Could a reshuffle revitalise Sunak’s government?

This is an audio transcript of the Political Fix podcast episode: ‘Could a reshuffle revitalise Sunak’s government?’

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Stephen Bush
The absence of a really clear political project at the heart of the Labour leadership makes it much harder for the attack unit to do its job.

Lucy Fisher
Hello and welcome to Political Fix, your essential insider guide to Westminster from the Financial Times with me, Lucy Fisher. You heard there Stephen Bush talking about the toothlessness of the Labour party. More from him later. Coming up, it’s almost time to wave goodbye to the British summer. Could Rishi Sunak also be waving off some of his cabinet? We’ll share the latest reshuffle rumours. Plus, cars, whisky and work visas EMD what will it take to cement a UK-India trade deal? And the Trump circus gathers momentum in the US as 2024 is shaping up to be a big year for elections on both sides of the pond, we ask what does the US race mean for the UK? Joining me to discuss all of that are FT columnist Stephen Bush. Hi, Stephen.

Stephen Bush
Hi, Lucy.

Lucy Fisher
And the FT’s political editor, George Parker.

George Parker
Hello, Lucy.

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Lucy Fisher
So George, firstly, you kick us off. What’s been your moments of the week?

George Parker
Well, it’s a story I’ve sort of been interested in for a while, which this question about when are we actually ever going to start conducting checks on food products coming into Britain from the EU? Of course, these were introduced on products going the other way back in 2021, and much of the fury of British farmers who feel they’re operating on an uneven playing field. These checks haven’t been implemented in the UK. And so we discovered this week that for the fifth time the checks are going to be delayed. They’re gonna be introduced now, we think sometime around April 2024. Some listeners will notice that’s quite near to a general election. There’s a fair amount of scepticism about whether these checks will actually ever be introduced this side of the election. And there are some people like Jacob Rees-Mogg who say, fine, keep the doors open, European food’s pretty well regulated, but it certainly doesn’t sound like taking back control.

Lucy Fisher
Stephen, how about you?

Stephen Bush
So mine is the Office for National Statistics releasing a report of what it basically thinks is a superior measure of core inflation, showing that core inflation actually has now started to fall. And obviously for reasons we’ve discussed many, many a time, that inflation target I think is going to be both really huge in terms of the pain for households. But in terms of the mood music around the government, I think really is the kind of target to watch, as it were.

Lucy Fisher
For me this week, I have to say it has been the spectacular death, as we understand it, of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the kerbside hot dog seller who rose to become the Kremlin caterer and then, of course, the head of one of the biggest private militias in the world before being literally blown out of the sky. Not quite connected to British politics but if I can shoehorn that in one relevant link, I too have been writing about it this week only in the sense that the British government is about to proscribe the Wagner Group as a terrorist organisation, as I understand it.

George Parker
I could say Lucy that it’s one of those stories which I mean obviously has some geopolitical ramifications, but from a journalistic point of view, it’s the narrative arc is bookended this summer, hasn’t it — the mutiny by Prigozhin at the start of the summer at the end of the summer had been blown out of the sky, apparently.

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Lucy Fisher
Well, first, let’s talk about the reshuffle. Let’s face it, it’s been a bit of a news desert. This recess and the oasis on the horizon has been this long-touted reshuffle, but now suggestions that it might be something of a mirage, that we might just get a few tweaks around the fringes of the table in the next couple of weeks and then the main event delayed till later this winter. Would that make sense to you, Stephen, just to replace Ben Wallace, who we know is going to step down as defence secretary?

