Sunak and Starmer flip-flop on policies

This is an audio transcript of the Political Fix podcast episode: ‘Sunak and Starmer flip-flop on policies’

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Stephen Bush
The Labour party has a, I would say, well-earned reputation for shiftiness because Keir Starmer has had to kind of duck and dive in order to move the Labour party from its Corbynite position some way to the right of where it fought the 2019 election.

Lucy Fisher
Welcome to Political Fix, your essential insider guide to Westminster from the Financial Times with me, Lucy Fisher. You heard there the FT’s Stephen Bush talking about the Labour leader. Stephen’s here with me in the studio now. Hello, Stephen.

Stephen Bush
Hi, Lucy.

Lucy Fisher
And the FT’s Miranda Green. Hi, Miranda.

Miranda Green
Hello, Lucy.

Lucy Fisher
Coming up, we’ll take a look at the flip-flopping on some of the big issues by both the Conservative and Labour leadership. We’ll also consider whether Suella Braverman’s hardline rhetoric on refugees changes the dial on government policy on migration. Plus, with the conference season now well under way, the FT’s Anna Gross will join us for an update on the Lib Dem gathering this week.

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So first up, let’s talk about the HS2 extension from Birmingham to Manchester. At the time of speaking, it’s unclear whether this northern leg of the line will actually go ahead, but the topic certainly dominated when Rishi Sunak did a broadcasting blitz on Thursday speaking to local radio. Here’s what he had to say to BBC Manchester’s Anna Jameson.

Rishi Sunak
Like I said, I’m not not speculating on future things. We’ve got spades in the ground right now and we’re getting on. But what people also want to know . . . 

Anna Jameson
But is it under review?

Rishi Sunak
Government is always making sure that we get value for money out of everything we do. But that’s just a statement of the obvious, right? But I think what people also should know, because I know there’s a lot of focus on this one thing, but actually, what are the journeys that people use most in Greater Manchester or across the north? It’s on in their cars right now, getting to work, taking their kids to school, making sure that the roads are free of potholes.

Lucy Fisher
Well, I’m still cringing there at Sunak’s mispronunciation of north, although perhaps we should give him some slack on that. But Miranda, we could hear him there trying to dodge the question. This has just become a colossal headache for the government, hasn’t it? I mean, if they do press ahead, it’s gonna cost more than £100bn. If they don’t, it could leave this just a total white elephant.

Miranda Green
It’s horrific political decision. And either he goes ahead with a project with a ballooning price tag, insane ballooning price tag, or he has a kind of mishmash edited version which will end up disappointing one section of the country and not others and still have a big price tag. Or he dumps the entire thing, thus exposing that the previous Conservative administrations before his own have presided over a total public policy disaster that was designed to help with a core part of the Conservative mission, which was this idea of levelling up the north of England and the Midlands and trying to enable England’s economy to be more balanced and to spread prosperity. And, you know, from a cynical Conservative point of view, therefore spread like the likelihood of voting Tory across those areas that they were so successful in winning in 2019 and there are a lot of angry people across the north of England, as that interview showed. And he’s now got to go up to Manchester, gather his party there in one of the cities that feels most abandoned by his decision to backtrack on a commitment to the HS2 northern leg. So it’s an appalling political fix, as it were (Lucy laughs) for the prime minister.

Lucy Fisher
Stephen, that’s right. I mean, the timing couldn’t be worse, could it, as Miranda said. He’s allowed the doubts over this Birmingham to Manchester line continue for days and days and he’s got to face the party faithful in Manchester from Sunday. Is it gonna dominate the conference?

Stephen Bush
You can tell that what he’s trying to do is find some position that will mean that no one in his party shouts at him. But the mood of division is gonna continue and it’s always just better off to just drain the poison. But I must admit, as well as I speak to specifically, and which Miranda is exactly right, would be this public policy disaster. It feels almost like one of those kind of parables about the shortcomings of the Soviet Union, you know. Under Tory Britain from 2010-23, they eventually built a high-speed railway that was meant to link up London with the north and it stopped in, with the greatest of respect to people in Ealing where the line is normally meant to stop. It, you know, expectedly went to the outskirts of London and stopped at Birmingham. It’s just so on the nose. But I have to admit the other thing I thought listening to that interview is just I really fear for him in an election campaign if that kind of tetchiness and general sort of kind of, this thing where it feels like he’s just telling the interviewer he’s much smarter than them, it just gave me the same feeling that I used to feel like watching, like, late-period Wenger Arsenal defend balls over the top.

