Lewis Goodall unpacks the madness of 2024

Am I tough in us? Strong and stable leadership. Hell yes, I'm tough enough. Shut the fridge. Not another one. It's the militant show. F*** cost. Podcast hate nonsense is the poll that your podcast, ladies and gentlemen.

Lewis Goodall, you've swapped in for Ollie and Ava today. We don't normally get nonsense, and we reference the nonsense in that one of the other news agents. I think if you were to do, like, a scientific examination on the key differences, because on-paper, poetry, podcasts, news agents, two men and a woman. Yeah, yeah. I could say that similar. It is, but we're the only opening...

Antinons podcast in the UK. You should listen to our editor. He's very antinons. That's good. Yeah, no, it's good. Better than the other way around. No, no. We had a WhatsApp group called Nonsense's for a while. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a couple of friends. Well, we just, you know, just on the lookout, you know, keeping a lot.

Bit like it was the mid-2000s, you know, when everyone thought they were on every street, which they probably are. It's just an obvious operation you treat. Yeah, exactly. It's just, it's a vigilante form of you treat. It was an in-hope UBC thing. Yeah, no, it's gone extra. Keep your eye. Well, if you were grown. Yeah, exactly. That would be an interesting route for the news to take. It's becoming vigilante, beautiful hunters. Wow, I mean, look at mate this.

That is a vigilant, that's a have-a-go hero. Absolutely. If there were one. I'm still waiting to happen. I was concerned we would drag you down door level. I dragged myself down. It took what was that about? That was about 45 seconds there. I think there will be a lot of positive show.

podcast fans who also listen to the news agents and this would be like the becomes like the crossover I never thought would happen even though John I interviewed John Silple very recently and everyone's into you John so you're harder to well I mean you know that man seriously is there any way he won't flog that book

I would be staggered if the audience did not know who you are. But how would you like to introduce yourself? So I'm a presenter of the news agents when I'm not doing the vigilantism. And I'm used to work with BBC as News Night and Sky News and you know just general kind of ponder.

Ponderous. Yeah, just general. Confused. Flooneru. Flooneru. I love that. I used to work with a director who called himself a Flooner. Really? Yeah. We made a film in Paris and he was like, this is where we get to be a Flooneru's together. It's Flooneru's just a man who walks around in nice clothes. Is that what we want? Here we are. And I'm not sure I think you do. He was very influential on me.

Is there a reason for the velvet today? It's never not a good reason to wear a velvet. It's good enough for the 12th Doctrine piece of Cavaldi. It's good enough for me. I'm sure there are a few doctors who fancy this. I would imagine that Venn Diagram is pretty lovely show. I'd hate to bet there are at least several.

It's our Christmas party, ladies and gentlemen, so I've dressed up for the occasion. Am I the first man to wear velvet in the politics show for you yet? I think you almost definitely are. I'm trying to think... Fantastic. There's been... I'm trying to bring up the standards. No, definitely, and we need it, because there has been some very impressive people. I'm not sure, like, G.J.A.K. words felt, but very often.

No, not with all that spit. No, we've got all over it. We are possible to clean down. Maybe they'll be my 20-25. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, it's in. So they'll tell me. Hey, can't you tell? We're here to kind of examine, to look back on some political themes.

of 2024, we've got some clips lined up to react to. But before we get into that, there's obviously so much to choose from, and it's quite difficult to narrow down themes and incidents. But is there anything that's particularly stood out for you this year, an image or a moment in British politics?

Well, I think that, you know, it's like, it's sort of hard to get out the thing that's most recently in your brain, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just because that's just kind of what journalism is, and we have the sort of attention of a gadfly. But I mean, it's hard to, and maybe it's not really the image of 2024, it's probably more a kind of little

a little precursor to 2025 or a little sort of glimpse of the future, but I can't get that image of Farage and Musk out of my head. Yeah. With an on-looking Trump in a weird cricket jump. Like, I didn't know he used to play down the oval. No, I didn't know he had cricket in the... No, no, very, very odd sort of Trump sort of looking down from on high, like a kind of demented Ian, both of them just kind of

looking down. One thing is, I think one of the things about 2024, the journalism has yet to recalibrate to, is the fact that

is the fact that Kiyastama Labor got an unassailable parliamentary majority. That is just a pillar of stability that has literally not been there, arguably since either coalition, because even before that, the sort of last blagum. And so what it means is that we're still operating on the count through the or looking through the kind of Tory chaos lens. Every time there's a minor incident,

Half of journalism jumps up and like Twitter jumps up and going like, this is it for Kia Starman. This is it. No, this is not it. It's never going to be it, right? Because not only is the Labour Party basically useless at fratricide. It never ever kills it. It's all wedge aside. It never kills its leaders. But also because like it's unassailable. It's just there, right?

And so it's kind of like it means that we haven't kind of shifted, but it does mean, and it means that it means that we haven't shifted into thinking that the thing that Kiyastama has got on his side most is time. He's just got time. Like everything that seems massive now

In a way that Rishi Sunak never had, the one thing he didn't have was time. The one thing that this trust, as we know, was definitely, did not have, what's time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but they did not have time. You know, the politics of 2029 is unviewable and unknowable.

And all of these crises that look big now, all the things we're worrying about now, we'll barely even think about. But what we can see pretty clearly, I think, is the politics of 2025. And the politics of 2025 is, like, Farage is going to be, like, throwing and lobbying hand grenades here, there, and everywhere, which is going to destabilize Stalin. Stalin's got to, in order to get to 2029, he's got to find a way through that and find a way through the fact that Farage is going to be a louder and louder voice in our politics, whether or not he gets the money. And I can't, I mean, I've been going on about this.

for the last two weeks now, like Labor need to wake up, like Starmer and the government. I'm amazed by the lack of urgency about this Musk money. They should be changing the law like yesterday. They've got a manifesto. It wouldn't actually, and people go, oh, you can't change the rules. There's no mandate. They've got a mandate to do it. They literally had in their manifesto that they wanted to change electoral law to make sure that there wasn't foreign interference, all this. Musk is a foreign interference waiting to happen in our election. We have never had big money in our elections.