Stephen Bush
To the advantage of not doing your kind of full-blown reshuffle now is it means you aren’t going into your party conference with a bunch of new ministers who are going, you know, where’s the canteen? You know, how do I get my standing desk installed? Look, broadly speaking, there are essentially two schools of thought about what Rishi should do right in the next 18 months. There’s the governing to the last hour school of thought and there’s the gear up and get into campaign mode. But regardless of where you sit on that debate, the advantage to doing your reshuffle earlier is you either get into fight mode earlier or you fix some of the I would say, very real problems, particularly on, you know, the kind of key issues of crime, health. They don’t have a cabinet minister who I would say has good grip on it and who has a dividing line that’s in a good place for them. So, yeah, if I were in Rishi’s shoes, I would do the reshuffle as soon as possible because I’d say obviously the government does need some kind of change.

Lucy Fisher
George, what do you think? And also to Stephen’s point about not putting new ministers into the line of fire at a conference, he does potentially avoid having disgruntled, demoted ex-ministers speaking out and making mischief on the fringe events. But does it make sense in a strategic level to delay the bigger reshuffle?

George Parker
Well, I’ve always been a bit on the sceptical end of the arguments about how much difference these reshuffles actually make, certainly in terms of public perception. Reshuffle’s always more useful hanging in the air. You’re always stronger as a prime minister before the reshuffle rather than immediately afterwards so I can see the benefit of hanging on. I’m not that surprised this is gonna be a fairly minor tweak in September. I think basically there are a whole load of ministers who are underperforming, it’s true.

But the fact is, as Stephen says, when you change the nameplates and get new people in, there’s a whole load of disruption. He’s got really, Rishi Sunak now, six more months possibly max to actually do things in government. And yeah, changing a few ministers could make a difference. But I think what he should focus on now is just trying to get some things done that you made this point in your column this week, Stephen, that, you know, you might as well, this might be his moment to have a political legacy. Focus on getting things done and then change your cabinet into a campaigning cabinet, because what we’re really talking about is putting new faces in who are gonna be the people who are gonna be out in the TV cameras, in the TV studios fronting the campaign. So a completely different look. But I don’t think now is the moment to move into that campaign mode.

Lucy Fisher
When it does come to that moment, Stephen, I know you’ve written this week about Lee Anderson being one of the key kind of attack dogs he’s got in position, but pretty much the only person playing that role and as you pointed out, as much at risk of biting his masters as the party’s political opponents. Who would you see Rishi Sunak, who would you advise in trying to get into that role to be a key performer out in the media, really taking the fight to the Labour party?

Stephen Bush
Well, I think the the joy of being in government is you can kind of get away with anyone having that role. I, to be honest, would actually go, it needs to be someone who is basically just willing to say anything, to shred their own reputation by saying things that you yourself as prime minister don’t want to aerate. So for me it feels like it’s a job which should go to a loyal ally who doesn’t get scared in the face of difficult headlines. So one of the people who was very much in the trenches with him in that first leadership election when it was not in their interest to do so. So I think that is one of the advantages of John Glenn as defence secretary, right?

Lucy Fisher
John Glenn, of course, currently being chief secretary to the Treasury.

Stephen Bush
Defence secretary has a huge amount of gravitas, so you can’t say no to it if you’re the BBC or ITV. John Glenn is hugely loyal and so he therefore will presumably be very comfortable saying whatever it is the focus groups and the polls spit out as the best possible set of nasty things to say about Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Lucy Fisher
And George, there’s this sort of logic that some people talk up, and I know it’s a live debate in Downing Street about the need to get rid of anyone stepping down as an MP at the next election from the government. So that’s not just what Ben Wallace has already announced. He’s stepping down. But the suggestion Alister Jack will have to go as Scottish secretary, Trudy Harrison as an environment minister, Will Quince as health minister, Dehenna Davison as levelling up minister, does that make sense to you? I mean, to me it seems there’s a sort of, another argument to be made that these are people who don’t have to sort of spend time and effort in their constituency trying to corral votes so they could do more delivering at the centre.

George Parker
I think you’re right. From a management point of view, you’re better off leaving them there to do a job as a minister. Although in the greater scheme of things, you know, we’re getting to the fag end of the parliament and we’re talking about public perception and to a large extent here is not gonna make a massive difference if you move around ministers that many people . . . 