Miranda Green
(Laughter) I struggle so much with football metaphors, (Lucy laughs) but I’m just gonna . . . 

Stephen Bush
It was stressful.

Miranda Green
OK. It was stressful.

Lucy Fisher
I didn’t understand it either, so I thought (overlapping talk) gliding swiftly.

Miranda Green
(Overlapping talk) for that, yeah.

Lucy Fisher
And the point Sunak makes that more people use cars than trains. I mean, he is trying to frame himself yet again as on the side of the motorist here. Is there something in that post-pandemic perhaps of people commuting a bit less, working remotely more and a sort of perhaps slightly utopian vision of a future in which we’ll all be someday, maybe not in coming decades, but eventually, you know, riding around in electric driverless cars mean that high-speed rail might not be worth pursuing at the cost of which it’s currently pitched?

Miranda Green
So there’s definitely something in the potential for the Conservative party to kind of weaponise the motorist in the coming general election. That is absolutely 100 per cent true in terms of the reason why people are in their cars outside London, you know, people would argue that that’s because the options for them not to be in their cars are not there. And you’ve got these hugely important northern cities where you just can’t get from one to the other. And it is an absolute stranglehold on the economy of that part of the country. I mean, the ONS did a study about two weeks ago, and I think it was, which showed that the income in London in the south-east was now pulling so far ahead of the income per head in those northern cities that they were saying the only way you deal with this is by trying to empower the cities of the north to actually sort of have a functioning city region and communicate between the two.

I mean, clearly there’s an argument for the way that working practices are changing, but people don’t only need to leave the house to go to work, you know. They need to go to hospital. They need to visit family. You want people to stay in those regions and become prosperous there. And at the moment, they all come to the south-east or a high proportion of them do. They come to the south-east for universities and then stay here rather than going home, all of that. So it would feel like an abandonment, truly, of the kind of Boris Johnson and even Theresa May policy agenda.

Lucy Fisher
Mm-hmm.

Miranda Green
Of spreading prosperity, I think. And that would really be sort of putting a full stop on an honourable aspiration of this period of Tory administration, I think.

Lucy Fisher
ooking at another flip-flop that’s occurred this week, the Labour party has clarified, some might say U-turned, that it is not going to strip private schools of charitable status. It will go ahead with imposing VAT and business rates on the private education sector. Stephen, there’s been a lot of back and forth over whether this is a U-turn. Some in Labour insist, well, we never actually said that, but a quick Google shows that Starmer himself said it. Labour spokespeople said it. There has at any rate been confusion over what the policy has been here.

Stephen Bush
In terms of the actual letter of the policy, it’s correct to say it’s not a U-turn. But in terms of the retail bit, it is a U-turn. But I also think more importantly, one of the reasons that Keir Starmer has been able to take the Labour party quite some way from where it was when he found it is by being quite devious, or I think ruthless is the word you use if you want the leader of the opposition’s office to answer your calls. (Lucy laughs) But and as a result, the Labour party has a, I would say well-earned reputation for shiftiness.

And actually the thing we’re seeing with both parties now, right, is that the Conservatives have this reputation for chaos because they’ve, you know, been going through prime ministers like they’re, you know, water. And the Labour party has a reputation for shiftiness because Keir Starmer has had to kind of duck and dive or, you know, whatever euphemism we want to put on it in order to move the Labour party from its Corbynite position some way to the right of where it fought the 2019 election. And it means that everything the parties do is refracted through that pre-existing prism, right? The Labour party clarifies and actually doesn’t really change its policy in terms of the felt impact on private schools. And everyone goes, oh, there they go, U-turning again, they’re shifty.