But right now, our we have got, and this is my hobby horse you can tell, right? I hope you like this on politics, Joe, right? But yeah, yeah. No, but like we have got, and everyone watching this will know this, we have said for years, we've been very hortaly so to ourselves, oh, we look at like those American attack ads and go, oh, we don't have anything like that. Yeah, British politics is much more patrician.

You're living on another planet, right? Because it's true that the ridiculous thing is, on TV and radio, like when I was at News Night, if I went to a buy election and I interviewed like the Lib Dems, or I interviewed, say it was a two-way race between Tories and Labour, law meant that I had to interview every no-hope, bloody candidate going.

just to give them 20 seconds, which made the package completely unwatchable, unwieldy, boring as hell, right? And then you just have to basically cycle through them, and then the green candidate thinks it, whatever. Just because our law seems to suggest that if I didn't include every single candidate, it might sway the election. Meanwhile, is there a single rule on anything anyone does online with regard to political advertising?

basically not. And that is just, and you combine that with the fact that there is that law is just waiting to be exploited in terms of loads of foreign money coming in with a Wild West online universe, which no British politician has had the guts to try and tackle. It is a catastrophe waiting to happen. And once the gene is out the bottle, it'll never go back in. I think as well, if you talk about Aps is Gladertising, there was a social media post Labour did last year.

I can't remember the exact phrasing, but it was like, Rishi Sunak bordered against... Let him rapist out of jail or something like that. Yeah, something like that. He's in favor of this. He's in favor of rape, basically. He was in favor of rapists. It was basically... It was an astonishing thing. It was, sir. And it could not be done on television. It could not be done on radio. Because it was an Instagram post, absolutely fear of game. That's what I mean. And to be fair, you know, again, it seems ages ago now, but, you know, I remember interviewing Steve Reed, the cabinet minister, who was kind of behind that at the time, or, you know, very close to it.

And they would say, look, the Tories are going to do this to us. It's going to be dirty. We're going to get ahead of it. And that's true in a sense. That is the arms race. But then imagine $100 million worth of money injected into that. And before you know where you are at a stroke, you're basically at the levels of toxicity that you see in America. And people are saying at the moment, and people labor sort of bedwetters often.

You know, they'll say things like, they'll say things like, or, you know, Labour people will say, oh, well, but then we'll be seen to change, you know, the rules just, and people will say that's unfair. Don't worry about- No one's playing that game anymore. No one's playing, don't worry about that. Yeah, yeah. Do you think that Farage, or whoever it is, would worry about that, or Trump would worry about that? And maybe, yeah, maybe you take some flak and people would attack you for changing the rules, despite the fact that, as I say, you've got a mandate. But you know what's worse? You know what's worse?

hundred million dollars and you know what maybe not just hundred million dollars maybe two hundred million dollars or three hundred million dollars and the entire online space which is suddenly weaponized against you particularly for young voters who by the way are actually quite like for us just as like you some young people quite like from not least because actually like if you think about it if you were like what ten in twenty sixteen so that's you know going on and in your voting age now

Brexit seems very, very distant to you. All that stuff is very distant. Trump's first selection is very distant. This is your normal. You've grown up in this political environment. And the liberals, the classic lib argument has been, this is not normal. These people aren't normal. It's like, guess what? You're the ones who are starting to seem not normal. You're the ones who are starting to sound like you're from another age. Because these are the people who have defined the more ways of our age, right? But there's never any sense of urgency. They're always worried about looking political.

We've got a clip, actually. It's clip three JP. We're going to play jazz in this interview. There was a loose structure. Well, we're on Fridays. We might as well. Well, it's pretty horrendous. The third young girl has died as a result of the stabbing as yesterday in Southport. I obviously joined everybody in my horror at what has happened. I know the Prime Minister went to lay flowers and was heckled and it shows you how

unhappy the public are with the state of law and order in our country. I have to say there are one or two questions. Was this guy being monitored by the security services? Some reports say he was, others less sure. The police say it's a non-terror incident. Just as they said, the stabbing of an army lieutenant colonel in uniform on the streets of Kent the other day was a non-terror incident. I just wonder

whether the truth is being withheld from us. I don't know the answer to that. But I think it is a fair and legitimate question. What I do know is something is going horribly wrong in our once beautiful country. So there, I think that's classic for Raj. Classic for Raj. But it's also a perfect example of what you're talking about in that. For Raj posted that clip directly to Twitter. There's no interview. He's bypassed the political media entirely. I think because I'm one

I suppose political journalists, but I'm not in the lobby. I'm not kind of in that that that's lucky here I think my luck starts every day But I think there is a sense of entitlement a worthiness an anger when people bypass kind of the lobby mechanics of political journalism He's he's shown politicians don't don't need

them anymore. They don't need to go on on a pool on a pool clip. They can just speak directly to an audience and so serious distrust in British institutions. And that was classic Varage because Varage is great at and I don't in a way you can't knock him for it because he does show a level of political skill which you know many of his opponents simply do not exhibit it.

He's very good at kind of knowing where the line is, getting right up to it, standing on top of it, jumping on top of it a couple of times, shaking it, and maybe just putting a tiny toe over it, and then going, if someone says, wait, you went over the line, so I was nowhere over the line.