Lucy Fisher
No one’s heard of.

George Parker
. . . that many people have never heard of. Just in terms of who’s gonna be the attack messenger for Rishi Sunak, I think the public don’t like that’s sort of real hard-nosed, sort of nasty attack stuff. So I think you want people fronting that sort of operation who are sound reasonable and I agree with Stephen, so a John Glenn would be quite good. It’s one of the reasons why someone like Grant Shapps is actually moderately plausible in that respect. Michael Gove is good at it, but he’s quite a divisive figure. Something about people who sort of sound like they’re being reasonable whilst being prepared to wield the stiletto.

Lucy Fisher
And George, if shuffling ministers doesn’t really grab the public’s attention — and I fear you might be right as much as it’s grist to us political watchers — what else is coming down the track that interests you of substance this autumn? You’ve got the Autumn Statement, of course, you’ve been writing about that.

George Parker
I mean, there are two really big fiscal events between now and the election, we assume, which will be the Autumn Statement in November and then the Budget next spring. And the slightly better economic news is putting pressure on Jeremy Hunt to start cutting taxes as soon as November. I think to a large extent he’ll resist that pressure. I don’t think he thinks it’s the right time to be doing it. It muddies the political message. You’re cutting taxes at the same time as taking tough decisions, trying to bear down on inflation. And certainly there are some taxes which could be inflationary.

So what I’m sort of picking up is that the Autumn Statement will focus on some of the themes that he was talking about in the March Budget, actually, things like getting business investment up and also this whole question about labour market inactivity. We have a package on childcare in March. I think we’ll expect to see a little bit more on health and the fact that so many people currently out of work and on long-term sickness benefits. So I think those are two of the things that are coming up. And then, you know, there are a couple of big sort of foreign trips coming up, aren’t there? Of course, there’s the G20 summit in India and then a bit of a question mark about whether the prime minister goes off to the UN General Assembly in, later in September in New York, which is a sort of a fixture for British prime ministers. And if he doesn’t go, I think there’ll be some eyebrows raised.

Lucy Fisher
Stephen, what about Labour? I mean, to me it makes some sense that they’ve sat back and allowed the car crash, weeks of small boats and health to sort of allow the government to burn while they sort of keep their counsel. But have they missed a trick not making the most of the news desert I mentioned this summer? What does Keir Starmer need to do to get on the front foot as we get back to parliament?

Stephen Bush
In terms of the sort of the news desert, right, given that everyone thinks this parliament will run long, actually, they are still right to kind of hang back silently, work out what their retail offers will be and announce them near the election. But what I think is very noticeable is that the Labour party does not have a particularly good attack operation either. Now I was about to say no, and I’m sure some eccentric people would say that they yearn for the Ed Miliband era compared to the Keir Starmer. I mean many Conservatives would for obvious reasons, but one of the ways that operation was sharper than the Keir Starmer operation is they did have a much better attack unit, right? If you think about the fact that we’ve essentially had a summer in which we’ve had essentially the Conservative party running around the country going, hey, we failed.

And the Labour party, I think as Keir Starmer contemplates his own reshuffle, one of the questions he should be asking himself is OK, who is the person who’s going to do what Michael Dugher did for Ed Miliband in the run-up to 2015, what various party chairs did for Tony Blair in the nineties and noughties, essentially being the person who goes around and does that “I sound reasonable, but I’m actually saying something pretty horrible about the other law,” because that I think is the thing they are really missing at the moment.

And you know, when the government makes a mistake, really, the friendly fire comes from other people in the Tory party. The Labour party hasn’t really at all, I think, got to that point of being unpleasant to live with in the way that, you know, I think many in the Labour party found, you know, Cameron’s Conservatives unpleasant to live with day to day. And actually, I mean the reason why it’s possible to overstate this is I remember someone in Cameron’s inner circle saying to me a couple of weeks before Ed Miliband lost 2015 elections, saying, well, the thing is Ed’s had a lot of great weeks, but I don’t think he has ever had a particularly good month. But Labour does, I think, need to get better at having good weeks where it gets the Conservatives on the back foot a bit on policy.