The Conservative party has, whether it’s High Speed 2 or net zero or banning smoking for everyone born after 2009 and everyone goes, oh, there they go, changing their minds, flopping about as usual. And I think it’s a reminder of, you know, to use a nerdy political science term. We often talk about voters being values voters, ie people who vote on ideology. But of course, most voters are valence voters who vote on competence and their perception of the parties. And the big wound that both the political parties are carrying is that the Labour party is going to go into the next election yes, with the Labour party’s image much improved on 2019, but at the cost and its leader has a reputation for shiftiness and U-turning; the Conservative party is going to go into the next election with a leader who actually at the moment is about as unpopular as Boris Johnson was in 2019, but facing a much less unpopular Labour leader than Jeremy Corbyn and a party which just has this reputation for like running around with its hair on fire.

Lucy Fisher
Miranda, Stephen talks there about the politics of whether this is a U-turn or not and whether this is gonna make Starmer look shiftier. And let’s just pause on the substance of the policy for a second. And we know that imposing VAT and business rates on schools is set to raise about 1.7bn. Not insignificant. Equally, not, you know, a massive taxation lever. Will Starmer be glad that this row this week is drawing attention to this policy, or is there a slight chance that this could backfire? And I think in particular, I was talking to one Tory MP who said to me it’s going down really badly in his constituency where people think, you know, people who don’t send their kids to private school, haven’t been, you know, privately educated themselves say this is the politics of envy, the politics of nastiness.

Miranda Green
I think it’s got all the markings of a policy which will end up pleasing no one, because the problem is those who are enthusiasts for the idea of stripping the private schools of their special status and milking the parents who can afford them in order to put more money into the state education system will see the headlines about Labour backtracking and not like them. And as you say, that segment of the population who can afford to use private schools or perhaps would aspire so to do if they could, who are perhaps unhappy with their local state schools, won’t like the policy either. So I think it is genuinely a bit of a risk. You alluded to what they’re hoping to raise, though, in terms of the revenue. And the problem is they’ve started to sort of, you know, make their costings already in Labour and they’ve essentially spent that money and I think they do believe . . . 

Stephen Bush
About five times. (Lucy laughs)

Miranda Green
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, they’re not gonna abandon the policy because they need that change. And Rachel Reeves, as we know, will not even let them sort of pop out for a pint of milk because it’s too expensive. So . . . 

Lucy Fisher
But do we think or do you think if Labour get into power, they will actually pursue it? It could potentially lead to this huge exodus of people from private schools into the state sector for parents who couldn’t afford an extra 20 per cent VAT on fees. So I understand what you’re saying that they need to because of the costings and . . . 

Miranda Green
I do. So those figures about how many kids will suddenly, inverted commas, “flood” into the state school system are put out by the private school associations . . . 

Lucy Fisher
Yeah.

Miranda Green
. . . and they are a bit questionable to say the least. So I think we don’t need to worry about some kind of inundation of state schools. I do think Labour would go through with some of these changes though, and not just because they’ve spent the money already. It’s because this has been a bit of a sort of running sore in terms of the unfair playing field educationally. So I think they would go through with this because the reason they’ve made what looks like a difficult U-turn this week is because they’re actually trying to work towards a policy that is implementable. And the point is that they found out that stripping private schools of their charitable status would be a long, uncomfortable legal battle. They might not win, but changing the way in which they’re taxed is something that they could implement through legislation. So actually, this unfortunate week, as it were, looking as if they’re flip-flopping, is to do with coming up with a policy that’s actually practical and that they could go through with.

Stephen Bush
So we shouldn’t forget that one of the first things that the incoming Labour government did under Tony Blair was scrap the assisted places scheme, which was basically a scheme whereby the government went, yeah, OK, your local state school’s a bit rubbish but don’t worry, the government will pay a private school to take you instead.

Now one of the reasons why New Labour did that is they, as with Keir Starmer, had decided that their political interests were best served by saying, look, don’t worry, you don’t need to worry about tax rises under Labour. We will stick to these very tight Tory spending plans, which meant the second they were in office they were caught in this continual fight for revenue. And when you’re in a fight for revenue, you go, well, why are we giving X amount to these assisted places? Let’s just get rid of it.