I wasn't over the line. It's like they were saying, look, are there questions about this? Are things being hidden from us? I'm not saying they are. I'm just asking questions. It's a really good example of how he changes and shapes the conversation. And you're right, look.

I don't, and I don't begrudging away politicians, they're taking their message directly to voters. That's the, that's tech and you're right. You know, journalists, particularly journalists, um, sort of traditional political journalists can get very, very pearl-clutchie about it. You know, no one owes us a living. No one owes us.

interviews. No one owes us anything. I mean, I would like to think that politicians who have got investment in the political system ought to do things and ought to do interviews when they don't want to be out of a sense of sort of democratic attachment and democratic and a sense that they ought to do these things. But again, it's quite an old-fashioned view these days. But what I do think is that politicians need to grasp with reality, the reality of the media environment that we live in. I mean, for example,

We both do pretty successful podcast shows, right? If you think, if you think, and maybe you don't think that someone like Faraj wouldn't think this, he would probably think that all media should be unregulated. It was fair enough.

But if you think, if you're a politician who thinks that it's important that the airwaves are regulated, that big media providers have to have any sort of some sense of due impartiality. It doesn't mean that you have to be like the BBC and do it in the way that they do it in an incredibly kind of slightly stolid way. But who do have some requirements in terms of what you can and can't put out, which goes beyond just the law? If you think that's important, why on earth does it matter how that

that media is delivered. Whether it's on television or whether it's on radio or whether it's on as we're now on a podcast or on YouTube just because the screen's in your pocket. Why does it mean that there needs to be rather than on a television on your TV stand? Why does it mean that what goes on the TV stand on your television is subject to

completely different requirements than the thing on your phone. It doesn't make any logical or philosophical sense and yet and yet and yet. No politician has been willing to grapple with it. Not it is hard. I get it in terms of regulation and it's hard about, you know, you want to over regulate things like podcasts and regulate them to death. I wouldn't want to see that either. But it is a discrepancy which is going to become more and more gaping.

the more this sort of media, the bigger it gets and it's already massive, versus frankly traditional dying media. I wonder if it's a generational thing in that the people in charge, like here Starmer's in his man in his 60s. I think I agree with this. I think people forget because he actually looks far younger, but people are kind of, our age are

the first generation could have grown up with the internet. If you think, like, if, if parents knew that people of my generation were doing online, they, they couldn't even fathom what, like, if things, like, things like chat roulette. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The parents who were like, they did no idea. Absolutely no idea. Well, I don't really have an idea. If you're all about six, you know, I mean, even generationally below, 16, I don't really have an idea. No, absolutely no idea. So I think this, I think this is

The internet accelerates at such a piece. The genies at the bottle and also expanded to a million genies and they're expanding and you're just trying to catch that genie. Still. I think that's spot on. I don't think half of the, because the thing is as well, broadcast media in particular. And the media generally, it's quite a sort of solid industry in the sense that actually the same people tend to dominate it for very long periods of time. It's not easy.

Actually, as many people have tried to break into the media, no, it's not easy to advance very quickly. So it was quite an interesting thing, you know, if you're an absolute sad weirdo like me, watch loads of election nights on YouTube kind of repeatedly, then it's a hobby. It's actually really striking when you look at the people who are doing kind of like a lot of the

broadcast journalists in say 92 or 97 or 2001 or whatever happens to be. They're basically a lot of the same people that were still there. The politicians by kind of trust are usually completely different apart from a few old timers who stick around forever. But the rate of turnover in journalism is very, very slow. And so I think one of the reasons that

A lot of traditional broadcasters and a lot of traditional newspapers have been slow and lost market share to a lot of insurgents in the digital space. It's simply because even though they do sometimes bring people on to try and think innovatively, a lot of the people, particularly in a management level, who dominate these things, just do not get it. They're the same people year after year after year. They are quite, as I say,

quite kind of kiss and kind of industries in some ways. And I think that is, I think that is a problem. I think that's a problem. I mean, one thing that I'm always really struck by, I was talking to a lobby journalist, colleague of mine, not long ago, quite a senior journalist on a newspaper. And she was saying that she's got down the street on the phone tour all the time.

And I was thinking a number of times about saying, why have you written in this in this copy and why have you done this? One of which is very normal. I was just sort of thinking about it. And so I think I almost never have down the street on the phone to do it in that way. And that's fine with me. That's absolutely fine. I mean, I talk to them. Usually, you know, I always check conversation and ask them something. But I haven't got like, you know, their sort of top comments people on the phone to me saying, I saw this clip while you said it.

And I don't expect them to be listening to our show all the time, but it didn't make me think, I do think there is, and again, I think Downing Street Press operation is, is, is representative to this. I am astonished the asymmetry of importance. Yeah. They're attached to traditional media still, the papers, which matter, of course they matter, and broadcast. But I don't think there's any real sense in Downing Street, this Downing Street anyway, of the importance of the new media world. And if they do understand it, there is no way trying to, or putting the emphasis or the, the,

the energy into trying to get their message out there. Frankly, you know, you or my, you know, on our shows, if we do a clip or, you know, that travels or, you know, we each weigh more people than an article on whatever newspaper it is, weigh more. But do we have that kind of sense of engagement from Downing Street? No, we don't. And I think that was going to, I think that's something they're going to need to change. Learn from what happened with the Democrats in the election. Exactly the same thing. Trump got it. Republicans got it. Democrats didn't.

I think Farage is probably the person who is exploiting that, the new media, the base. Farage gets it. He gets it entirely. I wonder, do you think reform is the inevitable vehicle to challenge the orthodoxy? And what I mean by that is, there's a sense of general frustration with mainstream politics in Britain, and I think right now,

Reform are the current victor for that. But we've saw in the general election, independence won in seats that they were unlikely to. You've kind of seen in Scotland the sport for the S&P for the past 17 years in Wales you've got plied. Do you think?