George Parker
They’re just so cautious, stroke-disciplined, aren’t they, at the moment. We had this interesting example this week where the High Pay Centre calculated that FTSE 100 chief executives had had a £0.5mn pay rise in the last year. TUC weighed in, “greedflation”, even Downing Street said people should be prepared to justify this kind of award in a cost of living crisis. Went to the Labour party for comments, I think we’ll give that a swerve. I think that’s really interesting and it’s very different, as Stephen says. I remember working in the great Robert Peston’s political team back in the nineties, just out of the ‘97 election, in the days when we had fax machines. And every weekend on a Sunday at about 4:00, the fax machine would whirr into action. There would be a fax from Stephen Byers or Alan Milburn to the aspiring future cabinet ministers that, as it turned out, would attack, not just attacks on the government, John Major’s government, but stories that they sort of dug out from obscure data or written parliamentary questions that the people would write up. You know, it was a much more professional operation.

Stephen Bush
Mm-hmm, yeah.

Lucy Fisher
It’s really interesting what you’re both saying. Why do you think that is? Does this stem from the top? Is it Keir Starmer lacks the killer instinct or the ruthlessness? Is he too sort of decent? Does he not want that sort of operation to go on? Or is it sort of the fact that he’s overlooked the importance of this kind of operation?

Stephen Bush
I think the absence of a really clear political project at the heart of the Labour leadership makes it much harder for the attack unit to do its job for two reasons.

One, the Labour party has a huge number of people working on policy because their way they approach this, how do you, what you stand for is basic fact. Ah, what we need is another, like, 40bn micro policies on, like, some niche issue and it is of no interest if you’re an opposition party. And those people’s time would be much better spent doing that meat and drink of good opposition, which is going through government policy and going, where can we find a weakness? Where have they messed up this week? Where can we get at them?

But in addition to being a resourcing problem, essentially, if you think about Blair and Cameron, what was Cameron’s big sort of political kind of thought? It was basically, I look at New Labour and I go, we accept the social liberalisation but we’ll have more tax cuts. Tony Blair basically went, we accept Thatcherism but we will have a more generous state. And once you set down those parameters that allows your attack unit to go, OK, right, so we can work out what’s out of bounds as an attack and we can work out what’s in bounds. But because there hasn’t been that similar sort of what’s out of bounds, what’s in bounds from the Labour leadership, the truth is that they are so cautious they’re like a football team that, like, has taken off all of its attackers so it just kind of sits there absorbing wave after wave of attack, which if you win like 1-0 looks like, great. But if you ship two late goals, everyone laughs at you.

George Parker
Understand, the thing is how do you do their centre-left politics in the era of no money. The traditional answer that Labour frontbenchers would give when they’re asked what would you do about it would be to give the impression you spend more money. That’s the problem I think with Labour going on the attack. They go into a radio studio, they have 30 seconds attacking the Tories. The next five minutes, so well, what would you do about it? And the answer is, there isn’t an answer.

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Lucy Fisher
Let’s move on now to something else that’s set to become a theme of this autumn. The UK and India have intensified trade talks this week in a bid to remove significant barriers to a deal. Business and trade secretary Kemi Badenoch has travelled to India to meet her counterpart Piyush Goyal, which sets the scene for Rishi Sunak and Narendra Modi to announce some kind of agreement in principle when the UK PM heads to Delhi for the G20 next month. Now George, you’ve got the inside track on Badenoch’s visit to India. Remind us what’s at stake here and really, how much value could a UK-India trade deal even add to the British economy if one is signed off?

