking

27:36

point certainly in the sort of right

27:39

leaning media. Vic's

27:41

fantastic. Yeah. Understands

27:44

it. She's grounded, she's

27:46

street wise. Yeah. And

27:49

she's very understanding. But I'm not going to pretend that

27:51

it's easy for her. Because it isn't. Because

27:53

she gets thrusted

27:56

for limelight, conference, et cetera, that

27:58

she has. to

28:00

play her part, to be there, etc. She

28:03

wants to get on with her life. I don't

28:05

get the sense that she loves that side of

28:07

things. She doesn't want to push herself into the

28:09

light, there's a necessary minimum. He's

28:12

pretty close with his wife and kids. I

28:14

think he's a very loving, doting father. That's certainly

28:16

an impression I get. And

28:18

everyone says, you know, he doesn't come out to

28:20

the pub after work, really. He's not a

28:23

social politician. He goes home, leaves his bag

28:25

at the door, and then he's a

28:27

father. But he's very,

28:30

very, very, very protective of them. Yeah,

28:32

but again, just as we haven't put

28:34

the kids names and photographs in the

28:36

public mind, so Vic's never done an

28:39

interview. And we'll

28:41

keep it that way, because we

28:43

want that boundary. But I

28:46

sensed with him, it's a kind of hot rail

28:48

every time you ask about his family. There's

28:50

certain things he'll say quite comfortably, but he doesn't want

28:52

to go deep into it. That's

28:55

fair enough. I wish him luck with that, honestly,

28:57

because to an extent, it isn't our business. If

29:00

they're all living in number 10, in

29:02

a few days' time, really, how much

29:04

does that change? Well, there are

29:07

limits. I mean, and I think they've got to be

29:09

pragmatic about, there are limits to your privacy

29:11

in that fishbowl. And that's good, and that's

29:13

the right decision, and all the rest of it. Oh, I have to change

29:15

at some point when you know that. Yeah, but what it does is,

29:18

it means that you and others can't see me

29:21

with my family, which would give you an insight

29:23

which you can't have, because we're not

29:25

allowing you to have. They

29:28

will try and maintain it as much as possible. His

29:31

son's doing a CCSE at the moment. He's been quite

29:33

worried about how the campaign is affecting that. So

29:35

I think that's going to be an issue for them. And

29:38

I think he knows that. And he's been quite vocal

29:40

about the fact that he's worried about what it will

29:42

do to his kids, whose names he never uses in

29:44

public, what

29:47

it will do to them inevitably to

29:49

become known to the country at

29:51

large. All of that's going

29:53

to have to be addressed quite soon, I suppose. For

29:56

you, as someone who went on the

29:58

road with him all over the world,

30:00

the place to try and work out

30:02

that gap between the public and

30:05

the private. What did you

30:07

make of him by the end? Well,

30:10

I wouldn't say we've become friends. There

30:12

were certain things you just frustrated

30:14

that he's not more open about.

30:17

For example, supporting Corbyn in 2019, which

30:22

I think was an example of his pragmatism

30:24

really, but he's got this kind of slightly

30:26

tortured answer as to why he

30:28

supported Corbyn. He's now

30:30

saying, oh, it's because I sort of expected us to

30:32

lose. It doesn't really hold. It's a weakness in his

30:35

armor. But we did sort of reach

30:37

the point where I would

30:39

quite look forward to seeing him, which is

30:41

odd in a way because his power can be quite

30:43

uncomfortable to be around. I

30:46

know that people who work in the

30:48

Labour Party, he's like when the head master walks

30:50

past, people are sort of head down working and

30:53

stuff. He's a demanding manager. He hates it when

30:55

people are late. He hates it when

30:57

people haven't prepared their brief. There's a kind

31:00

of gravity that he projects into

31:02

the world. But again, you

31:04

get these off the cuff moments with him and you

31:07

think, oh, there is a real person there that is

31:09

quite appealing that

31:11

isn't being shared widely. So the last interview I

31:13

did with him, I said, I've got three

31:16

quick five questions, then I will leave you alone

31:19

forever. But. Was the first one. You're very welcome

31:21

to come. Well, maybe not before

31:23

I die.

31:26

Yeah. You can stay in touch if you want. I was like, shit,

31:28

I should stay in touch. I

31:30

mean, if he's in number 10, it might be quite good for you. Bad

31:34

source maintenance. And

31:36

then I sort of wandered off

31:38

to the loo on the train. And as

31:41

I come out the loo, there's a sort

31:43

of medium sized middle aged man

31:45

standing there kind of waiting vaguely and patiently for

31:47

me to come out. And

31:49

it's like a star and he just looks at

31:51

me like, oh, I'm not following you. I promise.

31:53

It's just again, the stalk

31:55

is stalks. Yeah, like fairly

31:57

funny for a politician. And that was our sort of last interview.

32:00

interaction. Do

32:03

you think he's cut out for the role

32:05

of Prime Minister if he never quite learns

32:07

to relax into the job? Well,

32:10

I mean yes you have to be able to sell your policies, you have

32:12

to be able to win elections and you

32:14

want to be able to charm the nation or

32:17

uplift the nation now and then and he

32:19

is capable of giving a bondstorming speech, he has done

32:21

them in the past so we may see one

32:23

at some point but ultimately

32:27

he sees the

32:29

job and what he'll be judged by as can

32:31

you restore growth to Britain, can

32:34

you fix our public services and

32:37

can you steer the country through what's like

32:39

to be pretty turbulent few years on the

32:41

global stage and if

32:44

he can do those with a modicum of success

32:47

I don't think he cares about the other stuff and

32:52

I think that if he can win a

32:54

big election victory without being a

32:57

charming performer then

33:00

does it really matter and is that just something we're demanding

33:02

of him that actually is

33:05

fundamentally not that important. That

33:18

was Josh Glancy, editor of the news

33:20

review at the Sunday Times and you

33:22

can read his full profile of Seqir

33:25

Stama at thetimes.com with a subscription. If

33:30

you want to know more about the

33:32

current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, he recently

33:34

sat down to do an interview for

33:37

this podcast with the Times columnist, former

33:39

Foreign Secretary, former leader of the Tory

33:41

Party and now one

33:43

of the presenters here at the story,

33:45

William Hague. It's hard to balance being a

33:48

good dad and doing the job well and

33:50

obviously you have to prioritise this job because

33:52

it's an important job and you're doing it

33:54

on behalf of the whole country so you

33:56

know not being there for them as much

33:58

as any dad would like to be is

34:00

a challenge. and there's particular moments where you

34:02

really feel that acutely because there's something very

34:04

difficult going on that you just can't be

34:07

there for them at, and that's tough. But

34:09

that's the job. We'll

34:11

put a link to that episode in the description

34:13

of this podcast. The

34:15

producer today was Sam Chantaraszak. The

34:17

executive producer was Cape Ford, and

34:20

sound design and theme composition were

34:22

by Mao Lassetto. If

34:24

you're enjoying our election coverage or any of

34:26

the other podcasts we've done recently, then do

34:28

leave us a review. It'll help others to

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find us. Thanks for listening. See

34:32

you tomorrow. This

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