And broadly speaking, although the change between Labour’s policy on private schools last week and this week is relatively minor in terms of its impact, the other thing is changing private schools’ status might actually result in the sector shrinking. Changing how they pay VAT means that you can go, brilliant, we’re gonna take this quite successful industry that increasingly is targeted internationally and we will take, yes, 1.7 or whatever it is, it’s a tiny amount in terms of government revenue, but things like the big subplot of whoever wins the next the next election, but let’s face it, will be the Labour party. (Lucy laughs) The big subplot will be, (Stephen laughs) you know, I mean, I know we have to, like, oh . . . 

Lucy Fisher
That’s a big generalisation.

Stephen Bush
. . . it’s anyone’s game, but yeah, no, it’ll be the Labour party, right? But will be this continual fight for ways they can find any form of money, right? Because, you know, ageing population . . . 

Miranda Green
It’s quite a marginal game.

Stephen Bush
Yeah. Exactly like . . . 

Miranda Green
(Overlapping talk) in terms of revenue, ’cause that’s what we’re gonna be into.

Lucy Fisher
Yeah.

Stephen Bush
You know, basically whether it’s Rachel Reeves or Rachel Reeves, the next chancellor will basically spend the whole time going, what can I do that’s not income tax? What can I do that most voters will hopefully not notice that won’t choke off growth? Now, I suspect the difficulty that the next Labour government will rapidly get into is that the middle of that Venn diagram is pretty tiny and it mostly raises piddling amounts. But that is the big subplot here, is just trying to find any way that they can be like, oh yeah, we would have more police, we would have more of this, we would have more X without going into that death zone of income tax, VAT, etc, etc.

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Lucy Fisher
Well, we all know Stephen’s views on the likelihood or certainty (Miranda laughs) of a Labour victory next year. Other views are available. One party that’s certainly not going to be occupying Number 10 is the Lib Dems. And here to join us in the studio to talk about their conference this week is Anna Gross, the FT’s political correspondent. Hi, Anna.

Anna Gross
Hi, Lucy.

Lucy Fisher
So crack open the vitamins. A conference season is under way. Anna, you are the only one around the table to hit Bournemouth. Miranda and Stephen, (Miranda laughs) you are both also there, weren’t you?

Miranda Green
The massed ranks of the FT.

Lucy Fisher
I know. I was really gutted to miss it. I got the lurgy early and seeing some very jolly, shall we say, pictures of you all made me feel huge FOMO. But let’s just set this conference in context ‘cause it was the first annual gathering the Lib Dems have had since 2019 in-person following Covid and then the Queen’s death. Felt like there was a lot riding on it for various reasons, not least the way the polls are set out at the moment. The Lib Dems could well be a kingmaker again next year. Before we get to the substance of what the conference was like and Miranda and Stephen, I’ll certainly ask you to compare it to previous years from (inaudible). Anna, you’re still pretty new to covering politics and as a conference clean skin, could you just tell listeners who’ve never had the joy of attending a party conference or certainly a Lib Dem conference, what it was like?

Anna Gross
It was pretty weird. Yeah. I mean, just in terms of conferences, there was a lot going on. I’m kind of running from event to event, briefing to briefing. And then there’s also these fringe events and they’re quite fun to go along to. There’s a couple were, I think like there were actually three or four where Vince Cable was criticising the Lib Dems’ policy on Brexit and rejoining the EU, which were quite fiery. But then there were also some quite weird events. On the Saturday night there was a Lib Dem disco, which was, as you might expect.

Lucy Fisher
Were there socks and sandals?

Anna Gross
There were some socks and sandals.

Lucy Fisher
Is that good? Muesli munching?

Anna Gross
(Laughter) Not quite.

Lucy Fisher
Good moves at the disco?

Anna Gross
I didn’t attend. I did walk up to the entrance, but I did not attend.

Lucy Fisher
Very (inaudible).

Anna Gross
But that was a very fun glee club which listeners may have heard about, where Lib Dems sing from a kind of hymn book songs about former members, about liberal democracy, about kind of bashing the Tories. And it’s very bizarre. But it’s fun.

Lucy Fisher
Well, we’ve got a clip kindly recorded by you, Miranda, from this very event.

[CHOIR SINGING TO THE TUNE OF THE BEATLES’ “LET IT BE”]

Lucy Fisher
OK, I thought I couldn’t have cringed more when Rishi Sunak mispronounced north. Miranda, (Miranda laughs) can you just tell us what that was we just heard?