George Parker
Well, as with all these trade deals, the amount of additional GDP they might yield is often rather pathetically small. So I think by the government’s own calculation that most of this is likely to yield for the UK economy in terms of extra wealth is 0.22 per cent of GDP, which obviously pales into insignificance against the lost trade we’ve suffered as a result of Brexit, as many people will continually point out. However, from a political point of view, it’s important both on the UK side and there are economic advantages in terms of, you know, potential for extra sales of whisky and cars to India, where they’re subject at the moment to tariffs of over 100 per cent. Also services.

And also from the Indian point of view, it’s important because Modi hasn’t really been doing trade deals at all with any country. So from the Indian point, this is important politically to show that India is prepared to gradually open up an economy which is notoriously difficult to penetrate if you’re a third country.

So I think both sides see this as important, but we’re into the final hard yards of the negotiation. All that grandiose talk of Boris Johnson last year about getting a deal by Diwali last October, that’s come and gone. I think there’s a recognition in the UK side that you’ve got to get this right. You can’t be seen to be rushing against artificial deadlines. They did that with the Australia deal. You remember when Liz Truss was the trade secretary and subsequently that was pilloried, including by George Eustice, who was a minister in the government at the time. He said it was a complete failure. We gave away far too much to the Australians just to get the deal. So it has to be the right one.

But there is this moment coming up, as you mentioned, Lucy, which is the meeting between Narendra Modi and Rishi Sunak around the margins of the G20 summit in early September, which would be a big moment for both countries. I think. You know, I think Modi called Sunak a living bridge for UK Indians.

Stephen Bush
I think one of the strategic mistakes that Rishi Sunak made when he became prime minister is that, ultimately, there are lots of people who are very excited by the historic moment that effectively the UK’s first post-imperial prime minister, you know, to use that old phrase, he is here because we were there, right. One of the big problems the Conservative party has is they’ve been in power for a long time. People get sick of you when you’ve been in power for a long time. He does embody change in a way that I mean, look, one of the people who finds that exciting and resonant is me, right? And I think that he has really failed to use that to give him and his party a sense of freshness and newness. I think partly because it felt like the people around him seem to think that conversation would happen without him sort of leading it. And I think it will be, yeah, it will be quite a huge moment for lots of people in the diaspora. It will be one for like lots of people who’ve grown up in areas where there are lots of people from the diaspora. And it is also, I think crucially a moment to say something about this government and isn’t just, you know, 13 years, everything falling apart. And so in addition to the, you know, the economic benefits, which are obviously tiny compared to what we’ve lost but are still not nothing, just something which reminds people that it is a historic moment and it is something that the UK, I think, should feel proud and excited about, I think is good for the government.

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Lucy Fisher
The roller-coaster plotline of Donald Trump’s political career took another turn this week. The former president faces charges in yet another state. This time it’s Georgia, where he’s accused of interfering with the 2020 election results, an allegation he denies. Trump also boycotted the first TV debate to choose the Republican party’s nominee in next year’s US presidential election, leaving the way open for a new contender.

Vivek Ramaswamy
And I find it offensive that we have professional politicians on the stage that will make a pilgrimage to Kyiv, to their pope, Zelenskyy, without doing the same thing for people in Maui. There you have it.

Nikki Haley
Under your watch . . . 

Vivek Ramaswamy
So the reality is . . . 

Nikki Haley
You will make America less safe. You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.

Vivek Ramaswamy
And you know what . . . 

Nikki Haley
It shows!

Vivek Ramaswamy
There’s the foreign policy . . . 

Lucy Fisher
Well, that was Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s never run for public office, clashing there with former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley over support for Ukraine during the Fox News debate that took place on Wednesday night. Well, to take us through the latest is the FT’s Lauren Fedor, who’s down the line from Washington. Hi, Lauren.

Lauren Fedor
Hi, Lucy.

Lucy Fisher
So tell us a bit about the state of play in the US, starting with, of course, Trump, who else? How serious are the charges against him, and is there realistically any chance that another candidate could clinch the Republican ticket?