Do you think reform is the inevitable beneficiary of this? Or do you think it could be harnessed by something else? I think it could be harnessed by something else, for sure. And I think the big question for me going forward is, in the future, is forward to what? I think in the future is

is what is Farajis and reforms ceiling? Because they've always had one. Faraj has obviously been knocking around for a long time. He's probably now, really, easily, the longest. I mean, he's gone in and out, obviously. But he's been on the scene as a national political figure for longer than any of the others.

And he's always, obviously, it's cliche, but he has this sort of mama character, right? He does attract, but he's compelling, but he also repels at the same time. Lots and lots of votes, so that's why they didn't want him running the 16 Brexit referendum campaign. I think the question is, is whether he can increase that ceiling and whether circumstances have done so, or whether he's still

someone who can be caricatured. I mean, there are real political weaknesses for him. You know, if I were Labour, I would basically be hammering him endlessly on basically the mismatch, and his greatest political weakness, is the mismatch between the sorts of voters to whom

that he is sort of going after, to whom on paper he should be most attractive, older, more socially conservative, more authoritarian voters. But there is a mismatch between them and Farage, not on cultural issues where they are aligned and immigration and so on, but on economic issues, they are misaligned. I mean, Farage.

He's basically an old-school Tory libertarian in all sorts of ways. He's quite open that said many times. He doesn't really think the NHS is the best model. He was exposed, perhaps most explicitly, during Covid, when basically most of those voters, they'd still have us in lockdown now. If you look at Paul, I'm not even joking. It's a good big proportion of those voters who still want to bring back the rule of six.

And of course, when you point out to them, it's like, you know, you can do that now. You can impose lockdown on yourself. It's not that they don't just want to lock down themselves. They want it for everyone. But there is this kind of, you know, they want to ban things, like, you know, tobacco, again, and all that sort of thing, you know, they want to ban things. They're quite sort of doctrinaire in these ways. That's not for Raj.

So on tax, on NHS, on the role of the state generally, Labour is still much more aligned to these voters on those matters than Farage is. But Labour have got to be much better at kind of exposing them, of showing them, and prising them away from Farage. So he's got political weaknesses. His greatest strength is that

that if you're thinking about where else could be a kind of receptacle, a vessel of that discontent. The thing about Farage is that he always has his act together. I mean, he often alienates people around him, but he has a group of people around him who are very loyal.

They've got a party apparatus, they've got a machine, they've got more and more money. I suppose the obvious question is, could there be a vessel of that or a vision of that on the left? So it's all been in this talk about a sort of Corbynite. But again, Corbyn, I don't think he's interested in doing it, but even if he were, he don't have his act together, right? He never did. That was one part of the problem. It's not clear there isn't an obvious, there's not a party apparatus, there's not an obvious other party where that could go.

I'm surprised the Greens aren't doing a bit better. And they would say, and I've had this conversation with them, they would say that's because of you, the media, you're focusing so much on reform rather than greasy. You know what I would say to that, to the Greens, be better. Do something interesting. Do something interesting. Stop opposing the pylons. Yeah, I mean, be opposing renewable energy. And I was actually talking to someone from the forum about this the other day. I put this question to them, I said,

What would you say to someone like that green who says to me or someone from the media? Why are you obsessing? Because people will be saying this now when we're talking about reformers. Why are you obsessing with them in this media? And he'd say, and he said, we're just better than them. It's not necessarily that there are more people who would support them than the Greens. What they are is they're savvier. They always turn up. They know how to get attention. Look at Farage this last couple of weeks when he's been talking. He manages to find to get himself into every single story. Look at the thing about the Chinese spy.

Who's going to name them in Parliament? Nigel Farage. You know, it's all that whereas the Greens, again, they're still playing by the old game, still playing by the old rules, trying to be grown up, trying to be too nice. You know, get out there, make noise. You've got to in this day. It's not, it's not, it's not wrong. It's not, I know it might feel a bit dirty or you might feel a bit immature, but in this age of content, an age of constant noise, that's what you've got to do. Do something interesting. And then, yeah, there may be, there could be another vessel for it.

Because I suppose, like, the Greens are quite a unique part saying that, well, they've got co-leaders, for instance, but I wonder if that's a problem. Yeah, well, that's a problem. Yeah. No, it is. It's for like HR reasons of job sharing is the argument that they give. And I think, also, it's the case of the left eats itself. You need to be purer than pure within that the people who are on the left in the activist base sort of thing. They are so holier than thou.

If you are not purer than purer, we're going to eat you. We're going to, we're going to differentiate you entirely. And they have to cater to that base first. There's a thing on the left about everyone must have prizes, almost have prizes, that like everyone has to be, there's a thing always on the whole, the whole of the coalition has to be managed. Because if you do something and one part of the coalition isn't happy about it,

That's bad and they'll sound off. That's a problem. You know, I mean, again, I mean, it's not good. I don't like it. But the fact is, you know, reform is that one man banned effectively. He's got other people around it. And that is a weakness in some senses. And it's very telling that whenever Farage goes off the stage, reform don't do as well. A lot of it is about him.