Miranda Green
That was a new song for this year.

Lucy Fisher
OK.

Miranda Green
About Liz Truss.

Lucy Fisher
Spoken like a true aficionado.

Miranda Green
Yeah, yeah. About Liz Truss not managing to outlast the famous lettuce in the stunt. But, yeah, it’s a crazy tradition of the Liberal party. It used to be called the Liberal review so that, you know, comic songs at the seaside, very appropriate. And it’s evolved into a kind of, yeah, homemade political satire. But there was some pretty enthusiastic singing from my colleagues around the table here. I would say they gave the beards and sandals a run for their money, Stephen!

Stephen Bush
I unashamedly love Glee Club and I think one, it’s part of the, you know, the longstanding British cultural tradition. And I’m going to do a second alienating football analogy this week of, you know, when you’re on the terrace and you start singing about, you know, something that John Terry has done and to the tune of Handel’s “The Messiah” or whatever, you know, like it’s part of that tradition of coming up with spontaneous poetry and songs about events and where people come together and they feel a sense of community and I love all of that communal stuff.

Lucy Fisher
It’s just so Lib Dem, isn’t it?

Miranda Green
Do you know what’s so funny about it, so FT? So the main song everyone gets enthusiastic about at the Lib Dem Glee Club is called “The Land”. And it’s actually a song about campaigning for land value taxation, which is something that our very own Martin Wolf is extremely enthusiastic about pushing to politicians at the highest level. But as a candidate who might well win a seat this time said, what’s the use of this? We’ve been singing this song for a hundred years and we still haven’t secured land value taxation. But there we are.

Lucy Fisher
But Miranda, of course, you have a noble background in the Liberal Democrats. You were press secretary to Paddy Ashdown when he was leader of the party. Like Stephen and I, we’ve all three of us been around the conference block a few times. How did this year’s compare to previous ones and what did we learn from this week that we didn’t know previously?

Miranda Green
So number one, the contrast with 2019 when the Lib Dems had gone a bit crazy with the idea that they were gonna win an enormous number of seats. They’d had a huge influx of defectors from the Labour party and Change UK who’d sort of fallen in with them. They’d had a lot of donations from rich anti-Brexit businesspeople who thought that Jo Swinson was going to be able to stop Brexit. And then she came up with that terrible pledge to revoke Brexit. This year, the contrast couldn’t have been greater. We’ve had three terrible election nights in a row, only won 11 seats in 2019. The whole focus of the conference was incredibly pragmatic. It was only about what’s our strategy for taking as many seats as possible off the Conservatives in the so-called blue wall, which is the kind of affluent south-east and west country, and also therefore, what are the policies that are really good on a leaflet really got on the doorstep with soft Tories.

Lucy Fisher
So, Anna, you had a cracking scoop to kick off the conference that the Lib Dems got their biggest donation to date since 2019 — £1mn donation from a deceased lawyer, I believe. Tell us how their fundraising is going and how that might restrain or bolster their campaign next year and how many seats they can spread their resources between, they think.

Anna Gross
So it’s definitely ramping up. They received £2.8mn in the first two quarters of 2023, which is way more than they received last year. And they’re feeling really positive about that. They’ve got a kind of coalition of donors who are giving to them regularly. That said, it’s still completely dwarfed by what the Conservatives and Labour are getting. Just to give you a flavour of that, the Conservatives received in that same two-quarter period £22mn and including a £5mn donation from just one person and Labour received £12mn. So you get a bit of a sense of why their messaging is so targeted and why their campaign is going to be so targeted on specific local areas. We’re talking kind of the blue wall areas, kind of Conservative heartlands and the West Country. I think the sense I get, although they tried as much as possible to avoid saying how many seats they were hoping to win — again, learning lessons from 2019 — the sense I got speaking to party insiders was 30, potentially 40. A real push might be possible.