Lauren Fedor
Well, if we start with Trump, the charges are very serious. They’re serious in Georgia, where he’s facing 13 charges relating to his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. But that’s just the beginning. There are three other criminal cases as well. Add them all up, he’s facing 91 felony charges. That is a lot of potential jail time. So, you know, his legal problems are serious and we could see those intermingling with the campaign cycle. Well, they’re already doing so now, but certainly next year we could be having as many as four contemporaneous trials while he is campaigning for president. In terms of whether or not there is an opportunity for someone else to be the party’s nominee? Sure, there is an opportunity, but the polls as they stand show Trump with a commanding lead. Whether you look at national opinion polls of Republican voters, whether you look at polls in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, the key states in the American primary process that ultimately decides the candidate, he has locked up more than half of the vote at this point. Now, of course, there is still time. Things could change. But as it stands, you know, a lot of people are watching that debate this week thinking this was a contest for second place.

Lucy Fisher
Well, it’s such an enthralling story to be watching from this side of the Atlantic. Tell us about the competition such as it is. And we know that eight people took part in the Fox News debate this week. Some will be familiar household names to most Britons: Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor; Mike Pence, the former VP; Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor. There were some that were perhaps less familiar to a UK audience. And as I mentioned earlier, Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur. Who’s leading the pack at the moment?

Lauren Fedor
Well, you know, DeSantis is still the second-choice candidate, at least according to the polls, but he has really underperformed expectations. If you think back to just November of last year after the US midterms, he was seen as the favourite, quite frankly. He won re-election in Florida, which used to be a swing state, by some 20 points. The reality is right now he has had several public mis-steps, several forced errors, quite frankly. He’s reshuffled the top brass of his campaign. And, you know, look, you’ll find supporters who said he did a solid performance at the debates this week, but there are a lot of people who were very underwhelmed, let’s say, by what he brought to the table.

Now, there are other people like Ramaswamy, a total political novice, a biotech entrepreneur, who more recently has been writing books, kind of railing against ESG practices and investing. He’s been a surprise — maybe star is not the right word here, but he’s certainly garnered a lot of attention. He’s climbing in the polls and is, well, at least this week was getting under the skin of a lot of his competitors.

You also heard there from Nikki Haley, who was the UN ambassador during the Trump administration. Before that, she was the governor of South Carolina. She’s the only female candidate, which is noteworthy. And she has struggled in the polls so far. But a lot of Republicans were, I think, pleasantly surprised by her performance on the debate stage.

Lucy Fisher
In particular, just to focus it on what the US race means for the UK, there’s two areas I wanted to touch on.

Lauren Fedor
Hmm . ..

Lucy Fisher
And the first is around Ukraine. Like what is this race as it hots up into the autumn going to mean for the consensus in the US for support for Kyiv?

Lauren Fedor
Hmm. Well, you know, the reality is, in the United States, whether it’s the presidential race, whether it’s congressional politics, whether it’s down to state and local level, all politics is national at this point.

Lucy Fisher
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Fedor
And so I do think that this 2024 race really sets the agenda for the party. It sets the talking points. And I think you will see that kind of setting the tone and guiding the conversation on Capitol Hill, which today and in the year 2023 is really where the power lies in terms of holding the purse strings for further US aid to Ukraine. The reality is among Republican voters, and particularly among some of these candidates even, we have seen support for Ukraine slipping and in some cases, some of these candidates — Ramaswamy, one of them — are very ardently opposed to further aid. I think all of this is setting the stage for some real feisty clashes among Republicans, whether it be on the Hill, on the debate stage, about what US aid for Ukraine looks like.

Lucy Fisher
And could that persuade or encourage Joe Biden and the Democrats to sort of back off a bit in the full-throatedness of their support for Zelenskyy in Ukraine?