But, but it does mean that, you know, autocracy does have its advantage as we can see, you know, and, and they don't care. They'll just do stuff. They'll act quickly. They'll break things and they'll act quickly. And that in the media environment works. But yeah, I think that, you know, I think, I think the danger, if you're on the sort of mainstream of rich politics, if you think, if you're on the center of left, center, right, if you think the old duopoly kind of works, it is very telling. And this is the other trick to talk about trends of 2024, the percentage of the vote that,

The Conservatives and Labour right now are commanding in the polls. It's so low. It's barely 50%. This is historically really, really unusual. If you go back to the 2017 election, Labour and the Tories between them get 84% of the vote. That was a bit unusual. That is a bit of an aberration from the recent trend of the last 30 or 40 years or so, which has seen greater fragmentation. That was about Brexit and so on. Both parties basically become the de facto

leave remain parties. But even so, in that time, we saw it in the general election, you know, of this year. I mean, again, the Labour belt barely got 34% of the vote. It's always got 21, 22% of the vote. This is historically, this is massive, right? And if that continues, and you can imagine a world, you can, and I've said before, the contradiction of journalists saying you can't see what 2029 is like, but you can see a world, might not be the world. But you can see a world in 2028, 29, where

Basically all of the orthodox parties, for want of a better phrase, are seen to have failed so badly.

that, you know, labor has failed in office. The conservatives haven't redeemed themselves from what happened in the previous form, a period of government. The Lib Dems have a kind of ceiling, and even then there's a sort of residual coalition thing. And so then suddenly, there is this appetite in yearning for something different and something new, because all of the other parties are, in some way, delegitimized. There is so much, I can't describe, I thought this during the election, when you go around, the level of cynicism out there is astounding. But all the same. It's caustic.

And it's, I've, I mean, you know, I've been political journalist for like 12 years or so and it's, it's, and I'm sure it was bad then and I've got colleagues been a lot longer always said it's not like people have ever loved politics, but it does feel something qualitatively different about it now somehow. It feels on another level. It's not just that it's not just, I think I've seen it even in my career go from

I don't, I don't like that politician. I think that politician is a liar. Or even I think all politicians are lied to something more fundamental, which is the system doesn't work. Yeah, it's toxic. It's corrupt. It's toxic. And they're all part of it, which is, which is different from just saying you don't like certain politicians or certain parties. No, absolutely.

For all time's sake, shall we have a clip of Rishi Sunak? Oh lovely, let's do it. Good to see you. Very nice to see you. Sorry to catch you. No, not at all an evening. We were a bit almond. Yeah, it all just ran over. Of course. It just ran over.

No, not at all. I'm sure it's a powerful trip. I mean, so pertinent as well this year, you know, considering what's happened in the Ukraine. Which I haven't seen President Biden's remarks by kind of the echo of it. Yeah, did you get to meet any of the veterans or were you just have to do the ceremony? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Yeah, I've already spoke to almost everyone that was there, right? It's incredible, he says, like, he's a bit of a cruff or something. Beautiful veterans. Beautiful, darned veterans. Beautiful veterans. Doing tricks. So, let's register to work, apologizeing to Paul Brand, but the DD commemorations dragged on a little bit. Sorry for, sorry for holding up this interview. They didn't go out live that day. I think it went out the week.

later. What do you think we can learn from that clip about Rishi Sunak, his premiership, his political instincts? Well, I don't think we need the clip to learn much about his political instincts. We have the worst election result in conservative history. I mean, I don't even think they've internalized that. Did you go to a toy party conference? I'm not loaded in. You're not allowed in. What have you done?

We don't even do that. Oh, that's good. Believe, believe it or not, the Creator Party doesn't love folk this show. No. So I stand outside. But they're all about free speech. That's what we say. They love free speech. So we have a tradition of, I've talked about Conservative Party members. Jacoby Smog walks in. I do understand Jacoby Smog. It's the whole thing. It's kind of a tradition. It's actually older in my birthday time as well. So it's a nice treat.

good. Well anyway, they did let me in and it was such a nice one. It was such a weird thing. They were so bloody happy. They were jubilant. Yes, they were like, oh, it's going to be

There were years of opposition. It was extraordinary. I couldn't believe they were quaffing about the champagne and they were smart. And all because, like, Keir Starmer had, I don't know, had a slightly difficult time in government. Well, he was never going to be amazing, was it? Like, not least with how they left it. I mean, you know, it was absolutely, it was astounding, really. And I think it's because, I can't quite, I don't think they've quite engaged with the level of the

the whole that they're in. I mean, honestly, the Conservative Party had never got less than 30% of the vote before this year. And now they're on 21, 22% of the vote. They've got 120 MPs. They've never had fewer than 169 MPs before. It's so bad. You look at the map sometimes, you're like, what? They don't have all the shit.

What? Yeah. What? What's up in there? You know, like, they don't have, like, Barry St Edmunds is a labor seat. The People's Republic of Barry St Edmunds. I mean, it's absolutely mad. I'm still sort of doing that. Again, I spend many an evening over the constraints. Yeah. Something to look forward to over the new year. Definitely. But yeah, I mean, look, he was, I mean, look, he was, I mean, in some ways, I don't think there was a great deal that could have been done for him. No. It was fag end. He was just holding, he was the one holding the ball at the game time. He gave up. I mean, we could have literally, he could have stood with Prime Minister now.

We could have had a general election in January, in 30th of January. Oh. I know. That's an astonishing thought, isn't it? I know. Last time we had a general election in January. A bit trivia for the politics, Joe listeners. Well, they will know that I am a scholar of a general election, so I know a January. I've got no idea. I did it now. Sorry. 1910. In fact, in 1910, we had two, one in January, one in December. Lucky, lucky voters, huh? What a treat. Yeah, what a treat. And you know what? There's only a difference of two seats.