Lucy Fisher
And Miranda mentioned that they have eschewed kind of indulgent discussions about some of their pet projects. They’ve swerved making kind of lofty, some might say pie in the sky, vows about things like scrapping tuition fees because, of course, if they did play kingmaker with Labour and they’ve made clear they are now an avowedly anti-Tory party, they wouldn’t go into coalition with the Conservatives. They’ve kept it to sort of pretty narrow specific retail policies. And one of the main ones on this was on cancer treatments.

Anna Gross
Mmm. Yes. So essentially, again, as they’re trying to focus their campaign really locally and adapt it to local messaging, they focused pretty much on NHS and NHS waiting times. They did a really big kind of set piece on cancer waiting times, reducing those and actually legally mandating that people have to get their first treatment within, I think it’s 62 days. And then the other big national set piece thing is sewage. So one person, I hope I can say this, one party insider said, we are the party of shit (Laughter).

Stephen Bush
The national party of excrement.

Anna Gross
Just one extra point on that, which I don’t think we’ve touched upon, is that Ed Davey got in a bit of trouble, I guess, because he just again and again over the course of the weekend, refused to get drawn on what the party’s policy, or at least to kind of clearly state what the party’s policy was in terms of the UK’s future relationship with the EU, even though it’s actually clearly set out in the party’s pre-manifesto document. So he kind of was refusing to just read out what’s written in the document.

Lucy Fisher
That’s really interesting that you say that because obviously you were there and you had the debate as it was going on. I was not there just kind of seeing the headlines. And I was struck that Davey claimed that Labour has nowhere near as ambitious a plan to restore relations with the EU as the Lib Dems do. And Stephen, I just sort of thought, blimey, bit of a cheat claiming that given the Lib Dems have just been trying to avoid this topic altogether. So what should I read from rhetoric like that, do you think?

Stephen Bush
I mean, this is a party which quite literally is just, the first clause, you know, the first clause of their standing orders is something like, the Lib Democrats believe that our future is better in the European communities, as in they have, you know, they wanted to be in it since 1956. It was the biggest applause line in his conference speech, was when he talked about fixing the relationship. But also the reason why the Labour party feels slightly more confident talking about Brexit is because the politics have changed. And that also means that the Lib Democrats feel slightly more confident about talking about Brexit. I mean, the reality is it’s basically the policy of the Lib Dems and Labour towards Europe is the same, which is we’ll get as close as we think the voters will let us get away with it. For the Lib Dems, their anxiety is about those former seats they used to hold in Devon and Cornwall. And for Labour, it’s about former seats they used to hold in ex-industrial parts of the north and West Midlands.

Miranda Green
There is a danger there though for the Lib Dems, which I think it’s right to flag up and actually, Professor John Curtice was down in Bournemouth risking the ire of Lib Dem activists by pointing out some of the flaws in the current very cautious strategy, and that is that in a few seats it’s possible that Labour would actually kind of leapfrog the Lib Dems to take them off the Tories if voters think, well, OK, I’m really pro-European and Labour might win. And actually, Labour and the Lib Dems seem to be the same on Europe. Why not vote Labour? You know, so there is a kind of danger there, but it’s in a very few seats, really like two or three. And in the vast bulk of the targets that the Lib Dems are going for to get from the Tories, they’re way, way more worried about sort of Lib Dem-curious, soft Tory voters being really put off if they start, in David Cameron’s famous words, banging on about Europe, in this case, rejoining Europe. So they are being cautious, but there is a little inbuilt risk there if Labour is seen as a home for pro-European votes.

Lucy Fisher
One to watch.

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Well, alongside the Lib Dems in Bournemouth, there was major political posturing going on on the other side of the Atlantic this week by Suella Braverman, the home secretary, who jetted into DC to give a speech on immigration to a rightwing think-tank. It marked the strongest attack yet by a UK government minister on the UN Refugee Convention that was agreed in 1951. Stephen, you’ve written about this this week and I think one of the key questions you’ve got me thinking about is whether there’s any change of substance, really, in what we’ve heard from Braverman or it’s just additional emphasis. We’ve already heard her talk about an invasion of our shores by asylum seekers. Is this just more of the same or should we be taking it more seriously from a policy perspective?