Lauren Fedor
I think that’s extremely unlikely. The reality is on Capitol Hill, some of the most senior Republicans, people like Mitch McConnell, who’s the top Republican on Capitol Hill, are still ardent supporters of Zelenskyy and, you know, Kyiv. And I don’t expect that to change. What we’ll see is intraparty rallying, basically, and we’ll see more isolationist members of the party probably trying to hold up further funding packages. In reality, you know, I’m not a betting woman, but you might guess that the more isolationist wing of the party will just use this as leverage to get something else that they want tacked on to any further spending packages, maybe domestic priorities, whether that be about the US border with Mexico.

Lucy Fisher
And another question of foreign policy that, again, has a huge impact on the UK and the rest of the west. Where do you think that this race is gonna go in terms of the question about China and US-Chinese relations?

Lauren Fedor
Hmm. I mean, I think China is one of these rare topics where we do find a lot of consensus, at least on the mood in an increasingly polarised Washington. We saw a lot of hawkishness on the debate stage and we do see opportunities for bipartisan co-operation where Democrats and Republicans actually agree on the approach, at least economically, when it comes to perhaps, strengthening supply chains. We’ve seen co-operation between the US and the UK in this space as well as on the security side. So I think you’re gonna continue to hear very hawkish messages from the vast majority of these Republican candidates.

George Parker
Lauren, a beginner’s question, under the American constitution, is it possible that President Donald Trump could be sworn in in a prison cell?

Lauren Fedor
(Laughs) There are now some constitutional scholars coming out of the woodworks crafting arguments saying that Trump would be barred from running for office if he were convicted of a crime. But that is, you know, an area rife for kind of legal arguments, I suppose. The reality is, is that most people do not see any legal hurdle from him being chained up and yet sworn in. And the reality is as well is that for three of these four criminal cases, they’re federal cases which set the stage for — and you’ve got to bear with me because it is bizarre — the possibility that he could be convicted, elected, then pardon himself from (laughter) several of those cases. The one in Georgia is slightly different. It’s a state case. So, you know, I’m getting into the weeds with you here about federal versus state law in the US, but the president can’t pardon himself of a state-level conviction. So that could become a bit thornier. But yeah, there really isn’t anything written down that is stopping him from pressing ahead here. And he certainly hasn’t given any indication that he wants to.

Stephen Bush
In terms of the Ukraine question, should we expect here in the UK and in Europe that the Republican party will become more isolationist over time? You know, is this kind of peak hawk, as it were?

Lauren Fedor
You mean over the medium- to long-term . . . 

Stephen Bush
Yeah.

Lauren Fedor
. . . in terms of the party’s movement? I think that’s probably a fair assessment to make. The reality is it has been proven over the last seven years that Donald Trump was not a one-off. He’s certainly a unique figure, but he tapped into a sentiment, whether it had to do with domestic policy or foreign policy and the sentiment of isolationism, that is not going away. And Trump’s ideas are not going away, even if whether it’s not in this cycle, but say, in four years’ time, eight years’ time, there’s someone else to carry the mantle forward. I think you, it’s fair to expect that they will continue this America-first kind of philosophy in one way or another.

Lucy Fisher
Lauren Fedor, thanks for bringing us the picture from Washington.

Lauren Fedor
Thanks for having me.

Lucy Fisher
Just a final word on this, George and Stephen. I mean, how big a deal or not do you think that the US race is going to play in the UK regarding the election we’re gonna have next year? Do we think that the likes of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer might try to contrast themselves to the sort of the bombast of Trump if he is the Republican nominee?

George Parker
I’m not sure about that. My professional concern, Lucy, is that you and I and Stephen, of course, could be writing about British politics at a time (Lucy laughs) when a far more dramatic election is taking place simultaneously across the Atlantic of extraordinary proportions. I can’t say, I mean, look, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are so obviously different to Donald Trump.

Lucy Fisher
Yeah.

George Parker
I don’t think they’ll make that contrast. But plainly, it’s gonna complicate relations between the UK and America. Whoever wins the next UK election, if you’ve got Trump in the White House ripping up support for Ukraine, ripping up support for dealing with the climate change crisis, just throws the whole international order up in the air, doesn’t it?