After all that, there was none. Voters were like, you know what, we got it right last time. That's absolutely incredible. It was a bit, I suffered a bit from voter fatigue between about 2014 and probably up to about 2019 because I went to Scottish independence referendum. Of course. Scottish elections, general elections, congratulations. I think I voted like between age of 17 actually and 20

Mmm, 23. The most sophisticated form of sort of Japanese air torture. Just voting all the time. Just voting all the time. Just voting all the time. I'm not sure I won one as well. Which was slightly disheartening. I think if our generation has let anything, it's not to expect a win election. No, but here's my cross that means nothing. It's just... And here we are. It's just a cycle of all the abuse. Democracy is just abuse for us. Do you think, Kemi, is the right person to live by the conservative party?

What would you mean of her start to being her, his Majesty's Leader of the Opposition? You know what, the thing is, is that I've watched her sometimes. I've sometimes been quite impressed by her, in a sense that at least she says something.

I mean, sometimes what she says. I mean, I know that's a low bar. I mean, sometimes what she says is mental. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's arresting. It's compelling. I mean, the woman manages to have a fight with a ham sandwich. I mean, that is too moist. No politicians, don't say the word moist. No, I'm just talking about steak.

I like the thought of someone so. She just summons it. Time for the steak. Shall I call you? Your lunch opinion. Oh God. You tweeted the... No, breakfast is bad. No, I love breakfast. You love breakfast, hate lunch? Hate lunch. I'm like the king. Meat, king, and chemi. What a trio. Just dressing bill, but over the street. We're a little brown. No, no, I just think that... No, I like lunch if you're going to have a proper lunch. Right, right. Which is fair. If someone's bringing me a steak and being like, fantastic.

And but unfortunately, I don't have chemis, I don't have chemis minions, I'm bringing me a, feeling me young. No, she, so I don't like, so I think most of the lunch options you have, you know, if yours are working, awful. I like a lunch break. Yep. I load up people and I said that going like, you want everyone to work? Well, there's like calm down, everybody calm down. No. It's all right. No, I just think that like, you know, I just think there's only so many sort of pret-smoke-summer roles one can I have. I suppose where you work, where you work, though, is pretty appalling. Where are you going to go to Angus Deikos?

Well, you could actually look great. Oh, what, me and Kemi are there every day. Yeah, perfect. Me and Kemi are there. Another one. Raw, please. The raw steak for me and Kemi. No, look, she does say, so I thought, at least, I mean, at least sometimes she has an analysis, right? I think she's got of what's gone wrong with politics. I don't necessarily think it's all for correct, but she at least has a sort of conceptual framework. I think she's got two big problems. One is that that analysis and conceptual framework whilst interesting to

like a nerd like me who thinks about politics all the time. I think has almost no purchase whatsoever with anybody else or like with a voter because her analysis, her framework for what's gone wrong in politics is actually quite an academic one in some ways. It's basically that, you know, the state has been captured by kind of quite left-wing forces. The regulatory state is sort of

heavily, heavily burdensome, you know, the legal architecture that we've inherited from new labour, you know, which we never tackled, has sort of forced the state to do things in all sorts of, taken the state and all sorts of unconscion, you see what I mean? I'm boring myself, even as I'm, even as I'm explaining it, I'm boring myself. And then you try and explain that, you take that on the doorstep.

Well, exactly, take that on the doorstep to work Thursday in all the shot and see where you get to, right? So it's sort of interesting in a kind of somewhat philosophical academic way, but how that translates, and indeed she hasn't, I mean, it's very, very early days, she hasn't been able to find any way of translating, she's actually been...

weirdly quiet. I think her second, her second problem is this. I think that she, and this is I think a broader problem for the conservative, for the right generally, I think she's terminally online. Yeah. And it's such an online politician. She's, she's like, it's like hearing, Kami speak is like hearing Matt Goodwin speak.

Yeah, yeah, completely. You can see, you can trace the thought. 100% is the kind of spectator, kind of good win, kind of all right, that kind of sort of axis of kind of like, and what makes me laugh about that or sort of makes me smile about that is that these are the people who are telling the liberal left that they're kind of like in a bubble.

I mean, honestly, in an ecosystem, they are in an ecosystem which is basically hermetically sealed. I mean, I always think this about, you know, they go on about the liberal metropolitan elite. Yeah, there is such a thing as a liberal metropolitan elite in a way, but at least they know it. At least they know it and they feel guilty about it. They know, that's the thing, the liberal left at least know that they don't represent that many people and they feel awful about it. The illiberal right are those people.

they think they represent someone. They don't represent anybody. The liberal left at least have got some self-awareness. They know where they're in a bit of a bubble and they don't feel great about it or they feel some guilt about it. They are in the biggest bubble going. She is terminally online, as you say, everything she says and all the stuff she comes out with, it's just a sort of spiked kind of universe, all that sort of stuff that's just there and it leads her down

like very odd places and like starts to get into very odd rebukes it's like when

A good example of it is a few weeks ago, when that bloody petition calling for a general election, people went on about that for about a day, as if it showed anything. Half of it turns out half the respondents were in Belize. But if you were to go on Twitter, or X, or any of the sort of online rights bases, you would think that the storm has finished. You would think the country was basically crying out that they were trying to take to the streets and calling to demanding a general election.

And now, you know, I think any leader of the opposition who had a little bit more political savvy and was not so unlike, we recognize that for what it was, she mentions it in the House of Commons and she actually calls on him to resign. Like, as leader of the opposition, right? You want to keep that in your back pocket, like for a really bad moment, when, you know, Starmer didn't call for Johnson to resign until, like, really towards the absolute nadira party gate, you know, that's a powerful card resigned, you know, because you can only say it once.

I can't say every what you know, but it kind of does lose his sport somewhat, right? They've also been resigned. Yeah, exactly. So Margaret Thatcher portrait. That's another good one. Margaret Thatcher portrait, you know, like that. Why on earth would he have that? Whoa, I don't know. Well, yeah, I can unstead the eyes following around.