Stephen Bush
Ultimately on the kind of multiculturalism to integrationism or assimilationism sort of spectrum, the UK will continue to have a multiculturalist position towards how you most effectively integrate new arrivals. And the government doesn’t propose to change that. And again, like ultimately we’re really talking about changes of emphasis and in many ways, we’re talking about an ongoing Conservative leadership election. And although of course, some people disagree, broadly speaking, the consensus across Westminster, across the Conservative party, is that whether it’s Labour alone, Labour and a hung parliament, Labour and some kind of Liberal Democrat alliance, there will be a Conservative leadership election in opposition. So this is really, I think, best assessed as Suella Braverman, who’s actually from a political perspective, having a remarkably successful run at this, trying to protect her advantage and to avoid the fate of every home secretary since we left the EU, which is having their leadership hopes destroyed by the small boats issue.

Lucy Fisher
And it seems to me that Downing Street was pretty rattled by it. You know, a splash in the Times basically confirming that Rishi Sunak had signed off on the speech and had given her permission to make this hint that the UK would be willing to leave the ECHR. You’d think, well, you know, you’d expect that to be the case. Clearly, people in Downing Street were desperate to stress that this was all done with his permission and he wasn’t being outflanked. And Miranda, she’s also split the party with kind of returning again to this idea of Britain potentially being willing to leave the ECHR. I spoke to Damian Green, chair of the One Nation group, who said that that would be enormously damaging. Do you think that Rishi Sunak is going to put that in the manifesto ahead of the next election? What will he be weighing up right now?

Miranda Green
Well, several Tories that I’ve spoken to think it’s kind of inevitable that this is the direction of travel of the party, whether it’s before or after an election defeat, because, you know, this is the sort of pattern that we saw with the Brexit campaigners inside the Conservative party, right? They keep going and they keep going and eventually the leadership has to give them something and then it turns into a promise. And then where are you? You end up directing the country in a particular direction.

But I think what’s also interesting about this is the decision of the leadership collectively. I mean, I completely agree with Stephen. This is actually all about Braverman’s ambitions afterwards to become leader. But the decision of the leadership to kind of go along with it or endorse it or support her is kind of making a massive electoral bet as well on the part of the population that really cares about this stuff and is motivated by anti-immigration sentiment. And that is completely opposite from the kind of part of the country that might, for example, referring back to our previous conversation, swing Lib Dem in those seats where the traditional One Nation Tory view is kind of a party that isn’t there any more for those voters or they feel the party’s left them, rather than that they’d be leaving the party.

So I think it’s sort of showing that they’re making a sort of bet on which sort of voters they can attract at the coming election and sort of doubling down on that, which I think is not a confident move. You know, it shows that the party’s not trying to reach out and that always shows you a party in a defensive posture.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lucy Fisher
Well, let’s finish by hearing your stock picks for this week’s Political Fix. Miranda, you first. Who are you buying or selling?

Miranda Green
Oh, golly. Well, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to invest in Susan Hall . . . 

Lucy Fisher
(Laughter) OK, tell me more.

Miranda Green
. . . you know, who is the Conservative candidate for London mayor who is really snapping at the heels of Sadiq Khan in a poll that came out. Now however much that poll might be a one-off, the disaster of the Ulez in suburban, and as Stephen rather charmingly called in his new list the other day, the exurb of London, you know, which went down really badly, means that the Tories have sort of got a boost of morale in London.

Stephen Bush
To be clear, she means the policy. Me referring to exurb from London. (Lucy and Miranda laugh)

Lucy Fisher
That was not . . . 

Miranda Green
That was a good and accurate description of outer London. But I just like that you used the phrase. Yeah. So Susan Hall, the Tory candidate who is looking in quite good a position, particularly if, for example, the Reform party, which is the kind of rump Ukip rebrand, decided to pull out because they’re on about 7 per cent in London, which is quite high for London. If they decided to do a deal with the Tories and pull out, maybe Susan Hall would be in with a chance of dislodging Sadiq Khan from City Hall.

Lucy Fisher
Well, it’s interesting, isn’t it, because the mayoralty is moving to first past the post this year from the supplementary vote system, so that could give the Tories a boost. I actually interviewed Susan Hall this week and one thing that really struck me was how she answered all the controversies that have arisen over her social media use, you know — liking posts, referencing Enoch Powell, endorsing a post that suggested the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Donald Trump. And in particular, there was a tweet she had endorsed about Sadiq Khan that called him the “nipple-height mayor of Londonistan”.