Stephen Bush
I think in some ways the really weird thing about this presidential election is usually in Westminster, MPs and spads can’t wait to talk to you about what’s going on in American elections, and that isn’t happening as much. I think because actually what’s happening is, in the sort of too horrific to contemplate. Like, ultimately, right, there’s going to be a debate in the Conservative party about cutting taxes. There is an ongoing sort of the Labour party pretending it won’t increase spending on the public services when we all know it will, right? What powered the ability to cut taxes or raise public spending in Europe? It was a) the end of the cold war and being able to shelter under the protective umbrella of American power. Well, broadly speaking, the big picture here is that America has heard about the broad umbrella of American power going, well, that doesn’t sound like a fun gig for us.

Essentially, there are broadly two camps in Westminster. There’s a bit of the Conservative party which has this delusion that the right form of words and the right state visit will turn Donald Trump into Reagan or George HW Bush and it’ll all be fine again. And then there’s the rest of the Conservative party and the Labour party, which essentially has a, well, this has quite big implications for what we ourselves can spend money on in our own security situation. That’s awful. Let’s just not think about it. And I think that’s also true what’s going on in China, right? And the big thing I think about the next election is one, we’ll be in a weird situation where there’ll be a much bigger story happening at the same time and people will want to read about and we won’t be covering, but also that both parties will, I think, want to pretend that geopolitics aren’t going to radically constrain what they can do in office. But they are.

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Lucy Fisher
Just before we go, time for the FT’s political stock picks of the week. George, who are you buying or selling?

George Parker
I think probably this week I’m gonna buy Claire Coutinho, someone listeners may not be very familiar with. She’s currently the children’s minister. She’s 38. Very, very staunch Sunak loyalist. Merrill Lynch, KPMG background, MP for the rock-solid Surrey seat, East Surrey. And she’s being tipped possibly to move into the Treasury as number two there if John Glenn, the current chief secretary, goes off to become the new secretary of state for defence. She’s a little bit, I think we were discussing this this week weren’t we Lucy, she’s a little bit like Sunak in the sense she’s quite earnest and quite techie, but she’s very much Sunak’s kind of politician.

Lucy Fisher
Stephen?

Stephen Bush
Well, I’m annoyed at that stock pick. (Lucy laughs) It is much better than mine. I’m not gonna meet to it, so I’m going to go for John Glenn, who is the person who I think whose movement will facilitate Claire Coutinho being such a good stock pick, say I’ll buy John Glenn this week. Who are you buying?

Lucy Fisher
Well, I know early this month Robert said he was selling Nadine Dorries, who he described at that point as a penny stock. Bear with me here. I’m saying buy . . .

George Parker
Yes! I agree.

Lucy Fisher
. . . Dorries because I’m just, the sheer brass neck of the woman to come out fighting this week and claim that she’s working for her constituents every day.

Stephen Bush
Oh no, this is a game stock-level pick.

Lucy Fisher
That she’s going to, you know, this is gonna be the autumn of Nadine Dorries. She is a street fighter. She’s got a book out. She’s got the by-election to call, she’s got some serious pain to inflict on Rishi Sunak. This ain’t the last you’ve heard of Nadine.

George Parker
I think you’re right there. Buy, buy, buy. (Lucy laughs) And buy her book available at good bookshops in September.

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Lucy Fisher
George, Stephen, thanks for joining me. And that’s it for this episode of the FT’s Political Fix. If you like the podcast, do subscribe. You can find us through all the usual channels to receive episodes as soon as they’re released. We also appreciate positive reviews and ratings. It really does help spread the word. Don’t forget to subscribe to Inside Politics, the newsletter from Stephen Bush that comes to your inbox daily. There’s a 90-day free trial on offer at the moment. Political Fix is presented by me, Lucy Fisher, and produced by Audrey Tinline. Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer. Original music and sound engineering by Breen Turner. Mix by Simon Panayi. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of audio. We’ll meet again here, same time, same place next week.