Although, Stama's responses are funny, he's like, I don't like any portrait. I don't like, I don't like any portrait. I don't like any portraits on the wall. I'm a landscape man, I'm a landscape man. I didn't see, I didn't see Stama coming out, okay, portraiture, portrait artists.

I think that's good. You know what he does apparently I've never heard him do it but it was in that amazing guardian profile of him before the election and I did ask someone and they did say it was occasionally true and I think he should do this more. You know sometimes he refers to himself in the third person. So he goes like he says that was a bad day for Kirchbaum.

I think he should do that more either. Yeah, Kia Stama doesn't like this. Yes, I think that you should lean into the kind of like basically if you had like an on like if you had a sort of online personality would be kind of like, you know, it's a bit weird centrist ad, right? And that is like quite weird centrist ad, baby. That's a bad day for Kia Stama. Bad day for Kia Stama. It's so funny. I really hope he does that.

So funny, and he would never expect it. It'd be so good speaking at least I'd probably said one very good day this year one extremely good day very good a Some some some worst day anyway to try this with twice when I asked them on the north on the door, but yeah, um, Shell we have another clip of oh, yeah, like on I think number two JP well on the clothes I mean you're in the general election campaign. We're busy

and lots of people want to help and in this particular instance that I can help with sorting out some clothes. In our position, that's one thing. What I would say now is I won't be doing donations for clothes again, there won't be any decorations like that.

But, look, I think that's a matter of judgement for individuals. And Beth, I might just gently say, sky invaders do quite a lot of hospitality events. Your summer party is a great party costing thousands of pounds and you invite me every year, presumably you want politicians to continue to carve. I love that. Yeah, I love that. I wish we could see more of that. It's great.

It's a good lane, isn't it? Well, I was amazed. I mean, to be honest, I mean, I thought all those stories were such bollocks. I mean, I really... I mean, I understand why, but it's not Christopher Beth, by the way. I'm like an admirer enormously, and I think was completely... She had to ask about it in those circumstances, but the whole overall tenor of the story in the main, there were a few little things here and there that were perhaps ill-advised. But in the main, it was bollocks. That's what... Duncan Robison, the economist, talked about, like, it's the journalism of noticing.

Exactly like suddenly like every honestly every now and again about six months every six months 12 months or so There's this sort of frenzy when it's like journalists discover the register of members interest. Yes. She's literally there the entire time It's no it's not woodwood and Bernstein no one's just breaking in no one's discovered anything No, like no one's it's just and it's a really good example the whole the whole thing was a really good example of the power of

and how much of politics is about narrative. It's just about, particularly political journalism, moving as a pack, for a brief period, we're not talking about it now, which perhaps indicates that it wasn't the most important thing in the world, in the same way that we're still talking about, obviously, like Ukraine three years on actual events. We're still talking about all real journalism. This was just nonsense. I mean, I was actually amazed, to be honest,

that more journalists were not more circumspect about both asking politicians about it and being asked themselves about what are you freebies they might receive. Journalism is not an industry which is without the occasional bit of corporate hospitality and the difference with politicians is we don't have to disclose it to anybody. And I was amazed that more, you know what, if I've been a politician,

I would have turned around to anybody who was asking me about it saying, have you ever received any corporate hospitality? And if they said yes. And I said, so do you believe? And I'd say, by the way, I think that's completely fine. But I assume you believe that you can continue to do your job without being influenced by that hospitality. Yes. Yep. And they'd have to say yes. What so can I? Yeah. And if it's exactly the same thing. It was also, I think it was maybe some of it was slightly strange in that why did

Mrs. Starmer needs close book by Lord Ali. There's certain foibles in it that people were picking up on. I understand that, and I can understand why people, and look, I think it did do them real political damage. I think it was unfair, and I can totally understand why people would find it peculiar. I mean, anything I'd say is that, again, and it was just about the communication, how it was conveyed.

It is not unusual. When I worked at Sky News, I did Sky News election night this year. They bought me a suit for it. They bought me a suit for it, like to wear. And it's not when I worked for Sky News when I first started to wear over to work there. They buy a few suits for you, because they want you to look good.

that is their employer. I think that the mistake was, is that it should have been the Labour Party buying it for them. I think you take the donor away, and it would have been the Labour Party buying it for them, because I do not think it's unreasonable in the middle of an election campaign, particularly, I know people say, well, it's a promise, it's what I thought of, but she'll get it in the net completely. If she looked awful, or she's not wearing a nice clothes, the telegraph and the mail and all those that hammered them would have been the first ones going, oh, she's not looking nice, she's not taking it seriously, all this sort of stuff. So you really can't win with this stuff.

You know, I mean like that it became frenzied, beyond belief, when they were going on about...

uh... uh... uh... kia stammer met privately with uh... taylor swift afterwards lots of the other ticket holders didn't get to do that because it's a piece of the premise the prime minister hey hey hey wait till you find out he's got free house in the middle of the world i mean come on i mean this is it was it was it was it was our politics at the most juvenile and purale and also disingenuous no so journalist new is bollocks but they were just doing it because i mean

Partly because they were bored. I mean, it was partly Downing Street's fault and they've corrected this now and fairness to them. But there was a period where they were basically announcing nothing. There was nothing in the grid and journalists were bored. And you can't allow that to happen because then it's a really good example. And I can understand why in government you think this is tedious because it's like we're trying to run a government not a media media entertainment service. But the problem is if you don't entertain the lobby, if you don't entertain the pack, if you don't give them meat, then they'll just go hunting for you and for something else and you can't control them. So it was a good example of losing control.