Now, when I quizzed her on this, she said to me while she hadn’t known that “Londonistan” was this sort of racist term that had this meaning that London was overrun by Muslims, but she did admit that she had, in her words, very naughtily thought it was quite amusing that the diminutive mayor had been described as “nipple-height”. So I was very surprised when she then turned up on LBC and asked about the same tweet, sort of suggested, oh, did I do something with that tweet? I don’t recall. She certainly recalled a few days previously when I spoke to her. So, I mean, sure she . . . 

Miranda Green
I did say I was regretting the need to invest in her stock, you know?

Lucy Fisher
OK. Just thought I’d put that out. Anna, who are you buying or selling?

Anna Gross
Well, because I spent a good chunk of my week at Lib Dem conference, I am buying Daisy Cooper, who’s the deputy leader of the Lib Dems. I thought she was pretty impressive. I had a couple of people say to me who not necessarily affiliated with the party who were saying, you know, and one donor who said, you know, they think that she could potentially be the next leader of the party. And also, as you rightly pointed out, there’s a good chance, I mean, the Lib Dems could form some part of governing the country if Labour doesn’t manage to secure a majority. And I think in that scenario, she would probably have a role to play.

Lucy Fisher
Great. More to come from Daisy Cooper, I’m sure. Stephen, who are you buying or selling?

Stephen Bush
So I’m actually gonna take the opposite end of Miranda’s, but I’m gonna buy stock in Sadiq Khan. Now . . . 

Miranda Green
I’m already holding him, by the way, (laughter) so mine’s a hedge, just to be absolutely clear.

Lucy Fisher
Nice try.

Stephen Bush
So essentially, it is a bit of a myth to think that London is a Labour city. Broadly speaking, the long-running evidence is that the Labour party starts with a core of about 35 per cent and the the Conservative party starts with a core of about 32 per cent. That’s what Sadiq Khan and Shaun Bailey got in 2021. And that is what the two polls we’ve had thus far of the mayoral race suggest that Sadiq Khan and Susan Hall are going to get.

The bear case, you know, the pessimistic case against Sadiq Khan is his record is not that much to write home about and that broadly speaking, people will want change after two terms. Now I think that is, that stands up and works. But the reason why I’m on the other side of that case is I think a lot of the, oh Susan Hall can do it, is a bit like, well, she’s polling the Conservative core and she only needs to get some extra votes from somewhere.

Now, look, if the Reform party is polling better than Ukip ever managed to in London despite doing worse in every actual election, I just see no evidence to believe in these Reform voters who keep turning up in opinion polls but then, like Macavity, when it comes to local elections and by-elections, you know, they vanish like snow in spring. I don’t believe it. I think broadly speaking, Sadiq will get 35 per cent, Susan Hall will get 32 per cent. And I think she is gonna do just enough that Sadiq Khan, for all his, you know, as I say, pretty thin record, will be able to hold her off. But ultimately, the big mistake of the Conservative campaign in London is just because some of the people are voting for them are really, really angry doesn’t mean their votes count any more than the people who will grudgingly vote for Sadiq Khan.

Lucy Fisher
Well, I’m glad we got views on both sides of the spectrum there. For me, I’m going to sell Laurence Fox, who as well as being a rent-a-gob, rightwing firebrand, is also, of course, the head of the Reclaim party. I think he is uber-cancelled. I don’t know what the next level of cancellation is, but anyone listening who hasn’t heard about his frankly outrageous remarks on GB News this week as though he’d been living under a rock.

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Well, that’s it for this episode of the FT’s Political Fix. If you like the podcast, do subscribe and please do leave us a review. I’ve put links for any topics mentioned in today’s podcast in the show notes. They’re free to read for Political Fix listeners. And don’t forget to sign up for Stephen’s award-winning Inside Politics newsletter. You’ll get 30 free days. Political Fix was presented by me, Lucy Fisher, and produced by Audrey Tinline. Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer. Original music by Breen Turner and sound engineering by Jake Fielding. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of audio. We’ll meet again here, same time, same place next week.