A lot has been made of the government's weakness in communications, a week-listen columns, like foregrounding. They've let the story get away from them. A lot of times with various story stories that ended the year. Farmers kind of was a good example as well, inheritance tax. What would your advice be?

to beat to these people. If you were hired as a consultant on media management. Talk like normal people. Stop talking like robots.

I mean, I am, I'm not gonna name any names, but I am, I do get, I'm utterly bewildered by politicians who have gone into politics, which is a performative game. I mean, people might say that it shouldn't be, it hasn't always been, it's always. It was all from ancient Greece. Politics has always, in all forms of, whether it's a democracy, an autocracy, whatever, and everything in between, there is an element of performance to politics.

And I am amazed, amazed, and this would include people of all parties, or she'd seen that, or Theresa May, maybe in case something, but others were amazed by the number of politicians who go into politics knowing that there's this strong performative element to it.

Who are terrible at it? I'm not including, actually, though, because I actually think Sunak, Starmer, and May did have some communications calls. But there are some, even ministers now, who think they can't speak their S questions. And they start, they become an Android. You know, they start sort of, there was a minister who was on a program not long ago, who was being asked about the sort of government efficiency drive, and being asked about civil servants. And they instantly kind of, a sort of permagrine appeared on their face when they were asked about civil servants. And they said, well, I've been them.

I've had some fantastic experiences with my civil servants. They've been doing excellent work. Well, then started going into this sort of thing. And why not just turn around and go to the interview and just go?

Is everyone amazing where you work? No, seriously, is everyone amazing where you work? No, or is everyone as good as they can be? No, they never are. Do they have a team here on the other side? No, no, no, no. And that's everywhere's like that. And that's what we're doing. And everyone watching this will understand it. Being able to tell those stories and just talking normally and not being afraid. What I'm amazed by, in a way, is that there is still so many

There's still so much of the kind of highly controlled approach to political communications. In an era when we know that the most successful politicians are not especially controlled, that those who take risks, who do seem normal and authentic, even when they're not normal or authentic. And I'm surprised I can understand why they're kind of slightly drone-like sort of new labor period, why it worked then. I don't think it works now. And so what I would say, honestly, if I were the Prime Minister or I was advising them, I would say,

I would be looking around my cabinet and I would be thinking, who are my best communicators? Never mind about government. I mean, government's really important. But you can have deputies to actually do a lot of that. Who are my best communicators? I really want people who can do both. But who are the people I can send out every day and sound normal and talk simply and can help me tell a story? That's what I'd be thinking about. And it's not an afterthought. I mean, I saw a government press release today.

which I honestly thought I saw, I'd be like, whoever wrote this, oh, this should be sex. I mean, it was literally, it was so robotic and repeated itself. I'm not even gonna, I'm not gonna read it out because it'd be unfair, but it, it repeated itself, like within the same sort of three lines. And it made the minister who, who already frankly sounds quite robotic, sound, I mean, robotic would be too, too generous. I mean, they sounded almost sort of brain dead. I mean, like, it, I don't think this stuff is that hard, but I think in the age that we're in,

It is not enough for the center left or center right. It is not enough just to be slightly worthy and progressive and dutiful and to sort of sound and to talk about delivery. Because, you know, that is basically the government. I mean, that's the other theme of this year, isn't it? It's that, you know, Morgan McSweeney's belief and Kit Starmer's belief, I think. I mean, we heard it in his speech the other day. He said, what people want from their politics hasn't changed.

Well, I think that's quite contestable, actually. And I also think that, you know, they've put delivery at the heart of everything. If we deliver...

then that will show to people that the system has worked and they'll keep faith in the system, they'll relax us and they won't turn to this extreme. You sure? I think the government could deliver everything it's promised and could deliver quite well in the next five years and that would all be a really tall order by the way. But again, to go back to what we started with, if Musk gives 100 million and is dominating the online space or 200 million, and the narrative is that they haven't,

People will think that they haven't. Even if they see, they might. And then you might say to them, yeah, but what about those potholes that have been repaired? What about last before they go, oh, yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. But people can think two things at once. And the thing at the front of their mind, rather than the back of their mind, can be the will be the overall narrative that they failed. So you need to have a strategy and people who can communicate an alternative story. And I actually think, you know what? There's all this talk about what the government has been struggling, everything like that. Of course, struggling in some senses. Of course, government is a struggle.

I think if you take the big sweep, they've not been doing badly. They've actually been particularly towards the back end of the year, been quite active. They've got a lot of announcements, there's quite a lot of energy in particular areas and some exciting stuff, particularly on planning and all this sort of stuff. Well, it lacks is a common story. It lacks a common thread. And I honestly think that the technocratic milestones and targets and all that, I don't think that cuts it anymore, because I just don't think it's, you have to activate people's emotions.

and vibes. I know it sounds facile and superficial, but it really, really matters.

Well, I hope the government's media advisor who's listening to this podcast has taken extensive notes there and also... No. Apologies if it was you who wrote that press release. Sorry. Luke's good, I think we'll leave it there. Thank you very much for coming in. It has been an honour. Thank you for... It's been an honour for me as well, and the political team. And to do it with John Sopples, watchful eye. Just staring at you. Staring at me throughout. It always puts me on my B-game.

So, thank you. Well, I hope you have a lovely new year. Looking forward to hearing more from news agents in 2025. Do you have anything else you'd like to plug? Huh? Would you like to plug anything else? Oh, well, we've got our live shows coming up. Of course. We did our Royal Albert Hall. But we've got live show in Birmingham and Manchester and Edinburgh in February and March. So they go to global player. Also, such the news agents live shows. They'll be able to find tickets for that. Well, super. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you.